Ovid's awareness of his audience is evident on almost every page. Sometimes, as when he wanted to compare the best parts of heaven with the smartest parts of Rome, he wondered whether the reader might disapprove:

Sometimes, as when he describes how Deucalion and Pyrrha have happened to land on Parnassus during the flood, he pauses fussily to ensure that the audience has understood: (nam cetera texerat aequor) (1.318). Sometimes, as when he is about to tell how the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha will turn into men, he uses a parenthesis to acknowledge possible incredulity: (quis hoc credat, nisi sit pro teste uetustas?) (1.400), and it would be no hard task to add further examples and further categories. It seems especially promising, however, in pursuit of our theme, to turn to the story of Orpheus who, as a poet and a lover, must have had a special place in Ovid's affections and whose story also provided him with an obvious opportunity to vie with Virgil. Whenever a poet evokes the memory of a famous predecessor he must be thinking of his audience and appealing to them through a shared literary inheritance. And there is an extra reason for turning to Orpheus here: in May 1985, David West read to the A.G.M. of the Joint Association of Classical Teachers a paper entitled ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’.