=17. SI QVID EA EST.= 'If it really exists'. The affirmation would be 'est aliquid Lethe'; compare Prop IV vii 1 'Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit'. =17. HEBETANTEM PECTORA.= I have found no other instance in Ovid of this transferred sense of _hebetare_, but compare _Aen_ II 604-6 'omnem quae nunc obducta tuenti / mortalis hebetat uisus tibi ... nubem eripiam' and _Aen_ VI 731-32. The transferred sense is found at Celsus II i 11 'Auster aures hebetat ... omnis calor ... mentem hebetat'; compare as well Pliny _NH_ XVIII 118 '[faba ...] hebetare sensus existimata' and Suet _Cl_ 2 'animo simul et corpore hebetato'. _Oblitus_ in 18 indicates that _pectus_ is virtually equivalent to 'mind' or even 'memory'. In Ovid it often has the sense 'poetic feeling', as at xii 16 'pectus habere neger'. =17. LETHEN.= Compare _Tr_ IV i 47-48 'utque soporiferae biberem si pocula Lethes, / temporis aduersi sic mihi sensus abest'. =21. ET= can be construed, as connecting with the preceding _nec_; compare _Fast_ VI 325 '_nec_ licet _et_ longum est epulas narrare deorum'. SED should however possibly be read, the word contrasting with the preceding _nec_ as at ii 15-16 'nec tamen ingenium nobis respondet ut ante, / _sed_ siccum sterili uomere litus aro'. The error could easily be induced by the final _s_ of the preceding _putes_; compare _Med_ 55-56 'par erui mensura decem madefiat ab _ouis_ / (_sed_ [_uar_ et] cumulent libras hordea nuda duas)'. =21. LEVIS HAEC ... GRATIA.= 'This unimportant expression of gratitude'. The same use of _leuis_ at _EP_ II v 35-36 'hoc tibi facturo, uel si non ipse rogarem, / accedat cumulus gratia nostra leuis'. =21. HAEC MERITIS REFERATVR GRATIA.= Similar phrasing at _Met_ V 14-15 'meritisne haec gratia tantis / redditur?', _Tr_ V iv 47 'plena tot ac tantis referetur gratia factis', _EP_ I vii 61 'emeritis referenda est gratia semper', and _EP_ III i 79-80 'nec ... debetur meritis gratia nulla meis'. =23. NVMQVAM PIGRA FVIT NOSTRIS TVA GRATIA REBVS.= Wheeler rightly points out Ovid's play in 21-23 on the varying senses of _gratia_ (thanks), _gratus_ (grateful), and _gratia_ (favour, kindness). =26. FERETQVE= is Heinsius' correction for the REFERTQVE of the manuscripts (REFERT _B1_, REFERTA _C_); it is made necessary by the following _fiducia tanta futuri_. Owen, Lenz, and André report _feretque_ as the reading of the thirteenth-century _Canonicianus lat 1_, but Professor R. J. Tarrant, who has examined the manuscript, informs me that it in fact reads _refertque_. For the pattern compare _Tr_ III viii 12 'quae non ulla tibi _fertque feretque_ dies' and _Tr_ II 155-56 'per superos ... qui _dant_ tibi longa _dabuntque_ / tempora'.