Note 4, 11 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 3)

11. ancipitis: ‘wavering.’—rectum discernis: ‘You can distinguish the straight line when it runs among crooked lines on either hand—ay, even when your square with twisted leg is but a faulty guide.’ The straight line is virtue, the crooked lines are vices. The difficulty of picking out the right course is much enhanced when the rule by which we go is itself warped—that is, ‘as Casaubon explains it, when justice has to be corrected by equity.’ The regula here is not the regula of 5, 38, but the norma, or carpenter’s square.