The Last Poems of Ovid

by Ovid

82. ISDEM STVDIIS IMPOSVUISSE MANVM. Similar phrasing at Tr IV i 27-28 'non equidem uellem ... Pieridum sacris imposuisse manum'.

82. IMPOSVISSE has the sense of the present infinitive, as is shown by tueri in the previous line; compare as well ii 27-28 'uix sumptae Musa tabellae / imponit pigras, paene coacta, manus'. For the idiom, see Platnauer 109-12. It is particularly frequent in the latter half of the pentameter, immediately before the disyllable: compare, from many instances, AA III 431-32 'ire solutis / crinibus et fletus non tenuisse decet' and Tr IV viii 5-12 'nunc erat ut posito deberem fine laborum / uiuere, me nullo sollicitante metu, / quaeque meae semper placuerunt otia menti / carpere et in studiis molliter esse meis, / et paruam celebrare domum ueteresque Penates ... inque sinu dominae carisque sodalibus inque / securus patria consenuisse mea'. The idiom, although more common in elegiac verse, is also found in epic: compare Aen X 14 'tum certare odiis, tum res rapuisse licebit'.

83. LITORA PELLITIS NIMIVM SVBIECTA CORALLIS. Compare ii 37 'hic mea cui recitem nisi flauis scripta Corallis'. Strabo mentions the Coralli as inhabiting the region near Haemus (VII 5 12); they are rather obscurely described at Val Fl VI 89-94 'densique leuant uexilla Coralli, / barbaricae quis signa rotae, ferrataque dorso / forma suum ['of pigs'], truncaeque Iouis simulacra columnae; / proelia nec rauco curant incendere cornu, / indigenas sed rite duces et prisca suorum / facta canunt ueterumque, uiris hortamina, laudes'.

Nothing else is known of the tribe.

83. PELLITIS. Elsewhere in Ovid only at x 2 'pellitos ... Getas'.

83. NIMIVM SVBIECTA. Compare vi 45 'nimium nobis conterminus Hister'.

85. VLLO M ILLO BCFHILT. Illo is not a possible reading, since of course most parts of the empire would have been less isolated than Tomis. Ovid does not specify a preferred place of exile at either Tr IV iv 49 'nunc precor hinc alio iubeat discedere' or EP III i 29-30 'non igitur mirum ... altera si nobis usque rogatur humus', nor in any of the passages listed in the next two notes.

86. QVI MINVS ... DISTET. For this constant prayer of the exiled Ovid, see Tr II 575-78 (the concluding lines) 'non ut in Ausoniam redeam, nisi forsitan olim, / cum longo poenae tempore uictus eris; / tutius exilium pauloque quietius oro, / ut par delicto sit mea poena suo', Ibis 28, EP III i 4 & 85, EP III iii 64, EP III vii 30, EP III ix 38, and EP III ix 1-4 'Quod sit in his eadem sententia, Brute, libellis, / carmina nescio quem carpere nostra refers, / nil nisi me terra fruar ut propiore rogare, / et quam sim denso cinctus ab hoste loqui'.

86. DISTET FHILM^2c. Lenz and André print DISTAT (BCT); however, the defining subjunctive seems to be required, and is supported by EP II viii 36 'daque procul Scythico qui sit ab hoste locum'.

87. LAVDES. See at 45 laudum ([p 268]).