HKB
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.
=47-50.= Ovid returns to the subject of his poem's opening, Severus' poetry.
=48. VTILITER ... CEDIT.= Similar phrasing at EP II vii 19 '[iam liquet ...] obseruare deos ne quid mihi cedat amice'.
=49. MERITO.= 'With justification'; Severus' previous service to the Muses has brought him fame and not, as in Ovid's case, disaster.
=50. HVC ALIQVOD CVRAE MITTE RECENTIS OPVS.= A similar request at EP III v 29-30 (to Cotta Maximus) 'quod licet, ut uidear tecum magis esse, legenda [Burman: legendo uel loquendo codd] / saepe precor studii pignora mitte tui'.
=50. CVRAE= = 'poetic toil', as at Tr II 11-12 'hoc pretium curae [fragmentum Treuirense (saec x): uitae codd plerique] uigilatorumque laborum / cepimus', EP I v 61 'cur ego sollicita poliam mea carmina cura?', and EP III ix 29. At xvi 39 and Tr II 1 the word means 'product of poetic toil'.
III. To An Unfaithful Friend
By the time Ovid wrote this poem, the letter of reproach was a genre familiar to him: each book of the Tristia (with the obvious exception of II) contains such a poem (I viii; III xi; IV ix; V viii), and in the Ibis Ovid had, by the extended treatment of a number of standard topics within the subject, created a poem of over six hundred lines.
Ovid begins the poem by stating that he has heard about his friend's faithlessness; he asks what possible excuse there might be for this behaviour (1-28). He then warns his friend that Fortune is changeable, and gives four examples of famous men who fell from prosperity (29-48). He ends the poem by stating once again that Fortune is undependable, and gives his own catastrophe as an instance; his friend should remember this, and moderate his behaviour accordingly (49-58).