Book 1
6.8
Those verbs, however, which terminate in -o alone, if they form the infinitive in e, have the e short; compare lego, dico, curro, with the infinitives, legĕre, dicĕre, currĕre. I admit that in Lucilius we find— fervit aqua et fervet: firvit nunc ferverit ad annum. In Book IX. The water boils and boil it will; it boils and for a year will boil. But with all due respect to so learned a man, if he regards fervit as on the same footing as currit and legit, we shall say fervo as we say lego and curro: but such a form has never yet come to my ears.
6.9
But this is not a true comparison: for fervit resembles servit, and on this analogy we should say fervire like servire.
6.10
It is also possible in certain cases to discover the present indicative of a verb from the study of its other tenses. I remember, for instance, refuting certain scholars who criticised me for using the word pepigi: for, although they admitted that it had been used by some of the best authors, they asserted that it was an irrational form because the present indicative paciscor, being passive in form, made pactus sum as its perfect.
