This edition is intended to serve as a guide to the poems for intermediate and advanced students of Latin poetry. However, I have deliberately made it as straightforward as possible, and my hope is that even a beginning student of Latin poetry embarking on the study of these poems will find the commentary helpful. This edition is also directed towards present and future Latin textual critics. My expectation when starting my research for this edition was that I would be presenting a text that differed little from that to be found in current editions. However, I made two discoveries during my research into the text. The first discovery was that many important textual corrections generally accepted in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had been suppressed by editors in the course of the nineteenth century. I have restored many of these readings to the text, and others will be found in the textual apparatus. The second discovery was that there was a surprisingly large number of passages which appeared to be corrupt and for which it was possible to suggest corrections. Given the long history of Latin textual criticism, and Ovid's central position in Roman literary history, it was surprising to find that so much remained to be done. Yet such was the case. Nothing is more certain than that this book of poems as well as the three earlier books of the _Ex Ponto_ represent an outstanding opportunity for future editors and commentators to contribute to the progress of Latin scholarship. History of this edition I originally prepared this edition and commentary during my time as a graduate student at the University of Toronto. Upon its completion (and my graduation) in 1985, a copy was deposited at the National Library of Canada. Had I followed a university teaching career after graduation, I would undoubtedly have taken the necessary steps to publish the edition, if only in pursuit of academic promotion. But I instead chose a career in the software industry, which both removed the external incentive to publish the edition, and denied me the time that I would have needed to prepare it for publication. However, I wished to ensure that future editors and commentators were aware of the edition and would be able to make use of it. I therefore decided to publish two short articles drawn from the edition. These articles were intended to make generally available two textual conjectures which I considered likely to be correct. But the articles were also intended to make future editors aware that I had worked on the text of Ovid, so that they would seek out my unpublished edition.