The Text of the Cynthia

A. I begin with some emendations founded on familiar evidence. (a) ii. 9. aspice quos summittat humus formosa colores. In each of the following verses of the stanza from u. 9 to u. 14 natural and spontaneous beauty is the subject (sponte sua, solis, indociles, natiuis, nulla arte). Verse 9 has seemed unsatisfactory because it lacks the very point which it should introduce. All the emendations have attacked formosa because it is repeated in u. 11: morosa, Housman (which would rather mean ‘wayward’ or ‘crabbed’), dumosa, nemorosa, muscosa, and other even less probable adjectives have been suggested.