20. NOVAT. Similar phrasing at Tr II 209 'nam non sum tanti renouem ut tua uulnera, Caesar' and RA 729-30 'admonitu refricatur amor, uulnusque nouatum / scinditur'.
21. ADDE QVOD. Professor E. Fantham points out to me how extraordinary the occurrence of this phrase in the last distich of the poem is. Of the twenty-five instances of the idiom in Ovid's poems[25], none except the present passage occur in the final distich of a poem or book. The other examples all occur in the middle of an argument, or lead into another distich containing a final injunction or proof of an argument. As Professor J. N. Grant suggests to me, this poem therefore furnishes another example of Ovid's favourite device of unexpectedly altering a poem's tone in the final distich, for a discussion of which see at xiv 61-62 ([p 427]).
21. MIHI BF1 TIBI MHILTF2 om C. As Burman saw, mihi must be the correct reading, the perfect subjunctive acting as a past optative: 'certe ego mihi praeferrem: utinam mihi, mentionem facienti noui tui coniugii, uerum illud omen uenerit, neque fallar, sed tu iam uxorem duxeris, ut ego uoueo'. Tibi is hardly possible, since an omen to Gallio indicating that he had remarried would be superfluous.
XII. To Tuticanus
Tuticanus[26] (known only from the Ex Ponto) seems from the testimony of the poem (19-30) to have been a close friend of Ovid; he is mentioned again at xiv 1-2 and xvi 27. It is reasonable to suppose that, like Sextus Pompeius, he had previously been unwilling to allow Ovid to mention him in his verse.
The poem opens with a discussion of the difficulty of fitting Tuticanus' name into elegiac verse: Ovid could split the name between verses, or alter the quantity of one or another of the name's syllables, but neither procedure would be acceptable to Ovid or to his readers (1-18). He has known Tuticanus since early youth; they assisted each other in their verse (19-30). He is quite certain that Tuticanus will not desert him (31-38). He should use his influence with Tiberius to assist Ovid; but Ovid is so confused after his hardships that he cannot suggest precisely what Tuticanus should do; he leaves this to Tuticanus' judgment (39-50).
The appeal for assistance is a constant theme of the poetry of exile; and the recalling of their assisting each other with their poetry is paralleled by EP II iv, in which Ovid recalls how he used to submit his verse to Atticus for criticism, and by Tr III vii, Ovid's letter to his stepdaughter Perilla, whom he assisted when she first began writing verse. The opening discussion of the metrical difficulty of Tuticanus' name finds parallels elsewhere in Latin and Greek literature (see at 1-2), but is remarkable for its fullness. The explanation for this fullness may well be Tuticanus' being a fellow poet: he would be amused by the use of his own name for the witty discussion of the handling of metrical difficulties with which he himself would be familiar enough.
1-2. QVOMINVS IN NOSTRIS PONARIS, AMICE, LIBELLIS, / NOMINIS EFFICITVR CONDICIONE TVI. A constant problem for the Latin poets was the impossibility of using words with cretic patterns (a long syllable, followed by a short syllable, followed by another long syllable) in hexameter or elegiac verse. The fact played an important part in determining Latin poetic vocabulary; for instance, such an ordinary word as femina, cretic in its oblique cases, is usually represented through metonymy by such words as nurus and mater. Proper names presented a special problem, which could however occasionally be solved through the use of special forms or circumlocutions; hence such lines as 'cumque Borysthenio liquidissimus amne [=Bory̅sthĕnē] Dirapses' (x 53) and 'Scipiadas [=Scīpĭōnes], belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror' (Lucretius III 1034). Sometimes, as in the present passage, such avenues were not available, and the poet was simply unable to use the name he wanted. From Greek authors Marx, commenting on Lucilius 228-29, cites Critias fr. 5 'οὐ γάρ πως ἦν τοὔνομα ἐφαρμόζειν ἐλεγείῳ' Archestratus fr. 29 (Brandt) 'ἰχθύος αὐξηθέντος ὃν ἐν μέτρῳ οὐ θέμις εἰπεῖν' and Ep Gr 616 (Kaibel) 'οὐ γὰρ ἐν ἑξαμέτροισιν ἥρμοσεν τοὔνομ' ἐμόν' In Latin, the best-known reference to this difficulty is Hor Sat I v 86-87 'quattuor hinc rapimur uiginti et milia raedis, / mansuri oppidulo, quod uersu dicere non est'. On the passage Porphyrion comments 'Aequum Tuticum significat [this is disputed by modern commentators, since the town's known location does not fit with Horace's indication; no certain candidate has been proposed], cuius nomen hexametro uersu compleri [codd: contineri fort legendum] non potest. hoc autem sub exemplo Lucili posuit. nam ille in sexto Saturarum [228-29 Marx] sic ait: "seruorum est festus dies hic, / quem plane hexametro uersu non dicere possis"'. In his comment on the passage from Horace, Lejay cites Martial IX xi 10-17 (Martial wanted to mention Flavius Ĕărĭnus, whose name starts with three consecutive short vowels) 'nomen nobile, molle, delicatum / uersu dicere non rudi uolebam: / sed tu, syllaba contumax, rebellas. / dicunt Eiarinon tamen poetae, / sed Graeci, quibus est nihil negatum, / et quos Ἆρες Ἄρες decet sonare: / nobis non licet esse tam disertis / qui Musas colimus seueriores', Rutilius Namatianus 419-22 (of Vŏlŭsĭanus [short 'o', 'u', and 'i'] Rufius) 'optarem uerum complecti carmine nomen, / sed quosdam refugit regula dura pedes. / cognomen uersu ueheris [Préchac: ueneris uel uenens codd], carissime Rufi; / illo te dudum pagina nostra canit', and Apollinaris Sidonius Carm XXIII 485-86 'horum nomina cum referre uersu / affectus cupiat, metrum recusat'.
Professor C. P. Jones cites the discussion at Pliny Ep VIII iv 3-4. Pliny, writing to Caninius, who is composing a poem in Greek on the Dacian war, discusses the difficulty of using barbara et fera nomina in the poem: 'sed ... si datur Homero et mollia uocabula et Graeca ad leuitatem uersus contrahere extendere inflectere, cur tibi similis audentia, praesertim non delicata sed necessaria, non detur?'.