[W.F. Lantry]

I haven't yet figured out how to cut and paste from google books, but this one, wherein Ovid tells two different and very complicated lies, to two very different women, about the same event, is priceless. It's one of his pairs, so you must read *both* VII and VIII:

http://books.google.com/books?id=X_nz4SZje5IC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=%22Am+i+ forever+to+be+put+on+trial%22&source=bl&ots=rOlgJZ irnC&sig=ygjGj1tehZz-Z1qTv4_e0sZKz3c&hl=en&ei=TlqjTPPOLoKKlwfXgpnmAw&sa =X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEw AA#v=onepage&q=%22Am%20i%20forever%20to%20be%20put %20on%20trial%22&f=false

"But as things are, your credulous invective
Becomes both wearisome, and ineffective!"

Ovid was such a cad! Worse than Horace, even, and that's saying something!

Thanks,

Bill

[Steve Bucknell]

Very clever Bill, but not laugh-out-loud for me, more a sort of very theatrically produced HA! which will probably startle your wife, and then you'll be in trouble when she finds out what you've been reading.

I would define these mostly as "fantasies of competence."