42. INQVE NOVVM CRIMEN CARMINA NOSTRA VOCAT. In crimen uocare was a normal idiom: compare Cic Scaur (e) 'custos ille rei publicae proditionis est in crimen uocatus' and Fam V xvii 2 'ego te, P. Sitti, et primis temporibus illis quibus in inuidiam absens et in crimen uocabare defendi'.
42. NOVVM CRIMEN. The uetus crimen was of course the accusation that the Ars Amatoria was immoral. Professor E. Fantham suggests to me that nouum could have the meaning 'unprecedented', as at Cic Lig 1 'Nouum crimen, C. Caesar, et ante hunc diem non auditum propinquus meus ad te Q. Tubero detulit'. Ovid would therefore be saying that the kind of geographical maiestas the Tomitans were accusing him of did not constitute a proper charge.
43. PECTORE CANDIDVS. 'Kind of heart'. This sense of candidus is constantly misunderstood by modern commentators. The basic transferred sense of the word is 'kind' or 'generous towards others'. This can be clearly seen in such passages as Tr III vi 5-8 'isque erat usque adeo populo testatus, ut esset / paene magis quam tu quamque ego notus, amor; / quique est in caris animi [codd: animo fort legendum] tibi candor amicis— / cognita sunt ipsi quem colis ipse uiro', Tr IV x 130-32 'protinus ut moriar non ero, terra, tuus. / siue fauore tuli siue hanc ego carmine famam, / iure tibi grates, candide lector, ago', Tr V iii 53-54 'si uestrum merui candore fauorem, / nullaque iudicio littera laesa meo est', EP II v 5, EP III ii 21-22 'aut meus excusat caros ita candor amicos, / utque habeant de me crimina nulla fauet', and EP III iv 13 'uiribus infirmi uestro candore ualemus'.
For pectore candidus compare from other authors Hor Epod XI 11-12 'candidum / pauperis ingenium', Val Max VIII xiv praef 'candidis ... animis' and Scribonius Largus praef 5 26 'candidissimo animo'.
44. EXTAT ADHVC NEMO SAVCIVS ORE MEO. Ovid makes similar claims at Tr II 563-65 'non ego mordaci destrinxi carmine quemquam ... candidus a salibus suffusis felle refugi' and Ibis 1-8 'Tempus ad hoc, lustris bis iam mihi quinque peractis, / omne fuit Musae carmen inerme meae ... nec quemquam nostri nisi me laesere libelli ... unus ... perennem / candoris titulum non sinit esse mei'. André says of the present passage, 'C'est oublier le poème Contre Ibis', but Housman wrote 'Who was Ibis? Nobody. He was much too good to be true. If one's enemies are of flesh and blood, they do not carry complaisance so far as to chose the dies Alliensis for their birthday and the most ineligible spot in Africa for their birthplace. Such order and harmony exist only in worlds of our own creation, not in the jerry-built edifice of the demiurge ... And when I say that Ibis was nobody, I am repeating Ovid's own words. In the last book that he wrote, several years after the Ibis, he said, ex Pont. IV 14 44, "extat adhuc nemo saucius ore meo"' (1040). Housman is wrong to adduce this line as though it were a statement made under oath (compare the claim made in 26 'littera de uobis est mea questa nihil'). It is nonetheless true that in the extant poems of reproach Ovid does not identify the person he is addressing.
45. ADDE QVOD. See at xi 21 adde quod ([p 368]).
45. ILLYRICA ... PICE NIGRIOR. For the formula, Otto (pix) cites this passage and Il IV 275-77 'νέφος ... μελάντερον ἠύτε πίσσα' and from Latin poetry AA II 657-58 'nominibus mollire licet mala: fusca uocetur / nigrior Illyrica cui pice sanguis erit', Met XII 402-3 'totus pice nigrior atra, / candida cauda tamen', EP III iii 97 'sed neque mutatur [uar fuscatur] nigra pice lacteus umor', Her XVIII 7 'ipsa uides caelum pice nigrius', and Martial I cxv 4-5 'sed quandam uolo nocte nigriorem, / formica, pice, graculo, cicada'.
45. ILLYRICA ... PICE. A famous mineral pitch was produced near Apollonia; André cites Pliny NH XVI 59 'Theopompus scripsit in Apolloniatarum agro picem fossilem non deteriorem Macedonica inueniri', NH XXXV 178, and Dioscorides I 73.
45. NIGRIOR. The man who was niger had qualities opposite to those of the man who was candidus; that is, he habitually thought and spoke evil of others. This is illustrated by Hor Sat I iv 81-85 'absentem qui rodit amicum, / qui non defendit alio culpante, solutos / qui captat risus hominum famamque dicacis, / fingere qui non uisa potest, commissa tacere / qui nequit—hic niger est, hunc tu, Romane, caueto'. The same sense is seen at Sat I iv 91 & 100, and at Cic Caec 28 'argentarius Sex. Clodius cui cognomen est Phormio, nec minus niger nec minus confidens quam ille Terentianus est Phormio'. A similar sense of ater is seen at Hor Epod VI 15-16 'an si quis atro dente me petiuerit, / inultus ut flebo puer'; Lindsay Watson ad loc (in an unpublished University of Toronto dissertation) cites Hor Ep I xix 30 'nec socerum quaerit quem uersibus oblinat atris' for the same meaning.
A specific connection is often made between blackness and envy: compare Met II 760 (the home of Inuidia is nigro squalentia tabo) and Statius Sil IV viii 16-17 (atra Inuidia).