154. eat 'may go in procession.' Ovid is thinking of the Roman mode of triumph.

156. capit 'admits of,' 'has room for.' Cf. Am. 3, 6, 86 nec capit admissas alveus altus aquas. A. A. 3, 365 parva tabella capit ternos utrimque lapillos.

157. fraternaque tela 'the weapons of your brother Cupid,' see 2, 40.

160. Mars ferus, &c. 'and may that fierce war be the limit of your losses,' i.e. may you lose nothing more than you have already lost in the Trojan war.

162. molliter ossa cubent: a common poetical wish, cf. Virg. Ecl. 10, 33 O mihi tum quam molliter ossa quiescant.

163. quae...habendam 'which gives itself up entirely into your hands,' cf. supr. 15.

165-6. non ego sum Phthias... Mycenis 'I am not sprung from Phthia (whence came Achilles), not from Mycenae,-the home of Agamemnon, nor have husband or father of mine been your enemy.' Phthia or Phthiotis was the south district of

Thessaly.

For steterunt see on 2, 141, and for the sentiment see Aen. 4, 425 Non ego cum Danais Trojanam exscindere gentem Juravi, etc.

167. hospita 'hostess' 2, 1. Cf. on 6, 52.

170. dantque negantque: cf. 100.

171.

carbasa: neut. plur. from carbasus fem., which is from a Sanskrit word meaning 'cotton.'

172. 'At present a mass of light seaweed hems in your stranded ship.' A quantity of seaweed ashore is a sign of rough weather at sea. Loers quotes Virgil 7, 590 Saxa fremunt laterique illisa refunditus alga. Hom. Il. 9, 4 ws d' aveμol dúo πόντον ὀρίνετον ἰχθυόεντα...... ἄμυδες δὲ τε κῦμα κελαινὸν κορθύεται πολλὸν δὲ παρὲξ ἅλα φύκος ἔχευαν.

173. serius ibis 'you shall go, but later in the season.' The emphasis is on ibis.

177-180. The sentiment is again founded on Virgil (Aen. 4, 433), Tempus inane peto, requiem spatiumque furori, Dum mea me victam doceat fortuna dolere....

siqua debebimus ultra 'and by the further favours I shall owe you if you remain.' Cf. 2, 110. [Palmer however explains

it as a reference to her loss of chastity supr. 5-6 and illustrates by the words of Lucretia, F. 2, 825 hoc quoque Tarquiniis debebimus? I prefer however the old explanation, nor is there any necessity to change the word to praebebimus as Burman did and Loers wished to do.]

179. usu 'by becoming habituated to the idea.' Am. 1, 8, 75 nullum patiendi colligat usum amor. Rem. 503 intrat amor mentes usu dediscitur usu.

dum is not 'until,' which would require the subjunctive, but 'while.'

I now see that Heinsius had suggested the same emendation as I have done in the critical note.

181. si minus 'otherwise' el dè μn. Roby § 1563-5.

183. imago 'appearance.'

184. Troicus ensis. Aeneas left his sword with Dido, and she had hung it up in her thalamus (Aen. 4, 495, 507); with this she killed herself on the funeral pile (Aen. 4, 646-665).

187-188. 'How conveniently does your present come in to complete my fate. It is a cheap way on your part to provide for my obsequies.' For v. 187 cp. the Greek epigram "EKTWP Αἴαντι ξίφος ὠπασεν, Εκτορι δ ̓ Αἴας ζωστῇρ'· ἀμφοτέρων ἡ χάρις els Oávarov. The point of v. 188 seems to be: 'truly this is a cheap way of providing for a wife's obsequies-you leave her a sword.'

sepulchra 'funeral rites' not 'tomb,' see 10, 124.

191. culpae 'my frailty with Aeneas,' cf. supr. 86. Cf. Aen. 4, 172 conjugium vocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam. Anna soror: Aen. 4, 9-53.

193-4. 'I will not venture to be inscribed on my tomb as the wife of Sychaeus, to whose memory I have not been faithful as I had intended to be.' Cf. supr. 97 sq.

carmen 'inscription,' cf. 5, 28.

195-6. Ovid elsewhere nearly repeats this couplet A. A. 3, 39 et famam pietatis habet, tamen hospes et ensem Praebuit et causam mortis, Elissa, tuae. And in F. 3, 549 the same recurs word for word. (Loers.)

VIII.

HERMIONE ORESTAE.

HERMIONE, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, growing up during the absence of her father at the Trojan war and her mother's flight with Paris, was betrothed by her grandfather Tyndareus to Orestes son of Agamemnon. But her father had meanwhile promised her to Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, and upon his return bestowed her on him, rejecting Orestes on account of his pollution by the murder of his mother (Eur. Andr. 977981). In Euripides' Andromache we find Hermione living unhappily with Pyrrhus, with just cause for jealousy on account of his connection with Andromache. This hint is enough for Ovid, as in the case of Briseis. He imagines her from the first to have been attached to Orestes and to be writing this letter expressing her misery, reproaching him for not coming to rescue her and claim his affianced bride, and declaring her determination to be faithful to him,

[Whether the legend had appeared definitely in the shape in which Ovid indicates it is not of much importance. For he treats the story quite generally, and makes Hermione speak as any woman detained by one she detested from one she loved might be supposed to speak. And there is no such appearance of a conscious following of any model as in the case of most of the previous Epistles.]

Ελένῃ δὲ θεοὶ γόνον οὐκέτ ̓ ἔφαινον ἐπείδη τὸ πρῶτον ἐγείνατο παῖδ ̓ ἐρατεινὴν Ερμιόνην, ἢ εἶδος ἔχε χρυσέης Αφροδίτης.

Odyss. 4, 12.

1. imagine patris 'after the likeness of his father,' cf. 12, 89.

2. contra iusque piumque against all justice human and divine.' Cf. A. A. 1, 200 stabit pro signis jusque piumque tuis.

5-6. quod potui ''twas all I could do,' cf. 10, 53 quae possum. 13, 41 qua potui.

non invita 'with consent on my part.'

7. Aeacide: see on 1, 35. vindice 'some one to claim my freedom,' a legal term, see infr. 16 and 12, 158.

8. tibi 'let me tell you': ethic dative.

9. surdior freto: see on 3, 133. clamantem nomen as I shrieked out the name of Orestes.'

10. inornatis 'disordered' 'disarranged,' more than 'not adorned.' Cf. Am. 3, 9. 52 inornatas dilaniata comas. So of Ceres in grief for her daughter, M. 5, 472 inornatos laniavit diva capillos. Yet in M. 1, 497 it is merely 'not arranged,' Spectat inornatos collo pendere capillos Et 'Quid si comantur?' ait: so also in M. 9, 3.

11-12. Alluding to the constant habit of selling the women of conquered towns as slaves or distributing them among the victorious chiefs. See 3, 69. barbara: see on 3, 2. nurus: 'brides,' used generally for 'women,' cf. ex P. 3, 8, 10 Palladis uti Arte Tomitanae non didicere nurus.

13-14. Achaia victrix, i. e. the victorious Greeks. Phrygias: Trojan, see 1, 54. 7, 68.

15. pia 'natural' as from a lawful husband.

16. inice manus. The injectio manus was the legal term for the arrest of a defendant in a suit, who had been condemned to a certain payment, and had not paid it within thirty days. The prosecutor could then claim the person of the defendant, who had no power of resistance except by appealing to a vindex (see sup. 7). Cf. Am. 2, 5, 30 Iniciam dominas in mea jura manus and 12, 158. Inicere not injicere is the correct form. The preposition remains long though j is omitted, though from Ovid downwards even this was sometimes neglected, e.g. ădici. Roby § 144.

18. lentus 'patient and inactive' 3, 22.

21-22. si socer...' If your father-in-law (Menelaus) had been a reclaimer of a stolen bride after your sort, my mother would have still been the wife of Paris, as she was before.'

si repetitor, sc. esset. 23. nec tu...pararis rates: cf. Aen. 2, 198 carinae. See on 13, 97.

For the omission of sum see index. 'But do not you get ready.' mille non anni domuere decem non mille

25-6. sic quoque eram 'even so,' i.e. if you must needs bring an army to do it. eram repetenda 'it was your duty to have rescued me.' toro 'wife.'

27-8. Atreus, son of Pelops, was father of Agememnon and Menelaus. Helen and Orestes are therefore first cousins.

frater 'cousin,' Loers quotes M. 13, 31 where Ajax calls Achilles frater as having the same grandfather Aeacus. See also 14, 115, 117, 130.

30. instant 'make a claim on.' officio: see on 6, 17.

31-32. me tibi. See introduction. neptis 'over a granddaughter.' nepos and neptis both refer to grandchildren or children of a brother or sister. The same root appears in åveyiós.

33. at 'But it will be said,' introducing supposed objection : often at enim, cp. the use of aλλà or åλλà vǹ Aía. Aeacidae, i.e. Pyrrhus great-grandson of Aeacus, as his father Achilles, the grandson of Aeacus, is elsewhere also called: cf. 1, 35. 3, 87.

inscius acti implies an answer to the objection. 'Yes he did so, but it was in ignorance of what had already been done,' i.e. that Tyndareus had already promised me to you.

34. 'Besides, as being the senior, my grandfather should have the greater weight.' Thus Lennep and Jahn both understand the line. Loers and Palmer refer quoque to prior, ‘Let my grandfather, who has the precedence in order of time (i.e. of betrothing me), also carry the preference.' I prefer the former explanation, first, because it is simpler; and, secondly, because it brings out more fully that inscius acti, though grammatically belonging to the subject of promiserat, is in sense a separate sentence, and an answer to the objection introduced by

at.

35. mea taeda 'my marriage,' cf. 4, 121 taeda jugalis. 6, 134 taeda pudica, and cf. on 6, 42.

36. mihi: the dative of the agent, 'by me.' Cf. 2, 115 and index.

6

37-40. The love my father had for his wife Helen will cause him to pardon mine for my husband.'

40. proderit 'will stand me in good stead.' mater amata 'the fact that my mother was loved by him.' exemplo 'precedent.'

41-2. Dardanius advena, Paris. partes egerat: see on 2, 78; the plural partes is always used in this sense.

43-48. And you are as good as Pyrrhus. If he boasts the deeds of his father Achilles, you can point to those of Agamemnon, who was the chief of all the chiefs, while Achilles was only a subordinate. You can also claim Pelops as a grandsire