It is difficult to say whether the scribes were more prone to influence by the subjunctive normal in classical Latin prose, or by the indicative of the Romance languages and of ecclesiastical Latin. I print the subjunctive in view of Ovid's usual practice, and in particular because of _EP_ I ii 5 'forsitan haec a quo _mittatur_ epistula quaeras' and _EP_ III v 1 'Quam legis unde tibi _mittatur_ epistula quaeris?'. But Professor R. J. Tarrant notes that the need for a dependent subjunctive would be more strongly felt with _quaerere_ in these two passages than with the _index_ of the present passage. Not all poets were as strict as Ovid in using the subjunctive in indirect questions. Propertius at III v 26-46 has the following verbs in a series of indirect questions: _temperet_, _uenit_, _deficit_, _redit_, _superant_, _captet_, _sit uentura_, _bibit_, _tremuere_, _luxerit_ (from _lugere_), _coit_, _exeat_, _eat_, _sint_ (uar _sunt_), _furit_, _custodit_, _descendit_, _potest_. =3. COLOR HIC.= 'The style of this opening'. Ovid is presumably referring to its playful tone. Compare _Tr_ I i 61 (to his poem) 'ut titulo careas, ipso noscere _colore_', at which Luck cites Martial XII ii 17-18 'quid titulum poscis? uersus duo tresue legantur, / clamabunt omnes te, liber, esse meum'. _Color_ is not found in precisely this sense until Horace. For a discussion of its development, see Brink at Hor _AP_ 86 _operumque colores_. =4. STRVCTVRA.= This passage is the first instance cited by _OLD_ _structura_ 1b of _structura_ in this transferred sense, which becomes common in Silver prose, particularly Quintilian (I x 23, VIII vi 67, IX iv 45). Lewis and Short point out that Cicero uses the word in similar contexts only as a simile: compare _Brut_ 33 'ante hunc [_sc_ Isocratem] enim uerborum _quasi structura_ et quaedam ad numerum conclusio nulla erat', _Or_ 149 '_quasi structura quaedam_', and _Opt Gen_ 5 'et uerborum est _structura quaedam'_. There are two instances in Ovid of _struere_ with a similar meaning, both from the _Ex Ponto_. One is from line 20 of this poem ('_structa_ ... uerba'), while the other is at II v 19 '_structos_ inter fera proelia uersus'. =5. MIRIFICA= is a colloquialism. Common in the letters of Cicero, the word (according to _TLL_ VIII 1060 52) is not found in Livy, Vitruvius, Celsus, Curtius, or Tacitus. The only poets apart from Terence and Ovid cited as using the word are Accius, Ausonius, and the author of the _Ciris_ (although the passage where the word occurs, 12-13, is corrupt); see also Catullus LIII 2, LXXI 4, and LXXXIV 3. For a discussion of _mirificus_, see Axelson 61, and of the similarly colloquial _mirifice_ Hofmann 78.