Early Theories of Translation Part 4

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 n.o.ble 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 scholars.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage 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 Pa.s.sion_ 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 quant.i.ty 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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.sages, 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.