41. VINVM. For wine as a diversion from sorrow, compare Tib I ii 1 'Adde merum uinoque nouos compesce dolores' (with Smith's note) and Tib I v 37 'saepe ego temptaui curas depellere uino'.
42. TACITVM TEMPVS. Similar phrases at AA II 670 'iam ueniet tacito curua senecta pede', Fast VI 771 'tacitis ... senescimus annis', Tr III vii 35-36 'senectus / quae strepitus passu non faciente uenit', Tr IV vi 17 'tacito pede lapsa uetustas' and Tr IV x 27 'tacito passu labentibus annis'.
43. QVOD CVPEREM. At EP I viii 39-62 Ovid, having detailed the urban pleasures he has lost, speaks of his agricultural pursuits in Italy, and laments that this diversion is not available to him at Tomis. The two passages add personal meaning to his description at Met XIV 623-34 of Pomona's gardening and his prescription at RA 169-98 of agriculture as a diversion from an unhappy love-affair.
43. SI PER FERA BELLA LICERET. Compare EP II vii 69-70 'tempus in agrorum cultu consumere dulce est: / non patitur uerti barbarus hostis humum' and EP III viii 6 'hostis ab agricola uix sinit illa [sc loca] fodi'. At Tr III x 57-66 Ovid gives a vivid description of what could happen to the farmers of Tomis in a raid.
44. NOVATA = 'restored to fertility through ploughing'. Ovid more commonly uses renouare, as at Tr V xii 23-24 'fertilis, assiduo si non renouetur aratro, / nil nisi cum spinis gramen habebit ager', Am I iii 9, Met I 110 & XV 125, Fast I 159, and Tr IV vi 13.
45. RESTANT is not strictly logical, but a similar attraction of number is confirmed by metre at Tr I ii 1 'Di maris et caeli—quid enim nisi uota supersunt?'; RESTAT (IP) must therefore be rejected.
Similar confusions occur in the manuscripts at Met XIV 396 'nec quicquam antiqui [Berolinensis Heinsii: antiquum codd plerique] Pico nisi nomina restant' and Tr IV x 85 'si tamen extinctis aliquid nisi nomina restant'.
47. TV, CVI BIBITVR FELICIVS AONIVS FONS. For the image of the poet drinking from Hippocrene see Prop III iii 5-6 'paruaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora, / unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit'. Both here and at II x 25 Propertius speaks of Hippocrene as the spring of epic poetry specifically.
47. FELICIVS. 'With happier result'; compare Ibis 559 'nec tibi, si quid amas, felicius Haemone [=quam Haemoni] cedat'.
47. AONIVS FONS. Platnauer (13) cites only four instances from the elegiac poets of hexameters ending in monosyllables: Prop II xxv 17 'amor, qui', Am II ix 47 'Cupido, est', the present passage, and EP IV ix 101 'quibus nos'. Ehwald and Levy compare Met V 573 'quae tibi causa fugae, cur sis, Arethusa, sacer fons'. The coincidence suggests that in both passages Ovid was recalling a line-ending from an earlier poet. Alternatively, Professor E. Fantham suggests to me that Ovid may here have deliberately created an awkward line-ending so as to mock himself and bear out his claim of waning inspiration.