24. DEQVE PARVM NOTO CONSVLET OFFICIO. 'Will be asking advice about his unfamiliar office'. It still being winter, Pompeius would not have been very long in office, and so would not yet have been very familiar with his duties. Burman objected to this notion ('nec Ovidium tam adulandi imperitum fuisse puto, ut ignorantiam aut seruitutem tam imprudenter obiiceret Pompeio') and conjectured DEQVE PATRVM TOTO CONSVLET OFFICIO, that is, 'consulet Caesares, quale uelint esse officium totius senatus'. But the conjecture is unattractive, and the problem not as great as Burman thought: both Ovid and Pompeius would wish to emphasize the importance of the Caesars.
25. AB HIS VACVVM. A prose usage, paralleled in Ovid by EP I i 79 alone 'inque locum Scythico uacuum mutabor ab arcu'. Elsewhere Ovid has nine instances of uacuus with the simple ablative and two instances of uacuus with the genitive, while Virgil never has uacuus with a complement. ET HIS VACVVM, given by B and C, is perhaps an attempt to restore normal poetic idiom.
26. A MAGNIS ... DEIS. 'After the great gods'—Augustus and Tiberius. Dio says that it was remarked after Augustus' death that both of the consuls for the year were related to the emperor (LVI 29 5); it is strange that Ovid nowhere mentions Pompeius' link with the imperial family.
For the sense of ab, compare for example Ecl V 48-49 'nec calamis solum aequiperas, sed uoce magistrum: / fortunate puer, tu nunc eris alter ab illo' and Statius Theb IV 842.
27. CVM TAMEN ... REQVIEVERIT. After it has arrived in Rome, the poem should not vex Pompeius by approaching him when he is busy. At Tr I i 93-96 Ovid in the same way advises his book when it should approach Augustus, and at EP III i 135-40 gives similar directions to his wife. Compare as well Met IX 572-73 (a messenger carries Byblis' declaration of love to her brother) 'apta minister / tempora nactus adit traditque fatentia [H. A. Koch: latentia codd] uerba' and Met IX 610-12 (Byblis' explanation of the failure of her suit) 'forsitan et missi sit quaedam culpa ministri: / non adiit apte, nec legit idonea, credo, / tempora, nec petiit horam animumque uacantem'.
27. A TVRBA RERVM. 'De ces multiples affaires' (André). Heinsius conjectured CVRA, citing ix 71 (addressed to Graecinus as consul) 'cum tamen a rerum cura propiore uacabit'. The conjecture is elegant enough, but the manuscript reading seems sufficiently supported by Her II 75-76 (Phyllis to Demophoon) 'de tanta rerum turba factisque parentis / sedit in ingenio Cressa relicta tuo' and EP III i 144 'per rerum turbam tu quoque oportet eas'; compare as well Columella XI 2 25.
28. MANSVETAS ... MANVS. The same phrase in the same position at Prop III xvi 9-10 'peccaram semel, et totum sum pulsus in annum: / in me mansuetas non habet illa manus'. Mansuetus is foreign to poetic vocabulary, not being found in Virgil or Horace, and only three times in Propertius (I ix 12, I xvii 28, III xvi 10): in Ovid it occurs elsewhere only at Tr III vi 23 'numinis ut laesi fiat mansuetior ira' and Ibis 26.
28. PORRIGET ILLE MANVS. Manus = manum; for the latter, compare Her XVIII 15-16 'protinus haec scribens "felix i littera" dixi, / "iam tibi formosam porriget illa manum"'. Alternatively, the phrase could be taken to indicate Pompeius' gesture of welcoming to a suppliant: at Met III 458 Narcissus, saying how he wished to embrace his reflection, says 'cumque ego porrexi tibi bracchia, porrigis ultro'.
31-32. VIVIT ADHVC VITAMQVE TIBI DEBERE FATETVR, / QVAM PRIVS A MITI CAESARE MVNVS HABET. See on i 2 debitor ... uitae, and compare Tr V ix 11-14 'Caesaris est primum munus, quod ducimus auras; / gratia post magnos est tibi habenda deos. / ille dedit uitam; tu quam dedit ille tueris, / et facis accepto munere posse frui': the similarity of phrasing makes it all but certain that the poem was addressed to Pompeius.
33. MEMORI ... ORE. The phrase belongs to high poetic diction: compare Met VI 508 'absentes pro se memori rogat ore salutent', Met X 204 (Apollo to the dead Hyacinthus) 'semper eris mecum memorique haerebis in ore', and AA III 700 'auditos memori detulit ore sonos'.