Ovid: Amores. Text, Prolegomena and Commentary in Four Volumes: Volume IV.I. a Commentary on Book Three, Elegies 1 to 8 - James C. Mckeown

\nThe third and final book of Ovid's love elegies is a complex farewell to the genre. It begins, programmatically, with Ovid, torn between Tragedy and Elegy, persuading Tragedy to give him a little more time for his love poetry and love affairs. As the book progresses, familiar obstructions to the pursuit of illicit love in urban Rome, beyond the easily circumvented Leges Iuliae, are interspersed with conclusive impediments, such as impotence or even Death. Other elegies manifest Ovid's developi