previous next

[19] Quid agamque rogantibus intus. Intus is the reading substituted by Heinsius for inter, which was that commonly received before, rogantibus inter being put for interrogantibus. This was one of the passages severely censured by the critics, and pronounced to be of a very different spirit from that of our poet. They could not imagine it probable that Ovid, so distinguished by a certain plainness and evenness of style, would have used the figure called by grammarians tmesis in this word especially, and at the end of a verse. Tmesis is derived from the Greek word τέμνω, scindo, I divide, and is a figure by which the parts of a compound ward are divided by the interposition of another, as in Plautus: “Sed ne stultus ego, qui rem curo publicam(Per. 75); i. e. qui rempublicam curo.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: