Ni mersus alto uiueret fomes corde.'
Over rogati is written the gloss i. interrogato.
Over censetis is written i. iudicatis.
Over Ni is i. nisi; over mersus alto is i. latenter conditos; over uiueret is i. vigeret; and over fomes is i. radix veritatis.
Besides these glosses, there is here the following side-note:—'Nisi radix veritatis latenter conditus vigeret in abscondito mentis, homo non iudicaret recta quacunque ordinata interrogata.'
When we turn to Chaucer's version, we find that he first gives a translation of the two verses, thus:—
'For wherefor elles demen ye of your owne wil the rightes, whan ye ben axed, but-yif so were that the norisshinge of resoun ne livede y-plounged in the depthe of your herte?'
After this he adds, by way of comment:—'This is to seyn, how sholden men demen the sooth of anything that were axed, yif ther nere a rote of soothfastnesse that were y-plounged and hid in naturel principles, the whiche soothfastnesse lived with-in the deepnesse of the thought.'
It is obvious that he has here reproduced the general sense of the Latin side-note above quoted. The chief thing which is missing in the Latin is the expression 'in naturel principles.' But we have only to look to a passage a little higher up, and we find the line—
'Suis retrusum possidere thesauris.'