50. QVAQVE VIA VENIAS AD MEA VOTA, VIDE. This is a provisional restoration of the line. The manuscript reading which most closely approaches this text is that of L and F3, QVAQVE VIAM FACIAS AD MEA VOTA, VIDE; the other manuscripts have the same text, except that QVOQVE is found in some for quaque, while for uide there are the variants MODO, VADO, and VALE.
My restoration is based on 6 'quaque meos adeas est uia nulla modos' and Fast I 431-32 (Priapus approaches the sleeping nymph Lotis) 'a pedibus tracto uelamine uota / ad sua felici coeperat ire uia'.
Before Professor E. Fantham brought this passage to my attention, I had thought that M's quoque uiam facias ad mea uota modo was correct. Modo is weak and does not fit well with the preceding qua ... parte, but at least is acceptable Latin; for quo ... modo compare Med 1-2 'Discite quae faciem commendet cura, puellae, / et quo sit uobis forma tuenda modo' and Ibis 55-56 'nunc quo Battiades inimicum deuouet Ibin, / hoc ego deuoueo teque tuosque modo'.
The image in quoque ... uado ['ford'] is rather strange, and for this sense of the word Ovid seems to have used the plural (Met III 19; Met IX 108). At Fast IV 300 'sedit limoso pressa carina uado', uado means 'river-bottom'.
Ovid does not end any one of his dozens of verse epistles with uale, so the reading of FTI2ul must be discounted.
If my restoration is correct or nearly correct, the original corruptions would have been of uia to uiam and of uenias to facias; the latter corruption might have been a deliberate interpolation to procure a governing verb for uiam, or might have been a misreading of or conjectural restoration for a damaged archetype. The variant quoque for quaque and the different variants for uide would have been secondary corruptions, unless they also were the result of a damaged archetype.
50. VIDE. For uide at the end of the pentameter, compare EP II ii 55-56 'num tamen excuses erroris origine factum, / an nihil expediat tale mouere, uide'. It must however be said that uide is somewhat strange following the subjunctive quaeras.
XIII. To Carus
Nothing is known of the Carus to whom this poem is addressed beyond what Ovid tells us: that he wrote a poem on Hercules (11-12; xvi 7-8) and that he was teacher of the sons of Germanicus (47-48).