=47. TV, CVI BIBITVR FELICIVS AONIVS FONS.= For the image of the poet drinking from Hippocrene see Prop III iii 5-6 'paruaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora, / unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit'. Both here and at II x 25 Propertius speaks of Hippocrene as the spring of epic poetry specifically.
=47. FELICIVS.= 'With happier result'; compare _Ibis_ 559 'nec tibi, si quid amas, felicius Haemone [=_quam Haemoni_] cedat'.
=47. AONIVS FONS.= Platnauer (13) cites only four instances from the elegiac poets of hexameters ending in monosyllables: Prop II xxv 17 'amor, qui', _Am_ II ix 47 'Cupido, est', the present passage, and _EP_ IV ix 101 'quibus nos'. Ehwald and Levy compare _Met_ V 573 'quae tibi causa fugae, cur sis, Arethusa, sacer _fons_'. The coincidence suggests that in both passages Ovid was recalling a line-ending from an earlier poet. Alternatively, Professor E. Fantham suggests to me that Ovid may here have deliberately created an awkward line-ending so as to mock himself and bear out his claim of waning inspiration.
=47-50.= Ovid returns to the subject of his poem's opening, Severus' poetry.
=48. VTILITER ... CEDIT.= Similar phrasing at _EP_ II vii 19 '[iam liquet ...] obseruare deos ne quid mihi _cedat amice_'.
=49. MERITO.= 'With justification'; Severus' previous service to the Muses has brought him fame and not, as in Ovid's case, disaster.
=50. HVC ALIQVOD CVRAE MITTE RECENTIS OPVS.= A similar request at _EP_ III v 29-30 (to Cotta Maximus) 'quod licet, ut uidear tecum magis esse, legenda [_Burman_: legendo _uel_ loquendo _codd_] / saepe precor studii pignora mitte tui'.
=50. CVRAE= = 'poetic toil', as at _Tr_ II 11-12 'hoc pretium _curae_ [_fragmentum Treuirense (saec x)_: uitae _codd plerique_] uigilatorumque laborum / cepimus', _EP_ I v 61 'cur ego sollicita poliam mea carmina _cura_?', and _EP_ III ix 29. At xvi 39 and _Tr_ II 1 the word means 'product of poetic toil'.
By the time Ovid wrote this poem, the letter of reproach was a genre familiar to him: each book of the _Tristia_ (with the obvious exception of II) contains such a poem (I viii; III xi; IV ix; V viii), and in the _Ibis_ Ovid had, by the extended treatment of a number of standard topics within the subject, created a poem of over six hundred lines.