P. Ovidius Naso Remedia amoris 357

1. He alludes to his books of the Art of Love, which gave offense.

2. Zoilus having compiled books against Homer, read them to Ptolemy, king of Egypt ; the king made no reply, being displaeased that he should presume to censure so great a poet. Zoilus afterwards, being reduced to want, came to beg relief of the same Ptolemy, who thus answered: "What! have the works of Homer, after his having been a thousand years in the grave, been able to maintain millions of men; and cannot you, who pretend yourself a greater wit than he, by your writings maintain one?" Zoilus, some time after, was accused of parricide, and crucified according to the execution then used by the ancients in the east. Almost all masters in any of the sciences had their Zoiluses: Cicero, Ovid, and even Virgil himself, could not escape them.

3. He means Virgil, who is justly admired by all that can read and understand him; yet this divine poet was not spared by the malice of some false critics.

4. A justice which Ovid does himself; and we may see by it, his reputation was very well settled, or he could not have said this with so much assurance.

5. The poet gives us to understand that he has made himself as famous for elegiac verse, as Virgil was for heroic; and at the same time that he praises himself, he gives the highest commendation to Virgil. Propertius, Tibullus, and Catullus excelled also in the elegy, which they wrote in imitation of Callimachus and Euphorion.