003 ([return])
[ In serious numbers.—Ver. 1. By the 'graves numeri,' he means Heroic or Hexameter verses. It is supposed that he alludes to the battle of the Giants or the Titans, on which subject he had begun to write an heroic poem. In these lines Ovid seems to have had in view the commencement of the first Ode of Anacreon.]
004 ([return])
[ Suited to the measure.—Ver. 2. The subject being of a grave character, and, as such, suited to Heroic measure.]
005 ([return])
[ Abstracted one foot.—Ver. 4. He says that every second line (as is the case in Heroic verse) had as many feet as the first, namely, six : but that Cupid stole a foot from the Hexameter, and reduced it to a Pentameter, whereby the Poet was forced to recur to the Elegiac measure.]