Kings MS 26

'LIBER OVIDII Metamorphoseon' (so colophon): the fifteen books of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. There is an omission of 36 lines (lib. ii, ll. 542-577) between ff. 19 b and 20, and among smaller omissions are iii. 207, 208 (inserted in margin by a 14th cent. hand). The doubtful or spurious passages, i. 91-93, vi. 282 and 294, and the insertion in vii. 186, 'serpens sopitis similis nullo cum murmure', are in the text (see Edwards's notes in Postgate's Corpus Poet. Lat., i, 1894); but the lines viii.

597-600, 603-608 are absent (ins. in margin, 15th cent.). At the end of the last book and before the colophon are the six lines from Ovid's Tristia, lib. i, vii (ll. 35-40), beg. ' Orba parente suo quicumque uolumina cernis'.

Glosses are added by many hands, some nearly contemporary with the text. The form used by the early glossators for the vocative mark (suprascript ó) often approaches nearly to the 15th cent. form (see King's 24), e.g. f. 24, 1. 10 from foot 'nate '. A 14th cent. glossator is perhaps responsible for the summa dicti operis conclusio et addictio graciarum' in twelve hexameters added after the colophon. It beg. ' [I]am declinabat stilus hunc tamen ipse retrasi'.

On the fly-leaves (ff. 1-3) are, in a 15th cent. hand, summae or argumenta (12 lines each) to the fifteen books. Beg. 'In methamorphoseos ter quinis Naso libellis'. Another 15th cent. hand has added on f. 3 b lines from the Tristia (lib. iii, xiv. 19, 20; lib. ii, i.

63, 64; lib. i, vii. 35-38).

Vellum; ff. 138. 10 in.x 5¹/₂ in. Probably written in Italy. XI cent. Gatherings normally of 8 leaves, but irregular, with catchwords. 39 to 46 lines to a page. Sec. fol. (orig.) 'Ille opifex'. Initials of interlaced work (at f. 13 b a bird) in red and black ink, crude and unfinished. Bound like nos. 16, 17, 19, 21. Belonged to Joseph Smith, Consul at Venice, Bibl. Smith., Addenda, p. xlviii, col, ii.