17 AUGUST 1944, Page 12

OVID AND ST. PAUL

SIR,—Is it pedantic to point out that when Ovid wrote "Video proboqut, deteriora sequor " he was not describing his own state of at all? The words are part of a soliloquy which Ovid puts in the Medea, and it is no more reasonable to apply them to Ovid himself it would be to impute to Milton the sentiment "Evil be thou my