Chapter I: The Medieval Period (2)

Non tham says as thai tham wrought,
& in ther sayng it semes noght.[116]

A confusion of pronouns makes it difficult to understand what he considers the fault of contemporary renderings. Possibly it is that affectation of an obsolete style to which Caxton refers in the preface to the _Eneydos_. In any case, he himself rejects "straunge Inglis" for "simple speche."

Unlike Robert of Brunne, Andrew of Wyntoun, writing at the beginning of the next century, delights in the ornamental style which has added a charm to ancient story.

Quharfore of sic antiquiteis
Thei that set haly thare delite
Gestis or storyis for to write,
Flurist fairly thare purpose
With quaynt and curiouse circumstance,
For to raise hertis in plesance,
And the heraris till excite
Be wit or will to do thare delite.[117]

The "antiquiteis" which he has in mind are obviously the tales of Troy. Guido delle Colonne, Homer, and Virgil, he continues, all

Fairly formyt there tretyss,
And curiously dytit there storyis.[118]

Some writers, however, did not adopt the elevated style which such subject matter deserves.

Sum usit bot in plane maner
Of air done dedis thar mater
To writ, as did Dares of Frigy,
That wrait of Troy all the story,
Bot in till plane and opin style,
But curiouse wordis or subtile.[119]

Andrew does not attempt to discuss the application of his theory to English style, but he has perhaps suggested the reason why the question of style counted for so much in connection with this pseudo-historical material. In the introduction to Barbour's _Bruce_, though the point at issue is not translation, there is a similar idea. According to Barbour, a true story has a special claim to an attractive rendering.

Storyss to rede ar delitabill,
Supposs that thai be nocht bot fabill;
Than suld storyss that suthfast wer,
And thai war said in gud maner,
Have doubill plesance in heryng.
The fyrst plesance is the carpyng,
And the tothir the suthfastness,
That schawys the thing rycht as it wes.[120]

Lydgate, Wyntoun's contemporary, apparently shared his views. In translating Boccaccio's _Falls of Princes_ he dispenses with stylistic ornament.

Of freshe colours I toke no maner hede.
But my processe playnly for to lede:
As me semed it was to me most mete
To set apart Rethorykes swete.[121]

But when it came to the Troy story, his matter demanded a different treatment. He calls upon Mars

To do socour my stile to directe,
And of my penne the tracys to correcte,
Whyche bareyn is of aureate licour,
But in thi grace I fynde som favour
For to conveye it wyth thyn influence.[122]

He also asks aid of Calliope.

Now of thy grace be helpyng unto me,
And of thy golde dewe lat the lycour wete
My dulled breast, that with thyn hony swete
Sugrest tongis of rethoricyens,
And maistresse art to musicyens.[123]

Like Wyntoun, Lydgate pays tribute to his predecessors, the clerks who have kept in memory the great deeds of the past

... thorough diligent labour,
And enlumyned with many corious flour
Of rethorik, to make us comprehend
The trouthe of al.[124]

Of Guido in particular he writes that he

... had in writyng passynge excellence.
For he enlumyneth by craft & cadence
This noble story with many fresch colour
Of rethorik, & many riche flour
Of eloquence to make it sownde bet
He in the story hath ymped in and set,
That in good feyth I trowe he hath no pere.[125]

None of these men point out the relationship between the style of the original and the style to be employed in the English rendering. Caxton, the last writer to be considered in this connection, remarks in his preface to _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_ on the "fair language of the French, which was in prose so well and compendiously set and written," and in the prologue to the _Eneydos_ tells how he was attracted by the "fair and honest terms and words in French," and how, after writing a leaf or two, he noted that his English was characterized by "fair and strange terms." While it may be that both Caxton and Lydgate were trying to reproduce in English the peculiar quality of their originals, it is more probable that they beautified their own versions as best they could, without feeling it incumbent upon them to make their rhetorical devices correspond with those of their predecessors. Elsewhere Caxton expresses concern only for his own language, as it is to be judged by English readers without regard for the qualities of the French. In most cases he characterizes his renderings of romance as "simple and rude"; in the preface to _Charles the Great_ he says that he uses "no gay terms, nor subtle, nor new eloquence"; and in the preface to _Blanchardyn and Eglantine_ he declares that he does not know "the art of rhetoric nor of such gay terms as now be said in these days and used," and that his only desire is to be understood by his readers. The prologue to the _Eneydos_, however, tells a different story. According to this he has been blamed for expressing himself in "over curious terms which could not be understood of the common people" and requested to use "old and homely terms." But Caxton objects to the latter as being also unintelligible. "In my judgment," he says, "the common terms that be daily used, are lighter to be understood than the old and ancient English." He is writing, not for the ignorant man, but "only for a clerk and a noble gentleman that feeleth and understandeth in feats of arms, in love, and in noble chivalry." For this reason, he concludes, "in a mean have I reduced and translated this said book into our English, not over rude nor curious, but in such terms as shall be understood, by God's grace, according to the copy." Though Caxton does not avail himself of Wyntoun's theory that the Troy story must be told in "curious and subtle" words, it is probable that, like other translators of his century, he felt the attraction of the new aureate diction while he professed the simplicity of language which existing standards demanded of the translator.

Turning from the romance and the history and considering religious writings, the second large group of medieval productions, one finds the most significant translator's comment associated with the saint's legend, though occasionally the short pious tale or the more abstract theological treatise makes some contribution. These religious works differ from the romances in that they are more frequently based on Latin than on French originals, and in that they contain more deliberate and more repeated references to the audiences to which they have been adapted. The translator does not, like Caxton, write for "a clerk and a noble gentleman"; instead he explains repeatedly that he has striven to make his work understandable to the unlearned, for, as the author of _The Child of Bristow_ pertinently remarks,

The beste song that ever was made
Is not worth a lekys blade
But men wol tende ther-tille.[126]

Since Latin enditing is "cumbrous," the translator of _The Blood at Hayles_ presents a version in English, "for plainly this the truth will tell";[127] Osbern Bokenam will speak and write "plainly, after the language of Southfolk speech";[128] John Capgrave, finding that the earlier translator of the life of St. Katherine has made the work "full hard ... right for the strangeness of his dark language," undertakes to translate it "more openly" and "set it more plain."[129] This conception of the audience, together with the writer's consciousness that even in presenting narrative he is conveying spiritual truths of supreme importance to his readers, probably increases the tendency of the translator to incorporate into his English version such running commentary as at intervals suggests itself to him. He may add a line or two of explanation, of exhortation, or, if he recognizes a quotation from the Scriptures or from the Fathers, he may supply the authority for it. John Capgrave undertakes to translate the life of St. Gilbert "right as I find before me, save some additions will I put thereto which men of that order have told me, and eke other things that shall fall to my mind in the writing which be pertinent to the matter."[130] Nicholas Love puts into English _The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ_, "with more put to in certain parts, and also with drawing out of divers authorities and matters as it seemeth to the writer hereof most speedful and edifying to them that be of simple understanding."[131] Such incidental citation of authority is evident in _St. Paula_, published by Dr. Horstmann side by side with its Latin original.[132] With more simplicity and less display of learning, the translator of religious works sometimes vaguely adduces authority, as did the translator of romances, in connection with an unfamiliar name. One finds such statements as: "Manna, so it is written";[133] "Such a fiend, as the book tells us, is called Incubus";[134] "In the country of Champagne, as the book tells";[135] "Cursates, saith the book, he hight";[136]

Her body lyeth in strong castylle
And Bulstene, seith the boke, it hight;[137]

In the yer of ur lord of hevene
Four hundred and eke ellevene
Wandaly the province tok
Of Aufrike--so seith the bok.[138]

Often, however, the reference to source is introduced apparently at random. On the whole, indeed, the comment which accompanies religious writings does not differ essentially in intelligibility or significance from that associated with romances; its interest lies mainly in the fact that it brings into greater relief tendencies more or less apparent in the other form.

One of these is the large proportion of borrowed comment. The constant citation of authority in a work such as, for example, _The Golden Legend_ was likely to be reproduced in the English with varying degrees of faithfulness. A _Life of St. Augustine_, to choose a few illustrations from many, reproduces the Latin as in the following examples: "as the book telleth us" replaces "dicitur enim"; "of him it is said in Glosarie," "ut dicitur in Glossario"; "in the book of his confessions the sooth is written for the nonce," "ut legitur in libro iii. confessionum."[139] Robert of Brunne's _Handlyng Synne_, as printed by the Early English Text Society with its French original, affords numerous examples of translated references to authority.

The tale ys wrytyn, al and sum,
In a boke of Vitas Patrum

corresponds with

Car en vn liure ai troue
Qe Vitas Patrum est apele;

Thus seyth seynt Anselme, that hit wrote
To thys clerkys that weyl hit wote

with

Ceo nus ad Seint Ancelme dit
Qe en la fey fut clerk parfit.

Yet there are variations in the English much more marked than in the last example. "Cum l'estorie nus ad cunte" has become "Yn the byble men mow hyt se"; while for

En ve liure qe est apelez
La sume des vertuz & des pechiez

the translator has substituted

Thys same tale tellyth seynt Bede
Yn hys gestys that men rede.[140]

This attempt to give the origin of a tale or of a precept more accurately than it is given in the French or the Latin leads sometimes to strange confusion, more especially when a reference to the Scriptures is involved. It was admitted that the Bible was unusually difficult of comprehension and that, if the simple were to understand it, it must be annotated in various ways. Nicholas Love says that there have been written "for lewd men and women ... devout meditations of Christ's life more plain in certain parts than is expressed in the gospels of the four evangelists."[141] With so much addition of commentary and legend, it was often hard to tell what was and what was not in Holy Scripture, and consequently while a narrative like _The Birth of Jesus_ cites correctly enough the gospels for certain days, of which it gives a free rendering,[142] there are cases of amazing attributions, like that at the end of the legend of _Ypotis_:

Seynt Jon the Evangelist
Ede on eorthe with Jhesu Crist,
This tale he wrot in latin
In holi bok in parchemin.[143]

After the fifteenth century is reached, the translator of religious works, like the translator of romances, becomes more garrulous in his comment and develops a good deal of interest in English style. As a fair representative of the period we may take Osbern Bokenam, the translator of various saint's legends, a man very much interested in the contemporary development of literary expression. Two qualities, according to Bokenam, characterize his own style; he writes "compendiously" and he avoids "gay speech." He repeatedly disclaims both prolixity and rhetorical ornament. His

... form of procedyng artificyal
Is in no wyse ner poetical.[144]

He cannot emulate the "first rhetoricians," Gower, Chaucer, and Lydgate; he comes too late; they have already gathered "the most fresh flowers." Moreover the ornamental style would not become him; he does not desire

... to have swych eloquence
As sum curials han, ner swych asperence
In utteryng of here subtyl conceytys
In wych oft-tyme ful greth dysceyt is.[145]

To covet the craft of such language would be "great dotage" for an old man like him. Yet like those of Lydgate and Caxton, Bokenam's protestations are not entirely convincing, and in them one catches glimpses of a lurking fondness for the wordiness of fine writing. Though Pallas has always refused to lead him

Of Thully Rethoryk in-to the motlyd mede,
Flourys to gadryn of crafty eloquens,[146]

yet he has often prayed her to show him some favor. Elsewhere he finds it necessary to apologize for the brevity of part of his work.

Now have I shewed more compendiously
Than it owt have ben this noble pedigree;
But in that myn auctour I follow sothly,
And also to eschew prolixite,
And for my wyt is schort, as ye may se,
To the second part I wyl me hye.[147]

The conventionality, indeed, of Bokenam's phraseology and of his literary standards and the self-contradictory elements in his statements leave one with the impression that he has brought little, if anything, that is fresh and individual to add to the theory of translation.

Whether or not the medieval period made progress towards the development of a more satisfactory theory is a doubtful question. While men like Lydgate, Bokenam, and Caxton generally profess to have reproduced the content of their sources and make some mention of the original writers, their comment is confused and indefinite; they do not recognize any compelling necessity for faithfulness; and one sometimes suspects that they excelled their predecessors only in articulateness. As compared with Layamon and Orm they show a development scarcely worthy of a lapse of more than two centuries. There is perhaps, as time goes on, some little advance towards the attainment of modern standards of scholarship as regards confession of divergence from sources. In the early part of the period variations from the original are only vaguely implied and become evident only when the reader can place the English beside the French or Latin. In _Floris and Blancheflor_, for example, a much condensed version of a descriptive passage in the French is introduced by the words, "I ne can tell you how richly the saddle was wrought."[148] The romance of _Arthur_ ends with the statement,

He that will more look,
Read in the French book,
And he shall find there
Things that I leete here.[149]

_The Northern Passion_ turns from the legendary history of the Cross to something more nearly resembling the gospel narrative with the exhortation, "Forget not Jesus for this tale."[150] As compared with this, writers like Nicholas Love or John Capgrave are noticeably explicit. Love pauses at various points to explain that he is omitting large sections of the original;[151] Capgrave calls attention to his interpolations and refers them to their sources.[152] On the other hand, there are constant implications that variation from source may be a desirable thing and that explanation and apology are unnecessary. Bokenam, for example, apologizes rather because _The Golden Legend_ does not supply enough material and he must leave out certain things "for ignorance."[153] Caxton says of his _Charles the Great_, "If I had been more largely informed ... I had better made it."[154]

On the whole, the greatest merit of the later medieval translators consists in the quantity of their comment. In spite of the vagueness and the absence of originality in their utterances, there is an advantage in their very garrulity. Translators needed to become more conscious and more deliberate in their work; different methods needed to be defined; and the habit of technical discussion had its value, even though the quality of the commentary was not particularly good. Apart from a few conventional formulas, this habit of comment constituted the bequest of medieval translators to their sixteenth-century successors.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Trans. in _Gregory's Pastoral Care_, ed. Sweet, E.E.T.S., p. 7.

[2] Trans. in _King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius_, trans. Sedgefield, 1900.

[3] Trans. in Hargrove, _King Alfred's Old English Version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies_, 1902, pp. xliii-xliv.

[4] Latin Preface of the _Catholic Homilies I_, Latin Preface of the _Lives of the Saints_, Preface of _Pastoral Letter for Archbishop Wulfstan_. All of these are conveniently accessible in White, _Aelfric_, Chap. XIII.

[5] Latin Preface to _Homilies II_.

[6] _Ibid._

[7] _Preface to Genesis._

[8] Latin Preface of the _Grammar_.

[9] Latin Preface to _Homilies I_.

[10] In the selections from the Bible various passages, e.g., genealogies, are omitted without comment.

[11] Latin Preface to _Homilies I_.

[12] Latin Preface.

[13] For further comment, see Chapter II.

[14] Trans. in Thorpe, _Caedmon's Metrical Pharaphrase_, London, 1832, p. xxv.

[15] Ll. 1238 ff. For trans. see _The Christ of Cynewulf_, ed. Cook, pp. xlvi-xlviii.

[16] Cf. comment on l. 1, in Introduction to _Andreas_, ed. Krapp, 1906, p. lii: "The Poem opens with the conventional formula of the epic, citing tradition as the source of the story, though it is all plainly of literary origin."

[17] I.e. Laurent de Premierfait.

[18] _Bochas' Falls of Princes_, 1558.

[19] Ed. Ritson, ll. 1138-9.

[20] A version, ll. 341-4. Cf. Puttenham, "... many of his books be but bare translations out of the Latin and French ... as his books of _Troilus and Cresseid_, and the _Romant of the Rose_," Gregory Smith, _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, ii, 64.

[21] _Osbern Bokenam's Legenden_, ed. Horstmann, 1883, ll. 108-9, 124.

[22] _The Life of St. Werburge_, E.E.T.S., ll. 94. 127-130.

[23] _Minor Poems of Lydgate_, E.E.T.S., _Legend of St. Gyle_, ll. 9-10, 27-32.

[24] _Ibid._, _Legend of St. Margaret_, l. 74.

[25] _St. Christiana_, l. 1028.

[26] _Legend of Good Women_, ll. 425-6.

[27] See the ballade by Eustache Deschamps, quoted in Chaucer, _Works_, ed. Morris, vol. 1, p. 82.

[28] _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS_, Pt. 1, E.E.T.S., _The Castle of Love_, l. 72.

[29] E.E.T.S., _Cotton Vesp. MS._ ll. 233-5.

[30] E.E.T.S., l. 457.

[31] See _Cambridge History of English Literature_, v. 2, p. 313.

[32] Preface to _The Image of Governance_, 1549.

[33] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, ed. Horstmann, _Christine_, ll. 517-20.

[34] Preface, E.E.T.S.

[35] Capgrave, _St. Katherine of Alexandria_, E.E.T.S., Bk. 3, l. 21.

[36] In _Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge_, l. 45.

[37] _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._ Pt. 1, Appendix, p. 407.

[38] Introduction to Capgrave, _Lives of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert of Sempringham_, E.E.T.S.

[39] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, p. 138, ll. 1183-8.

[40] _Three Prose Versions of Secreta Secretorum_, E.E.T.S., Epistle Dedicatory to second.

[41] _The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man_, E.E.T.S.

[42] _Osbern Bokenam's Legenden_, _St. Agnes_, ll. 680-2.

[43] _Epistle of Sir John Trevisa_, in Pollard, _Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse_, p. 208.

[44] In Sedgefield, _King Alfred's Version of Boethius_.

[45] Ed. White, 1852, ll. 41-4.

[46] Ll. 55-64.

[47] E.E.T.S., Preface.

[48] Pollard, _ibid._, p. 208.

[49] E.E.T.S., ll. 6553-7.

[50] Ll. 6565-6.

[51] E.E.T.S., p. 125.

[52] _Altenglische Sammlung, Neue Folge_, _St. Etheldred Eliensis_, l. 162.

[53] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, _Erasmus_, l. 4.

[54] _Ibid._, _Magdalena_, l. 48.

[55] _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._, Pt. 1, _St. Bernard's Lamentation_, ll. 21-2.

[56] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, _Fragment of Canticum de Creatione_, ll. 49-50.

[57] _Legends of the Holy Rood_, E.E.T.S., _How the Holy Cross was found by St. Helena_, ll. 684-7.

[58] E.E.T.S., Bk. 1, ll. 684-91.

[59] Ed. Ritson, ll. 4027-8.

[60] _Chevalier au Lyon_, ed. W. L. Holland, 1886, ll. 6805-6.

[61] Ed. Koelbing, 1889, ll. 144, 4514.

[62] E.E.T.S., ll. 319, 405, 216.

[63] See Chambers, _The Medieval Stage_, Appendix G.

[64] _Chronicle of England_, ed. Furnivall, ll. 93-104.

[65] _Altenglische Legenden_, _Vita St. Etheldredae Eliensis_, ll. 978-9, 1112.

[66] Bk. 4, ll. 129-130.

[67] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, ll. 435-7.

[68] E.E.T.S.

[69] Ed. Ritson.

[70] _Ibid._

[71] E.E.T.S.

[72] _Thornton Romances_, l. 848. (Here the writer is probably confused by the two words _grype_ and _griffin_.)

[73] E.E.T.S., l. 1284.

[74] E.E.T.S., l. 318.

[75] Ll. 6983-4.

[76] Ll. 688-9.

[77] L. 3643.

[78] E.E.T.S., ll. 523-4.

[79] L. 6105.

[80] E.E.T.S., l. 4734.

[81] L. 4133.

[82] L. 5425.

[83] L. 3894.

[84] L. 2997.

[85] L. 2170.

[86] L. 2428.

[87] _The Earl of Toulouse_, ed. Ritson, ll. 1213, 1197.

[88] _Le Bone Florence of Rome_, ed. Ritson, ll. 2174, 643.

[89] Ed. Sarrazin, 1885, note on l. 10 of the two versions in Northern dialect.

[90] _Thornton Romances_, note on l. 718.

[91] L. 1150.

[92] Ll. 1275-6.

[93] Ll. 2173-4.

[94] See Miss Rickert's comment in E.E.T.S. edition of _Emare_, p. xlviii.

[95] English version, ll. 1284, 2115, 5718-9; French version, _Mellusine_, ed. Michel, 1854, ll. 1446, 2302, 6150-2.

[96] Ll. 407, 1359.

[97] Ed. Vollmoeller, 1883, ll. 5-6.

[98] E.E.T.S., l. 5522.

[99] E.E.T.S., Chap XLVI, ll. 496-9.

[100] Chap. LVI, ll. 521-5.

[101] Ll. 8-12.

[102] Ll. 15-18.

[103] See ll. 6581 ff.

[104] Ed. E.E.T.S., ll. 500-501.

[105] Ll. 7742-6.

[106] Ll. 2340-8.

[107] Ll. 5144-8.

[108] Ll. 6170-6.

[109] Ed. E.E.T.S., ll. 3200, 3218.

[110] _King Alexander_, ed. Weber, 1810, ll. 2199-2202.

[111] Alliterative romance of _Alisaunder_, E.E.T.S., ll. 456-9.

[112] Ed. Madden, 1847.

[113] Ed. Furnivall, 1887, ll. 58-62.

[114] L. 70.

[115] Ll. 83-4.

[116] Ll. 95-6.

[117] Original Chronicle, ll. 6-13.

[118] Ll. 16-17.

[119] Ll. 18-23.

[120] Ed. E.E.T.S., ll. 1-7.

[121] Prologue.

[122] Ed. E.E.T.S., ll. 29-33.

[123] Ll. 54-8.

[124] Ll. 217-20.

[125] Ll. 361-7.

[126] In _Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge_, ll. 7-9.

[127] _Ibid._, ll. 33, 35.

[128] _Osbern Bokenam's Legenden_, _St. Agnes_, ll. 29-30.

[129] _St. Katherine of Alexandria_, _Prologue_, ll. 61-2, 232-3, 64.

[130] _Lives of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert_, _Prologue_.

[131] Oxford, Clarendon Press, _Prohemium_.

[132] In _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_.

[133] _Minor Poems of the Vernon MS._, _De Festo Corporis Christi_, l. 170.

[134] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, _St. Bernard_, ll. 943-4.

[135] _Ibid._, _Erasmus_, l. 41.

[136] _Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge_, _St. Katherine_, p. 243, l. 451.

[137] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, _Christine_, ll. 489-90.

[138] _Ibid._, _St. Augustine_, ll. 1137-40.

[139] _Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden_, _St. Augustine_, ll. 43, 57-8, 128.

[140] Ll. 169-70, 785-6, 2475-6.

[141] _Op. cit._, _Prohemium_.

[142] _Altenglische Legenden_, _Geburt Jesu_, ll. 493, 527, 715, etc.

[143] _Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge_, _Ypotis_, ll. 613-16.

[144] _Osbern Bokenam's Legenden, St. Margaret_, ll. 84-5.

[145] _Mary Magdalen_, ll. 245-8.

[146] _St. Agnes_, ll. 13-14.

[147] _Op. cit._, _St. Anne_, ll. 209-14.

[148] E.E.T.S., l. 382.

[149] E.E.T.S., ll. 633-6.

[150] E.E.T.S., p. 146, l. 1.

[151] _Op. cit._, pp. 100, 115, 300.

[152] _Life of St. Gilbert_, pp. 103, 135. 141.

[153] _Op. cit._, _St. Katherine_, l. 49.

[154] Preface.