ABSTRACT
This chapter contains an excellent brief summary of the history of the classical Greek and Latin propempticon. It shows how an adherence to stock forms is natural during the infancy of the short personal poem in Latin. Horace's first Spring Ode is an excellent example of contrasting themes successfully juxtaposed. The first part of the ode is based on the propempticon theme. Propertius is playing the lover's role that aware intellectually of the lopsidedness of the affair, but passionately attached to the woman just the same, wanting only to be with her. Propertius would have tried to fuse the two worlds of heroic and personal romance. Ovid possesses a facility of imagination and a precision of diction never matched by Propertius. But his poem is not really moving forward. The brilliance obscures the poet's attitude to his theme instead of clarifying it.
