Scylla's nurse Carme has just learned that Scylla is in love with Minos, who in turn was once in love with Carme's daughter Britomartis and chased her to death. Carme opens her speech with an address to Minos (286–9):

Lyne is probably right to locate the corruption in the three obelized words: ‘Barth's ut (semper <ut> aut) produces a barely plausible text: “ut semper amor propter te eundem luctum portauit, aut olim natae aut  <nunc> insanae alumnae” […]. We must seek a more radical cure. […] aut … aut seems to me to give the wrong sense […], and semper must be corrupt.’Footnote ¹  For aut at 289, Némethy's nunc, to match olim at 288, is an attractive correction (pace Lyne). For semper aut at 288, Lyne printed sicine ut ante … ? (building on Scaliger's nuper ut ante).Footnote ² Two more objections can be raised against the standard line of correction, which Lyne's conjecture does not eliminate. First, to say that Minos brought grief to Britomartis is surely a gross understatement, for in fact he caused her death, a point Carme is quite clear about (mihi certe, nata, peristi, 306). This objection can in principle be overcome by reading letum (so R) for luctum.Footnote ³  Second, since te propter eundem is positioned between the references to natae and alumnae, it should probably be taken to go with the latter rather than with both; accordingly, eundem would mean ‘the same as mentioned before’ rather than ‘the same in each case’. The ellipse may not be difficult to make up (‘<through you> love once brought distress to my daughter—likewise through you love now brings distress to my nurseling’), yet an explicit reference to Minos at the beginning of 288 would certainly be welcome. While admittedly neither objection is fatal, one may prefer to avoid them if possible.

Let us begin with the second problem. It was already sensed by Helm, who also pointed out a relevant parallel: ‘Das te propter eundem gibt erst Sinn, wenn vorher schon etwas von derselben Person ausgesagt ist wie Verg. A. 4, 321.’Footnote ⁴  The Virgilian passage is worth quoting (Aen. 4.320–3):

In addition to the shared verse ending (unparalleled elsewhere in classical Latin poetry), it also has thematic affinities with the Ciris context. Both Carme and Dido speak of love ruining women: Britomartis and Scylla suffer because of love either from or for Minos; Dido suffers because of her love for Aeneas. I suggest that there may be one more textual point of contact: semper at 288 could be a corruption for te propter, prompted by misreading an abbreviation for propter as per. This would produce a well-balanced line, and the metre can be restored by inserting qui, for instance: te propter qui olim natae, te propter eundem | nunc amor insanae luctum portauit alumnae. In view of Catull. 64.247–8 ferox Theseus, qualem Minoidi luctum | obtulerat mente immemori, talem ipse recepit, one might alternatively consider te propter qualem natae, te propter eundem | talem amor insanae luctum portauit alumnae.Footnote ⁵

Be that as it may, the first objection is still in place. One could try something like this: te propter letum (or mortem) natae, te propter eundem | nunc amor insanae luctum portauit alumnae.Footnote ⁶  Yet, this will have two weaknesses. First, Carme clearly wants to draw a parallel between Britomartis and Scylla, and it would be rhetorically ineffective to say that Minos brought death to the former and (merely) grief to the latter. Second, it is in fact questionable whether the kind of distress experienced by Scylla can adequately be described as luctus.Footnote ⁷  It may therefore be tempting to write: te propter qui olim natae, te propter eundem | nunc amor insanae letum portauit alumnae (accepting R's reading for luctum). Indeed, Scylla has just confessed to Carme that she contemplated suicide (peperissem uulnere letum, 282), and Carme does consider her as good as dead (o bis iam exitium crudele meorum, 292).

This may seem an attractive solution, but it sacrifices a meaningful word that would be perfectly appropriate in such a context—if applied to denote Carme's grief for (the possibility of) the loss of Britomartis and Scylla. Luppe therefore appears to be thinking in the right direction: ‘Zu luctum portauit ist eigentlich der Dativ ,mir’ zu erwarten. Mein Vorschlag: ut <nobis> olim natae te propter eundem, | nunc amor insanae luctum portauit alumnae.’Footnote ⁸ Indeed, Carme is more concerned not with the misfortunes of Britomartis and Scylla as such but with their effects on her own self: mihi … crudelis reddite (286), nostrae … inimice senectae (287), tene ego … nequiui … effugere (290–2). The passage should be read thus, I suggest:Footnote ⁹