=40. QVO ... PRINCIPE.= Professor R. J. Tarrant points out that Augustus must here be meant, since it appears from 20 that Ovid and Tuticanus were contemporaries: Tuticanus must by the time of the poem's writing have been in later middle age, rather late to be prospering only under Tiberius. T. P. Wiseman (268) has suggested that Ovid's Tuticanus might be the son of a Tuticanus Callus known to have been senator before 48 BC. =41-42. EFFICE ... NE SPERATA MEAM DESERAT AVRA RATEM.= 'See to it that the breeze I hope for does not fail to come to my ship'. _Deserere_ generally refers to something failing one that was originally operative: compare Cic _Att_ VII vii 7 'nisi me lucerna desereret' ('if the lamp were not going out'--Shackleton Bailey), Plautus _Mer_ 123 'genua hunc cursorem deserunt' and the other passages cited at _OLD desero_ 2b. But _sperata_ indicates that the breeze cannot yet be present; other instances of the same metaphor at viii 27-28 'quamlibet exigua si nos ea _iuuerit_ aura, / obruta de mediis cumba resurget aquis', ix 73 'et si quae _dabit_ aura sinum, laxate rudentes', and _Tr_ IV v 19-20 'utque facis, remis ad opem luctare ferendam, / _dum ueniat_ placido mollior aura deo', =43. QVID MANDEM QVAERIS.= Similar wording at _EP_ III i 33-34 (to his wife) '_quid facias quaeris?_ quaeras hoc scilicet ipsa [_Riese_: ipsum _codd_]: / inuenies, uere si reperire uoles'. Ovid's pretense of not knowing what to tell Tuticanus to do was an ingenious solution to his friends' complaint that he was constantly repeating the same instructions to them (_EP_ III vii 1-6). Professor R. J. Tarrant points out the balance with the poem's start, where Ovid pretends not to know how to address Tuticanus. =43. PEREAM NISI DICERE VIX EST.= Similar doubt expressed at _Tr_ IV iii 31-32 'quid tamen ipse precer dubito, nec dicere possum / affectum quem te mentis habere uelim'. _Peream nisi_, which Ovid plays on in the next line, is colloquial and foreign to poetic diction: instances at _OLD pereo_ 3b. =44. SI MODO QVI PERIIT ILLE PERIRE POTEST.= Similar phrasing at _Tr_ I iv 27-28 'uos animam saeuae fessam subducite morti, / _si modo qui periit non periisse potest_'. =45. NEC QVID NOLIMVE VELIMVE.= Compare _Met_ XI 492-93 '_nec_ se ... fatetur / scire ratis [_codd_: satis _fort scribendum_] rector ... _quid iubeatue uetetue_' and _Tr_ I ii 31-32 'rector in incerto est _nec quid fugiatue petatue_ / inuenit'. =46. NEC SATIS VTILITAS EST MIHI NOTA MEA.= 'And I am at a loss to know what is to my advantage'. _Satis_ strengthens the sentence: compare Ter _Hec_ 877 'ego istuc sati' scio', 'I know that very well'. For _utilitas_, see at ix 48 _publica ... utilitas_ (p 300). =48. SENSVS= here means 'judgement' or 'good sense', as at Prop II xii 3 'is primum uidit sine _sensu_ uiuere amantes' and Val Max I vi ext 1 'si quod uestigium in uecordi pectore _sensus_ fuisset'. Elsewhere in Ovid _sensus_ carries the meaning 'awareness, consciousness'.