[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.
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