• The Heaven of Mars continued. Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae , Book III Prosa 6, Ridpath’s Tr. :⁠— “But who is there that does not perceive the emptiness and futility of what men dignify with the name of high extraction, or nobility of birth? The splendor you attribute to this is quite foreign to you: for nobility of descent is nothing else but the credit derived from the merit of your ancestors. If it is the applause of mankind, and nothing besides, that illustrates and confers fame upon a person, no others can be celebrated and famous, but such as are universally applauded. If you are not therefore esteemed illustrious from your own worth, you can derive no real splendor from the merits of others: so that, in my opinion, nobility is in no other respect good, than as it imposes an obligation upon its possessors not to degenerate from the merit of their ancestors.” ↩
• The use of You for Thou, the plural for the singular, is said to have been introduced in the time of Julius Caesar. Lucan, V , Rowe’s Tr. :⁠— “Then was the time when sycophants began To heap all titles on one lordly man.” Dante uses it by way of compliment to his ancestor; though he says the descendants of the Romans were not so persevering in its use as other Italians. ↩