EXTRACTS
1. Though the derivation of words by the philosophers involves this belief, that homo comes from humanitas, sapiens from sapientia, because sapientia exists before sapiens, still another special cause is evident in the derivation of certain names, as homo from humus, whence in a true sense homo is so called. And we have set down certain of these derivations in this work for the sake of example.
44. Compilator, one who mixes the words of other men with his own as painters are wont to mix and pound different things in a mortar. Of this crime the famous poet of Mantua was once accused when he had translated certain verses of Homer and mingled them with his own, and when he was called by his rivals a plunderer of the ancients he replied: “Magnarum esse virium clavam Herculi extorquere de manu”.
194. Nepos,[326] so called from a certain kind of scorpion that eats its own young, excepting one which has a seat upon its back; this one, being saved, eats its father. Whence men who eat up in luxury the goods of their parents are called Nepotes.
235. Rationator, so-called, a great man because he can give a reason for all the things which are allowed to be wonderful.