How (Not) to Look at a Woman: Bodily Encounters and the Failure of the Gaze in Horace's c. 1.19

Like the lovers of Roman elegy, the speaker of C. 1.19 claims to be dominated by his beloved. As in elegy, however, this "inversion" is a sham. The speaker retains control over his beloved while expressing his secret hostility toward her. Associating Glycera's body with toxic, uncontrolled nature, the lover claims that he risks harm simply by gazing upon her. He attempts to control his unruly object of desire by identifying her as material for his poetry, by immobilizing her as a statue, and by symbolically killing/penetrating her in the ode's closing sacrifice.