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Charm

Sextus Propertius

Translated from the Latin by Vincent Katz, Foreword by W. R. Johnson

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A Sun & Moon title.

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Cynthia was the first. She caught me with her eyes, a fool
who had never before been touched by desires.
I really hung my head in shame
when Love pressed down on it with his feet.

Born near Assisi, Italy, around 50 B.C., Sextus Propertius was one of the great writers of love poetry in Roman literature. His first book of poems, published in Rome when he was about 20 years of age, made him an overnight sensation. This book caught the attention of one of the great literary benefactors of Rome, Maecenas, who had supported and befriended both Horace and Virgil. Propertius, accordingly, was introduced into their circle. Propertius' great love was a woman he called Cynthia in his poems (although her real name may have been Hostia), and it is his first-person account of their tempestuous relationship that forms the first and second books of his poetry. Using a colloquial and, at times, jaunty everyday language, New York poet Vincent Katz captures the spirit of the original and breathes fresh air into Propertius' painfully obsessive lyrics.