Epigraph
“Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: For it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us.”
—Ecclesiastes i:10.
“Nullum est jam dictum, quod non dictum sit prius.”
—Terence, Eun. Prol., 41.
[Nothing is now said which was not said before.]
St. Jerome relates that his preceptor Donatus, commenting on this passage of Terence, used to say: “Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.”
[May they perish who said our good things before us.]