Est sal prelatus, equor, sapientia, mimus,
Sal pultes condit, sal est cibus et reprehendit.
Here again there is a full commentary; but the only interpretation that we need notice is the first, 'Salt denotes a prelate of the Church; for it is said in the Gospels, Ye are the salt of the earth.' When he composed these lines, Garland must surely have had his eye on ecclesiastical preferment.
Another line is interesting, as illustrating the confusion between c and t in mediaeval manuscripts:
Est katonque malum, katademon nascitur inde.
The commentary runs: 'Kathon est idem quod malum. Inde dicitur kathodemon, i.e. spiritus malignus seu dyabolus, et venit a kathon, i.e. malum, et demon, sciens, quasi mala sciens.' You will notice also the inconstancy of h, and the indifference to orthography which allows the same word to appear as katademon in the text and kathodemon in the commentary.
Garland's Textus is mostly Latin; but in the last composition of his life, the forty-two distiches entitled Cornutus, 'one on the horns of a dilemma', he is mainly occupied with Greek words adopted into Latin: using of course Latin characters. Some specimens will show the mediaeval standards of Greek: I quote from the text and commentary edited in 1481 by John Drolshagen, who was master of the sixth class at Zwolle.
Kyria chere geram cuius phīlantrŏpos est bar,
Per te doxa theos nectēn ĕt [)v]rānĭcĭs ymas.
In the commentary we are told that Kyria means the Virgin: but we are to be careful not to write it with two r's, for kirrios means a pig (I suppose χοιρος), and it would never do to say Kirrieleyson. Chere is of course χαιρε, salue. Geran (geram in the text) is interpreted sanctus, and seems from a lengthy discussion of it to be connected with γερων and ιερος.[3] Philantropos (notice the quantities) is Christ, the Saviour. 'Bar Grece est filius Latine.' 'Necten in Greco est venire Latine: vnde dicit Pristianus in primo minoris, antropos necten, i.e. homo venit.' (For this remarkable form I can only suggest ηνθειν or ´ηκειν: -en is probably the infinitive; ne might arise from en; and ct, through tt, from th.) Ymas is explained as nobis, not vobis. The construction of the distich is then given: 'Hail, sacred queen, whose son is the lover of men; through thee divine and heavenly glory comes to us.'
Again:
'Clauiculis firmis theos antropos impos et ir mis
Figor ob infirmi cosmos delicta, patir mi.'