The Last Poems of Ovid

by Ovid

I have also collated the thirteenth-century Parisinus lat. 7993, Heinsius' codex Regius. At ix 46 P offers the correct cernet for credet; cernet is also the reading of M after correction by a later hand and of the thirteenth-century Gothanus membr. II 121. At vi 7 P alone of collated manuscripts agrees with C in reading praestat for the correct perstat. P agrees with L in reading niuibus for the other manuscripts' nubibus at v 5, adeptum for ademptum at vi 49, signare for signate at xv 11, and in the orthography puplicus for publicus at ix 48, ix 102, xiii 5, and xiv 16. The manuscript has many corruptions: a few examples are i 30 igne for imbre, ii 18 supremo for suppresso, iv 6 pace for parte, vi 34 uirtus for uirus, vii 15 piacula for pericula, ix 42 praeterea for praetextam, x 63 in harena for marina, xiv 39 conuiuia for conuicia, and xvi 24 sacri for scripti. However, P has no unique variants with any probability of correctness. To have given a full report of P would have involved a considerable expansion of an already long apparatus, and I have cited the manuscript only occasionally, where a reading is only weakly attested by the other manuscripts.

Titles

MF and B²H²I²T² usually supply titles for the poems. As will be seen from the apparatus, there is considerable variation among the titles, and there is no reason to suppose that they form an authentic part of the transmitted text.

The manuscript authority for the text of Ex Ponto IV

By and large the manuscripts of the fourth book of the Ex Ponto offer a remarkably uniform text of the poems, and one which, considering the late date of the manuscripts, is in surprisingly good condition. I believe that all the manuscripts, with the exception of G, are descended from a single archetype. B and C are the best witnesses to the text of the archetype, although the other, more heavily contaminated and interpolated manuscripts are indispensable, since they correct the peculiar errors of B and C.

The present edition

The apparatus of this edition is intended to be a full report of BCMFHILT and of the fragmentary G; some reports are also given of P. It includes corrections by original and by later hands.

When no manuscripts are specified for the lemma in an entry, the lemma is the reading for those manuscripts not otherwise specified. For instance, the entry

deductum carmen] carmen deductum M

indicates that deductum carmen is the reading of BCFHILT, while carmen deductum is the reading of M.