=15. PERVENIENS= is my correction for the manuscripts' _peruenit_. The perfect tense of _peruenit_ conflicts with the following _permeat_ and _abit_. It might be argued that the perfect is acceptable, since Ovid is speaking of a past event; but he would not have used the perfect of an action which took place over a considerable period of time. For _perueniens ... permeat_ referring to a past event, compare Ovid's use of the present _uenit_ in the very similar passage _EP_ III iv 59-60 (quoted at the end of the last note). The postponement of _permeat_ to the following line made the corruption of _dum ... perueniens_ to _dum ... peruenit_ simple enough. =17. TEMPORIS OFFICIVM EST SOLACIA DICERE CERTI.= Here Ovid says that words of comfort should not be offered too late; at _RA_ 127-30 he says they should not be offered too early: 'quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati / flere uetet? non hoc illa monenda loco est. / cum dederit lacrimas animumque impleuerit aegrum, / ille dolor uerbis emoderandus erit'. For the same concern with time as in the present passage and medical imagery similar to that in 19-20, see _Cons Marc_ 1 8 and _Cons Hel_ 1 2 'dolori tuo, dum recens saeuiret, sciebam occurrendum non esse, ne illum ipsa solacia irritarent et accenderent; nam in morbis quoque nihil est perniciosius quam immatura medicina. expectabam itaque, dum ipse uires suas frangeret et ad sustinenda remedia mora mitigatus tangi se ac tractari pateretur'. See as well the passages cited at Kassel 52-53: from modern literature he quotes Sterne _Tristram Shandy_ III 29 'Before an affliction is _digested_ consolation ever comes too soon;--and after it is digested--it comes too late: so that you see ... there is but a mark between those two, as fine almost as a hair, for a comforter to take aim at'. =18. DVM DOLOR IN CVRSV EST.= Compare _RA_ 119 _'dum furor in cursu est_, currenti cede furori' and _Met_ XIII 508-10 (Hecuba speaking) '_in cursuque meus dolor est_: modo maxima rerum ... nunc trahor exul, inops, tumulis auulsa meorum'. =18. AEGER.= The substantive _aeger_ is quite common in both verse and prose, but always with the meaning 'physically ill'; even when used, as here, with a transferred meaning, the sense of metaphor is still present. Compare _RA_ 313-14 'curabar propriis aeger Podalirius herbis, / et, fateor, medicus turpiter _aeger_ eram', _EP_ I iii 17 'non est in medico semper releuetur ut _aeger_', and _EP_ III iv 7-8 'firma ualent per se, nullumque Machaona quaerunt; / ad medicam dubius confugit _aeger_ opem'.