16. VT CAPERET FASTVS VIX DOMVS VLLA MEOS seems strange, as does Némethy's explanation 'poeta elatus superbia tectum uertice tangere sibi uidetur'. Perhaps the distich means something like 'on that day I would be filled with a pride which no ancestry, no matter how illustrious, could justify'.
16. FASTVS. 'Haughtiness'—Wheeler. The same sense at AA II 241-42 'exue fastus, / curam mansuri quisquis amoris habes' and Aen III 326-27 (Andromache speaking) 'stirpis Achilleae fastus iuuenemque superbum ... tulimus'. Ovid generally uses fastus of the arrogance of women to their suitors (Am II xvii 9, Met XIV 762, Fast I 419); the word is not found elsewhere in the poetry of exile.
17. DVMQVE LATVS SANCTI CINGIT TIBI TVRBA SENATVS. Compare iv 41 'inde domum repetes toto comitante senatu'; Ovid is here obviously referring to the earlier procession from the new consul's house.
20. LATERIS ... LOCVM is a strange phrase, but is made easier by latus ... cingit in 17. Compare also such passages as Met II 448-49 'nec ... iuncta deae lateri nec toto est agmine prima' and Aen X 160-61 'Pallas ... sinistro / adfixus lateri'. It is possible that latus here means 'companion', as at Martial VI lxviii 4 'Eutychos ille, tuum, Castrice, dulce latus'.
20. HABVISSE is equivalent to habere, as is shown by esse in the preceding line. For the idiom, see at viii 82 imposuisse ([p 282]) and xi 2 habuisse ([p 361]).
21. TVRBA QVAMVIS ELIDERER. Elidere similarly used of a crowd's jostling at Sen Clem I 6 1; an extended description at Juvenal III 243-48.
23. 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.
Compounds of specere (the simple verb is used by Plautus and Ennius) are peculiarly liable to confusion: prospicere is similarly corrupted to aspicere in some manuscripts at Met III 603-4 'ipse quid aura mihi tumulo promittat ab alto / prospicio' and Met XI 715-16 'notata locis reminiscitur acta fretumque / prospicit', and other instances of variation of prefix will be found at Met II 405, VI 343, XI 150, XIV 179, XV 577, 660 & 842, Fast I 139 & 461, V 393 & 561, and Her XIX 21.
25-26. Heinsius and Bentley questioned the authenticity of these lines, but the distich does not seem lame enough to warrant excision, and tegeret (see below) is paralleled elsewhere.
25. QVOQVE MAGIS NORIS. 'Listen: this will make you understand better'. Ovid is very fond of quoque magis and the corresponding quoque minus, particularly at line-beginnings. He generally uses the formula to denote the emotion which information he then gives should induce. Compare Met I 757-58 '"quo"que "magis doleas, genetrix" ait, "ille ego liber, / ille ferox tacui"', Met III 448-50 (Narcissus to his reflection) 'quoque magis doleam, nec nos mare separat ingens ... exigua prohibemur aqua', Met XIV 695-97 'quoque magis timeas ... referam tota notissima Cypro / facta', Tr I vii 37-38, and EP I viii 9-10 'quoque magis nostros uenia dignere libellos, / haec in procinctu carmina facta leges'; similar instances of quoque minus at Met II 44, VIII 579, 620 & 866, and EP III ii 52. The present passage shows the same idiom, but with the difference that a subordinate clause (quam me uulgaria tangant) depends on the verb (noris) introduced by the quoque magis clause.