Early Theories of Translation. Flora Ross Amos

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 C[oe]ur 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