2386. _Cassidorie_, Cassiodorus, who wrote in the time of Theoderic the Great, king of the Ostrogoths (A.D. 475-526). The quotation is from his Variarum lib. x. epist. 18:--'quia laesionis instar est occulte consulere, et aliud uelle monstrare.' In the Latin text, cap. xxiii, the heading of the chapter is:--'De Vitando consilium illorum, qui secreto aliud consulunt, et palam aliud se uelle ostendunt.' Chaucer's rendering is far from being a happy one. 2387. Cf. Prov. xii. 5; but note that the Lat. text has:--'Malus homo a se nunquam bonum consilium refert'; which resembles Publilius Syrus, Sent. 354:--'Malus bonum ad se nunquam consilium refert.' 2388. From Ps. i. 1. 2391. _Tullius._ The reference is to Cicero's De Officiis, ii. 5, as quoted in the 'Latin text':--'quid in unaquaque re uerum sincerumque sit, quid consentaneum cuique rei sit, quid consequens, ex quibus [211] quaeque gignantur, quae cuiusque rei caussa sit.' This is expanded in the English, down to l. 2400. 2405. For _distreyneth_, MS. Hl. has the corrupt reading _destroyeth_. The reading is settled by the lines in Chaucer's Proverbs (see the Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 407):-- 'Who-so mochel wol embrace Litel therof he shal _distreyne_.' The Lat. text has: 'Qui nimis capit parum stringit'; the Fr. text has: 'Qui trop embrasse, pou estraint.' 2406. _Catoun_, Dionysius Cato; Distich. iii. 15:-- 'Quod potes, id tentato; operis ne pondere pressus Succumbat labor, et frustra tentata relinquas.' 2408. The Lat. text has:--'Ait enim Petrus Alfunsus, Si dicere metuas unde poeniteas, semper est melius _non_ quam _sic_.' From his Disciplina Clericalis, vi. 12. 2411. _Defenden_, forbid, i. e. advise one not to do. This passage is really a quotation from Cicero, De Officiis, i. 9:--'Bene praecipiunt qui uetant quidquid agere, quod dubites aequum sit an iniquum.' 2413. The Lat. text has:--'Nunc superest uidere, quando consilium uel promissum mutari possit uel debeat.' This shews that the reading _counseil_, as in Hl., is correct. 2415. Lat. text:--'Quae de nouo emergunt, nouo indigent consilio, ut leges dicunt.' 2416. Lat. text:--'Inde et Seneca dixit, Consilium tuum si audierit hostis, consilii dispositionem permutes.' But no such sentence has been discovered in Seneca. 2419. Lat. text:--'Generaliter enim nouimus, Turpes stipulationes nullius esse momenti, ut leges dicunt,' for which Sundby refers us to the Digesta, xlv. 1. 26. 2421. 'Malum est consilium, quod mutari non potest': Publilius Syrus, Sent. 362. 2431. _First and forward_; so in l. 2684. We now say 'first and foremost.' 2436. See above, ll. 2311-2325; vol. iv. p. 208.