11. VELLEM CVM. B offers CVM VELLEM, which I take to be a simple corruption to prose word-order. It is however the reading printed by Owen; and it could be argued that cum uellem is the correct reading, and was altered to uellem cum for metrical reasons. Lucretius and Catullus were fond of placing a spondaic word in the fourth foot of the hexameter; in the Augustan age practice altered, and the pattern was generally avoided; compare Aen I 1 'Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris'. It was, however, permitted occasionally, especially when the previous foot ended in a long monosyllable (Platnauer 20-22). Scribes quite often alter such lines so as to remove the spondaic word from coinciding with the fourth foot; an instance of this can be seen at line 7 'non potuit mea mens quin esset grata teneri', where H offers the scribal alteration esset quin. For a full discussion see Housman 269.
13. MENDIS. This is probably a form of mendum rather than of menda; compare Cic II Ver II 104 'quid fuit istic antea scriptum? quod mendum ista litura correxit?' and Att XIII xxiii 2 ' tantum librariorum menda tolluntur'. I have found no earlier instance in verse of mendum meaning 'error' in this sense; Ovid in his poems of exile uses the terms of his craft more readily than any of his predecessors.
14. VIX INVITA FACTA LITVRA MANV EST. Vix goes with facta; André seems to take it with inuita ('ma main l'effaçait presque à regret').
15. VIDERIT is a complete sentence meaning 'let him look to himself'. Compare the following examples: 'nona terebatur miserae uia; "uiderit [sc Demophoon]" inquit / et spectat zonam pallida facta suam' (RA 601-2), '"uiderit! insanos" inquit "fateamur amores"' (Met IX 519), 'cur tamen est mihi cura tui tot iam ante peremptis? / uiderit! intereat, quoniam tot caede procorum / admonitus non est' (Met X 623-25), 'uiderit! audentes forsque deusque iuuat' (Fast II 782), 'uideris! [cod Ambrosianus G 37 sup (saec xiv), sicut coni Heinsius: uiderit codd plerique] audebo tibi me scripsisse fateri' (EP I ii 9). The idiom is found with an expressed subject at AA II 371 'uiderit Atrides: Helenen ego crimine soluo' and AA III 671-72 'uiderit utilitas: ego coepta fideliter edam: / Lemniasin gladios in mea fata dabo'. It is clearly derived from the use of uiderit 'look after, take care of' with an expressed object, as at Her XII 209-11 'quo feret ira sequar! facti fortasse pigebit— / et piget infido consuluisse uiro. / uiderit ista deus qui nunc mea pectora uersat!'. Although uiderit in these passages clearly has a jussive sense, it is probably future perfect in origin, since uidero 'I shall look after' is quite frequent in Terence and Cicero: see Martin on Ter Ad 437 'de istoc ipse uiderit' and OLD uideo 18b.
15. AD SVMMAM means 'in short' or 'to sum up', and is used to introduce a recapitulation of what has just been expressed or concluded. The line should therefore be taken as the end of a debate which Ovid has had with himself. For the idiom, Ehwald (KB 45) cites Cic Att VII vii 7, XIV i 1, Hor Ep I i 106 'ad summam, sapiens uno minor est Ioue, Petronius Sat 37 5 'ad summam, mero meridie si dixerit illi tenebras esse, credet', 37 10, 57 3 & 9, 58 8 (in all these passages the narrator's neighbour at table is the speaker) and 71 1 (Trimalchio speaking). Professor R. J. Tarrant cites Sen Apoc 11 3 'ad summam, tria uerba cito dicat et seruum me ducat'.
AD SVMMVM is the reading of L and T and is printed by Burman (who punctuates uiderit ad summum) and Merkel (ad summum dixi). OLD summus 8b gives only one instance of ad summum, where it means 'at most' (Scribonius Largus 122). The phrase does not seem appropriate to the present context.
15. IPSE (FTP) is so much better in sense ('although he may object') than the ILLE of most manuscripts that I have followed all previous editors in accepting it.
16. HANC. This, the reading of H and I (perhaps recovered by conjecture), must be preferred to HA (AH, A), the reading of the other manuscripts, since without it licet ipse queratur would have to be linked to uiderit, which seems awkward. The corruption of hāc to ha is not difficult, especially in view of the following pudet; compare Met IX 531 'pudet, a pudet edere nomen'.
17. SI QVID EA EST. 'If it really exists'. The affirmation would be 'est aliquid Lethe'; compare Prop IV vii 1 'Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit'.
17. HEBETANTEM PECTORA. I have found no other instance in Ovid of this transferred sense of hebetare, but compare Aen II 604-6 'omnem quae nunc obducta tuenti / mortalis hebetat uisus tibi ... nubem eripiam' and Aen VI 731-32. The transferred sense is found at Celsus II i 11 'Auster aures hebetat ... omnis calor ... mentem hebetat'; compare as well Pliny NH XVIII 118 '[faba ...] hebetare sensus existimata' and Suet Cl 2 'animo simul et corpore hebetato'.