Laus in amore mori. Expresiile pasiunii în elegia properţiană

Love is portrayed by Propertius in various manners throughout his work. One of them is the establishing of a connection between love and death, utilizing the concept of persistence of love following death, or fides after death. This connection can be traces in multiple of Propertius’ poems. This paper particularly focuses on poem number 15 from the first book in its analysis. This poem doesn’t directly preoccupy itself with the connection between love and death, essentially being a release of the author’s feelings of frustration stemming from his doubts regarding his lover Cynthia’s loyalty to him.
The interconnectedness between love and death is explored in the middle portion of the text, in which the poet presents the destinies of four certain mythological women (Calypso, Hypsipyle, Evadne and Alphesiboea), which raises on a pedestal as examples of his ideal of faithfulness after – or in spite of death. The ending of the poem finds Propertius disappointed by Cynthia’s indifference towards his torments, but also possessing a new sense of calm, owing to the embracing of his situation. Although is it not the focal point, thematically speaking, the connection between love and death is an important element of poem I.15, the first in which I was able to identify this theme in the context of Propertius’ entire work.