=29-30. ET PVDET ET METVO SEMPERQVE EADEMQVE PRECARI / NE SVBEANT ANIMO TAEDIA IVSTA TVO.= Compare _EP_ III vii entire (an apology to his friends for the monotony of his verse), and especially the opening lines: 'Verba mihi desunt eadem tam saepe roganti, / iamque pudet uanas fine carere preces. / taedia consimili fieri de carmine uobis, / quidque petam cunctos edidicisse reor'. =30. SVBEANT ANIMO.= _Subire animo_ occurs also at _Tr_ I v 13. Ovid uses _subire_ with the dative several times in the poetry of exile (_Tr_ I vii 9, II 147, III iii 14 & V vii 58; _EP_ I ix 11, II x 43 & IV iv 47), but not beforehand; earlier he has the accusative (_Met_ XII 472) or the simple verb (_Met_ XV 307). The dative construction is taken up by the author of the later _Heroides_ (XVI 99, XVIII 62). =31. RES IMMODERATA CVPIDO EST.= _Cupido_ similarly called _immoderata_ at Apuleius _Plat_ II 21; elsewhere qualified as _immodica_ (Livy VI 35 6) and _immensa_ (_Aen_ VI 823, Tac _Ann_ XII 7). =33. DELABOR.= Cicero uses the word for moving from one subject to another (_OLD delabor_ 5b); here the metaphorical sense 'fall' is still active. =34. IPSA LOCVM PER SE LITTERA NOSTRA ROGAT.= This line as it stands is clearly corrupt. I do not understand Wheeler's 'my very letters of their own accord seek the opportunity'; André's 'c'est la lettre qui, d'elle-meme, demande le sujet' seems equally difficult, although _locus_ can certainly have the meaning 'subject, topic of discussion' (_OLD_ _locus_ 24b). The only parallel I have found is _Fast_ II 861 'iure uenis, Gradiue: _locum tua tempora poscunt_'. If _littera_ is retained in the present passage, this parallel is of little assistance, since _locum_ there means 'a place within a larger work', and Ovid's poetry cannot ask for a _locus_ in that sense. Taking the passage from the _Fasti_ as a parallel, I once thought that Ovid wrote _ipsa locum pro se tristia nostra rogant_ (or _petunt_); for the noun _triste_ compare _Fast_ VI 463 'scilicet interdum miscentur _tristia_ laetis', _Ecl_ III 80-81 '_triste_ lupus stabulis, maturis frugibus imbres, / arboribus uenti, nobis Amaryllidis irae', and Hor _Carm_ I xvi 25-26 'nunc ego mitibus / mutare quaero _tristia_'. I now consider this unlikely, since the personal adjective _nostra_ with _tristia_ seems unidiomatic; but I still believe that _littera_ is the key to the corruption. Professor R. J. Tarrant has tentatively suggested something like _inque locum ... redit_, but questions whether _in locum_, even just after _eodem_, can have the sense _in eundem locum_. Professor Tarrant also points out to me the possible relevance of _locus_ in the sense _locus communis_ (compare Sen _Suas_ I 9 'dixit ... _locum_ de uarietate fortunae'); Ovid might be saying that his poetry had made rather frequent use of the _locus de exilio_. In this case, _rogat_ would require emendation.