...knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so, etc. — are apparently borrowed from Horace, Ars Poetica 70-72 : Multa renascentur quae iam cecidere,...

...follow to the contrasting immutability of language's object, the pursuit of love: . . . and yet thei spake hem so And spedde as wel in love as men now do. (TC 2.25-26) Despite linguistic difference, the stanza insists, the words that seem antiquated to the...