nunc miseranda vel hosti;' Prop. ii. 1. 73, 'Maecenas nostrae pars invidiosa iuventae.' (It might be taken in the bad sense of 'worth grudging him.')

1. 69. puto, 1. 87, n., in Appendix.

The argument is, If Caesar, whom I did injure, did not kill me, you, whom I did not injure, should certainly be content with my present state of misfortune.

1. 71. ut, concessive, sup. 43, inf. 73, 74.

1. 72. See Appendix.

1. 73. ferentibus, 'favouring winds,' is after Verg. Geor. ii. 311; Aen. iii. 473.

1. 76. mutandis mercibus, dat. of the work contemplated: 'Mutare,' of a merchant bartering his wares, occurs in Verg. Ecl. iv. 39, 'nec nautica pinus Mutabit merces.'

1. 77. peto, 1. 87, n., in Appendix. studiosus, sc. 'litterarum.' Athens, the most famous seat of learning in the ancient world, was the fashionable educational resort of young Romans.

1. 78. Asia Minor was celebrated for its splendid cities (*claras Asiae urbes,' Catull. 46. 6), which Josephus reckoned at five hundred. These Ovid had already visited in company with his friend Macer, P. ii. 10. 21, 'te duce magnificas Asiae perspeximus urbes.' The construction is. 'Non (peto) oppida Asiae, non (peto) loca visa prius,' the second half of the line being added as a further explanation of the first.

(The reading mihi for loca of many MSS., adopted by Merkel and

mihi

Güthling, no doubt originated in a gloss upon visa, thus, 'non loca visa prius.' The sense is the same; though Merkel, by putting a colon at Asiae, tries to connect non mihi visa prius with the following line, in a most unovidian manner, so as to give the meaning, ‘I am not going to the towns of Asia: I am not going to places that I have seen before, or to Alexandria that I have not seen (videam)'.)

The somewhat harsh repetition of negatives is intended to lay stress on the melancholy nature of his present journey, which has nothing of pleasure or interest for its object.

1. 79. The constr. is non (proficiscor) ut... videam; the idea of 'going' being implied in peto. The ellipsis is rather harsh.

1. 80. delicias ['pleasures' or rather 'darlings,' 'pets' ['merry sights'?], cp. Quintil. i. 2. 7, 'gaudemus si quid licentius (liberi nostri) dixerint : verba ne Alexandrinis quidem permittenda deliciis risu et osculo excipimus.' For the rough and wild festivity of Alexandria and its neighbourhood see Mayor on Iuv. xv. 46.-H. J. R.] Cp. Mart. iv. 42. 3, 'Niliacis primum puer is nascatur in oris: Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis.'

iocose, 'gay.' Alexandria was one of the most luxurious cities of the ancient world.

1. 81. quod ['My reason for desiring favourable winds is—who could believe it?-the Sarmatian land,' etc. Cp. Verg. Aen. ii. 664, hoc erat quod.' Or quod opto may be referred to, R. 743-H. J. R.]

possit, hypothetical subj. with a suppressed condition: 'Who could believe it (if he were asked)?'

(The MSS. reading facile est may be right: the meaning will then be, 'I a am praying for winds (i. e. favourable winds), an easy thing (for you gods to grant);' and quis credere possit will be parenthetical, referring to what follows after: 'I am going to Sarmatia, who would believe it?' but this is awkward).

1. 83. obligor, 'I am under an obligation to reach,' i. e. I am compelled to reach (cp. our colloquialism to be bound to do a thing'). Caesar's sentence had rendered the obligation of reaching Pontus imperative upon Ovid.

laevi, i. e. the west, which to one entering from the Propontis, and looking northward, is on the left: inf. 8. 39; 4. 18 n.

fera, inhospitable to mariners on account of its stormy nature and

the savageness of its inhabitants; inf. 10. 41, n.

1. 84. quod sit, subj., because this is the burden of his complaint. 1. 85. nescio quo in orbe, 'in some obscure corner of the world.' 1. 86. exilem. 'I think means the same sort of thing as is exprest in 85 by nescio quo, "a trivial, insignificant journey," i. e. of no interest, and of little importance. “I pursue by the help of my prayers my unmomentous journey.”’—R. Ellis. Thus the exilis via on which he is travelling is contrasted with a tour to Athens, Asia Minor, or Alexandria. [I suppose Ovid cannot be punning, on exilium.-H. J. R.]

Other explanations are (1) 'short,' 'I make my travel short by means of my prayers' (Heins.). Cp. Senec. N. Q. i. 1, 'ignes tenuissimi iter exile designant;' (2) ‘joyless,' cp. Hor. Od. i. 4. 17 (Merkel); (3) 'poor' [Cp. Hor. Epp. i. 6. 45.-H. J. R.], 'my ill-provided travel' (Merkel); the well-known lines of Ausonius rather favour the last; Epigr. viii. 7, 'Fortunam reverenter habe quicumque repente Dives ab exili progrediere loco;' but see Ibis 24.

1. 88. prona, 'favourable.'

1. 89. magis='potius,' this alternative being substituted for the former. It is used so in Lucr. ii. 428, 869; Catull. Ixviii. 30; Verg. Ecl. i. II.

iussae, 62.

1. 90. est in regione, 'the place is part of my punishment.'

1. 91. corpora, supr. 39, n.

1. 92. Ausonia was originally the district round Beneventum and Cales, but later was used poetically as a general name of Italy.

·

1. 95. quae damnaverit, inasmuch as he has condemned them,' subj. of attendant circumstances, R. 718.

1. 96. crimina, 'misdeeds,' i. 23 11.

=

fas what is right, in the sense of what complies with the divine laws; pium in the sense of what fulfils perfectly all the obligations of mankind, whether to relations, fellow-men, or the gods (see Nettleship, Lectures and Essays, p. 104). The words are similarly joined in M. xv. 867, 'quosque alios vati fas appellare piumque est.'

1. 98. facinus, 'wilful guilt;' his constant plea in self-defence is that his guilt was not wilful: cp. iii. 1. 52; iv. 4. 44; v. 2. 17; xi. 17; P. i. 7. 40.

1. 99. immo ita si scitis, i. e. 'immo si scitis ita (esse),' 'nay, if you know that this is so;' the apodosis of this long conditional sentence (99-104) is in the imperative, 105, introduced by ita, for which see R. 655.

The usual explanation (to which Mr. Roby inclines, translating : 'Nay I will go so far as this=only (ita) if you do know it,' etc.), puts a comma at ita, which then refers forward to the ita of 105, the construction being 'immo ita parcite divi si scitis,' etc., but (1) this awkwardly splits up 99, and (2) ita is unnecessary on account of the ita in 105. [Such a repetition, however, is very usual and natural.—H. J. R.]

error, 'my mistake.' See Introduction IV.

abstulit, carried me an unwilling agent to my ruin, repeated in ii. 109. The expression is borrowed from Verg. Ecl. viii. 42. 'Vt vidi, ut perii, ut me malus abstulit error' (though there error=' madness,' a sense inappropriate in the passages in Ovid).

1. 101. If I supported that House, as even the humblest may do.'

1. 102. The order is Si publica iussa Augusti mihi satis (fuerunt), "if the state legislation of Augustus contented me.' For the omission of fuerunt see 1. 17 n. See Appendix.

1. 103. dixi. 'If I have celebrated the happiness of the age beneath his rule.' He means in such passages as A. A. i. 177 ff.; cp. T. ii. 61-62, ‘quid referam libros illos quoque, crimina nostra, Mille locis plenos. nominis esse tui ?' For dico='cano' cp. inf. 7. 13; M. viii. 455. 1. 104. Caesaribus. Gaius and Lucius Caesar, sons of Julia, the daughter of Augustus, who died respectively in A. D. 4 and A. D. 2, and Tiberius, and his sons Germanicus and Drusus. Cp. ii. 229; iv. 2. I.

-que, which properly should be attached to the first word in its clause, is often, as here, appended to the second (cp. F. iii. 16. 128. 348) or even third (T. iv. 1. 34. 40, 74; v. 10. 40) by the poets,

E

especially in the pentameter after quadrisyllabic words for metrical convenience.

1. 106. unda, supr. 34 n.

1. 109. casu is opposed to vos, which, to bring out the contrast forcibly, is put in the unusual position preceding sed. This is no chance work, it is you who are bringing aid. (This is better than to stop non casu vos, sed with Güthling, which (1) introduces an awkward metrical division, and (2) marks the contrast less emphatically.)

With casu supply 'effectum est.'

sub condicione, ‘invoked on these terms,' on the condition that what I have said is true. Sub='subject to,' of an accompanying condition; as in the phrases' sub pacto,' 'sub poena,' 'sub legibus' (Tac. A. i. 17). Cp. F. iv. 320, ‘accipe sub certa condicione preces.' Liv. vi. 40. 8, 'sub condicione nos reficietis decumum tribunos;' ibid. xxi. 12. 4.

EL. III.

A description of his departure from Rome.

SUMMARY.-I weep still when I think of my last night in Rome (1-4). The time was come for me to leave Italy; I had made no preparations, but was as one thunderstruck (5-12). At length, however, I nerved myself to bid farewell to my friends and wife; my daughter was absent in Africa. There was lamentation everywhere; the scene was like some tumultuous funeral, or the sack of Troy (13-26). Late at night I bade farewell to the Capitol and its gods, protesting that my guilt was not wilfully incurred, and begging that they would mitigate Caesar's hatred (27-40). The same prayer was repeated by my wife as she lay prostrate and sobbing before the gods of our hearth (41-46). Morning came and the time for departure; yet I exhausted every possible excuse to delay it (47-60). Why should I hurry,' I said, 'I who am leaving Rome for Scythia, and who shall never see again my wife, my household, and my friends?' (61-68). I gave one last embrace to all I loved, and as the morning star rose, I tore myself away with a pang as though I were being rent in pieces (69-76). Then my friends raised a wail, and my wife, clinging to me, protested that she would accompany me (77-86). But this might not be. She yielded, and I left (8790). Of her heartbroken grief for me I have been told: I pray that she may live on to comfort and protect me, though so far away (91-102).

1. 3. repeto, supr. 1. 23 n.

1. 6. finibus extremae A.='extremis finibus A.' a hypallage. For Ausonia; see on ii. 92.

1. 7. satis apta=тà äλis прoσýkovтa (the want of the definite article in Latin is clear here). 'I had neither the time nor the heart to get mè suitable equipment.'

parandi is genitive of definition. !

1. 8. pectora (poet. pl. 2. 39 n.), 'my faculties,' as in M. xiii. 368, 'pectora sunt potiora manu.'

1. 9. servorum (legendorum)... vestis opisve (legendae), the gerundives being supplied out of the gerund legendi. Both the genitive gerund and gerundive attraction are used indifferently. [But the gerundives are not necessary; cp. my Lat. Gr. ii. p. lxvii.—H. J. R.]

1. 13. Yet when my very grief dispelled this cloud upon my soul.' animi nubem, a bold expression (cp. P. ii. 1. 5, 'tandem aliquid pulsa curarum nube serenum Vidi '), rather different from 'nox animi,' M. vi. 652, which means the 'blinding darkness' that has settled on the ignorant mind of Tereus; whereas here the metaphor, if expanded, is of grief obscuring the mind as a cloud obscures the serenity of the sky. The idea that there is a point at which overmastering sorrow, which has paralysed the faculties, becomes so excessive that from its own intensity it sets them free, is found also in H. x. 33, 'nec languere diu patitur dolor;' M. v. 509. ‘Mater ad auditas stupuit ceu saxea voces, Attonitaeque diu similis fuit. utque dolore Pulsa gravi gravis est amentia.' The image of the cloud of sorrow is found also in v. 5. 22 pars vitae tristi cetera nube vacet ;' cp. inf. 91; Verg. Aen. xii. 669.

1. 14. convaluere, 'recovered strength.'

1. 16. modo de multis='de modo multis;' H. xiv. 1, 'mittit Hypermnestra de tot modo fratribus uni.'

unus et alter, 'one or two.' He constantly complains of his desertion by his friends: inf. 5. 33; 9. 5; iii. 5. 10.

1. 17. flentem flens acrius ipsa. P. i. 4. 53, 'et narrare meos flenti flens ipse labores.' Verg. Aen. ii. 279, ultro flens ipse videbaι Compellare virum.’

1. 18. usque, 'continually.'

indignas genas, 'those cheeks that never should have suffered so.' Ovid's metaphor has been amplified by Cokain into a simile with characteristic redundance (Tragedy of Ovid, Act v. Sc. 1), 'No April shower ever fell so sweetly As she doth weep over her sister.' 1. 19. nata. See Introduction I.

Libycis, the province of Africa, was a senatorial province whither she had doubtless accompanied her husband (a not uncommon practiceFurneaux, Tac. A. iii. 33. 2), who, as a senator, had gone in an official capacity. Her husband is mentioned by Seneca, Dial. ii. 17, 'in senatu flentem vidimus Fidum Cornelium, Nasonis Ovidii generum.'