70. AVGVSTI = Tiberii; his name in inscriptions is TI·CAESAR·AVG (Sandys 235).
71. CVM FILT QVOD BC VT MH QVVM Weise. The archetype was illegible at this point, and the manuscripts offer various supplements. Of these cum seems the most appropriate. Ehwald favoured quod (KB 48), but all except one of the passages he cited are instances of quod superest or quod reliquum est. The one relevant passage he cited was Fast II 17-18 (to Augustus) 'ergo ades et placido paulum mea munera uultu / respice, pacando si quid ab hoste uacat'. Many manuscripts however offer uacas (for which compare Prop II xxxii 7 'quodcumque uacabis'), and the corruption to the third person seems an easy one. Vacare in general does not seem to occur with an expressed impersonal subject.
71. CVRA PROPIORE. The same phrase at Met XIII 578-79 'cura deam propior luctusque domesticus angit / Memnonis amissi'.
73. SI QVAE DABIT AVRA SINVM. 'If some wind should give the opportunity of filling my sails'. Quae is my correction for QVA (CMFHIL), which would make the sentence mean 'If the wind should in some way ...'. The difficulty here is with the apparently already existing aura: what breeze is Ovid referring to? QVEM (BT) presents the same difficulty ('If the breeze should offer any opportunity ...') and in any case looks like a scribal correction. I take qua to be an unmetrical form corrupted from the rare form quae of the indefinite adjective. For the form, compare Ter Heaut 44 'si quae [Bembinus (saec iv-v): qua recc] [sc fabula] laboriosast, ad me curritur', Hor Sat I iv 93-95 'mentio si quae [uar qua] ... te coram fuerit, defendas, ut tuus est mos', Hor Sat II vi 10 'o si urnam argenti fors quae mihi monstret', and CIL I 583 37 'SEIQVAE CAVSA ERIT'. Quae in the present passage offers the same notion of a fresh breeze rising as is found at viii 27-28 'quamlibet exigua si nos ea [sc ara] iuuerit aura, / obruta de mediis cumba resurget aquis' and Tr IV v 19-20 'remis ad opem luctare ferendam / dum ueniat placido mollior aura deo'.
Quae should possibly be written at Met VI 231-33 'praescius imbris ... rector / carbasa deducit ne qua leuis effluat aura', but Professor R. J. Tarrant points out that qua can be defended by taking leuis to mean 'nimble', a sense supported here by effluat. A strong case could be made for reading quae at Hor Carm III xiv 19-20 'Spartacum si qua potuit uagantem / fallere testa'.
73. SINVM. Sinus in the sense of 'sail' is common enough (Am II xi 38, AA III 500, Fast V 609, and Aen III 455 & V 16; the origin of the metonymy seen at Prop III ix 30 'uelorum plenos ... sinus'); but the brachylogy here 'opportunity of filling my sails' is remarkable.
73. LAXATE editio princeps Romana IACTATE codd. Korn, Lenz, and André print the manuscript reading, and Korn offers three parallel passages in its defence, none of which stands up to examination. The first is EP III ii 5-6 'cumque labent alii iactataque uela relinquant, / tu lacerae remanes ancora sola rati', where iactata means 'storm-whipped'; compare Statius Theb VII 139-41 'uento / incipiente ... laxi iactantur ubique rudentes'. At Cic Tusc V 40 (a Spartan to a wealthy sea-merchant) 'non sane optabilis quidem ista ... rudentibus apta fortuna', 'Well, your fortune depends on your cables, and I don't think it something to be sought for', iactare does not appear. The third passage, Virgil G II 354-55 'seminibus positis superest diducere terram / saepius ad capita ['roots'] et duros iactare bidentis', hardly seems relevant.
For laxate rudentes 'let out the sails' Heinsius cited Aen III 266-67 'tum litore funem / deripere excussosque iubet laxare rudentis' 'Next he commanded us to fling hawsers from moorings and uncoil and ease the sheets' (Jackson Knight), Aen VIII 707-8 'uentis ... uela dare et laxos iamiamque immittere funis', Cic Diu I 127, Lucan V 426-27 'pariter soluere rates, totosque rudentes / laxauere sinus', and Lucan IX 1004.
74. E STYGIIS ... AQVIS. Similar phrasing at Met X 697 'Stygia ... unda, Met XI 500 'Stygia ... unda', Aen VI 374 'Stygias ... aquas', Aen XII 91 'Stygia ... unda', and Cons Liu 410 'Stygia ... aqua'.
Ovid often uses the phrasing of his exile: see Tr I ii 65-66 'mittere me Stygias si iam uoluisset in undas / Caesar, in hoc uestro non eguisset ope', Tr IV v 22, EP I viii 27 'careo uobis, Stygias detrusus in oras', and EP II iii 44 'a Stygia quantum mors [codd: sors Heinsius] mea distat aqua?'. For Ovid's exile as the equivalent of death, see at vi 49 qui me doluistis ademptum ([p 243]).