The treatment of the elegiac couplet seems to assume that everyone knows what dactyls and spondees are and can therefore understand the schema on xli but it also claims that the couplet consists of “one line in dactylic hexameter followed by one referred to as iambic pentameter” (xl-xli), making it less surprising when Katz translates against the metre, mistaking the tense of ‘uenit’ in 3.16.1 and of ‘effugit’ in 4.7.2. Discussions of the evolution in Propertius’ choice of subject matter and political considerations are conventional, though the several pages devoted to foreign cults (xxvi-xxix) are not.
He has no difficulty identifying Cynthia as a real person, “probably a courtesan,” who lived in the Suburra but if she is a courtesan, then the discussion (xxii) of the Augustan marriage laws and Ovid’s exile is irrelevant (by the way, we do know the “precise allegation” against Ovid, that he had “taught” adultery in the Ars Amatoria). Katz pitches it at an appropriate level, but (whether they care or not) his readers will get something less than the current status quaestionis on matters Propertian. The lack of a bibliography may or may not reflect Katz’s own reading (he seems to know nothing but Camps’ commentaries) but presumably does reflect the intended audience: hip enough to care about an interesting Roman poet, too hip for fussy academic details.
Katz has written his own introduction, “Preserving the Metaphor: Translating Propertius,” which is more comprehensive than the title implies. That comparison is to the advantage of Katz, who at least gives his readers more Propertius than did Slavitt. This new English version of Propertius obviously invites comparison with Slavitt’s, published in 2002.
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