It was pointed out in 1992 by E.J. Kenney that femina in line 28 ‘sabotages the poet's … disclaimer’ that it is not women generally but ‘only those not ruled out of bounds by stola and uittae’ who are to benefit from his instruction.Footnote ² He suggests instead that, since what is wanted is a variation on the previous line, one should read nec proba, or, as a better possibility, non proba. Kenney's objection to femina is accepted by Roland Mayer, in a note published the following year.Footnote ³ After observing, however, that, ‘when a word has intruded itself from a nearby line and expelled the authentic reading, the ductus litterarum is no guide to emendation’, and that bold measures are therefore admissible, Mayer proposes Thais, comparing Rem. am. 385–6 Thais in arte mea est: lasciuia libera nostra est; | nil mihi cum uitta; Thais in arte mea est. Later, W.S. Watt suggested talis, viz. lasciua, noting talis at 142 and talem at 157.Footnote ⁴ None of these suggestions is entirely compelling, however, and Gibson is therefore right just to obelize femina in his edition;Footnote ⁵ but he also points out in the commentary ad loc. the ‘greater oddity’ relating to amanda, asking ‘Should Ovid not be declaring his intention to teach women how to love, rather than declaring that he will teach how they should be loved?’ and even going so far as to suggest that the whole pentameter is fundamentally corrupt and should be obelized.

Of the three conjectures, Gibson regards Mayer's as the ‘least unconvincing’, but, following on from Kenney's non proba, the more euphonious improba is possibly worth contemplating. It is true that improbus often signals moral disapproval: note, for example, Cic. Scaur. 8 libidinosam atque improbam matrem infami ac noto adulterio … diligebat.Footnote ⁶ Thus it may be argued that, while Ovid contrasts improba with casta at Ars am. 2.400 when averring that the previously chaste Clytemnestra's unfaithfulness was prompted specifically by Agamemnon's behaviour, the word still suggests wrongdoing on her part since a married woman was not supposed to take a lover. Consider, however, Am. 1.8.43 casta est quam nemo rogauit (words admittedly spoken by the lena Dipsas, but implying that all women are potentially improba), remembering the raw animal-passion which characterizes most women throughout the Ars amatoria.Footnote ⁷ Note too Tr. 2.441 nec sunt minus improba Serui | carmina,Footnote ⁸ where Ovid's defence of the Ars amatoria, based on literary precedent, admits that it might have been improba, although it was no more so than the poems of others, who had not been censured.Footnote ⁹ Finally, as Gibson remarks in the introduction to his edition,Footnote ¹⁰ ‘… as has frequently been noted, the disclaimers [sc. about the exclusion of matronae] not only contain ambiguities of phrasing, but also are often playfully expressed, appear in contexts which provoke scepticism about their seriousness, and frequently draw attention to, rather than resolve, issues of social and marital status’.

As for amanda, this must be understood as meaning not ‘should be loved’ but rather something like ‘lovable’ (that is, amabilis), ‘fit-to-be-loved’, or perhaps even ‘unable not to be loved’.Footnote ¹¹ Illustrative of this is perhaps Ars am. 2.107 ut ameris, amabilis esto, where Ovid asserts that those in pursuit of love should be lovable rather than relying on things like magical arts and love-philtres.