ity; the third
from the natural Love for one's own Native Tongue. And these things,
with the grounds for them, to the staying of all possible reproof, I
mean in due order to reason out in this form.

That which most adorns and commends human actions, and which most
directly leads them to a good result, is the use of dispositions best
adapted to the end in view; as the end aimed at in knighthood is
courage of mind and strength of body. And thus he who is ordained to
the service of others, ought to have those dispositions which are
suited to that end; as submission, knowledge and obedience, without
which any one is unfit to serve well. Because if he is not subject to
each of these conditions, he proceeds in his service always with
fatigue and trouble, and but seldom continues in it. If he is not
obedient, he never serves except as in his wisdom he thinks fit, and
when he wills; which is rather the service of a friend than of a
servant. Hence, to escape this disorder, this commentary is fit, which
is made as a servant to the under-written Songs, in order to be
subject to these, and to each separate command of theirs. It must be
conscious of the wants of its lord, and obedient to him, which
dispositions would be all wanting to it if it were a Latin servant,
not a native, since the songs are all in the language of our people.
For, in the first place, if it had been a Latin servant he would be
not a subject but a sovereign, in nobility, in virtue, and in beauty;
in nobility, because the Latin is perpetual and incorruptible; the
language of the vulgar is unstable and corruptible. Hence we see in
the ancient writings of the Latin Comedies and Tragedies that they
cannot change, being the same Latin that we now have; this happens not
with our native tongue, which, being home-made, changes at pleasure.
Hence we see in the cities of Italy, if we will look carefully back
fifty years from the present time, many words to have become extinct,
and to have been born, and to have been altered. But if a little time
transforms them thus, a longer time changes them more. So that I say
that, if those who departed from this life a thousand years ago should
come back to their cities, they would believe those cities to be
inhabited by a strange people, who speak a tongue discordant from
their own. On this subject I will speak elsewhere more completely in a
book which I intend to write, God willing, on the "Language of the
People."

Again, the