4. ACCEDET MERITIS HAEC QVOQVE SVMMA TVIS. 'This sum will be added to the favours you have done me'. Professor J. N. Grant points out to me the technical terms of finance used in the passage: debitor ... accedet ... summa. I once thought that summa was equivalent in sense to cumulus ('addition') at EP II v 35-36 'hoc tibi facturo, uel si non ipse rogarem, / accedat cumulus gratia nostra leuis', but have found no parallel for this sense of summa.
5. TRAHIS VVLTVS. 'Frown'—compare iii 7 'contraxit uultum Fortuna', viii 13-14 'ei mihi, si lectis uultum tu uersibus istis / ducis', Am II ii 33 'bene uir traxit uultum rugasque coegit', and Met II 774 'ingemuit uultumque una ac [Housman: ima ad codd] suspiria duxit'.
5-6. EQVIDEM PECCASSE FATEBOR, / DELICTI TAMEN EST CAVSA PROBANDA MEI. 'Yes, I shall certainly confess my guilt, but the reason for my offence is one that necessarily wins approval'. Ovid uses the correct legal terminology; compare Cic Mur 62 'fatetur aliquis se peccasse et sui [Halm: cui uel eius codd] delicti ueniam petit'. Other instances in Ovid of peccasse fateri at hexameter-ends are Am III xiv 37, Met III 718, VII 748 & XI 134, and EP II iii 33.
For Ovid's close acquaintance with the law see at xv 12 ([pp 434-35]).
7. NON POTVIT MEA MENS. Compare Tr V ix 25-26 'nunc quoque se, quamuis est iussa quiescere, quin te / nominet inuitum, uix mea Musa tenet'.
8. OFFICIO. Used again of Ovid's writing of verse-epistles at Tr V ix 33-34 'ne tamen officio memoris laedaris amici, / parebo iussis—parce timere—tuis'.
8. OFFICIO ... PIO. The words similarly combined at Tr III iii 84 and Tr V vi 4 'officiique pium ... onus'. The adjective ('loyal') is a favourite term of commendation in the poems of exile, applied to fides (Tr V xiv 20, EP III ii 98), coupled with memor (Tr IV v 18, V iv 43), or used to characterize the inseparable friends of myth such as Theseus and Pirithous (Tr I ix 31) or Castor and Pollux (Tr IV v 30).
9. IN. B's AB is possibly correct, ab istis meaning 'to judge by them, on the basis of their evidence'. Professor R. J. Tarrant cites Prop III iii 38 'ut reor a facie, Calliopea fuit'.
11. ALII VELLEM CVM SCRIBERE. The line confirms that Ovid was not at liberty to name Sextus Pompeius in his poems even after he had begun the composition of the first three books of the Ex Ponto.
Ovid similarly indicates his frustrated desire to name his correspondent at Tr IV v 10 'excidit heu nomen quam mihi paene tuum' and at EP III vi 1-2 'Naso suo (posuit nomen quam paene!) sodali / mittit ... hoc breue carmen'.