Ovid

“ I am indebted to Lenz for many of the conjectures I report, particularly at xvi 33. The large size of the apparatus is, however, deceptive; most of the manuscripts he knew of only from the reports of Heinsius, Korn and Owen, and the reports are therefore incomplete: the only manuscripts reliably reported are B and C. Since Lenz does not usually give the lemma for the variants reported, it is difficult to tell which manuscripts offer the reading in the text. Much space is wasted by reports of the readings of several heavily interpolated mediaeval florilegia ”

“ SIC EGO SVM LONGE, SIC HIC, VBI BARBARVS HOSTIS / VT FERA PLVS VALEANT LEGIBVS ARMA, FACIT is clearly corrupt, as will be seen from Wheeler's 'Such is my bearing in this far land, where the barbarian foe causes cruel arms to have more power than law' and André's 'Je vis au loin, ici, où un ennemi barbare donne aux armes cruelles plus de force qu'aux lois'. Merkel ejected the distich, which seems the best solution; it is not necessary to the poem's structure, and the iterated facit ut in unrelated clauses at 94 and 97 is suspicious. ”

“ Poem iii, addressed to an unidentified friend who had proved faithless, is a well-crafted but not particularly original warning that Fortune is a changeable goddess, and his friend might well find find himself one day in Ovid's position. The familiar examples of Croesus, Pompey, and Marius are used; as the last and therefore most important example Ovid uses his own catastrophe. The device recalls the Ibis, where Ovid's final curse is to wish his enemy's exile to Tomis. ”

“ In 1963 Georg Luck published the Artemis edition of the Tristia and Ex Ponto, with a German translation by Wilhelm Willige. Luck shows some independence from Lenz, at i 16 printing hanc for ah, at iii 27 sed et for subito, at viii 71 mauis for maius, at viii 86 distet for distat, at ix 73 laxate for iactate, at xii 13 producatur for ut dicatur, and at xiv 7 muter for mittar, each time rightly. He suggests a new conjecture for the incurable xvi 33, and a new and possibly correct punctuation of xii 19. ”

“ Tr I viii is addressed to a friend who failed to visit Ovid after his disaster: he can scarcely believe his friend is human. In Tr III xi, Ovid asks his enemy why through his actions he makes his punishment even worse. Tr IV ix is a warning that if Ovid's enemy does not cease attacking him, he will through his poetry make his enemy's name infamous throughout the world. Tr V viii, the poem closest in theme to the present one, is a warning to his enemy that Fortune is changeable and Augustus merciful, so he and Ovid might one day change situations. ”

“ Burman was apparently the first editor to make use of F. On occasion he differs from Heinsius in his choice of readings. At xvi 44 he made the convincing conjecture Maxime (codd maxima) , [Pg 39] subsequently confirmed by B and C. His notes are informative; and my note on x 37-38 in particular is greatly indebted to him.
For poem x Burman reproduced some notes from an anthology of Latin verse for use at Eton, produced by an anonymous editor in 1705 [12] .
In 1772 Theophilus Harles published at Erlangen his edition of the Tristia and Ex Ponto 'ex recensione Petri Burmanni'. ”

“ In the fifty-eight lines that follow he develops the argument that Germanicus should accept the verse Ovid offers him for two reasons: poetry grants immortality to the subjects it describes; and Germanicus is himself a poet. In this passage Ovid allows himself a very high level of diction; as the topic was congenial to him, the result is perhaps the finest extended passage of verse in the book [7] .
Ovid ends his address to Germanicus by asking for his assistance; only in the final distich of the poem does he return to Suillius. ”

“ The anonymous detractor to whom Ovid apparently addresses this poem is probably fictional; at 47 he substitutes Liuor, dropping the pretence of speaking to a single enemy.
Ovid begins the poem by asking his detractor why he criticizes Ovid's verse. A poet's fame increases after his death; Ovid's fame was great even while he was still alive (1-4) . There were many poets contemporary with Ovid (5-38) . There were also younger poets, not yet published, whom he will not name, with the necessary exception of Cotta Maximus (39-44) . Even among such poets, he had a reputation. ”

“ In 1881 there appeared at London a text of Ex Ponto IV with accompanying commentary by W. H. Williams. The text, which Williams says is drawn from the "Oxford variorum edition of 1825", seems in general to be a reprint of the Heinsius-Burman vulgate with some readings drawn from Merkel's first edition. In spite of occasional conjectures and notes on variant readings, based on information drawn from Burman and Merkel, Williams is not generally concerned with the constitution of the text: his note on x 68 curasque fefelli is 'so Tennyson in the "In Memoriam'". ”

“ EP IV vi is highly personal, being mostly devoted to a lengthy description of Brutus' apparently conflicting but in fact complementary qualities of tenacity as a prosecuting advocate and of kindness towards those in need; no poem in the fourth book of the Ex Ponto is more completely concerned with the addressee as a person. In contrast, nothing is said of Brutus in EP I i, where he acts as the mere recipient of the plea that he protect Ovid's poems, or in III ix, where Brutus is the reporter of another's remarks on the monotony of Ovid's subject-matter. ”

“ Sextus Pompeius is the recipient of poems i, iv, v, and xv; only Cotta Maximus and Ovid's wife have more letters from exile addressed to them. It is clear from the opening of IV i that Pompeius had himself prohibited Ovid from addressing him; and Ovid is careful to present himself as a client rather than a friend; the tone is of almost abject humility, and he shows circumspection in his requests for assistance.
In the opening of the first poem, Ovid describes how difficult it had been to prevent himself from naming Pompeius in his verse ”

“ AT is my correction for the manuscripts' ET. The point that Ovid was famous even while alive is made by tum quoque later in the verse; the only meaning that could therefore be given to et mihi nomen is 'even I had a name, even when I was alive', which is inappropriate, since in this poem Ovid is not belittling his poetic talent.
At seems to be the obvious solution, giving the sense 'poets usually become famous after they die; I, however, was famous even while alive'. ”

“ The apparatus is intended to include a comprehensive listing of all conjectures proposed. When the author of a conjecture is not a previous editor of the poems, I have given a reference either to the publication where the emendation was first proposed, or to the earliest [Pg 37] edition I have consulted which reports the emendation. Conjectures of Bentley are from Hedicke's Studia Bentleiana. Conjectures of Professor R. J. Tarrant, Professor J. N. Grant, and Professor C. P. Jones were communicated to me by their authors. ”

“ Housman's argument is ingenious and informative, but I do not believe that he is right in defending the line: the accumulation of difficulties is suspicious, and the divergence of the manuscripts is greater here than at any other point in the book. Heinsius wrote of the line, 'haec nec Latina sunt, nec satis intelligo quid sibi uelint'. Like Heinsius, I believe the line to be deeply corrupted and, in the absence of further evidence, impossible to correct. ”

“ PROSPICEREM. Owen in his second edition, Wheeler, and Lenz follow Ehwald (KB 64) in printing B's ASPICEREM. Ehwald argued that prospicerem, 'survey from a distance', was inappropriate in view of the preceding turba quamuis eliderer. But the verb should be taken not with the pentameter that precedes, but with the one that follows, 'densaque quam longum turba teneret iter': prospicerem seems very appropriate. Riese conjectured RESPICEREM 'look back at', but emendation seems unnecessary. ”

“ A commentary is already in effect indexed by the text it is linked to. If, for instance, readers wish to find what the commentary has to say about a certain passage, all they need do is turn to the part of the commentary dealing with that passage.
(2) A digital edition can be searched online very quickly and easily. A reader wishing to find any mention of the eminent Dutch textual critic Nicolaus Heinsius could find every mention of Heinsius in the edition simply by using "Heinsius" as a search argument. ”

“ The appeal for assistance is a constant theme of the poetry of exile; and the recalling of their assisting each other with their poetry is paralleled by EP II iv, in which Ovid recalls how he used to submit his verse to Atticus for criticism, and by Tr III vii, Ovid's letter to his stepdaughter Perilla, whom he assisted when she first [Pg 371] began writing verse. The opening discussion of the metrical difficulty of Tuticanus' name finds parallels elsewhere in Latin and Greek literature (see at 1-2) , but is remarkable for its fullness. ”