A Change of Direction(s): “Puella” and “Poeta” in Propertius 3.10

Barbara P. Weinlich (Texas Tech University)

Contrary to existing scholarship (Caesareo 1929; Cairns 1971; Lyne 1973; Morwood 1973; Bramble 1973; Valeri-Tomaszuk 1976) this paper argues that Propertius 3.10 is not a birthday poem for Cynthia but a poetic statement. In this function it aims at redefining the poet’s subject matter and consequently also the poet’s identity.

In Elegy 3.10 the name “Cynthia” does not appear; the first-person speaker chooses for his girl the term “puella.” Facilitated by the mentioning of the Italian Muses (“Camenae,” l. 1), this term can be read in the same fashion as in poem 2.10, that is, according to M. Wyke (1987), as ‘narrative subject.’ However, whereas poem 2.10 provides, according to Wyke, the starting point of a multi-poem poetic statement that culminates in Elegy 2.13, Elegy 3.10 stands alone. Read as a response to poems 2.10-13 it offers a re-worked poetic statement.

According to Wyke (59), the ‘scripta puella’ in Elegy 2.13 can be interpreted as a manifestation of the poet’s decision to retreat from patriotic poetry, a subject matter envisioned in poem 2.10. In Elegy 3.10, by contrast, the written woman can be read as a manifestation of the poet’s move toward a representation of himself and his subject matter in a more traditionally Roman light. As he provides his “puella” with an itinerary for her birthday (“natalis … iter,” l. 32), the first-person speaker replaces an elegiac “domina” with a submissive woman that not only pleases the gods but also himself. Accordingly, his desire to envision his “puella” in a domestic space (“domo”, l. 20) surrounded by a neighborhood (“vicinae … viae”’ l. 26) that witnesses the birthday party can be read as an intent to blend public and private life for the purpose of self-representation. What K. Milnor (2006) observes in the case of Augustus, appears to apply also to the Propertian speaker of Elegy 3.10. Each man uses the ‘concept of women’ to represent a purer publicized domestic practice: Augustus characterized himself through a performance of traditional Roman domesticity; the first-person speaker of Propertius 3.10 aims at characterizing himself through the proper behavior of his “puella.”

Sandwiched between a recusatio poem (3.9) and a patriotic elegy that defies the rule of the elegiac “domina” (3.11), Propertius 3.10 indicates a shift in poetic performance that assigns both “poeta” and “puella” a place no longer without but within traditional Roman society.