It is difficult to say whether the scribes were more prone to influence by the subjunctive normal in classical Latin prose, or by the indicative of the Romance languages and of ecclesiastical Latin. I print the subjunctive in view of Ovid's usual practice, and in particular because of EP I ii 5 'forsitan haec a quo mittatur epistula quaeras' and EP III v 1 'Quam legis unde tibi mittatur epistula quaeris?'. But Professor R. J. Tarrant notes that the need for a dependent subjunctive would be more strongly felt with quaerere in these two passages than with the index of the present passage.
Not all poets were as strict as Ovid in using the subjunctive in indirect questions. Propertius at III v 26-46 has the following verbs in a series of indirect questions: temperet, uenit, deficit, redit, superant, captet, sit uentura, bibit, tremuere, luxerit (from lugere), coit, exeat, eat, sint (uar sunt), furit, custodit, descendit, potest.
3. COLOR HIC. 'The style of this opening'. Ovid is presumably referring to its playful tone. Compare Tr I i 61 (to his poem) 'ut titulo careas, ipso noscere colore', at which Luck cites Martial XII ii 17-18 'quid titulum poscis? uersus duo tresue legantur, / clamabunt omnes te, liber, esse meum'.
Color is not found in precisely this sense until Horace. For a discussion of its development, see Brink at Hor AP 86 operumque colores.
4. STRVCTVRA. This passage is the first instance cited by OLD structura 1b of structura in this transferred sense, which becomes common in Silver prose, particularly Quintilian (I x 23, VIII vi 67, IX iv 45). Lewis and Short point out that Cicero uses the word in similar contexts only as a simile: compare Brut 33 'ante hunc [sc Isocratem] enim uerborum quasi structura et quaedam ad numerum conclusio nulla erat', Or 149 'quasi structura quaedam', and Opt Gen 5 'et uerborum est structura quaedam'.
There are two instances in Ovid of struere with a similar meaning, both from the Ex Ponto. One is from line 20 of this poem ('structa ... uerba'), while the other is at II v 19 'structos inter fera proelia uersus'.
5. MIRIFICA is a colloquialism. Common in the letters of Cicero, the word (according to TLL VIII 1060 52) is not found in Livy, Vitruvius, Celsus, Curtius, or Tacitus. The only poets apart from Terence and Ovid cited as using the word are Accius, Ausonius, and the author of the Ciris (although the passage where the word occurs, 12-13, is corrupt); see also Catullus LIII 2, LXXI 4, and LXXXIV 3. For a discussion of mirificus, see Axelson 61, and of the similarly colloquial mirifice Hofmann 78.
5. PVBLICA = 'usual, ordinary'. Compare Am III vii 11-12 'et mihi blanditias dixit dominumque uocauit, / et quae praeterea publica uerba iuuant', AA III 479-80 'munda, sed e medio consuetaque uerba, puellae, / scribite: sermonis publica forma placet', and Sen Ben VI 34 3 (quoted at 2 aue).
6. QVALIS ENIM CVMQVE EST. A common phrase in the poets when they speak of their own verse: compare Catullus I 8-9 'quare habe tibi quidquid hoc libelli / qualecumque', Hor Sat I x 88-89 'quibus [sc amicis] haec, sunt qualiacumque, / arridere uelim, doliturus, si placent spe / deterius nostra' (at which Bentley cited the present passage), Martial V lx 5 'qualiscumque legaris ut per orbem', and Statius Sil II praef 'haec qualiacumque sunt, Melior carissime, si tibi non displicuerint, a te publicum accipiant; sin minus, ad me reuertantur' (both passages cited by Munro, Criticisms 5).
7. VT TITVLVM CHARTAE DE FRONTE REVELLAS. The same hypothetical case at Tr I i 61-62 'ut titulo careas, ipso noscere colore; / dissimulare uelis, te liquet esse meum' and EP II ix 49-52 (to King Cotys) 'nec regum quisquam magis est instructus ab illis [sc the liberal arts] ... carmina testantur, quae si tua nomina demas / Threicium iuuenem composuisse negem'.