The Last Poems of Ovid

by Ovid

65-66. SI QVID ADHVC IGITVR VIVI, GERMANICE, NOSTRO / RESTAT IN INGENIO, SERVIET OMNE TIBI. Compare Prop IV i 59-60 'sed tamen exiguo quodcumque e pectore riui / fluxerit, hoc patriae seruiet omne meae', which Ovid is clearly imitating. Hertzberg ad loc conjectured RIVI for our passage, which may well be right; but uiui seems to agree better with restat.

67. VATIS ... VATES. For an extreme instance of Ovid's favourite figure of polyptoton (Quintilian IX 3 36-37), see the account at Met IX 43-45 of Achelous' wrestling-match with Hercules: 'inque gradu stetimus, certi non cedere, eratque / cum pede pes iunctus, totoque ego pectore pronus / et digitos digitis et frontem fronte premebam'. Other instances of polyptoton with uates at Fast I 25 (to Germanicus) 'si licet et fas est, uates rege uatis habenas' and EP II ix 65 (to Cotys, king of Thrace, apparently a writer of poetry) 'ad uatem uates orantia bracchia tendo',

67. VATES. Approximately nine hundred lines survive of a version of Aratus generally attributed to Germanicus, who might have been composing the poem at the time Ovid was writing: Augustus' apotheosis is mentioned at 558-60. It is possible however that Tiberius was the poem's author: he is known to have written a Conquestio de morte L. Caesaris and to have composed Greek verse (Suet Tib 70). For a full discussion see the introduction to Gain's edition of the Aratus.

69-70. QVOD NISI TE NOMEN TANTVM AD MAIORA VOCASSET, / GLORIA PIERIDVM SVMMA FVTVRVS ERAS. Compare Met V 269-70 (the Muses to Minerva) 'o nisi te uirtus opera ad maiora tulisset, / in partem uentura chori Tritonia nostri'.

There is a striking parallel to this passage in Quintilian's address to Domitian in his catalogue of poets: 'hos nominamus quia Germanicum Augustum ab institutis studiis deflexit cura terrarum, parumque dis uisum est esse eum maximum poetarum' (X i 91-92).

70. GLORIA PIERIDVM SVMMA. Gloria similarly used at EP II xi 28 'maxima Fundani gloria, Rufe, soli', Aen VI 767 'proximus ille Procas, Troianae gloria gentis', and Val Max IV iii 3 'Drusum ... Germanicum, eximiam Claudiae familiae gloriam'. The term was used in particular of fine cattle: see AA I 290 'candidus, armenti gloria, taurus', Pan Mess (Corp Tib III vii) 208 'tardi pecoris ... gloria taurus' and Aetna 597 'gloria uiua Myronis' (on Myron's Cow see at i 34 ut similis uerae uacca Myronis opus [[p 158]]).

71. SI DARE R. J. Tarrant. The manuscripts' SED DARE is a possible reading; but Professor Tarrant's slight change removes the awkwardness of nec tamen following immediately upon sed.

71. MAVIS IF^2ul MAIVS BF¹. Either of the two variants could be read from CMHLT. The preferable reading is mauis, since it links more closely to potes in the pentameter, and would be especially liable to corruption after maiora two lines previous. I have found no good parallel for singular maius 'a more important thing': for the plural OLD maior 5 cites from verse Fast IV 3 'certe maiora canebas' and its model, Ecl IV 1 'paulo maiora canamus'.

72. NEC TAMEN EX TOTO DESERERE ILLA POTES. Graecinus was another of Ovid's addressees who, while a soldier, kept up his other pursuits: 'artibus ingenuis [=lībĕrālibus], quarum tibi maxima cura est, / pectora mollescunt asperitasque fugit. / nec quisquam meliore fide complectitur illas, / qua sinit officium militiaeque labor' (EP I vi 7-10).

72. EX TOTO. 'Altogether'. Compare EP I vi 27-28 'spes igitur menti poenae, Graecine, leuandae / non est ex toto nulla relicta meae'. The idiom was probably subliterary: the only instances from the time of Ovid cited by OLD totum 2 are Celsus III 3 71b 'neque ex toto in remissionem desistit' and Columella V 6 17 'antequam ex toto arbor praeualescat'.