Ovid tells us everything in the first poem. Love poetry requires a lover. Experience and involvement are essential ingredients of this poetry. The subjective nature of elegy is critical.
Cupid poises his bow: the picture is breath-catchingly drawn. After the crisp unfolding of the earlier part of the poem, these lines hang in suspense. We feel the suspended moments as the bow bends and the string tightens, as the arm steadies, takes aim and lets fly:
questus eram, pharetra cum protinus ille soluta
legit in exitium spicula facta meum
lunavitque genu sinuosum fortiter arcum
‘quodque canas, vates, accipe’ dixit ‘opus.’
(I finished my complaint. Immediately, he opened his quiver, chose a dart made for my destruction and flexed the sinuous bow with strength; ‘a task to sing, poet,’ he said, ‘take this.’)
There is also the careful selection of the correct arrow and Cupid's statement, its effortful staccato imitating his physical tensing and swift release.