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Ovidiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

This is the way to say in Latin ‘you see my face, though you cannot see the rest of me’. So her. X 53 ‘tua, quae possum, pro te uestigia tango’, 135 ‘non oculis sed, qua potes, aspice mente’, art. III 633 ‘corpora si nequeunt, quae possunt, nomina tangunt’, trist. IV 2 57 ‘haec ego summotus, qua possum,. mente uidebo’, 3 17 sq. ‘esse tui memorem… quodque potest, secum nomen habere tuum’, 10 112 ‘tristia, quo possum, carmine fata leuo’, ex Pont. IV 4 45 ‘absentem, qua possum, mente uidebo’.1 But that is not what Ovid seeks to say: he means ‘you see my face in such fashion as you can’, not in the flesh but in counterfeit presentment; and Latin expresses this meaning otherwise. As Ovid here speaks of his own likeness on a ring, so in ex Pont. II 8 55 he speaks of the likenesses of Augustus Tiberius and Liuia on a medal; and he says ‘nos quoque uestra iuuat quod, qua licet, ora uidemus’. Arellius Fuscus in Sen. suas. 4 I puts the same thought in the same way, ‘cur non ab infantia rerum naturam deosque, qua licet, uisimus, cum pateant nobis sidera et interesse numinibus liceat ?’ In her. XIII 41 sq. ‘qua possum, squalore tuos imitata labores dicar’ many MSS have changed the adverb into quo agreeing with the substantive hard by; and similarly here the ‘quae potes’ of the text has come from ‘qua potes’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , July 1916 , pp. 130 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1916

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References

page 130 note 1 Sometimes solus is added, met. I 731 ‘quos potuit solos, tollens ad sidera uullus’, ex Pont. II 10 47 ‘te tamen intueor quo solo pectore possum’.

page 133 note 1 refertque most MSS, but the correction is recognised as certain.

page 136 note 1 Ellis, in Hermath. vol. VII pp. 191–3Google Scholar absurdly confuses these Σιντοl with the Σινδοι dwelling in Asia on the eastern shore of the Euxine. There were other Σlνδοι on the Hister, but apparently far inland, half way between the Euxine and the Adriatic, schol. Apoll. Rhod. IV 321 καγα δε το τον Σινδιον πεδιον σΚιξεται ο ποταμος, και το μεν αντονμα ρενμα εις τον ‘Αοριαν, το δε ε ις τον Εοζεινον ποντον εισβαλλει; and I only mention them in order to bring together a pair of απαζειρημενα which ought to merge in one: Apoll. Rhod. IV 320–2 οοτ’ θρηιζιν μιγαοες Σκνθαι, ονδε Σιγυννοι, ουτ' ουν Γραυκενιοουθ' οι περι Λαυριον ηδη Σινδοι ερημαιον πεδιον ηεγα ναιεταοντες and Steph. Byz. Τραυκενιοι εθνος περι τον ποντον τον Ευζειον, ομορον Σινδοις.

page 143 note 1 Since tamen is a word so often misunderstood, I had better say that the construction is ‘si sciat, tamen sinat’, ‘would permit, even if he knew’.

page 145 note 1 Mr Owen, who has Merkel's punctuation, says ‘sed cf. I 3 2’. In another editor one would suppose this to be a slip of the pen for trist. I 5 2, which is less obviously irrelevant; but Mr Owen probably means what he has written, ex Pont. I 3 2, ‘qui miser est, ulli si suus esse potest’, for he has similar note s elsewhere: at I 4 46 he refers to 5 28, at I 10 22 to Ib. 150 (152), at III 5 29 to 50, at IV 6 15 to Liu. XXII 4 4, and at trist. IV 1 10 to Verg. georg. IV 313.

page 147 note 1 1 So also amor. I l l 4 32 ‘siqua potest’, art. III 466 ‘siqua negat’, rem. 330 ‘sigua probaest’. There are in Ovid only two pentameters where a pair of monosyllables stands in this position, rem. 306 ‘non dat habet’ and ex Pont. I 1 14 ‘non sit amor’; to which the spurious epistles add two more, her. XVIII 170 ‘qua. sit iter’ and XX 62 ‘par sit opus’.