9. MORATVR = longa est. The TLL cites Velius Longus VII 55 5 Keil 'hanc ... naturam esse quarundam litterarum, ut morentur et enuntiatione sonum detineant'.
11. ET BCHIacLT NON M NEC FIpc. Nec, printed by some editors, cannot by itself be correct, for there is no negative with the corresponding producatur in the following distich. A negative is implicitly supplied for potes ... uenire and producatur by 15-16 'his ego si uitiis ...', but Professor R. J. Tarrant is possibly right to suggest that nec should be read both here and (replacing aut) at the beginning of 13.
W. A. Camps (CQ n.s. IV [1954] 206-7) has pointed out that it is somewhat odd that 'The first two possibilities are introduced, in lines 7 and 9, in terms that disclaim them at once' and that 'the third and fourth possibilities are added without disclaimer ... in terms that would be quite appropriate to serious suggestions'. He suggests reading at, so that 11-12 represent an imaginary rejoinder to Ovid's rejection of the possibilities already suggested; Ovid's rejoinder is given at 15 'his ego si uitiis ...'. But at potes is difficult: Ovid could have written 'at, puto, potes', speaking in his own person to raise an objection he would then counter, or he could have represented Tuticanus as saying 'at ... possum'; but it is hard to see how he could have written 'at potes'.
13. PRODVCATVR MHI VT DVCATVR LTB2F2ul VT DICATVR B1CF1. Producere is the correct technical term for 'lengthen'; compare Quintilian VII ix 13 'productio quoque in scripto et correptio in dubio relicta causa est ambiguitatis' & IX iii 69 'uoces ['words'] ... productione tantum uel correptione mutatae'. Vt ducatur is unlikely to be right. Ducatur could certainly stand for producatur (although this would destroy the balance with the following correptius), but the verb is clearly indicated as a potential subjunctive by the preceding potes ... uenire; and ut (which would in any case be taken as correlative with ut in line 12) cannot stand with this construction. Vt dicatur, Ehwald's preferred reading ('dicatur et sit secunda [syllaba] productâ morâ longa'—KB 68), is even less likely to be right, since dicere in this context could only mean 'pronounce', as at Cic Or 159 '"inclitus" dicimus breui prima littera, "insanus" producta'.
13. EXIT. Exire similarly used of words being uttered at Her VIII 115-16 (Hermione speaking) 'saepe Neoptolemi pro nomine nomen Orestae / exit, et errorem uocis ut omen amo'. OLD exeo 2d gives other instances from Cicero (Brutus 265), Seneca (Ben V 19 4), and Quintilian (XI iii 33), but from verse outside Ovid only Martial XII xi 3, where the word has a somewhat different meaning: 'cuius Pimpleo lyra clarior exit ab antro?'.
14. PORRECTA is equivalent to longa, and belongs to secunda (sc syllaba) by hypallage. Compare Quintilian I vi 32 'aut correptis aut porrectis ... litteris syllabisue' & I vii 14 'usque ad Accium et ultra porrectas syllabas geminis, ut dixi, uocalibus scripserunt [that is, they wrote uiita for uita and so on; such spellings occur sometimes in inscriptions]', and Rutilius Lupus I 3.
15. VITIIS. Vitium similarly used for faults of diction at AA III 295-96 'in uitio decor est: quaerunt male reddere uerba; / discunt posse minus quam potuere loqui', Cic de Or I 116, and Quintilian I v 17, a discussion of the shortening and lengthening of vowels; this he includes among the 'quae accidunt in dicendo uitia'. Ovid is probably combining this sense with that of 'poetic weakness', for which compare Tr I vii 39-40 'quicquid in his igitur uitii rude carmen habebit, / emendaturus, si licuisset, eram' and the use of uitiosus at xiii 17 and Tr IV i 1 and IV x 61.
16. MERITO PECTVS HABERE NEGER. 'People would quite rightly say that I was ignorant'. Compare Met XIII 290-91 & 295 (Ulysses is speaking of Ajax's claim to the arms of Achilles) 'artis opus tantae rudis et sine pectore miles / indueret? neque enim clipei caelamina nouit ... postulat ut capiat quae non intellegit arma!'.
17-18. MVNERIS ... QVOD MEVS ADIECTO FAENORE REDDET AMOR. Adiecto faenore = 'with interest added on'; Ovid will make up for his past negligence by sending Tuticanus more than one poem ('tibi carmina mittam'). It is clear from the opening distich of poem xiv that Ovid sent the poem to Tuticanus very soon after the composition of xii: 'Haec tibi mittuntur quem sum modo carmine questus / non aptum numeris nomen habere meis'.
A similar use of faenus at EP III i 79-81 'nec ... debetur meritis gratia nulla meis. / redditur illa quidem grandi cum faenore nobis'.