Chapter I: The Medieval Period (1)

EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

I

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

From the comment of Anglo-Saxon writers one may derive a not inadequate idea of the attitude generally prevailing in the medieval period with regard to the treatment of material from foreign sources. Suggestive statements appear in the prefaces to the works associated with the name of Alfred. One method of translation is employed in producing an English version of Pope Gregory's _Pastoral Care_. "I began," runs the preface, "among other various and manifold troubles of this kingdom, to translate into English the book which is called in Latin _Pastoralis_, and in English _Shepherd's Book_, sometimes word by word, and sometimes according to the sense."[1] A similar practice is described in the _Proem_ to _The Consolation of Philosophy_ of Boethius. "King Alfred was the interpreter of this book, and turned it from book Latin into English, as it is now done. Now he set forth word by word, now sense from sense, as clearly and intelligently as he was able."[2] The preface to _St. Augustine's Soliloquies_, the beginning of which, unfortunately, seems to be lacking, suggests another possible treatment of borrowed material. "I gathered for myself," writes the author, "cudgels, and stud-shafts, and horizontal shafts, and helves for each of the tools that I could work with, and bow-timbers and bolt-timbers for every work that I could perform, the comeliest trees, as many as I could carry. Neither came I with a burden home, for it did not please me to bring all the wood back, even if I could bear it. In each tree I saw something that I needed at home; therefore I advise each one who can, and has many wains, that he direct his steps to the same wood where I cut the stud-shafts. Let him fetch more for himself, and load his wains with fair beams, that he may wind many a neat wall, and erect many a rare house, and build a fair town, and therein may dwell merrily and softly both winter and summer, as I have not yet done."[3]

Aelfric, writing a century later, develops his theories in greater detail. Except in the _Preface to Genesis_, they are expressed in Latin, the language of the lettered, a fact which suggests that, unlike the translations themselves, the prefaces were addressed to readers who were, for the most part, opposed to translation into the vernacular and who, in addition to this, were in all probability especially suspicious of the methods employed by Aelfric. These methods were strongly in the direction of popularization. Aelfric's general practice is like that of Alfred. He declares repeatedly[4] that he translates sense for sense, not always word for word. Furthermore, he desires rather to be clear and simple than to adorn his style with rhetorical ornament.[5] Instead of unfamiliar terms, he uses "the pure and open words of the language of this people."[6] In connection with the translation of the Bible he lays down the principle that Latin must give way to English idiom.[7] For all these things Aelfric has definite reasons. Keeping always in mind a clear conception of the nature of his audience, he does whatever seems to him necessary to make his work attractive and, consequently, profitable. Preparing his _Grammar_ for "tender youths," though he knows that words may be interpreted in many ways, he follows a simple method of interpretation in order that the book may not become tiresome.[8] The _Homilies_, intended for simple people, are put into simple English, that they may more easily reach the hearts of those who read or hear.[9] This popularization is extended even farther. Aelfric explains[10] that he has abbreviated both the _Homilies_[11] and the _Lives of the Saints_,[12] again of deliberate purpose, as appears in his preface to the latter: "Hoc sciendum etiam quod prolixiores passiones breuiamus verbis non adeo sensu, ne fastidiosis ingeratur tedium si tanta prolixitas erit in propria lingua quanta est in latina."

Incidentally, however, Aelfric makes it evident that his were not the only theories of translation which the period afforded. In the preface to the first collection of _Homilies_ he anticipates the disapproval of those who demand greater closeness in following originals. He recognizes the fact that his translation may displease some critics "quod non semper verbum ex verbo, aut quod breviorem explicationem quam tractatus auctorum habent, sive non quod per ordinem ecclesiastici ritus omnia Evangelia percurrimus." The _Preface to Genesis_ suggests that the writer was familiar with Jerome's insistence on the necessity for unusual faithfulness in translating the Bible.[13] Such comment implies a mind surprisingly awake to the problems of translation.

The translator who left the narrow path of word for word reproduction might, in this early period, easily be led into greater deviations from source, especially if his own creative ability came into play. The preface to _St. Augustine's Soliloquies_ quoted above carries with it a stimulus, not only to translation or compilation, but to work like that of Caedmon or Cynewulf, essentially original in many respects, though based, in the main, on material already given literary shape in other languages. Both characteristics are recognized in Anglo-Saxon comment. Caedmon, according to the famous passage in Bede, "all that he could learn by hearing meditated with himself, and, as a clean animal ruminating, turned into the sweetest verse."[14] Cynewulf in his _Elene_, gives us a remarkable piece of author's comment[15] which describes the action of his own mind upon material already committed to writing by others. On the other hand, it may be noted that the _Andreas_, based like the _Elene_ on a single written source, contains no hint that the author owes anything to a version of the story in another language.[16]

In the English literature which developed in course of time after the Conquest the methods of handling borrowed material were similar in their variety to those we have observed in Anglo-Saxon times. Translation, faithful except for the omission or addition of certain passages, compilation, epitome, all the gradations between the close rendering and such an individual creation as Chaucer's _Troilus and Criseyde_, are exemplified in the works appearing from the thirteenth century on. When Lydgate, as late as the fifteenth century, describes one of the processes by which literature is produced, we are reminded of Anglo-Saxon comment. "Laurence,"[17] the poet's predecessor in translating Boccaccio's _Falls of Princes_, is represented as

In his Prologue affirming of reason,
That artificers having exercise,
May chaunge & turne by good discretion
Shapes & formes, & newly them devise:
As Potters whiche to that craft entende
Breake & renue their vessels to amende.

...

And semblably these clerkes in writing
Thing that was made of auctours them beforn
They may of newe finde & fantasye:
Out of olde chaffe trye out full fayre corne,
Make it more freshe & lusty to the eye,
Their subtile witte their labour apply,
With their colours agreable of hue,
To make olde thinges for to seme newe.[18]

The great majority of these Middle English works contain within themselves no clear statement as to which of the many possible methods have been employed in their production. As in the case of the Anglo-Saxon _Andreas_, a retelling in English of a story already existing in another language often presents itself as if it were an original composition. The author who puts into the vernacular of his country a French romance may call it "my tale." At the end of _Launfal_, a version of one of the lays of Marie de France, appears the declaration, "Thomas Chestre made this tale."[19] The terms used to characterize literary productions and literary processes often have not their modern connotation. "Translate" and "translation" are applied very loosely even as late as the sixteenth century. _The Legend of Good Women_ names _Troilus and Criseyde_ beside _The Romance of the Rose_ as "translated" work.[20] Osbern Bokenam, writing in the next century, explains that he obtained the material for his legend of St. Margaret "the last time I was in Italy, both by scripture and eke by mouth," but he still calls the work a "translation."[21] Henry Bradshaw, purposing in 1513 to "translate" into English the life of St. Werburge of Chester, declares,

Unto this rude werke myne auctours these shalbe:
Fyrst the true legende and the venerable Bede,
Mayster Alfrydus and Wyllyam Malusburye,
Gyrarde, Polychronicon, and other mo in deed.[22]

Lydgate is requested to translate the legend of St. Giles "after the tenor only"; he presents his work as a kind of "brief compilation," but he takes no exception to the word "translate."[23] That he should designate his _St. Margaret_, a fairly close following of one source, a "compilation,"[24] merely strengthens the belief that the terms "translate" and "translation" were used synonymously with various other words. Osbern Bokenam speaks of the "translator" who "compiled" the legend of St. Christiana in English;[25] Chaucer, one remembers, "translated" Boethius and "made" the life of St. Cecilia.[26]

To select from this large body of literature, "made," "compiled," "translated," only such works as can claim to be called, in the modern sense of the word, "translations" would be a difficult and unprofitable task. Rather one must accept the situation as it stands and consider the whole mass of such writings as appear, either from the claims of their authors or on the authority of modern scholarship, to be of secondary origin. "Translations" of this sort are numerous. Chaucer in his own time was reckoned "grant translateur."[27] Of the books which Caxton a century later issued from his printing press a large proportion were English versions of Latin or French works. Our concern, indeed, is with the larger and by no means the least valuable part of the literature produced during the Middle English period.

The theory which accompanies this nondescript collection of translations is scattered throughout various works, and is somewhat liable to misinterpretation if taken out of its immediate context. Before proceeding to consider it, however, it is necessary to notice certain phases of the general literary situation which created peculiar difficulties for the translator or which are likely to be confusing to the present-day reader. As regards the translator, existing circumstances were not encouraging. In the early part of the period he occupied a very lowly place. As compared with Latin, or even with French, the English language, undeveloped and unstandardized, could make its appeal only to the unlearned. It had, in the words of a thirteenth-century translator of Bishop Grosseteste's _Castle of Love_, "no savor before a clerk."[28] Sometimes, it is true, the English writer had the stimulus of patriotism. The translator of _Richard Coeur de Lion_ feels that Englishmen ought to be able to read in their own tongue the exploits of the English hero. The _Cursor Mundi_ is translated

In to Inglis tong to rede
For the love of Inglis lede,
Inglis lede of Ingland.[29]

But beyond this there was little to encourage the translator. His audience, as compared with the learned and the refined, who read Latin and French, was ignorant and undiscriminating; his crude medium was entirely unequal to reproducing what had been written in more highly developed languages. It is little wonder that in these early days his English should be termed "dim and dark." Even after Chaucer had showed that the despised language was capable of grace and charm, the writer of less genius must often have felt that beside the more sophisticated Latin or French, English could boast but scanty resources.

There were difficulties and limitations also in the choice of material to be translated. Throughout most of the period literature existed only in manuscript; there were few large collections in any one place; travel was not easy. Priests, according to the prologue to Mirk's _Festial_, written in the early fifteenth century, complained of "default of books." To aspire, as did Chaucer's Clerk, to the possession of "twenty books" was to aspire high. Translators occasionally give interesting details regarding the circumstances under which they read and translated. The author of the life of St. Etheldred of Ely refers twice, with a certain pride, to a manuscript preserved in the abbey of Godstow which he himself has seen and from which he has drawn some of the facts which he presents. The translator of the alliterative romance of _Alexander_ "borrowed" various books when he undertook his English rendering.[30] Earl Rivers, returning from the Continent, brought back a manuscript which had been lent him by a French gentleman, and set about the translation of his _Dictes and Sayings of the Old Philosophers_.[31] It is not improbable that there was a good deal of borrowing, with its attendant inconveniences. Even in the sixteenth century Sir Thomas Elyot, if we may believe his story, was hampered by the laws of property. He became interested in the acts and wisdom of Alexander Severus, "which book," he says, "was first written in the Greek tongue by his secretary Eucolpius and by good chance was lent unto me by a gentleman of Naples called Padericus. In reading whereof I was marvelously ravished, and as it hath ever been mine appetite, I wished that it had been published in such a tongue as more men might understand it. Wherefore with all diligence I endeavored myself whiles I had leisure to translate it into English: albeit I could not so exactly perform mine enterprise as I might have done, if the owner had not importunately called for his book, whereby I was constrained to leave some part of the work untranslated."[32] William Paris--to return to the earlier period--has left on record a situation which stirs the imagination. He translated the legend of St. Cristine while a prisoner in the Isle of Man, the only retainer of his unfortunate lord, the Earl of Warwick, whose captivity he chose to share.

He made this lyfe in ynglishe soo,
As he satte in prison of stone,
Ever as he myghte tent therto
Whane he had his lordes service done.[33]

One is tempted to let the fancy play on the combination of circumstances that provided him with the particular manuscript from which he worked. It is easy, of course, to emphasize overmuch the scarcity and the inaccessibility of texts, but it is obvious that the translator's choice of subject was largely conditioned by opportunity. He did not select from the whole range of literature the work which most appealed to his genius. It is a far cry from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, with its stress on individual choice. Roscommon's advice,

Examine how your humour is inclined,
And what the ruling passion of your mind;
Then seek a poet who your way does bend,
And choose an author as you choose a friend,

seems absurd in connection with the translator who had to choose what was within his reach, and who, in many cases, could not sit down in undisturbed possession of his source.

The element of individual choice was also diminished by the intervention of friends and patrons. In the fifteenth century, when translators were becoming communicative about their affairs, there is frequent reference to suggestion from without. Allowing for interest in the new craft of printing, there is still so much mention in Caxton's prefaces of commissions for translation as to make one feel that "ordering" an English version of some foreign book had become no uncommon thing for those who owned manuscripts and could afford such commodities as translations. Caxton's list ranges from _The Fayttes of Armes_, translated at the request of Henry VII from a manuscript lent by the king himself, to _The Mirrour of the World_, "translated ... at the request, desire, cost, and dispense of the honorable and worshipful man, Hugh Bryce, alderman and citizen of London."[34]

One wonders also how the source, thus chosen, presented itself to the translator's conception. His references to it are generally vague or confused, often positively misleading. Yet to designate with any definiteness a French or Latin text was no easy matter. When one considers the labor that, of later years, has gone to the classification and identification of old manuscripts, the awkward elaboration of nomenclature necessary to distinguish them, the complications resulting from missing pages and from the undue liberties of copyists, one realizes something of the position of the medieval translator. Even categories were not forthcoming for his convenience. The religious legend of _St. Katherine of Alexandria_ is derived from "chronicles";[35] the moral tale of _The Incestuous Daughter_ has its source in "romance";[36] Grosseteste's allegory, _The Castle of Love_, is presented as "a romance of English ... out of a romance that Sir Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, made."[37] The translator who explained "I found it written in old hand" was probably giving as adequate an account of his source as truth would permit.

Moreover, part of the confusion had often arisen before the manuscript came into the hands of the English translator. Often he was engaged in translating something that was already a translation. Most frequently it was a French version of a Latin original, but sometimes its ancestry was complicated by the existence or the tradition of Greek or Hebrew sources. The medieval Troy story, with its list of authorities, Dictys, Dares, Guido delle Colonne--to cite the favorite names--shows the situation in an aggravated form. In such cases the earlier translator's blunders and omissions in describing his source were likely to be perpetuated in the new rendering.

Such, roughly speaking, were the circumstances under which the translator did his work. Some of his peculiar difficulties are, approached from another angle, the difficulties of the present-day reader. The presence of one or more intermediary versions, a complication especially noticeable in England as a result of the French occupation after the Conquest, may easily mislead us. The originals of many of our texts are either non-extant or not yet discovered, but in cases where we do possess the actual source which the English writer used, a disconcerting situation often becomes evident. What at first seemed to be the English translator's comment on his own treatment of source is frequently only a literal rendering of a comment already present in his original. It is more convenient to discuss the details of such cases in another context, but any general approach to the theory of translation in Middle English literature must include this consideration. If we are not in possession of the exact original of a translation, our conclusions must nearly always be discounted by the possibility that not only the subject matter but the comment on that subject matter came from the French or Latin source. The pronoun of the first person must be regarded with a slight suspicion. "I" may refer to the Englishman, but it may also refer to his predecessor who made a translation or a compilation in French or Latin. "Compilation" suggests another difficulty. Sometimes an apparent reference to source is only an appeal to authority for the confirmation of a single detail, an appeal which, again, may be the work of the English translator, but may, on the other hand, be the contribution of his predecessor. A fairly common situation, for example, appears in John Capgrave's _Life of St. Augustine_, produced, as its author says, in answer to the request of a gentlewoman that he should "translate her truly out of Latin the life of St. Augustine, great doctor of the church." Of the work, its editor, Mr. Munro, says, "It looks at first sight as though Capgrave had merely translated an older Latin text, as he did in the _Life of St. Gilbert_; but no Latin life corresponding to our text has been discovered, and as Capgrave never refers to 'myn auctour,' and always alludes to himself as handling the material, I incline to conclude that he is himself the original composer, and that his reference to translation signifies his use of Augustine's books, from which he translates whole passages."[38] In a case like this it is evidently impossible to draw dogmatic conclusions. It may be that Capgrave is using the word "translate" with medieval looseness, but it is also possible that some of the comment expressed in the first person is translated comment, and the editor adds that, though the balance of probability is against it, "it is still possible that a Latin life may have been used." Occasionally, it is true, comment is stamped unmistakably as belonging to the English translator. The translator of a _Canticum de Creatione_ declares that there were

--fro the incarnacioun of Jhesu
Til this rym y telle yow
Were turned in to englisch,
A thousand thre hondred & seventy
And fyve yere witterly.
Thus in bok founden it is.[39]

Such unquestionably _English_ additions are, unfortunately, rare and the situation remains confused.

But this is not the only difficulty which confronts the reader. He searches with disappointing results for such general and comprehensive statements of the medieval translator's theory as may aid in the interpretation of detail. Such statements are few, generally late in date, and, even when not directly translated from a predecessor, are obviously repetitions of the conventional rule associated with the name of Jerome and adopted in Anglo-Saxon times by Alfred and Aelfric. An early fifteenth-century translator of the _Secreta Secretorum_, for example, carries over into English the preface of the Latin translator: "I have translated with great travail into open understanding of Latin out of the language of Araby ... sometimes expounding letter by letter, and sometimes understanding of understanding, for other manner of speaking is with Arabs and other with Latin."[40] Lydgate makes a similar statement:

I wyl translate hyt sothly as I kan,
After the lettre, in ordre effectuelly.
Thogh I not folwe the wordes by & by,
I schal not faille teuching the substance.[41]

Osbern Bokenam declares that he has translated

Not wurde for wurde--for that ne may be
In no translation, aftyr Jeromys decree--
But fro sentence to sentence.[42]

There is little attempt at the further analysis which would give this principle fresh significance. The translator makes scarcely any effort to define the extent to which he may diverge from the words of his original or to explain why such divergence is necessary. John de Trevisa, who translated so extensively in the later fourteenth century, does give some account of his methods, elementary, it is true, but honest and individual. His preface to his English prose version of Higden's _Polychronicon_ explains: "In some place I shall set word for word, and active for active, and passive for passive, a-row right as it standeth, without changing of the order of words. But in some place I must change the order of words, and set active for passive and again-ward. And in some place I must set a reason for a word and tell what it meaneth. But for all such changing the meaning shall stand and not be changed."[43] An explanation like this, however, is unusual.

Possibly the fact that the translation was in prose affected Trevisa's theorizing. A prose rendering could follow its original so closely that it was possible to describe the comparatively few changes consequent on English usage. In verse, on the other hand, the changes involved were so great as to discourage definition. There are, however, a few comments on the methods to be employed in poetical renderings. According to the _Proem_ to the _Boethius_, Alfred, in the Anglo-Saxon period, first translated the book "from Latin into English prose," and then "wrought it up once more into verse, as it is now done."[44] At the very beginning of the history of Middle English literature Orm attacked the problem of the verse translation very directly. He writes of his Ormulum:

Icc hafe sett her o thiss boc
Amang Godspelles wordess,
All thurrh me sellfenn, manig word
The rime swa to fillenn.[45]

Such additions, he says, are necessary if the readers are to understand the text and if the metrical form is to be kept.

Forr whase mot to laewedd follc
Larspell off Goddspell tellenn,
He mot wel ekenn manig word
Amang Godspelless Wordess.
& icc ne mihhte nohht min ferrs
Ayy withth Godspelless wordess
Wel fillenn all, & all forrthi
Shollde icc wel offte nede
Amang Godspelless wordess don
Min word, min ferrs to fillenn.[46]

Later translators, however, seldom followed his lead. There are a few comments connected with prose translations; the translator of _The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry_ quotes the explanation of his author that he has chosen prose rather than verse "for to abridge it, and that it might be better and more plainly to be understood";[47] the Lord in Trevisa's _Dialogue_ prefixed to the _Polychronicon_ desires a translation in prose, "for commonly prose is more clear than rhyme, more easy and more plain to understand";[48] but apparently the only one of Orm's successors to put into words his consciousness of the complications which accompany a metrical rendering is the author of _The Romance of Partenay_, whose epilogue runs:

As ny as metre can conclude sentence,
Cereatly by rew in it have I go.
Nerehand stafe by staf, by gret diligence,
Savyng that I most metre apply to;
The wourdes meve, and sett here & ther so.[49]

What follows, however, shows that he is concerned not so much with the peculiar difficulty of translation as with the general difficulty of "forging" verse. Whether a man employs Latin, French, or the vernacular, he continues,

Be it in balede, vers, Rime, or prose,
He most torn and wend, metrely to close.[50]

Of explicit comment on general principles, then, there is but a small amount in connection with Middle English translations. Incidentally, however, writers let fall a good deal of information regarding their theories and methods. Such material must be interpreted with considerable caution, for although the most casual survey makes it clear that generally the translator felt bound to put into words something of his debt and his responsibility to his predecessors, yet one does not know how much significance should attach to this comment. He seldom offers clear, unmistakable information as to his difficulties and his methods of meeting them. It is peculiarly interesting to come upon such explanation of processes as appears at one point in Capgrave's _Life of St. Gilbert_. In telling the story of a miracle wrought upon a sick man, Capgrave writes: "One of his brethren, which was his keeper, gave him this counsel, that he should wind his head with a certain cloth of linen which St. Gilbert wore. I suppose verily," continues the translator, "it was his alb, for mine author here setteth a word 'subucula,' which is both an alb and a shirt, and in the first part of this life the same author saith that this holy man wore next his skin no hair as for the hardest, nor linen as for the softest, but he went with wool, as with the mean."[51] Such care for detail suggests the comparative methods later employed by the translators of the Bible, but whether or not it was common, it seldom found its way into words. The majority of writers acquitted themselves of the translator's duty by introducing at intervals somewhat conventional references to source, "in story as we read," "in tale as it is told," "as saith the geste," "in rhyme I read," "the prose says," "as mine author doth write," "as it tells in the book," "so saith the French tale," "as saith the Latin." Tags like these are everywhere present, especially in verse, where they must often have proved convenient in eking out the metre. Whether they are to be interpreted literally is hard to determine. The reader of English versions can seldom be certain whether variants on the more ordinary forms are merely stylistic or result from actual differences in situation; whether, for example, phrases like "as I have heard tell," "as the book says," "as I find in parchment spell" are rewordings of the same fact or represent real distinctions.

One group of doubtful references apparently question the reliability of the written source. In most cases the seeming doubt is probably the result of awkward phrasing. Statements like "as the story doth us both write and mean,"[52] "as the book says and true men tell us,"[53] "but the book us lie,"[54] need have little more significance than the slightly absurd declaration,

The gospel nul I forsake nought
_Thaugh_ it be written in parchemyn.[55]

Occasional more direct questionings incline one, however, to take the matter a little more seriously. The translator of a _Canticum de Creatione_, strangely fabulous in content, presents his material with the words,

--as we finden in lectrure,
I not whether it be in holy scripture.[56]

The author of one of the legends of the Holy Cross says,

This tale, quether hit be il or gode,
I fande hit writen of the rode.
Mani tellis diverseli,
For thai finde diverse stori.[57]

Capgrave, in his legend of _St. Katherine_, takes issue unmistakably with his source.

In this reknyng myne auctour & I are too:
ffor he accordeth not wytz cronicles that ben olde,
But diversyth from hem, & that in many thyngis.
There he accordeth, ther I him hold;
And where he diversyth in ordre of theis kyngis,
I leve hym, & to oder mennys rekenyngis
I geve more credens whech be-fore hym and me
Sette alle these men in ordre & degre.[58]

Except when this mistrust is made a justification for divergence from the original, these comments contribute little to our knowledge of the medieval translator's methods and need concern us little. More needful of explanation is the reference which implies that the English writer is not working from a manuscript, but is reproducing something which he has heard read or recounted, or which he has read for himself at some time in the past. How is one to interpret phrases like that which introduces the story of _Golagros and Gawain_, "as true men me told," or that which appears at the beginning of _Rauf Coilyear_, "heard I tell"? One explanation, obviously true in some cases, is that such references are only conventional. The concluding lines of _Ywain and Gawin_,

Of them no more have I heard tell
Neither in romance nor in spell,[59]

are simply a rough rendering of the French

Ne ja plus n'en orroiz conter,
S'an n'i vialt manconge ajoster.[60]

On the other hand, the author of the long romance of _Ipomadon_, which follows its source with a closeness which precludes all possibility of reproduction from memory, has tacked on two references to hearing,[61] not only without a basis in the French but in direct contradiction to Hue de Rotelande's account of the source of his material. In _Emare_, "as I have heard minstrels sing in sawe" is apparently introduced as the equivalent of the more ordinary phrases "in tale as it is told" and "in romance as we read,"[62] the second of which is scarcely compatible with the theory of an oral source.

One cannot always, however, dispose of the reference to hearing so easily. Contemporary testimony shows that literature was often transmitted by word of mouth. Thomas de Cabham mentions the "ioculatores, qui cantant gesta principum et vitam sanctorum";[63] Robert of Brunne complains that those who sing or say the geste of _Sir Tristram_ do not repeat the story exactly as Thomas made it.[64] Even though one must recognize the probability that sometimes the immediate oral source of the minstrel's tale may have been English, one cannot ignore the possibility that occasionally a "translated" saint's life or romance may have been the result of hearing a French or Latin narrative read or recited. A convincing example of reproduction from memory appears in the legend of _St. Etheldred of Ely_, whose author recounts certain facts,

The whiche y founde in the abbey of Godstow y-wis,
In hure legent as y dude there that tyme rede,

and later presents other material,

The whiche y say at Hely y-write.[65]

Such evidence makes us regard with more attention the remark in Capgrave's _St. Katherine_,

--right soo dede I lere
Of cronycles whiche (that) I saugh last,[66]

or the lines at the end of _Roberd of Cisyle_,

Al this is write withoute lyghe
At Rome, to ben in memorye,
At seint Petres cherche, I knowe.[67]

It is possible also that sometimes a vague phrase like "as the story says," or "in tale as it is told," may signify hearing instead of reading. But in general one turns from consideration of the references to hearing with little more than an increased respect for the superior definiteness which belongs to the mention of the "black letters," the "parchment," "the French book," or "the Latin book."

Leaving the general situation and examining individual types of literature, one finds it possible to draw conclusions which are somewhat more definite. The metrical romance--to choose one of the most popular literary forms of the period--is nearly always garnished with references to source scattered throughout its course in a manner that awakens curiosity. Sometimes they do not appear at the beginning of the romance, but are introduced in large numbers towards the end; sometimes, after a long series of pages containing nothing of the sort, we begin to come upon them frequently, perhaps in groups, one appearing every few lines, so that their presence constitutes something like a quality of style. For example, in _Bevis of Hamtoun_[68] and _The Earl of Toulouse_[69] the first references to source come between ll. 800 and 900; in _Ywain and Gawin_ the references appear at ll. 9, 3209, and 3669;[70] in _The Wars of Alexander_[71] there is a perpetual harping on source, one phrase seeming to produce another.

Occasionally one can find a reason for the insertion of the phrase in a given place. Sometimes its presence suggests that the translator has come upon an unfamiliar word. In _Sir Eglamour of Artois_, speaking of a bird that has carried off a child, the author remarks, "a griffin, saith the book, he hight";[72] in _Partenay_, in an attempt to give a vessel its proper name, the writer says, "I found in scripture that it was a barge."[73] This impression of accuracy is most common in connection with geographical proper names. In _Torrent of Portyngale_ we have the name of a forest, "of Brasill saith the book it was"; in _Partonope of Blois_ we find "France was named those ilke days Galles, as mine author says,"[74] or "Mine author telleth this church hight the church of Albigis."[75] In this same romance the reference to source accompanies a definite bit of detail, "The French book thus doth me tell, twenty waters he passed full fell."[76] Bevis of Hamtoun kills "forty Sarracens, the French saith."[77] As in the case of the last illustration, the translator frequently needs to cite his authority because the detail he gives is somewhat difficult of belief. In _The Sege of Melayne_ the Christian warriors recover their horses miraculously "through the prayer of St. Denys, thus will the chronicle say";[78] in _The Romance of Partenay_ we read of a wondrous light appearing about a tomb, "the French maker saith he saw it with eye."[79] Sometimes these phrases suggest that metre and rhyme do not always flow easily for the English writer, and that in such difficulties a stock space-filler is convenient. Lines like those in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_,

And so bifel upon a day,
Forsothe _as I you telle may_
Sir Thopas wolde outride,

and

The briddes synge, _it is no nay_,
The sparhauke and the papejay

may easily be paralleled by passages containing references to source.

A good illustration from almost every point of view of the significance and lack of significance of the appearance of these phrases in a given context is the version of the Alexander story usually called _The Wars of Alexander_. The frequent references to source in this romance occur in sporadic groups. The author begins by putting them in with some regularity at the beginnings of the _passus_ into which he divides his narrative, but, as the story progresses, he ceases to do so, perhaps forgets his first purpose. Sometimes the reference to source suggests accuracy: "And five and thirty, as I find, were in the river drowned."[80] "Rhinoceros, as I read, the book them calls."[81] The strength of some authority is necessary to support the weight of the incredible marvels which the story-teller recounts. He tells of a valley full of serpents with crowns on their heads, who fed, "as the prose tells," on pepper, cloves, and ginger;[82] of enormous crabs with backs, "as the book says," bigger and harder than any common stone or cockatrice scales;[83] of the golden image of Xerxes, which on the approach of Alexander suddenly, "as tells the text," falls to pieces.[84] He often has recourse to an authority for support when he takes proper names from the Latin. "Luctus it hight, the lettre and the line thus it calls."[85] The slayers of Darius are named Besan and Anabras, "as the book tells."[86] On the other hand, the signification of the reference in its context can be shown to be very slight. As was said before, the writer soon forgets to insert it at the beginning of the new _passus_; there are plenty of marvels without any citation of authority to add to their credibility; and though the proper name carries its reference to the Latin, it is usually strangely distorted from its original form. So far as bearing on the immediate context is concerned, most of the references to source have little more meaning than the ordinary tags, "as I you say," "as you may hear," or "as I understand."

Apart, however, from the matter of context, one may make a rough classification of the romances on the ground of these references. Leaving aside the few narratives (e.g. _Sir Percival of Galles_, _King Horn_) which contain no suggestion that they are of secondary origin, one may distinguish two groups. There is, in the first place, a large body of romances which refer in general terms to their originals, but do not profess any responsibility for faithful reproduction; in the second place, there are some romances whose authors do recognize the claims of the original, which is in such cases nearly always definitely described, and frequently go so far as to discuss its style or the style to be adopted in the English rendering. The first group, which includes considerably more than half the romances at present accessible in print, affords a confused mass of references. As regards the least definite of these, one finds phrases so vague as to suggest that the author himself might have had difficulty in identifying his source, phrases where the omission of the article ("in rhyme," "in romance," "in story") or the use of the plural ("as books say," "as clerks tell," "as men us told," "in stories thus as we read") deprives the words of most of their significance. Other references are more definite; the writer mentions "this book," "mine author," "the Latin book," "the French book." If these phrases are to be trusted, we may conclude that the English translator has his text before him; they aid little, however, in identification of that text. The fifty-six references in Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_ to "the French book" give no particular clue to discovery of his sources. The common formula, "as the French book says," marks the highest degree of definiteness to which most of these romances attain.

An interesting variant from the commoner forms is the reference to _Rom_, generally in the phrase "the book of Rom," which appears in some of the romances. The explanation that _Rom_ is a corruption of _romance_ and that _the book of Rom_ is simply the book of romance or the book written in the romance language, French, can easily be supported. In the same poem _Rom_ alternates with _romance_: "In Rome this geste is chronicled," "as the romance telleth,"[87] "in the chronicles of Rome is the date," "in romance as we read."[88] Two versions of _Octavian_ read, the one "in books of Rome," the other "in books of ryme."[89] On the other hand, there are peculiarities in the use of the word not so easy of explanation. It appears in a certain group of romances, _Octavian_, _Le Bone Florence of Rome_, _Sir Eglamour of Artois_, _Torrent of Portyngale_, _The Earl of Toulouse_, all of which develop in some degree the Constance story, familiar in _The Man of Law's Tale_. In all of them there is reference to the city of Rome, sometimes very obvious, sometimes slight, but perhaps equally significant in the latter case because it is introduced in an unexpected, unnecessary way. In _Le Bone Florence of Rome_ the heroine is daughter of the Emperor of Rome, and, the tale of her wanderings done, the story ends happily with her reinstatement in her own city. Octavian is Emperor of Rome, and here again the happy conclusion finds place in that city. Sir Eglamour belongs to Artois, but he does betake himself to Rome to kill a dragon, an episode introduced in one manuscript of the story by the phrase "as the book of Rome says."[90] Though the scenes of _Torrent of Portyngale_ are Portugal, Norway, and Calabria, the Emperor of Rome comes to the wedding of the hero, and Torrent himself is finally chosen Emperor, presumably of Rome. The Earl of Toulouse, in the romance of that name, disguises himself as a monk, and to aid in the illusion some one says of him during his disappearance, "Gone is he to his own land: he dwells with the Pope of Rome."[91] The Emperor in this story is Emperor of Almaigne, but his name, strangely enough, is Diocletian. Again, in _Octavian_, one reads in the description of a feast, "there was many a rich geste of Rome and of France,"[92] which suggests a distinction between a geste of Rome and a geste of France. In _Le Bone Florence of Rome_ appears the peculiar statement, "Pope Symonde this story wrote. In the chronicles of Rome is the date."[93] In this case the word _Rome_ seems to have been taken literally enough to cause attribution of the story to the Pope. It is evident, then, that whether or not _Rome_ is a corruption of _romance_, at any rate one or more of the persons who had a hand in producing these narratives must have interpreted the word literally, and believed that the book of Rome was a record of occurrences in the city of Rome.[94] It is interesting to note that in _The Man of Law's Tale_, in speaking of Maurice, the son of Constance, Chaucer introduces a reference to the _Gesta Romanorum_:

In the old Romayn gestes may men fynde
Maurice's lyf, I bere it not in mynde.

Such vagueness and uncertainty, if not positive misunderstanding with regard to source, are characteristic of many romances. It is not difficult to find explanations for this. The writer may, as was suggested before, be reproducing a story which he has only heard or which he has read at some earlier time. Even if he has the book before him, it does not necessarily bear its author's name and it is not easy to describe it so that it can be recognized by others. Generally speaking, his references to source are honest, so far as they go, and can be taken at their face value. Even in cases of apparent falsity explanations suggest themselves. There is nearly always the possibility that false or contradictory attributions, as, for example, the mention of "book" and "books" or "the French book" and "the Latin book" as sources of the same romance, are merely stupidly literal renderings of the original. In _The Romance of Partenay_, one of the few cases where we have unquestionably the French original of the English romance, more than once an apparent reference to source in the English is only a close following of the French. "I found in scripture that it was a barge" corresponds with "Je treuve que c'estoit une barge"; "as saith the scripture" with "Ainsi que dient ly escrips";

For the Cronike doth treteth (sic) this brefly,
More ferther wold go, mater finde might I

with

Mais en brief je m'en passeray
Car la cronique en brief passe.
Plus deisse, se plus trouvasse.[95]

A similar situation has already been pointed out in _Ywain and Gawin_. The most marked example of contradictory evidence is to be found in _Octavian_, whose author alternates "as the French says" with "as saith the Latin."[96] Here, however, the nearest analogue to the English romance, which contains 1962 lines, is a French romance of 5371 lines, which begins by mentioning the "grans merueilles qui sont faites, et de latin en romanz traites."[97] It is not impossible that the English writer used a shorter version which emphasized this reference to the Latin, and that his too-faithful adherence to source had confusing results. But even if such contradictions cannot be explained, in the mass of undistinguished romances there is scarcely anything to suggest that the writer is trying to give his work a factitious value by misleading references to dignified sources. His faults, as in _Ywain and Gawin_, where the name of Chretien is not carried over from the French, are sins of omission, not commission.

No hard and fast line of division can be drawn between the romances just discussed and those of the second group, with their frequent and fairly definite references to their sources and to their methods of reproducing them. A rough chronological division between the two groups can be made about the year 1400. _William of Palerne_, assigned by its editor to the year 1350, contains a slight indication of the coming change in the claim which its author makes to have accomplished his task "as fully as the French fully would ask."[98] Poems like Chaucer's _Knight's Tale_ and _Franklin's Tale_ have only the vague references to source of the earlier period, though since they are presented as oral narratives, they belong less obviously to the present discussion. The vexed question of the signification of the references in _Troilus and Criseyde_ is outside the scope of this discussion. Superficially considered, they are an odd mingling of the new and the old. Phrases like "as to myn auctour listeth to devise" (III, 1817), "as techen bokes olde" (III, 91), "as wryten folk thorugh which it is in minde" (IV, 18) suggest the first group. The puzzling references to Lollius have a certain definiteness, and faithfulness to source is implied in lines like:

And of his song nought only the sentence,
As writ myn auctour called Lollius,
But pleynly, save our tonges difference,
I dar wel seyn, in al that Troilus
Seyde in his song; lo! every word right thus
As I shal seyn
(I, 393-8)

and

"For as myn auctour seyde, so seye I" (II, 18).

But from the beginning of the new century, in the work of men like Lydgate and Caxton, a new habit of comment becomes noticeable.

Less distinguished translators show a similar development. The author of _The Holy Grail_, Harry Lonelich, a London skinner, towards the end of his work makes frequent, if perhaps mistaken, attribution of the French romance to

... myn sire Robert of Borron
Whiche that this storie Al & som
Owt Of the latyn In to the frensh torned he
Be holy chirches Comandment sekerle,[99]

and makes some apology for the defects of his own style:

And I, As An unkonning Man trewly
Into Englisch have drawen this Story;
And thowgh that to yow not plesyng It be,
Yit that ful Excused ye wolde haven Me
Of my necligence and unkonning.[100]

_The Romance of Partenay_ is turned into English by a writer who presents himself very modestly:

I not acqueynted of birth naturall
With frenshe his very trew parfightnesse,
Nor enpreyntyd is in mind cordiall;
O word For other myght take by lachesse,
Or peradventure by unconnyngesse.[101]

He intends, however, to be a careful translator:

As nighe as metre will conclude sentence,
Folew I wil my president,
Ryght as the frenshe wil yiff me evidence,
Cereatly after myn entent,[102]

and he ends by declaring that in spite of the impossibility of giving an exact rendering of the French in English metre, he has kept very closely to the original. Sometimes, owing to the shortness of the French "staffes," he has reproduced in one line two lines of the French, but, except for this, comparison will show that the two versions are exactly alike.[103]

The translator of _Partonope of Blois_ does not profess such slavish faithfulness, though he does profess great admiration for his source,

The olde booke full well I-wryted,
In ffrensh also, and fayre endyted,[104]

and declares himself bound to follow it closely:

Thus seith myn auctour after whome I write.
Blame not me: I moste endite
As nye after hym as ever I may,
Be it sothe or less I can not say.[105]

However, in the midst of his protestations of faithfulness, he confesses to divergence:

There-fore y do alle my myghthhe
To saue my autor ynne sucche wyse
As he that mater luste devyse,
Where he makyth grete compleynte
In french so fayre thatt yt to paynte
In Englysche tunngge y saye for me
My wyttys alle to dullet bee.
He telleth hys tale of sentament
I vnderstonde noghth hys entent,
Ne wolle ne besy me to lere.[106]

He owns to the abbreviation of descriptive passages, which so many English translators had perpetrated in silence:

Her bewte dyscry fayne wolde I
Affter the sentence off myne auctowre,
Butte I pray yowe of thys grette labowre
I mote at thys tyme excused be;[107]

Butte who so luste to here of hur a-raye,
Lette him go to the ffrensshe bocke,
That Idell mater I forsoke
To telle hyt in prose or els in ryme,
For me thoghte hyt taryed grette tyme.
And ys a mater full nedless.[108]

One cannot but suspect that this odd mingling of respect and freedom as regards the original describes the attitude of many other translators of romances, less articulate in the expression of their theory.

To deal fairly with many of the romances of this second group, one must consider the relationship between romance and history and the uncertain division between the two. The early chronicles of England generally devoted an appreciable space to matters of romance, the stories of Troy, of Aeneas, of Arthur. As in the case of the romance proper, such chronicles were, even in the modern sense, "translated," for though the historian usually compiled his material from more than one source, his method was to put together long, consecutive passages from various authors, with little attempt at assimilating them into a whole. The distinction between history and romance was slow in arising. The _Morte Arthure_ offers within a few lines both "romances" and "chronicles" as authorities for its statements.[109] In Caxton's preface to _Godfrey of Bullogne_ the enumeration of the great names of history includes Arthur and Charlemagne, and the story of Godfrey is designated as "this noble history which is no fable nor feigned thing." Throughout the period the stories of Troy and of Alexander are consistently treated as history, and their redactors frequently state that their material has come from various places. Nearly all the English Troy stories are translations of Guido delle Colonne's _Historia Trojana_, and they take over from their original Guido's long discussion of authorities. The Alexander romances present the same effect of historical accuracy in passages like the following:

This passage destuted is
In the French, well y-wis,
Therefore I have, it to colour
Borrowed of the Latin author;[110]

Of what kin he came can I nought find
In no book that I bed when I began here
The Latin to this language lelliche to turn.[111]

The assumption of the historian's attitude was probably the largest factor in the development of the habit of expressing responsibility for following the source or for noting divergence from it. Less easy of explanation is the fact that comment on style so frequently appears in this connection. There is perhaps a touch of it even in Layamon's account of his originals, when he approaches his French source: "Layamon began to journey wide over this land, and procured the noble books which he took for authority. He took the English book that Saint Bede made; another he took in Latin that Saint Albin made, and the fair Austin, who brought baptism hither; the third he took, (and) laid there in the midst, that a French clerk made, who was named Wace, who well could write.... Layamon laid before him these books, and turned the leaves ... pen he took with fingers, and wrote on book skin, and the true words set together, and the three books compressed into one."[112] Robert of Brunne, in his _Chronicle of England_, dated as early as 1338, combines a lengthy discussion of style with a clear statement of the extent to which he has used his sources. Wace tells in French

All that the Latyn spelles,
ffro Eneas till Cadwaladre;
this Mayster Wace ther leves he.
And ryght as Mayster Wace says,
I telle myn Inglis the same ways.[113]

Pers of Langtoft continues the history;

& as he says, than say I,[114]

writes the translator. Robert admires his predecessors, Dares, whose "Latyn is feyre to lere," Wace, who "rymed it in Frankis fyne," and Pers, of whose style he says, "feyrer language non ne redis"; but he is especially concerned with his own manner of expression. He does not aspire to an elaborate literary style; rather, he says,

I made it not forto be praysed,
Bot at the lewed men were aysed.[115]

Consequently he eschews the difficult verse forms then coming into fashion, "ryme cowee," "straungere," or "enterlace." He does not write for the "disours," "seggers," and "harpours" of his own day, who tell the old stories badly.