Leeds International Classical Studies 10.4 (2011) ISSN 1477-3643 (http://lics.leeds.ac.uk/) © C.N. Michalopoulos 1 Feminine speech in Roman love elegy: Prop. 1.3 * CHARILAOS N. MICHALOPOULOS (DEMOCRITUS UNIVERSITY OF THRACE) ABSTRACT: This paper offers a critical reassessment of Prop. 1.3 through a careful re-examination of the poem’s representational mechanisms of erotic desire. So far, critical attention has concentrated primarily on the poet’s manipulative rhetoric. My investigation focuses on Cynthia’s feminine speech (language, structure and content) and its rhetorical efficiency in view of the poem’s gendered antagonism between male desire and feminine subjectivity. Propertius 1.3 is an elegy which has never ceased to attract critical attention. The poem is about the poet’s belated drunken return to Cynthia’s bed after a night- long revelry. Cynthia, worn-out by the long and aimless anticipation, has already gone to sleep. Upon arrival the poet, struck with awe at her beauty, fears waking her up. Cynthia’s sleep is eventually interrupted by moonbeams, and when Cynthia wakes up, she delivers a fervent reproach against her lover. The poem seems to be based on a bipolar antithesis between what is ‘fantasy’ and what is ‘real’, an antithesis evident in the contrast between the description of Cynthia’s fantasized beauty and her vehement rebuke against the poet’s erotic infidelity. 1 Almost two thirds of the poem (lines 1-34) is dedicated to Cynthia and her unparalleled physical beauty, which receives almost mythical dimensions right from the very beginning. 2 The poet’s detailed references to her hands (line 8), head (line 8), temples (line 22), hair (line 23), palms (line 23), bosom (line 23), eyes (line 32), combined with his worship-like approach towards Cynthia, who receives gifts similar to the gifts offered to the statues of the gods (lines 24-5), 3 help to establish a dream-like version of Cynthia. * This is an enhanced and substantially revised version of a paper delivered at the 2006 ‘Feminine Speech International Conference’, which was hosted by the Department of Greek Philology of the Democritus University of Thrace (Komotini, Greece). To the members of that audience I owe thanks for their comments and enlightening suggestions. That paper appeared at the Proceedings of the Conference (V. Kontogianni (ed.), ‘Women’s Speech’: Proceedings of an International Conference (Athens 2008) 369-81) under the title: «ȅ ȜȩγοȢ IJȘȢ ıȚȦπȒȢ: Ș ‘γυȞαȚțİȓα’ φȦȞȒ ıIJȘ ȡȦȝαȧțȒ İȡȦIJȚțȒ İȜİγİȓα. Η πİȡȓπIJȦıȘ IJȘȢ İȜİγİȓαȢ 1.3 IJου ȆȡοπȑȡIJȚου (ȆȡȫIJȘ ȆȡοıȑγγȚıȘ)» [The speech of silence: ‘feminine’ speech in Roman love elegy. The case of Prop. 1.3 (A preliminary approach)]. I would also like to thank the anonymous reader for his constructive suggestions and improvements on a first draft of this paper. 1 So Allen (1962) 133-4; Curran (1966) 189-90; Lyne (1970) 61; id. (1980) 99-100; Stahl (1985) 75; McKeown 1989 on Ov. Am. 1.10.1-8; Harrison (1994) 19. Kaufhold (1997) 88 by drawing attention to the textuality of the elegiac puella alternatively suggests an antithesis ‘between an idealized and a realistic representation of Cynthia’. 2 For the text I am using Camps (1961). On the poem’s structure see Curran (1966) 190; Wlosok (1967) 351 n.1; Richardson (1976) 153; Fedeli (1980) 112-3; id. (1983) 1874-5 with bibliography; Baker (2000) 76. For the purposes of my discussion I divide the poem in two parts: a) the poet’s speech (lines 1-33), and b) Cynthia’s speech (lines 34-46). 3 See Curran (1966) 203; Lyne (1970) 72. On the ambiguous syntax of cauis... mαnibus (line 24) and de prono... sinu (line 26) see Shackleton Bailey (1949) 23; Lyne (1970) 64-5; Harmon (1976)