=21. IRAM.= 'Cause for anger'. This seems to be the only instance of the meaning, _ira_ not being found even as a predicative dative; but compare the use of _laudes_ to mean 'acts deserving praise', as at viii 87 'tuas ... laudes ... recentes'. =23. QVOD TE NVNC CRIMEN SIMILEM= seems to be the correct reading; the line connects with the _an crimen ..._ of 24. QVAE TE CONSIMILEM RES NVNC (_FIL_) looks like a rewriting of the line, perhaps following the loss of _crimen_ by haplography (_cr_iM _s_im_ilE_). There seems no good reason why Ovid would have used the emphatic _consimilem_ instead of the more usual _similem_. =25. SI ... OPEM NVLLAM ... FEREBAS.= 'If you had no intention of assisting me'--the inceptive or conative imperfect (Woodcock 200). Similar phrasing at _Tr_ I viii 9-10 'haec ego uaticinor, quia sum deceptus ab illo / _laturum_ misero quem mihi rebar _opem_' and _EP_ II vii 46 'et nihil inueni quod mihi _ferret opem_'. =25. REBVS ... FACTISQVE.= 'Through financial help or action on my behalf'. Ovid does not use this sense of _res_ elsewhere in his poetry. =26. VERBIS ... TRIBVS.= 'A few words'. For the idiom Williams cites Plautus _Mil_ 1020 '"breuin an longinquo sermoni?" "tribu' uerbis"' and _Trin_ 963 'adgrediundust hic homo mi astu.--heus, Pax, te tribu' uerbis uolo'; from comedy, _OLD tres_ b cites Ter _Ph_ 638. From the classical period compare Sen _Apocol_ 11 3 'ad summam, tria uerba cito dicat, et seruum me ducat', Sen _Ep_ 40 9, and Quint IX iv 84 'haec omnia in tribus uerbis'; Camps sees _tres_ as having the same indefinite meaning at Prop II xiii 25-26 'sat mea sit magno [_Phillimore_: sit magna _uel_ sat magna est _codd_] si tres sint pompa libelli / quos ego Persephonae maxima dona feram'. =27. SED ET= was the standard reading until Ehwald's defence (_KB_ 63) of SVBITO, the reading of (_B1_) and _C_. Ehwald's reasoning was that _sed et_ would indicate that the news of his friend's slandering him was additional information, and that Ovid already knew something of his friend's behaviour. But this is precisely the case: Ovid has just finished saying that his friend has done nothing to help him (9-10), and now he gives the additional information that his friend is even working against him. Ehwald supported the asyndeton that _subito_ creates by quoting _Met_ XV 359-60 'haud equidem credo: sparsae quoque membra uenenis / exercere artes Scythides memorantur easdem', where in fact _quoque_ seems a convincing parallel to _sed et_. =27. INSVLTARE IACENTI.= 'Torment in my misery'. Ovid plays on the literal meanings of _iacere_ and _in-saltare_; for the latter, see _Aen_ XII 338-39 'caesis / hostibus insultans'. Ovid uses _insultare_ in only three other passages. All are from the poems of exile, and all are about the ill-treatment accorded Ovid: _Tr_ II 571 'nec mihi credibile est quemquam _insultasse iacenti_', _Tr_ III xi 1, and _Tr_ V viii 3-4 'curue / casibus insultas quos potes ipse pati?'.