Book iii

. 1. 542.]

[Footnote 506: In unequal numbers.--Ver. 37. Some have supposed, that allusion is made to the Tragedy of Medea, which Ovid had composed, and that it had been written in Elegiac measure. This, however, does not seem to be the meaning of the passage. Elegy justly asks Tragedy, why, if she has such a dislike to Elegiac verses, she has been talking in them? which she has done, from the 15th line to the 30th.]

[Footnote 507: Myself the patroness.--Ver. 44. She certainly does not give herself a very high character in giving herself the title of 'lena.']

[Footnote 508: The fastened door.--Ver. 50. He alludes, probably, to one of the Elegies which he rejected, when he cut down the five books to three.]

[Footnote 509: In a hose tunic.--Ver. 51. He may possibly allude to the Fifth Elegy of the First Book, as the words 'tunicâ velata recinctâ,' as applied to Corinna, are there found. But there he mentions midday as the time when Corinna came to him, whereas he seems here to allude to the middle of the night.]

[Footnote 510: Cut in the wood.--Ver. 53. He alludes to the custom of lovers carving inscriptions on the doors of their obdurate mistresses: this we learn from Plautus to have been done in Elegiac strains, and sometimes with charcoal. 'Implentur meæ fores clegiarum carbonibus.' 'My doors are filled with the coal-black marks of elegies.']

[Footnote 511: On her birthday.--Ver. 57. She is telling Ovid what she has put up with for his sake; and she reminds him how, when he sent to his mistress some complimentary lines on her birthday, she tore them up and threw them in the water. Horace mentions 'the flames, or the Adriatic sea,' as the end of verses that displeased. Athenseus,