Thediscidium-cycle

AbstractThis chapter treats what one might call the discidium-cycle (3.15–25). Here Propertius, as poeta–amator, elaborates on the seafaring metaphor seen earlier in the book with a view to breaking free from his relationship with his beloved Cynthia and from the confines of amatory elegy (notably in 3.21), but he remains bound up in the amorous discourse and repetitive poetics that he has fashioned for himself in his poems; indeed, the elegist seems trapped by the language and themes that constitute the sphere from which he repeatedly fails to escape. In 3.24–5, Propertius acknowledges that his beloved is a construct and that he wishes to escape from their relationship and thus from the amatory elegy that she has embodied. His attempts at beginning a new relationship (3.20) and of undermining the premises of his and Cynthia’s one (3.15, 3.23) are unable to succeed until the book’s end.