Gronovius seems to have realized that difficulties remained, and proposed to read NOVIT in 42 and make 41-42 a relative clause dependent on _tellus_ in 38, so that the concluding lines of the poem would mean 'mea tellus, Sulmo, Roma, Italia, me tuum esse audiet. sed audiet idem etiam, quaecumque sub alia quauis caeli parte terra posita est, et te, meum seruatorem, meque, libra et aere tuum, minus nouit'. Once again, _minus_ seems to weaken the poem fatally. (ii) Ehwald (_KB_ 71) followed Gronovius' second explanation, retaining the manuscripts' _norit_, and glossing 'tellus, quae sub ullo caelo posita est et te, meae salutis seruatorem, meque, libra et aere tuum, minus norit'. (iii) Némethy followed Gronovius' first explanation, adding as an illustration _AA_ I 643-44 'ludite, si sapitis, solas impune puellas: / hac _minus_ [_Burman_: magis _codd_] est una fraude tuenda [_Naugerius ex codd suis_: pudenda _codd_] fides'. The citation does not strengthen the case for _minus_. (iv) André wrote '_Minus_ me paraît avoir le sens de _citra_ "sans aller jusqu'à", i.e. "sans même avoir recours à la mancipation": "tu es mon maître de ma propre volonté, et non, comme tu l'es de tes autres propriétés, par achat."' But the meaning seems to weaken the force of the poem. I have with reluctance adopted _libra ... et aere magis_, taking it in the sense _magis quam libra et aere_ ('I am yours even more than I would be if I had been acquired through _mancipatio_'). The closest parallel I have found for this compressed use of the ablative is the idiom at v 7 'luce minus decima', 'before the tenth day'. Of the other readings, _F1_'s _tuum ... datum_ cannot itself be correct, although it may offer a clue to the truth. Heinsius' _tuum ... tuum_ is grammatical enough, but (as Professor R. J. Tarrant points out to me) makes Ovid say that he is Pompeius' literally through _mancipatio_. As well, the repetition seems odd. Rappold's _tuae ... manus_ cannot be right, since _manus_ did not have the sense of _mancipium_, except for the limited meaning of a husband's authority over his wife. Still, Rappold's conjecture may be a step in the right direction, particularly in view of v 39-40 'pro quibus ut meritis referatur gratia, iurat / se fore _mancipii_ tempus in omne _tui_'. XVI. To a Detractor The anonymous detractor to whom Ovid apparently addresses this poem is probably fictional; at 47 he substitutes _Liuor_, dropping the pretence of speaking to a single enemy.