Propertius, Ovid and two latin poems of Pietro Bembo

Abstract

Pietro Bembo’s Latin poetry is worth studying in its own right and for how it reflects Bembo's views onimitatio andaemulatio. Two of Bembo's more successful poems, the short love elegies,Ad Melinum andFaunus ad Nymphas, demonstrate two kinds ofimitatio. The former is an elaboration of Propertius 2.18.1–4 and the close verbal similarities with the model invite comparison with it. Bembo expands the four verses of Propertius into a poem that contains other Propertian features, but while Bembo adheres on one level to a single model the poem has a distinctly Ovidian tone. The relationship betweenFaunus ad Nymphas and its model is less obvious. Here Bembo's starting point is part of the speech of Polyphemus inMetamorphoses 13. Bembo transforms the rustic Polyphemus of his epic poem into a figure that is still rustic and naive but has characteristics of the more sophisticated and learned lover-poet of Latin elegy. Bembo remains true to Ovid as his model, but in an interesting way.