“Even though one adds these devices for the sake of divining the intent of the author, many other things still remain secret. But if poetic form, which has preserved in song many ancient words which still survive, had also preserved why they are, poems would be able to bear more fertile fruit. As in prose so too in poetry not all words can be said to possess their most ancient forms, and there are not many which one can read unless he spends his nights in deep study.”
Cum haec amminicula addas ad eruendum voluntatem impositoris, tamen latent multa. Quod si poetice quae in carminibus servavit multa prisca quae essent, sic etiam cur essent posuisset, fecundius poemata ferrent fructum; sed ut in soluta oratione sic in poematis verba non omnia quae habent etuma possunt dici, neque multa ab eo, quem non erunt in lucubratione litterae prosecutae, multum licet legeret.
