Part 3 (2/2)

”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 n.o.ble gentleman that feeleth and understandeth in feats of arms, in love, and in n.o.ble 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 G.o.d'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 a.s.sociated 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 n.o.ble 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 ”c.u.mbrous,” 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 a.s.sociated 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 ill.u.s.trations 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. ”c.u.m l'estorie nus ad c.u.n.te” 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 subst.i.tuted

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

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