_Tantalides_ is used only here of Menelaus. Elsewhere in Latin verse it is used of Agamemnon, Atreus, and Pelops: see _OLD Tantalides_. Ovid is here using the diction of high poetry. =27. ET QVI MAEONIAM PHAEACIDA VERTIT.= Tuticanus; his translation of the Phaeacian episode of the Odyssey is mentioned at xii 27-28. As that poem explains, his name could not be used in elegiac verse: hence the periphrasis in this passage. =27. ET VNE= _HLB2_ ET VNe _M2c_ ET VNA _IT_ ET VNI _B1C_ IN ANGVEM _F_. _Vne_ was liable to corruption because of the hyperbaton with _Rufe_ in the next line, and because of the rarity of the vocative of _unus_. For _unus_ in the sense 'unique, outstanding', compare Catullus XXXVII 17 'tu praeter omnes _une_ de capillatis' ('you outstanding member of the long-haired set'--Quinn) and Prop II iii 29 'gloria Romanis _una_ es tu nata puellis'. =27-28. VNE / PINDARICAE FIDICEN TV QVOQVE, RVFE, LYRAE.= An imitation of Hor _Carm_ IV iii 21-23 'totum muneris hoc tui est / quod monstror digito praetereuntium / _Romanae fidicen lyrae_'. =28. RVFE.= Otherwise unknown. André correctly points out that he is unlikely to be the Rufus addressed in _EP_ II xi, 'dont Ovid n'aurait pas manqué alors de vanter le talent poétique'. Bardon (59) mentions that A. Reifferscheid ("Coniect. noua", _Ind. lect. Bresl._, 1880/81, p. 7) identified this Rufus with the Pindaric poet Titius of Hor _Ep_ I iii 9-10, thereby creating 'le très synthétique Titius Rufus'. But there is nothing very compelling about the identification. =29. MVSAVE TVRRANI.= The poet is not otherwise certainly known. Bardon (48) reports the conjectures of Hirschfeld ("Annona", _Philologus_, 1870, p. 27) identifying him with C. Turranius, _praefectus annonae_ at the time of Augustus' death (Tac _Ann_ I 7) and of Munzer (_Beitr. zur Quellenkritik_ 387-89), identifying him with the geographical writer Turranius Gracilis mentioned by the elder Pliny (_NH_ III 3, IX 11). =29. INNIXA COTVRNIS.= The _coturnus_ was distinguished by its high sole; hence _innixa_ ('supported by'). Compare _Am_ III i 31 (of Tragedy) 'pictis _innixa coturnis_' and Hor _AP_ 279-80 'Aeschylus ... docuit magnumque loqui _nitique coturno_'. =29. COTVRNIS.= As Brink at Hor _AP_ 80 points out, _coturnus_ (not _cothurnus_) is the spelling favoured by the best manuscripts of Virgil and Horace. =30. ET TVA CVM SOCCO MVSA, MELISSE, LEVIS.= _H_ offers LEVI, also conjectured by Heinsius, which may be right: the epithet with _socco_ would provide a pleasing balance with the preceding _tragicis ... coturnis_. On the other hand, Professor R. J. Tarrant in support of _leuis_ cites _RA_ 375-76 'grande sonant tragici, tragicos decet ira coturnos: / usibus e mediis _soccus_ habendus erit' and Hor _AP_ 80 '_socci_ ... grandesque coturni'; in both passages _soccus_ has no adjective.