15. PERVENIENS is my correction for the manuscripts' peruenit. The perfect tense of peruenit conflicts with the following permeat and abit. It might be argued that the perfect is acceptable, since Ovid is speaking of a past event; but he would not have used the perfect of an action which took place over a considerable period of time. For perueniens ... permeat referring to a past event, compare Ovid's use of the present uenit in the very similar passage EP III iv 59-60 (quoted at the end of the last note).
The postponement of permeat to the following line made the corruption of dum ... perueniens to dum ... peruenit simple enough.
17. TEMPORIS OFFICIVM EST SOLACIA DICERE CERTI. Here Ovid says that words of comfort should not be offered too late; at RA 127-30 he says they should not be offered too early: 'quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati / flere uetet? non hoc illa monenda loco est. / cum dederit lacrimas animumque impleuerit aegrum, / ille dolor uerbis emoderandus erit'.
For the same concern with time as in the present passage and medical imagery similar to that in 19-20, see Cons Marc 1 8 and Cons Hel 1 2 'dolori tuo, dum recens saeuiret, sciebam occurrendum non esse, ne illum ipsa solacia irritarent et accenderent; nam in morbis quoque nihil est perniciosius quam immatura medicina. expectabam itaque, dum ipse uires suas frangeret et ad sustinenda remedia mora mitigatus tangi se ac tractari pateretur'. See as well the passages cited at Kassel 52-53: from modern literature he quotes Sterne Tristram Shandy III 29 'Before an affliction is digested consolation ever comes too soon;—and after it is digested—it comes too late: so that you see ... there is but a mark between those two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at'.
18. DVM DOLOR IN CVRSV EST. Compare RA 119 'dum furor in cursu est, currenti cede furori' and Met XIII 508-10 (Hecuba speaking) 'in cursuque meus dolor est: modo maxima rerum ... nunc trahor exul, inops, tumulis auulsa meorum'.
18. AEGER. The substantive aeger is quite common in both verse and prose, but always with the meaning 'physically ill'; even when used, as here, with a transferred meaning, the sense of metaphor is still present. Compare RA 313-14 'curabar propriis aeger Podalirius herbis, / et, fateor, medicus turpiter aeger eram', EP I iii 17 'non est in medico semper releuetur ut aeger', and EP III iv 7-8 'firma ualent per se, nullumque Machaona quaerunt; / ad medicam dubius confugit aeger opem'.
The adjective, however, is used by the poets from Ennius on (Sc 254 & 392 Vahlen3), particularly in the phrases mens aegra and animus aeger, to indicate a state of mental anguish. Compare, from Ovid, Tr III viii 33-34 'nec melius ualeo quam corpore mente, sed aegra est / utraque pars aeque', Tr IV iii 21, IV vi 43 & V ii 7, EP I iii 89-90 'uereor ne ... frustra ... iuuer admota perditus aeger ope', I v 18 & I vi 15 'tecum tunc aberant aegrae solacia mentis', and Ibis 115; from other poets, compare Cons ad Liuiam 395, Hor Ep I viii 8, and Aen I 208 & IV 35. The same use of the adjective is found occasionally in the historians (Sallust Iug 71 2, Livy II 3 5, etc).
19. LONGA DIES = tempus. Compare Met I 346, Met XIV 147-48 (the Sibyl to Aeneas) 'tempus erit cum de tanto me corpore paruam / longa dies faciet', and Tr I v 11-14 'spiritus et uacuas prius hic tenuandus in auras / ibit ... quam subeant animo meritorum obliuia nostro, / et longa pietas excidat ista die'.
19. VVLNERA MENTIS. Ovid is fond of this metaphorical sense of uulnus; see Met V 425-27 'Cyane ... inconsolabile uulnus / mente gerit tacita', Tr IV iv 41-42 'neue retractando nondum coeuntia rumpam / uulnera: uix illis proderit ipsa quies', EP I iii 87-88 'nec tamen infitior, si possent nostra coire / uulnera, praeceptis posse coire tuis', and EP I v 23 'parcendum est animo miserabile uulnus habenti'. To judge from Seneca, the metaphor was usual in treatises of consolation: 'antiqua mala in memoriam reduxi et, ut scires [Schultess: uis scire codd] hanc quoque plagam esse sanandam, ostendi tibi aeque magni uulneris cicatricem' (Cons Marc 1 5), 'itaque utcumque conabar manu super plagam meam imposita ad obliganda uulnera uestra reptare' (Cons Hel 1 1).
20. FOVET Heinsius MOVET codd. For the meaning of fouet see at 4 fouisti ([p 361]). Mouet here is to some extent supported by Ovid's use of such verbs as tangere and tractare in contexts like that of the present passage; compare EP I vi 21-22 'nec breue nec tutum peccati quae sit origo / scribere; tractari uulnera nostra timent', EP II vii 13, and EP III vii 25-26 'curando fieri quaedam maiora uidemus / uulnera, quae melius non tetigisse fuit'. But tractare and tangere are neutral in force, while mouet here would mean 'disturb', as at Hor Carm III xx 1-2 'Non uides quanto moueas periclo, / Pyrrhe, Gaetulae catulos leaenae?' and Lucan VIII 529-30 'bustum cineresque mouere / Thessalicos audes bellumque in regna uocare?'. As Professor R. J. Tarrant comments, if mouet were read in the present passage, intempestiue would lose the appropriateness it has when fouet is read: there is no proper time to "disturb" a wound.