Love

Well...this week's translation is interesting...
A lock of hair...that's a new one.
This is an interesting poem, of course, but it's still odd. Who knows, maybe the real Bernice vowed her hair and broke the vow and Conon covered for her by saying her hair had become a constellation?
Interesting fact: Roman men were not supposed to love their wives, or they'd be seen as homosexuals; however, Roman wives were supposed to be super-dutiful and chaste. Bernice is portrayed as an active lover (rixae) and as a woman very much in love. Does this suggest subtle challenges of social norms, or is this normal for Roman poetry? In the Aeneid, for instance, Dido's obviously a queen in her own right, left her kingdom after Pygmalion ruined everything and founded a new one, and is at least Aeneas' equal in initiating in their affair (which of course was arranged via a backroom deal between Venus and Juno; sounds like the bailout, huh?).