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 Early theories of translation 
 
 3 1924 027 165 681 
 
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Colnmbia Wlnibtv0iiv 
 
 STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE 
 LITERATURE 
 
 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 New York 
 
 LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
 
 30-32 East 20th Street 
 
 London 
 
 HUMPHREY MILPORD 
 
 Amen Coener, E.G. 
 
 Shanghai 
 
 EDWARD EVANS & SONS, Ltd. 
 
 30 North Szechuen Road 
 
EAELY THEOEIES OF 
 TEANSLATION 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORA ROSS AMOS 
 
 Submitted in Paetial Fulfilment of the Require- 
 ments FOB the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 
 in the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia 
 
 University 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1920 
 
Copyright, 1920 
 Bt Columbia Univbe3itt Pbesb 
 
 Printed from t/pe. December, 1919 
 
 Printed by The Plimpton Press, Nonvood, Mass.', tJ.S.A . 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER AND MY MOTHER 
 
This Monograph has been approved by the Department of 
 English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University 
 as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication. 
 
 A. H. THORNDIKE, 
 
 Executive Officer 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In the following pages I have attempted to trace certain 
 developments in the theory of translation as it has been 
 formulated by English writers. I have confined myself, of 
 necessity, to such opinions as have been put into words, and 
 avoided making use of deductions from practice other than 
 a few obvious and generally accepted conclusions. The 
 procedure involves, of course, the omission of some important 
 elements in the history of the theory of iranslation, in that 
 it ignores the discrepancies IjetWeeh precept and practice, 
 and the influence which practice has exerted upon thebiy; 
 on the other hand, however, it confines a subject, other- 
 Wise impossibly large, withiri measurable liniits. The chief 
 emphasis has been laid upon the sixteenth century, the period 
 of the most enthusiastic experimentation, when, though it 
 was still possible for the translator to rest in the comfortable 
 medieval conception of his art, the New Learning was offer- 
 ing new problems and new ideals to every man who shared 
 in the intellectual awakening of his time. In the matter of 
 theory, however, the age was one of beginnings, of sugges- 
 tions, rather than of finished, definitive results; even by the 
 end of the century there Were still translators who had not 
 yet appreciated the immense difference between medieval 
 and modern standards of translation. To understand their 
 position, then, it is necessary to consider both the preceding 
 period, with its incidental, half-unconscious comment, and 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centiuries, with their system- 
 atized, unified contribution. This last material, in especial, 
 is included chiefly because of the hght which it throws in 
 retrospect oh the views of earher translators, and only the 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 main course of theory, by this time fairly easy to follow, is 
 traced. 
 
 The aim has in no case been to give bibliographical infor- 
 mation. A number of translations, important in themselves, 
 have received no mention because they have evoked no com- 
 ment on methods. The references given are not necessarily 
 to first editions. Generally speaking, it has been the prefaces 
 to translations that have yielded material, and such prefaces, 
 especially during the EUzabethan period, are likely to be in- 
 cluded or omitted in different editions for no very clear 
 reasons. Quotations have been modernized, except in the 
 case of Middle EngUsh verse, where the original form has 
 been kept for the sake of the metre. 
 
 The history of the theory of translation is by no means 
 a record of easily distinguishable, orderly progression. It 
 shows an odd lack of continuity. Those who give rules for 
 translation ignore, in the great majority of cases, the con- 
 tribution of their predecessors and contemporaries. Towards 
 the beginning of Elizabeth's reign a small group of critics 
 bring to the problems of the translator both technical scholar- 
 ship and alert, original minds, but apparently the new and 
 significant ideas which they offer have httle or no effect on 
 the general course of theory. Again, Tj^tler, whose Essay 
 on the Principles on Translation, published towards the end 
 of the eighteenth century, may with some reason claim to 
 be the first detailed discussion of the questions involved, 
 declares that, with a few exceptions, he has "met with 
 nothing that has been written professedly on the subject," 
 a statement showing a surprising disregard for the elaborate 
 prefaces that accompanied the translations of his own 
 century. 
 
 This lack of conseCutiveness in criticism is probably par- 
 tially accountable for the slowness with which translators 
 attained the power to put into words, clearly and unmis- 
 takably, their aims and methods. Even if one were to leave 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 aside the childishly vague comment of medieval writers and 
 the awkward attempts of Ehzabethan translators to describe 
 their processes, there would still remain in the modern period 
 much that is careless or misleading. The very term "trans- 
 lation" is long in defining itself; more difficult terms, 
 like "faithfulness" and "accuracy," have widely different 
 meanings with different writers. The various kinds of Uter- 
 ature are often treated in the mass with httle attempt at 
 discrimination between them, regardless of the fact that 
 the problems of the translator vary with the character of his 
 original. Tytler's book, full of interesting detail as it is, 
 turns from prose to verse, from lyric to epic, from ancient to 
 modern, till the effect it leaves on the reader is fragmentary 
 and confusing. 
 
 Moreover, there has never been uniformity of opinion 
 with regard to the aims and methods of translation. Even 
 in the age of Pope, when, if ever, it was safe to be dogmatic 
 and when the theory of translation seemed safely on the way 
 to become standardized, one stiU hears the voices of a few 
 recalcitrants, voices which become louder and more numerous 
 as the century advances; in the nineteenth century the 
 most casual survey discovers conflicting views on matters 
 of fundamental importance to the translator. Who are to 
 be the readers, who the judges, of a translation are obvi- 
 ously questions of primary significance to both translator 
 and critic, but they are questions which have never been 
 authoritatively settled. When, for example, Caxton in the 
 fifteenth century uses the "curious" terms which he thinks 
 wUl appeal to a clerk or a noble gentleman, his critics com- 
 plain because the common people cannot understand his 
 words. A similar situation appears in modern times when 
 Arnold lays down the law that the judges of an Enghsh 
 version of Homer must be "scholars, because scholars alone 
 have the means of really judging him," and Newman 
 rephes that "scholars are the tribunal of Erudition, but 
 
Xll PREFACE 
 
 of Taste the educated but unlearned public must be the 
 only rightful judge." 
 
 Again, critics have been hesitant in defining the all-im- 
 portant term "faithfulness." To one writer fidelity may 
 imply a reproduction of his original as nearly as possible 
 word for word and fine for line; to another it may mean an 
 attempt to carry over into EngUsh the spirit of the original, 
 at the sacrifice, where necessary, not only of the exact words 
 but of the exact substance of his source. The one extreme 
 is likely to result in an awkward, more or less unintelUgible 
 version; the other, as illustrated, for example, by Pope's 
 Homer, may give us a work so modified by the personality 
 of the translator or by the prevailing taste of his time as to 
 be almost a new creation. But while it is easy to point out 
 the defects of the two methods, few critics have had the 
 courage to give fair consideration to both possibilities; to 
 treat the two aims, not as mutually exclusive, but as com- 
 plementary; to realize that the spirit and the letter may be 
 not two but one. In the sixteenth century Sir Thomas 
 North translated from the French Amyot's wise obserya- 
 tion: "The ofiice of a fit translator consistfith not only 
 in the faithful expressing of his author's meaning, but 
 also in a certain resembling and shadowing forth of the 
 form of his style and maimer of his speaking"; but few 
 English critics, in the period under our consideration, 
 grasped thus firmly the essential connection between 
 thought and style and the consequent responsibiUty of the 
 translator. 
 
 Yet it is those critics who have faced all the difficulties 
 boldly, and who have urged upon the translator hqth due 
 regard for the original and due regaird for English literary 
 standards who have made the most valuable cQntributipjis 
 to theory. It is much easier to set the standard of trapela- 
 tion low, to settle matters as does Mr. Chesterton in his 
 casual disposition of Fitzgerald's Omar: "It is quite clear 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 that Fitzgerald's work is much too good to be a good trans- 
 lation." We can, it is true, point to few realizations of the 
 ideal theory, but in approaching a Uterature which possesses 
 the English Bible, that marvelous union of faithfulness to 
 source with faithfulness to the genius of the English lan- 
 guage, we can scarcely view the problem of translation thus 
 hopelessly. 
 
 The most stimulating and suggestive criticism, indeed, has 
 come from men who have seen in the very difficulty of the 
 situation opportunities for achievement. "Wlii|e the more 
 cautious grammarian has ever been doubtful of the quahty 
 of the translator's EngUsh, fearful of the introduction of 
 foreign words, foreign idioms, to the men who have cared 
 most about the destiaies of the vernacular, — men like 
 Caxton, More, or Dryden, — translation has appeared not 
 an enemy to the mother tongue, but a means of enlarging 
 and clarifying it. In the time of Elizabeth the translator 
 often directed his appeal more especially to those who loved 
 their country's language and wished to see it become a more 
 adequate medium of expression. That he should, then, 
 look upon translation as a promising experiment, rather than 
 a doubtful compromise, is an essential characteristic of the 
 good critic. 
 
 The necessity for open-mindedness, indeed, in some degree 
 accounts for the tentative quaUty in so much of the theory 
 of translation. Translation fills too large a place, is too 
 closely connected with the whole course of hterary develop- 
 ment, to be disposed of easily. As each succeeding period 
 has revealed new fashions in Uterature, new avenues of 
 approach to the reader, there have been new translations 
 and the theorist has had to reverse or revise the opinions 
 bequeathed to him from a previous period. The theory 
 of translation cannot be reduced to a rule of thumb; it must 
 again and again be modified to include new facts. Thus 
 regarded it becomes a vital part of our hterary history, and 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 has significance both for those who love the English language 
 and for those who love EngUsh Hterature. 
 
 In conclusion, it remains only to mention a few of my many 
 obligations. To the Ubraries of Princeton and Harvard as 
 weU as Columbia University I owe access to much useful 
 material. It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness 
 to Professors Ashley H. Thorndike and William W. Lawrence 
 and to Professor WUliam H. Huhne of Western Reserve 
 University for helpful criticism and suggestions. In especial 
 I am deeply grateful to Professor George PhiUp Krapp, 
 who first suggested this study and who has given me con- 
 stant encouragement and guidance throughout its course. 
 
 April, 1919. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Medieval Pemod 3 
 
 n. The Translation of the Bible 49 
 
 in. The Sixteenth Centubt 81 
 
 IV. From Cowlet to Pope 135 
 
 Index 181 
 
I. THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 
 
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 prevail- 
 ing 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 produc- 
 ing 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 Enghsh Shepherd's 
 Book, sometimes word by word, and sometimes according to 
 the sense." ^ 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 intel- 
 ligently as he was able." ^ 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 
 
 ' Trans, in Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, E. E. T. S., p. 7. 
 ' Trans, in King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius, 
 trans. Sedgefield, 1900. 
 
 3 
 
4 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 for each of the tools that I could work with, and bow-timbers 
 and bolt-timbers for every work that I could perform, the 
 comehest 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."^ 
 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 hke that of Alfred. He declares repeatedly ^ 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.' Instead of 
 unfamiliar terms, he uses "the pure and open words of the 
 language of this people." * In connection with the trans- 
 lation of the Bible he lays down the principle that Latin must 
 give way to Enghsh idiom.^ For all these things Aelfric has 
 
 ' Trans, in Hargrove, King Alfred's Old English Version of St. Augus- 
 tine's Soliloquies, 1902, pp. xliii-xliv. 
 
 ^ 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. 
 
 ' Latin Preface to Homilies II. 
 
 * Ilnd. ° Preface to Genesis. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 5 
 
 definite reasons. Keeping always in mind a clear concep- 
 tion of the nature of his audience, he does whatever seems 
 to him necessary to make his work attractive and, con- 
 sequently, profitable. Preparing his Grammar for "tender 
 youths," though he knows that words may be interpreted 
 in many ways, he foUows a simple method of interpretation 
 in order that the book may not become tiresome.^ The 
 Homilies, intended for simple people, are put iato simple 
 English, that they may more easily reach the hearts of those 
 who read or hear.^ This popularization is extended even 
 farther. Aelfric explains ' that he has abbreviated both the 
 Homilies * and the Lives of the Saints,^ again of deUberate 
 piu-pose, as appears in his preface to the latter: "Hoc 
 sciendum etiam quod prolixiores passiones breuiamus verbis 
 non adeo sensu, ne fastidiosis ingeratm* tedium si tanta 
 prolbdtas 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 expUcationem 
 quam tractatus auctorum habent, sive non quod per 
 ordinem ecclesiastici ritus omnia EvangeHa 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.^ Such comment 
 implies a mind surprisingly awake to the problems of 
 translation. 
 
 1 Latin Preface of the Grammar. ' Latin Preface to Homilies I. 
 ' In the selections from the Bible various passages, e.g., genealogies, 
 are omitted without comment. 
 
 '" Latin Preface to Homilies I. ' Latin Preface. 
 
 ' For further comment, see Chapter II. 
 
6 EARLY THEORIES 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 
 abiUty 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 Uke that of 
 Caedmon or Cynewulf , essentially original in many respects, 
 though based, in the main, on material already given Uterary 
 shape in other languages. Both characteristics are recog- 
 nized 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." ^ Cynewulf in 
 his Elene, gives us a remarkable piece of author's comment ^ 
 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 hke the 
 Elene on a single written source, contains no hint that the 
 author owes anything to a version of the story in another 
 language.^ 
 
 In the EngUsh 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 
 
 * Trans, in Thorpe, Caedmon's Metrical Pharaphrase, London, 1832, 
 
 p. XXV. 
 
 ^ LI. 1238 ff. For trans, see The Christ of Cynevmlf, ed. Cook, 
 pp. xlvi-xlviii. 
 
 ' 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 
 Uterary origin." 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 7 
 
 works appearing from .the thirteenth century on. When 
 Lydgate, as late as the fifteenth century, describes one 
 of the processes by which hterature is produced, we are 
 reminded of Anglo-Saxon comment. "Laurence," ' 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 chaflfe trye out full fayre come. 
 
 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.^ 
 
 The great majority of these Middle EngHsh works con- 
 tain within themselves no clear statement as to which of the 
 many possible methods have been employed in their pro- 
 duction. As in the case of the Anglo-Saxon Andreas, a 
 retelling in EngUsh of a story already existing in another 
 language often presents itself as if it were an original com- 
 position. The author who puts into the vernacular of his 
 coimtry 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." ' The terms used to characterize hterary pro- 
 ductions and hterary processes often have not their modern 
 connotation. "Translate" and "translation" are applied 
 
 ' I.e. Laurent de Premierfait. ' Bochas' Falls of Princes, 1558. 
 3 Ed. Ritson, II. 1138-9. 
 
8 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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.^ 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." ^ Henry Brad- 
 shaw, purposing in 1513 to "translate" into Enghsh 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, Polychronieon, and other mo in deed.' 
 
 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."^ That he should designate his St. Margaret, 
 a fairly close following of one source, a "compilation,"^ 
 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 Enghsh;^ 
 Chaucer, one remembers, "translated" Boethius and "made" 
 the life of St. Ceciha.' 
 To select from this large body of hterature, "made," 
 
 1 A version, 11. 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. 
 
 * Osbern Bokenam's Legenden, ed. Horstmann, 1883, 11. 108-9, 124. 
 ' The Life of St. Werburge, E. E. T. S., 11. 94. 127-130, 
 
 * Minor Poems of Lydgate, E. E. T. S., Legend of St. Gyle, 11. 9-10, 
 27-32. 
 
 ' Ibid., Legend of St. Margaret, 1. 74. 
 
 « St. Christiana, 1. 1028. ' Legend of Good Women, 11. 425-6. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 9 
 
 "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 niunerous. 
 Chaucer in his own time was reckoned "grant translateur." * 
 Of the books which Caxton a century later issued from his 
 printing press a large proportion were Enghsh versions 
 of Latin or French works. Our concern, indeed, is with 
 the larger and by no means the least valuable part 
 of the Hterature produced during the Middle English 
 period. 
 
 The theory which accompanies this nondescript collec- 
 tion of translations is scattered throughout various works, 
 and is somewhat liable to misiaterpretation if taken out of 
 its immediate context. Before proceeding to consider it, 
 however, it is necessary to notice certain phases of the gen- 
 eral hterary situation which created peculiar difficulties for 
 the translator or which are Ukely 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 Latia, 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." ^ Sometimes, it is true, the 
 Enghsh writer had the stimulus of patriotism. The trans- 
 lator of Richard Coeur de Lion feels that Englishmen ought 
 
 1 See the ballade by Eustache Deschamps, quoted in Chaucer, 
 Works, ed. Morris, vol. 1, p. 82. 
 
 2 Mmm Poems of the Vernon MS, Pt. 1, E. E. T. S., TAe CasOe of 
 Love, 1. 72. 
 
10 EAKLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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.^ 
 
 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 undiscrimi- 
 nating; his crude medium was entirely unequal to repro- 
 ducing 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 cap- 
 able 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 occasion- 
 ally 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 alhterative 
 romance of Alexander "borrowed" various books when he 
 undertook his English rendering.^ Earl Rivers, returning 
 from the Continent, brought back a manuscript which had 
 
 1 E. E. T. S., Cotton Vesp. MS. 11. 233-5. ' E. E. T. S., 1. 457. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 11 
 
 been lent him by a French gentleman, and set about the 
 translation of his Dictes and Sayings of the Old Philosophers.^ 
 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 beheve 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 secre- 
 tary 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 pubhshed in such a tongue 
 as more men might understand it. Wherefore with all 
 dihgence I endeavored myself whiles I had leisure to trans- 
 late 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." ^ WUUam 
 Paris — to return to the earher 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 lyf e in yngUshe soo, 
 As he satte in prison of stone. 
 Ever as he myghte tent therto 
 Whane he had his lordes service done.' 
 
 One is tempted to let the fancy play on the combination of 
 circxunstances that provided him with the particular manu- 
 script from which he worked. It is easy, of coiu'se, to 
 emphasize overmuch the scarcity and the inaccessibihty of 
 
 '■ See Cambridge History of English Literature, v. 2, p. 313. 
 2 Preface to The Image of Governance, 1549. 
 
 ' Sammlung AUenglischer Legenden, ed. Horstmann, Christine, 
 U. 517-20. 
 
12 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 texts, but it is obvious that the translator's choice of sub- 
 ject 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 centiu-y, 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. Cax- 
 ton's list ranges from The Fayttes of Armes, translated at the 
 request of Henry VII from a manuscript lent by the king 
 himself, to r/ieikftrrowro/ </ie TForZd, "translated . . . at the 
 request, desire, cost, and dispense of the honorable and 
 worshipful man, Hugh Bryce, alderman and citizen of 
 London." ^ 
 
 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 
 
 » Preface, E. E. T. S. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 13 
 
 text was no easy matter. When one considers the labor 
 that, of later years, has gone to the classification and identi- 
 fication of old manuscripts, the awkward elaboration of 
 nomenclature necessary to distinguish them, the com- 
 plications resulting from missing pages and from the undue 
 liberties of copyists, one reahzes 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";' 
 the moral tale of The Incestuous Daughter has its soiu-ce in 
 "romance";'' 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." ' 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 EngUsh 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 aggra- 
 vated 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 pecuHar 
 difficulties are, approached from another angle, the dif- 
 ficulties of the present-day reader. The presence of one or 
 
 1 Capgrave, St. Katherine of Alexandria, E. E. T. S., Bk. 3, 1. 21. 
 
 2 In AUenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, 1. 45. 
 
 ' Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. Pt. 1, Appendix, p. 407. 
 
14 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 more intermediary versions, a complication especially notice- 
 able 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 Enghsh translator's 
 comment on his own treatment of source is frequently only 
 a hteral 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 possibihty 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 EngUshman, 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 Enghsh trans- 
 lator, 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 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 15 
 
 handling the material, I incline to conclude that he is him- 
 self the original composer, and that his reference to transla- 
 tion signifies his use of Augustine's books, from which he 
 translates whole passages." ' In a case like this it is evi- 
 dently impossible to draw dogmatic conclusions. It may 
 be that Capgrave is using the word "translate" with medi- 
 eval looseness, but it is also possible that some of the com- 
 ment 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 Ufe may have 
 been used." Occasionally, it is true, co mm ent, 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.' 
 
 Such imquestionably 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 Seer eta 
 Secretorum, for example, carries over into Enghsh the preface 
 
 ' Introduction to Capgrave, Idves of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert of 
 Sempringham, E. E. T. S. 
 
 * Sammlung AUenglischer Legenden, p. 138, 11. 1183-8. 
 
16 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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." ' 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 touching the substance.' 
 
 Osbern Bokenam declares that he has translated 
 
 Not wuide for wurde — • for that ne may be 
 In no translation, aftyr Jerqmys decree — 
 But fro sentence to sentence.' 
 
 There is Uttle 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 Enghsh 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-war d. 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 
 
 ' Three Prose Versions of Secreta Secretorum, E. E. T. S., Epistle 
 Dedicatory to second. 
 
 2 The Pilgrimage of the Life oj Man, E. E. T. S., 
 ' Osbern Bokenam's Legenden, St. Agnes, 11. 680-2. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 17 
 
 stand and not be changed." ^ An explanation like this, 
 however, is unusual. 
 
 Possibly the fact that the translation was in prose affected 
 Trevisa's theorizing. A prose rendering could foUow its 
 original so closely that it was possible to describe the com- 
 paratively few changes consequent on Enghsh usage. In 
 verse, on the other hand, the changes involved were so great 
 as to discourage definition. There are, however, a few com- 
 ments 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 Enghsh prose," and then "wrought it up once more 
 into verse, as it is now done." ^ At the very beginning of the 
 history of Middle English Uterature Orm attacked the prob- 
 lem of the verse translation very directly. He writes of his 
 Ormulum : 
 
 Ice hafe sett her o thiss boc 
 
 Amang Godspelles wordess, 
 
 All thurrh me sellf enn, manig word 
 
 The rime swa to fillerm.^ 
 
 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 folic 
 Larspell off Goddspell tellenn, 
 He mot wel ekemi manig word 
 Amang Godspelless Wordess. 
 & ice ne mihhte nohht min ferrs 
 Ayy withth Godspelless wordess 
 Wel fillenn all, & all forrthi 
 ShoUde ice wel offte nede 
 Amang Godspelless wordess don 
 Min word, min ferrs to fillenn.* 
 
 1 Epistle of Sir John Trevisa, in Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and 
 Verse, p. 208. 
 
 2 In Sedgefield, King Alfred's Version of Boethius. 
 
 ' Ed. White, 1852, 11. 41-4. * LI. 55-64. 
 
18 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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";' 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"; ^ but apparently 
 the only one of Orm's successors to put into words his con- 
 sciousness 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.' 
 
 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 em- 
 ploys Latin, French, or the vernacular, he continues. 
 
 Be it in balede, vers, Rime, or prose, 
 
 He most torn and wend, metrely to close.* 
 
 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 
 
 1 E. E. T. S., Preface. ' Pollard, Md., p. 208. 
 
 » E. E. T. S., n. 6553-7. * LI. 6565-6. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 19 
 
 something of his debt and his responsibiUty to his prede- 
 cessors, yet one does not know how much significance should 
 attach to this comment. He seldom offers clear, unmistak- 
 able information as to his difficulties and his methods of 
 meeting them. It is pecuharly interesting to come upon 
 such explanation of processes as appears at one point in 
 Capgrave's Life of St. Gilbert. In teUing 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 Unen 
 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 hfe the same author saith that this holy 
 man wore next his skin no hair as for the hardest, nor Unen 
 as for the softest, but he went with wool, as with the mean." * 
 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 trans- 
 lator's duty by introducing at intervals somewhat conven- 
 tional 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 UteraUy is 
 hard to determine. The reader of Enghsh 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 hke "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.. 
 1 E. E. T. S., p. 125. 
 
20 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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. State- 
 ments like "as the story doth us both write and mean," ' 
 "as the book says and true men tell us," ^ "but the book us 
 he," ' need have little more significance than the shghtly 
 absurd declaration, 
 
 The gospel nul I forsake nought 
 Thaugh it be written in parchem3Ti.* 
 
 Occasional more direct questionings inchne one, however, to 
 take the matter a little more seriously. The translator of a 
 Canticum de Creatione, strangely fabulous in content, pre- 
 sents his material with the words, 
 
 — as we finden in lectrure, 
 
 I not whether it be in holy scripture.' 
 
 The author of one of the legends of the Holy Cross says, 
 
 Tliis tale, quether hit be il or gode, 
 I fande hit writen of the rode. 
 Mani tellis diverseli, 
 For thai finde diverse stori.' 
 
 Capgrave, in his legend of St. Katherine, takes issue un- 
 mistakably 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; 
 
 1 Altenglische Sammlung, Neue Folge, St. Eiheldred Eliensis, 1. 162. 
 ' Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, Erasmus, 1. 4. 
 ' Ibid., Magdalena, 1. 48. 
 
 * Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., Pt. 1, St. Bernard's Lamentation, 
 11. 21-2. 
 
 ■i Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, Fragment of Canticum de Crea- 
 tione, 11. 49-50. 
 
 * Legends of the Holy Rood, E. E. T. S., How the Holy Cross was found 
 by St. Helena, 11. 684-7. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 21 
 
 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."^ 
 
 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 httle. More needful of explanation is 
 the reference which impUes that the EngUsh 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,^ 
 
 are simply a rough rendering of the French 
 
 Ne ja plus n'en orroiz conter, 
 S'an n'i vialt manconge ajoster.' 
 
 On the other hand, the author of the long romance of Ipoma- 
 don, which follows its source with a closeness which precludes 
 ajl possibility of reproduction from memory, has tacked on 
 two references to hearing,* 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 
 
 I E. E. T. S., Bk. 1, U. 684r-91. « Ed. Ritson, 11. 4027-8. 
 
 3 Chevalier au Lyon, ed. W. L. Holland, 1886, 11. 6805-6. 
 • Ed. Kolbing, 1889, II. 144, 4514. 
 
22 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 the equivalent of the more ordinary phrases "in tale as it 
 is told" and "in romance as we read," ' 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 lit- 
 erature was often transmitted by word of mouth. Thomas 
 de Cabham mentions the "ioculatores, qui cantant gesta 
 principum et vitam sanctorum";^ Robert of Brunne com- 
 plains that those who sing or say the geste of Sir Tristram 
 do not repeat the story exactly as Thomas made it.' Even 
 though one must recognize the probabiUty that sometimes 
 the immediate oral source of the minstrel's tale may have 
 been EngUsh, one cannot ignore the possibility that oc- 
 casionally 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.* 
 
 Such evidence makes us regard with more attention the re- 
 mark in Capgrave's St. Katherine, 
 
 — right BOO dede I lere 
 
 Of cronycles whiche (that) I saugh last,^ 
 
 or the lines at the end of Roberd of Cisyle, 
 
 ' E. E. T. S., 11. 319, 405, 216. 
 
 ' See Chambers, The Medieval Stage, Appendix G. 
 
 ' Chronicle of England, ed. Furnivall, 11. 93-104. 
 
 ■* Altenglische Legenden, Vita St. Eiheldredae Eliensis, 11. 978-9, 1112. 
 
 " Bk. 4, 11. 129-130. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 23 
 
 Al this is write withoute lyghe 
 At Rome, to ben in memorye, 
 At seint Petres cherche, I knowe.' 
 
 It is possible also that sometimes a vague phrase like "as 
 the story says," or "in tale as it is told," may signify hear- 
 ing instead of reading. But in general one turns from con- 
 sideration of the references to hearing with little more than 
 an increased respect for the superior definiteness which be- 
 longs 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 hterature, 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 
 cmriosity. 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^ and The Earl of Toulouse ^ 
 the first references to source come between 11. 800 and 900; 
 in Ywain and Gawin the references appear at 11. 9, 3209, and 
 3669; ^ in The Wars of Alexander ^ there is a perpetual harp- 
 ing 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 unfamiHar word. In 
 Sir Eglamour of Artois, speaking of a bird that has carried 
 off a child, the author remarks, "a grifSn, saith the book, 
 
 * Sammlung AUenglischer Legenden, II. 435-7. * E. E. T. S. 
 
 ' Ed. Ritson. ■■ Ihid. <■ E. E. T. S. 
 
24 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 he hight"; ^ in Partenay, in an attempt to give a vessel its 
 proper name, the writer says, "I found in scripture that it 
 was a barge." ^ This impression of accuracy is most com- 
 mon 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 GaUes, as mine author 
 says,"' or "Mine author teUeth this church hight the church 
 of Albigis." ^ 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." ^ Bevis of 
 Hamtoun kills "forty Sarracens, the French saith."* 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 behef. In The Sege of Melayne the 
 Christian warriors recover their horses miraculously "through 
 the prayer of St. Denys, thus will the chronicle say";' in 
 The Romance of Partenay we read of a wondrous light ap- 
 pearing about a tomb, "the French maker saith he saw it 
 with eye." * Sometimes these phrases suggest that metre 
 and rhyme do not always flow easily for the Enghsh 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 Bjnge, it is no nay, 
 The sparhauke and the papejay 
 
 may easily be paralleled by passages containing references to 
 source. 
 
 ' Thornton Romances, 1. 848. (Here the writer is probably confused 
 by the two words grype and griffin.) * E. E. T. S., 1. 1284. 
 
 ' E. E. T. S., 1. 318. ' LI. 6983-4. ' u. 688-9. 
 
 « L. 3643. ' E. E. T. S., 11. 523-4. « l. 6105. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 25 
 
 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." "^ "Rhinoceros, as I read, the 
 book them calls." ^ 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 fuU of 
 serpents with crowns on their heads, who fed, "as the prose 
 tells," on pepper, cloves, and ginger; ' of enormous crabs 
 with backs, "as the book says," bigger and harder than any 
 conunon stone or cockatrice scales; * of the golden image of 
 Xerxes, which on the approach of Alexander suddenly, "as 
 teUs the text," falls to pieces.^ 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." * The slayers of Darius are named Besan and Ana- 
 bras, "as the book tells."' On the other hand, the sig- 
 nification of the reference in its context can be shown to be 
 very shght. 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 con- 
 cerned, most of the references to source have Uttle more 
 
 1 E. E. T. S., 1. 4734. 
 
 2 L. 4133. 
 
 ' L. 5425. 
 
 ^ L. 3894. 
 
 5 L. 2997. 
 
 8 L. 2170. 
 
 ' L. 2428. 
 
 
 
26 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 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 responsibihty 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 identify- 
 ing 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 identifica- 
 tion 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 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 27 
 
 Rom," which appears in some of the romances. The ex- 
 planation 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 sup- 
 ported. In the same poem Rom alternates with romance: 
 " In Rome this geste is chronicled," " as the romance telleth," * 
 "in the chronicles of Rome is the date," "in romance as we 
 read." ^ Two versions of Octavian read, the one "in books 
 of Rome," the other "in books of ryme." ' 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 ro- 
 mances, Odavian, 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, famihar 
 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 be- 
 cause 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 kQl a dragon, 
 an episode introduced in one manuscript of the story by 
 the phrase "as the book of Rome says." * 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 
 
 1 The Earl of Toulouse, ed. Ritson, 11. 1213, 1197. 
 
 2 Le Bone Florence of Rome, ed. Ritson, 11. 2174, 643. 
 
 ' Ed. Sarrazin, 1885, note on 1. 10 of the two versions in Northern 
 dialect. 
 
 * Thornton Romances, note on 1. 718. 
 
28 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 name, disguises himseK 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." ' 
 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," ^ which suggests a dis- 
 tinction beween a geste of Rome and a geste of France. 
 In Le Bone Florence of Rome appears the pecuhar statement, 
 "Pope Symonde this story wrote. In the chronicles of 
 Rome is the date." ' 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 beheved that 
 the book of Rome was a record of occurrences in the city of 
 Rome.* 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 misunder- 
 standing 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 
 earher time. Even if he has the book before him, it does not 
 necessarily bear its author's name and it is not easy to des- 
 cribe it so that it can be recognized by others. Generally 
 speaking, his references to source are honest", so far as they 
 
 ' L. 1150. 2 LI. 1275-6. ' LI. 2173-4. 
 
 ' See Miss Rickert's comment in E. E. T. S. edition of Emare, 
 p. xlviii. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 29 
 
 go, and can be taken at their face value. Even in cases of 
 apparent falsity explanations suggest themselves. There is 
 nearly always the possibihty that false or contradictory at- 
 tributions, as, for example, the mention of "book" and 
 "books" or "the French book" and "the Latin book" as 
 som-ces 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 EngUsh romance, more than once an appar- 
 ent reference to source in the English is only a close follow- 
 ing 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"; 
 
 with 
 
 For the Cronike doth treteth (sic) this brefly, 
 More ferther wold go, mater finde might I 
 
 Mais en brief je m'en passeray 
 Car la cronique en brief passe. 
 Plus dfiisse, se plus trouvasse. ' 
 
 A similar situation has already been pointed out in Ywain 
 and Gavxin. The most marked example of contradictory 
 evidence is to be found in Octanan, whose author alternates 
 "as the French says" with "as saith the Latin." ^ Here, 
 however, the nearest analogue to the Enghsh romance, which 
 contains 1962 lines, is a French romance of 5371 Hues, which 
 begins by mentioning the "grans merueiUes qui sont faites, 
 et de latin en romanz traites." ^ It is not impossible that 
 the Enghsh writer used a shorter version which emphasized 
 this reference to the Latin, and that his too-faithful ad- 
 herence to source had confusing results. But even if such 
 
 1 English version, H. 1284, 2115, 5718-9; French version, Mellusine, 
 ed. Michel, 1854, 11. 1446, 2302, 6150-2. 
 
 2 LI. 407, 1359. ' Ed. VoUmoUer, 1883, 11. 5-6. 
 
30 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 contradictions cannot be explained, in the mass of undis- 
 tinguished 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 com- 
 mission. 
 
 No hard and fast hne 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 chrono- 
 logical 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 shght indication of the coming 
 change in the claim which its author makes to have accom- 
 pHshed his task "as fully as the French fully would ask." ' 
 Poems like Chaucer's Knight's Tale and Franklin's Tale 
 have only the vague references to source of the earher 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. Super- 
 ficially 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 Lolhus have a certain 
 definiteness, and faithfulness to source is implied in fines 
 like: 
 
 And of his song nought only the sentence, 
 As writ myn auctour called LoUius, 
 But pleynly, save our tonges difference, 
 I dar wel seyn, in al that Troilus 
 
 > E. E. T. S., 1. 5522. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 31 
 
 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). 
 
 Butjfrom the beginning of the new century, in the work of 
 men hke Lydgate and Caxton, a new habit of comment 
 becomes noticeable. 
 
 Less distiaguished translators show a similar development. 
 The author of The Holy Grail, Harry LoneUch, 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,' 
 
 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 necUgence and unkonning.' 
 
 The Romance of Partenay is turned into English by a writer 
 who presents himself very modestly: 
 
 I not acqueynted of birth naturaU 
 With frenshe his very trew parfightnesse. 
 Nor enpreyntyd is in mind cordiall; 
 O word For other myght take by lachesse, 
 Or peradventure by unconnyngesse.' 
 
 He intends, however, to be a careful translator: 
 
 As nighe as metre wiU conclude sentence, 
 Folew I wil my president, 
 Ryght as the frenshe wil yiff me evidence, 
 Cereatly after myn entent,* 
 
 1 E. E. T. S., Chap XL VI, 11. 496-9. « Chap. LVI, 11. 521-6. 
 
 » LI. 8-12. " LI. 15-18. 
 
32 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 and he ends by declaring that in spite of the impossibiUty of 
 giving an exact rendering of the French in Enghsh metre, he 
 has kept very closely to the original. Sometimes, owing to 
 the shortness of the French "staffes," he has reproduced in 
 one Une two hnes of the French, but, except for this, com- 
 parison will show that the two versions are exactly alike.' 
 
 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,^ 
 
 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.' 
 
 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 duUet bee. 
 He telleth hys tale of sentament 
 I vnderstonde noghth hys entent, 
 Ne woUe ne besy me to lefe.* 
 
 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 mytae auctowre, 
 
 1 See 11. 6581 ff. ' ej. E. E. T. S., U. 600-501. 
 
 » LI. 7742S. * LI. 2340-8. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 33- 
 
 Butte I pray yowe of thys grette labowre 
 I mote at thys tyme excused be; ' 
 
 Butte who so luste to here of hur a-raye, 
 Lette him go to the ffrensshe bocke, 
 That IdeU 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.^ 
 
 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 ex- 
 pression 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 ap- 
 preciable 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 at- 
 tempt 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.' In 
 Caxton's preface to Godfrey of Bullogne the eniuneration 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 
 
 • LI. 5144-8. « LI. 6170-6. 
 
 ' Ed. E. E. T. S., 11. 3200, 3218. 
 
34 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 the English Troy stories are translations of Guido delle 
 Colonne's Historia Trojana, and they take over from their 
 original Guide's long discussion of authorities. The Alex- 
 ander romances present the same effect of historical accu- 
 racy 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; ' 
 
 Of what kin he came can I nought find 
 In no book that I bed when I began here 
 The Latin to this language lelUche to turn.' 
 
 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 diver- 
 gence from it. Less easy of explanation is the fact that com- 
 ment 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: "Laya- 
 mon 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 to- 
 gether, and the three books compressed into one." ' Robert 
 of Brunne, in his Chronicle of England, dated as early as 1338, 
 combines a lengthy discussion of style with a clear statement 
 
 1 King Alexander, ed. Weber, 1810, 11. 2199-2202. 
 
 2 Alliterative romance of Alisaunder, E. E. T. S., 11. 456-9. 
 •' Ed. Madden, 1847. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 35 
 
 of the extent to which he has used his sources. Wace tells 
 in French 
 
 All that the Latyn epelles, 
 ffro Eneas till Cadwaladre; 
 this Mayster Wace ther leves he. 
 And ryght as Mayster Wace says, 
 I telle mjTi Inglis the same ways.* 
 
 Pers of Langtoft continues the history; 
 
 & as he says, than say I,* 
 
 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 hterary style; rather, he says, 
 
 I made it not forto be praysed, 
 Bot at the lewed men were aysed.' 
 
 Consequently he eschews the difficult verse forms then 
 coming into fashion, "ryme cowee," "straungere," or "en- 
 terlace." He does not write for the "disoiu^," "seggers," 
 and "harpours" of his own day, who tell the old stories 
 badly. 
 
 Non tham says as thai tham wrought, 
 & in ther sayng it semes noght.* 
 
 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 Inghs" for "simple speche." 
 Unlike Robert of Brunne, Andrew of Wyntoun, writing 
 
 ' Ed. Fumivall, 1887, 11. 58-62. ' L. 70. 
 
 = LI. 83-4. * LI. 95-6. 
 
36 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 at the beginning of the next century, delights in the orna- 
 mental style which has added a charm to ancient story. 
 
 Quharfore of sic antiquiteis 
 
 Thei that set haly thare delite 
 
 Gestis or stor5d8 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.' 
 
 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.* 
 
 Some writers, however, did not adopt the elevated style which 
 such subject matter deserves. 
 
 Sum usit bet 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.' 
 
 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 in- 
 troduction 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; 
 
 1 Origmal Chronicle, 11. 6-13. « li, ig-l?. 
 
 ' LI. 18-23. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 37 
 
 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.' 
 
 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.* 
 
 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 corrects, 
 Whyche bareyn is of aureate licour, 
 But in thi grace I fynde som favour 
 For to conveye it wyth thyn influence.' 
 
 He also asks aid of Calliope. 
 
 Now of thy grace be helpyng imto 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.* 
 
 Like Wyntoim, Lydgate pays tribute to his predecessors, 
 the clerks who have kept in memory the great deeds of the 
 past 
 
 . . . thorough diligent labour. 
 
 And eidumyned with many corious floiu: 
 
 Of rethorik, to make us comprehend 
 
 The trouthe of al.' 
 
 1 Ed. E. E. T. S., U. 1-7. * Prologue. 
 
 » Ed. E. E. T. S., 11. 29-33. * LI. 54r-8. » LI. 217-20. 
 
38 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Of Guido in particular he writes that he 
 
 . . . had in writyng passynge excellence. 
 For he enlumyneth by craft & cadence 
 This noble story with many f resch coloiir 
 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.' 
 
 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 EngUsh was characterized by "fair and strange terms." 
 While it may be that both Caxton and Lydgate were trying 
 to reproduce in EngUsh the pecuhar quahty of their originals, 
 it is more probable that they beautified their own versions 
 as best they could, without feehng 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 quaUties 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 elo- 
 quence"; 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. 
 
 ' LI. 361-7. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 39 
 
 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 imderstood 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 hghter to be understood than 
 the old and ancient Enghsh." 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, h& concludes, "in a 
 mean have I reduced and translated this said book into our 
 Enghsh, 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 simphcity 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 pro- 
 ductions, 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 rehgious works differ 
 from the romances in that they are more frequently based 
 on Latin than on French originals, and in that they contain 
 more dehberate and more repeated references to the audi- 
 ences 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. 
 
40 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 The beste song that ever was made 
 Is not worth a lekys blade 
 But men wol tends ther-tille.^ 
 
 Since Latin enditing is "cumbrous," the translator of The 
 Blood at Hayles presents a version in English, "for plainly 
 this the truth will tell"; ^ Osbern Bokenam will speak and 
 write "plainly, after the language of Southfolk speech";' 
 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 "mor&openly" and "set it more plain." ^ This 
 conception of the audience, together with the writer's con- 
 sciousness that even in presenting narrative he is conveying 
 spiritual truths of supreme importance to his readers, prob- 
 ably 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 Une or two 
 of explanation, of exhortation, or, if he recognizes a quota- 
 tion from the Scriptures or from the Fathers, he may supply 
 the authority for it. John Capgrave undertakes to trans- 
 late the hfe 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." ^ Nicholas 
 Love puts into EngUsh 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." ' Such incidental 
 
 1 In Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, 11. 7-9. 
 ' Ibid., 11. 33, 35. 
 
 * Osbern Bokenam's Legenden, St. Agnes, 11. 29-30. 
 
 * St. Katherine of Alexandria, Prologue, 11. 61-2, 232-3, 64. 
 ' Lives of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert, Prologue. 
 
 ' Oxford, Clarendon Press, Prohemium. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 41 
 
 citation of authority is evident in St. Paula, published by 
 Dr. Horstmann side by side with its Latin original.^ With 
 more simpHcity and less display of learning, the translator 
 of rehgious works sometimes vaguely adduces authority, as 
 did the translator of romances, in connection with an un- 
 famihar name. One finds such statements as: "Manna, so 
 it is written"; ^ "Such a fiend, as the book tells us, is called 
 Incubus";' "In the country of Champagne, as the book 
 tells"; * "Cursates, saith the book, he hight"; ^ 
 
 Her body lyeth in strong castylle 
 
 And Bulstene, seith the boke, it hight; ' 
 
 In the yer of ur lord of hevene 
 Four hundred and eke ellevene 
 Wandaly the province tok 
 Of Aufrike — so seith the bok. ' 
 
 Often, however, the reference to source is introduced 
 apparently at random. On the whole, indeed, the comment 
 which accompanies rehgious writings does not differ es- 
 sentially in intelhgibihty or significance from that associated 
 with romances; its interest hes mainly in the fact that it 
 brings into greater rehef 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 Enghsh with varying degrees of faithfulness. A Life 
 of St. Augiistine, to choose a few illustrations from many, 
 reproduces the Latin as in the following examples: "as the 
 
 ^ In Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden. 
 
 2 Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., De Festo Corporis Chrisii, 1. 170. 
 
 ' Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, St. Bernard, 11. 943-4. 
 
 * Ibid., Erasmus, 1. 41. 
 
 ' Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, St. Katherine, p. 243, 1. 451. 
 
 ' Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, Christine, 11. 4S9~90. 
 
 ' Ibid., St. Augustine, 11. 1137-40. 
 
42 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 book telleth us" replaces "dicitur enim"; "of him it is said 
 in Glosarie," "ut dicitur ia Glossario" ; "in the book of his 
 confessions the sooth is written for the nonce," "ut legitur 
 in hbro iii. confessionum." ^ Robert of Brunne's Handlyng 
 Synne, as printed by the Early EngUsh 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 trou6 
 Qe Vitas Patrum est apel6; 
 
 with 
 
 Thus seyth seynt Anselme, that hit wrote 
 To thys elerkys that weyl hit wote 
 
 Ceo nus ad Seint Ancehne dit 
 Qe en la fey fut clerk parfit. 
 
 Yet there are variations in the English much more marked 
 than in the last example. "Cum I'estorie nus ad cunt6" 
 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.' 
 
 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 
 
 ' Sammlung AUenglischer Legenden, St. Augustine, 11. 43, 57-8, 128. 
 2 LI. 169-70, 785-6, 2475-6. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 43 
 
 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." ^ With so much ad- 
 dition of commentary and legend, it was often hard to tell 
 what was and what was not in Holy Scripture, and conse- 
 quently while a narrative like The Birth of Jesus cites cor- 
 rectly enough the gospels for certain days, of which it gives 
 a free rendering,^ 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.' 
 
 After the fifteenth century is reached, the translator of re- 
 ligious works, like the translator of romances, becomes more 
 garrulous in his comment and develops a good deal of in- 
 terest 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 con- 
 temporary development of hterary expression. Two quah- 
 ties, 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 aitificyal 
 Is in no wyse ner poetical.* 
 
 He caimot emulate the "first rhetoricians," Gower, Chaucer, 
 andLydgate; he comes too late; they have already gathered 
 
 ' Op. dt., Prohemium. 
 
 2 AUenglische Legenden, Geburt Jesu, 11. 493, 527, 715, etc. 
 ' AUenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, Ypotis, 11. 613-16. 
 * Osbern Bokenam' s Legenden, St. Margaret, 11. 84^5. 
 
44 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 "the most fresh flowers." Moreover the ornamental style 
 would not become him; he does not desire 
 
 ... to have swych eloquence 
 As sum cittials han, ner swych asperence 
 In utteryng of here subtyl conceytys 
 In wyoh oft-tyme ful greth dysceyt is.' 
 
 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 ThuUy Rethoryk in-to the motlyd mede, 
 Flourys to gadryn of crafty eloquens,^ 
 
 yet he has often prayed her to show him some favor. Else- 
 where 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.' 
 
 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 
 
 1 Mary Magdalen, 11. 245-8. , ' St. Agnes, 11. 13-14. 
 
 ' Op. cit., St. Anne, 11. 209-14. 
 
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 45 
 
 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 some- 
 times 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 Enghsh 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 teU you how richly the 
 saddle was wrought." ^ 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.* 
 
 The Northern Passion turns from the legendary history of 
 the Cross to something more nearly resembhng the gospel 
 narrative with the exhortation, "Forget not Jesus for this 
 tale." ' As compared with this, writers like Nicholas Love 
 or John Capgrave are noticeably expKcit. Love pauses at 
 various points to explain that he is omitting large sections 
 of the original; * Capgrave calls attention to his interpola- 
 tions and refers them to their sources.^ On the other hand, 
 there are constant impKcations that variation from source 
 may be a desirable thing and that explanation and apology 
 
 1 E. E. T. S., I. 382. ' E. E. T. S., 11. 633-6. 
 
 ' E. E. T. S., p. 146, 1. 1. ■" Op. at., pp. 100, 115, 300. 
 
 ' Life of St. Gilbert, pp. 103, 135, 141. 
 
46 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 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." ^ 
 Caxton says of his Charles the Great, "If I had been more 
 largely informed ... I had better made it." ^ 
 
 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 
 dehberate in their work; different methods needed to be 
 defined; and the habit of technical discussion had its value, 
 even though the quahty of the commentary was not par- 
 ticularly good. Apart from a few conventional formulas, 
 this habit of comment constituted the bequest of medieval 
 translators to their sixteenth-century successors. 
 
 ' Op. cit, St. Katherine, 1. 49. ^ Preface. 
 
II. THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 
 
II 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 
 
 The English Bible took its shape under unusual conditions, 
 which had their share in the excellence of the final result. 
 Appealing, as it did, to all classes, from the scholar, alert 
 for controversial detail, to the unlearned layman, concerned 
 only for his soul's welfare, it had its growth in the vital 
 atmosphere of strong intellectual and spiritual activity. It 
 was not enough that it should bear the test of the scholar's 
 criticism; it must also reach the understanding of Tyndale's 
 "boy that driveth the plough," demands difficult of satis- 
 faction, but conducive theoretically to a fine development 
 of the art of translation. To attain scholarly acciiracy 
 combined with practical inteUigibiUty was, then, the task of 
 the translator. 
 
 From both angles criticism reached him. Tyndale refers 
 to "my translation in which they affirm unto the lay people 
 (as I have heard say) to be I wot not how many thousand 
 heresies," and continues, "For they which in times past 
 were wont to look on no more scripture than they found in 
 their duns or such like devihsh doctrine, have yet now so 
 narrowly looked on my translation that there is not so much 
 as one I therein if it lack a tittle over his head, but they have 
 noted it, and number it unto the ignorant people for an 
 heresy." ^ TunstaD's famous reference in his sermon at 
 Paul's Cross to the two thousand errors in Tyndale's Testa- 
 ment suggests the undiscriminating criticism, addressed to 
 the popular ear and basing its appeal largely on "numbering," 
 
 ' Preface to Genesis, in Pollard, Records of the Ejiglish Bible, p. 94. 
 
 49 
 
50 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 of which Tyndale complains. The prohibition of "open 
 reasoning in your open Taverns and Alehouses" ^ concerning 
 the meaning of Scripture, included in the draft of the procla- 
 mation for the reading of the Great Bible, also implies that 
 there must have been enough of popular oral discussion to 
 count for something in the shaping of the English Bible. 
 Of the serious comment of more competent judges many 
 records remain, enough to make it clear that, although the 
 real technical problems involved were often obscured by 
 controversy and by the common view that the divine quality 
 of the original made human effort negligible, nevertheless 
 the translator did not lack the stimulus which comes from 
 intelligent criticism and discussion. 
 
 The Bible also had an advantage over other translations 
 in that the idea of progress towards an accurate version 
 early arose. Unlike the translators of secular works, who 
 frequently boast of the speed with which they have ac- 
 complished their tasks, the translators of the Bible con- 
 stantly mention the long, careful labor which has gone to 
 their undertaking. Tyndale feels in his own work the need 
 for revision, and so far as opportunity serves, corrects and 
 polishes his version. Later translators consciously based 
 their renderings on those of their predecessors. St. Augus- 
 tine's approval of diversity of translations was cited again 
 and again. Tyndale urges "those that are better seen in 
 the tongues than I" to "put to their hands to amend" 
 any faults they may find in his work.^ George Joye, his 
 assistant, later his would-be rival, declares that we must 
 learn "to depend not whole on any man's translation."' 
 "Every one," says Coverdale, "doth his best to be nighest 
 to the mark. And though they cannot all attain thereto 
 yet shooteth one nigher than another"; * and again, "Sure 
 I am that there cometh more knowledge and understanding 
 
 ' Pollard, p. 266. « Ibid., p. 112. 
 
 » Ibid., p. 187. « lUd., p. 205. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 51 
 
 of the scripture by their sundry translations than by all 
 our sophistical doctors. For that one translateth something 
 obscurely in one place, the same translateth another, or else 
 he himseK, more manifestly by a more plain vocable." ' 
 Occasionally the number of experimenters awakened some 
 doubts; Cromwell suggests that the bishops make a "perfect 
 correction";^ the patent granted him for the printing of 
 the Bible advocates one translation since "the frailty of men 
 is such that the diversity thereof may breed and bring forth 
 manyfold inconveniences as when wilful and heady folks 
 shall confer upon the diversity of the said translations";' 
 the translators of the version of 1611 have to "answer a 
 third cavil . . . against us, for altering and amending our 
 translations so oft";^ but the conception of progress was 
 generally accepted, and finds fit expression in the preface 
 to the Authorized Version: "Yet for all that, as nothing is 
 begun and perfected at the same time, and the later thoughts 
 are thought to be wiser: so, if we building on their foimda- 
 tion that went before us, and being holpen by their labors, 
 do endeavor to make that better which they left so good; 
 no man, we are sure, hath cause to mishke us." ^ 
 
 But the EngUsh translators had more far-reaching op- 
 portunities to profit by the experiences of others. In other 
 coimtries than England men were engaged in similar labors. 
 The sixteenth centmy was rich in new Latin versions of the 
 Scriptures. The translations of Erasmus, Beza, Pagniaus, 
 Miinster, fitienne, Montanus, and Tremelhus had in turn 
 their influence on the EngUsh renderings, and Castaho's 
 translation into Ciceronian Latin had at least its share of 
 discussion. There was constant intercourse between those 
 interested in Bible translation in England and on the Con- 
 tinent. Enghsh refugees during the persecutions fled across 
 the Channel, and towns such as Worms, Zurich, Antwerp, 
 
 1 C!overdale, Prologue to Bible of 1535. ^ Pollard, p. 196. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 259. ■* Ibid., p. 365. ^ /f,i<i^ p 350. 
 
52 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 and Geneva saw the first printing of most of the early Enghsh 
 versions of the Scriptures. The Great Bible was set up in 
 Paris. Indeed foreign printers had so large a share in the 
 Enghsh Bible that it seemed sometimes advisable to limit 
 their influence. Richard Grafton writes ironically to Crom- 
 well regarding the text of the Bible: "Yea and to make it 
 yet truer than it is, therefore Dutchmen dwelling within this 
 realm go about the printing of it, which can neither speak 
 good English, nor yet write none, and they will be both the 
 printers and correctors thereof ";^ and Coverdale and Grafton 
 imply a similar fear in the case of Regnault, the Frenchman, 
 who has been printing service books, when they ask Cromwell 
 that "henceforth he print no more in the English tongue, 
 unless he have an EngUshman that is learned to be his cor- 
 rector." 2 Moreover, versions of the Scriptures in other 
 languages than Enghsh were not unknown in England. In 
 1530 Henry the Eighth was led to prohibit "the having of 
 holy scripture, translated into the vulgar tongues of Enghsh, 
 French, or Dutch." ' Besides this general famiharity with 
 foreign translations and foreign printers, a more specific 
 indebtedness must be recognized. More's attack on the 
 book "which whoso calleth the New Testament caUeth it 
 by a wrong name, except they will call it Tyndale's testament 
 or Luther's testament"* is in some degree justified in its 
 reference to German influence. Coverdale acknowledges the 
 aid he has received from "the Dutch interpreters: whom 
 (because to their singular gifts and special diligence in the 
 Bible) I have been the more glad to follow." *' The preface 
 to the version of 1611 says, "Neither did we think much to 
 consult the translators or commentators, Chaldee, Hebrew, 
 Syrian, Greek, or Latin, no, nor the Spanish, French, Italian, 
 or Dutch." ^ Doubtless a great part of the debt lay in 
 matters of exegesis, but in his famiharity with so great a 
 
 1 Pollard, p. 220. ' Ibid., p. 239. » Ibid., p. 163. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 126. ^ Ibid., p. 203. » Ibid., p. 371. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 53 
 
 niimber of translations into other languages and with the 
 discussion centering around these translations, it is impossi- 
 ble that the English translator should have failed to obtain 
 suggestions, both practical and theoretical, which apphed to 
 translation rather than to interpretation. Comments on 
 the general aims and methods of translation, happy turns of 
 expression in French or German which had their equivalents 
 in English idiom, must frequently have illimiinated his dif- 
 ficulties. The translators of the Geneva Bible show a just 
 realization of the truth when they speak of "the great op- 
 portimity and occasions which God hath presented imto us 
 in this Chirrch, by reason of so many godly and learned men; 
 and such diversities of translations in divers tongues." ^ 
 
 Of the general history of BibUcal translations, already so 
 frequently and so adequately treated, only the barest outline 
 is here necessary. The various Anglo-Saxon translations 
 and the Wycliffite versions are largely detached from the 
 main line of development. From Tyndale's translations to 
 the Authorized Version of 1611 the hne is surprisingly con- 
 secutive, though in the matter of theory an early translator 
 occasionally anticipates views which obtain general accept- 
 ance only after a long period of experiment and discussion. 
 Exjughly speaking, the theory of translation has as its two 
 extremes, the Roman Cathohc and the Puritan positions, 
 while the 1611 version, where its preface commits itself, 
 compromises on the points at issue. 
 
 As is to be expected, the most definite statements of the 
 problems involved and of their solution are usually found in 
 the comment of those practically engaged in the work of 
 translation. The widely discussed question whether or not 
 the people should have the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue 
 scarcely ever comes down to the difficulties and possibili- 
 ties of the actual undertaking. More's lengthy attack on 
 Tyndale's New Testament is chiefly concerned with matters 
 1 Pollard, p. 280. 
 
54 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 of doctrine. Apart from the prefaces to the various issues 
 of the Bible, the most elaborate discussion of technical mat- 
 ters is Fulke's Defence of the Sincere and True Translation of 
 the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue, a Protestant 
 reply to the claims of the Rhemish translators, pubhshed in 
 1589. Even the more definite comments are bound up with 
 a great mass of controversial or hortatory material, so that 
 it is hard to disentangle the actual contribution which is 
 being made to the theory of translation. Sometimes the 
 translator settled vexed questions by using marginal glosses, 
 a method which might make for accuracy but was hable to 
 become cumbrous and confusing. Like the prefaces, the 
 glosses sometimes contained theological rather than hnguistic 
 comment, thus proving a special source of controversy. A 
 proclamation of Henry the Eighth forbids the printing or 
 importation of "any books of divine scripture in the English 
 tongue, with any additions in the margin or any pro- 
 logue . . . except the same be first viewed, examined, and 
 allowed by the king's highness, or such of his majesty's 
 council, or others, as it shall please his grace to assign 
 thereto, but only the plain sentence and text." ' The 
 version of 1611 admitted only linguistic comment. 
 
 Though the Anglo-Saxon renderings of the Scriptures are 
 for the most part isolated from the main body of translations, 
 there are some points of contact. Elizabethan translators 
 frequently cited the example of the earlier period as an argu- 
 ment in favor of having the Bible in the vulgar tongue. Nor 
 were they entirely unfamiliar with the work of these remote 
 predecessors. Foxe, the martyrologist, published in 1571 an 
 edition of the four gospels in Anglo-Saxon under the patronage 
 of Archbishop Parker. Parker's well-known interest in Old 
 Enghsh centered particularly areiind the early versions of 
 the Scriptures. Secretary Cecil sends the Archbishop "a 
 very ancient Bible written in Latin and old Enghsh or 
 ' Pollard, p. 241. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 55 
 
 Saxon," and Parker in reply comments on "the fair antique 
 writing with the Saxon interpretation." ^ Moreover the 
 sUght record which survives suggests that the problems which 
 confronted the Anglo-Saxon translator were not unlike those 
 which met the translator of a later period. Aelfric's theory 
 of translation in general is expressed in the Latin prefaces 
 to the Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church and the Ldves of 
 the Saints. Above all things he desires that his work may 
 be clear and readable. Hence he has a pecuhar regard for 
 brevity. The Homilies are rendered "non garrula ver- 
 bositate"; the Lives of the Saints are abbreviated on the 
 principle that "non semper breuitas sermonem deturpat sed 
 multotiens honestiorem reddit." Clear, idiomatic English 
 is essential even when it demands the sacrifice of verbal ac- 
 curacy. He presents not word for word but sense for sense, 
 and prefers the "pure and open words of the language of this 
 people," to a more artificial style. His Anglo-Saxon Preface 
 to Genesis implies that he felt the need of greater faithfulness 
 in the case of the Bible: "We dare write no more in English 
 than the Latin has, nor change the orders (endebirdnisse)"; 
 but it goes on to say that it is necessary that Latin idiom 
 adapt itself to Enghsh idiom.^ 
 
 Apart from Aelfric's prefaces Anglo-Saxon translators of 
 the Scriptures have left no conunent on their methods. 
 One of the versions of the Gospels, however, links itself with 
 later translations by employing as preface three of St. 
 Jerome's prologues, among them the Preface to Eusebius. 
 References to Jerome's and Augustine's theories of transla- 
 tion are frequent throughout the course of Biblical transla- 
 tion but are generally vague. The Preface to Eusebius and 
 the Epistle to Pammachius contain the most complete state- 
 ments of the principles which guided Jerome. Both em- 
 phasize the necessity of giving sense for sense rather than 
 
 '■ Strype, lAfe of Parker, London, 1711, p. 536. 
 
 * For a further account of Aelfric's theories, see Chapter I. 
 
56 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 word for word, "except," says the latter, "in the case of the 
 Holy Scriptures where even the order of the words is a 
 mystery." This corresponds closely with Aelfric's theory 
 expressed in the preface to the Lives of the Saints: "Nee 
 potuimus in ista translatione semper verbum ex verbo 
 transferre, sed tamen sensum ex sensu," and his insistance 
 in the Preface to Genesis on a faithfulness which extends even 
 to the endebirdnisse or orders. 
 
 The principle "word for word if possible; if not, sense for 
 sense" is common in connection with medieval translations, 
 but is susceptible of very different interpretations, as ap- 
 pears sometimes from its context. Richard RoUe's phrasing 
 of the theory in the preface to his translation of the Psalter is: 
 "I follow the letter as much as I may. And where I find no 
 proper Enghsh I follow the wit of the words"; but he also 
 makes the contradictory statement, "In this work I seek no 
 strange English, but lightest and commonest, and such that 
 is most like to the Latin," ' a peculiar conception of the 
 translator's obligation to his own tongue! The Prologue 
 to the second recension of the Wycliffite version, commonly 
 attributed to Purvey, emphasizes, under cover of the same 
 apparent theory, the claims of the vernacular. "The 
 best translating," it runs, "is out of Latin into Enghsh, to 
 translate after the sentence, and not only after the words, 
 so that the sentence be as open, either opener, in Enghsh as 
 in Latin, . . . and if the letter may not be sued in the trans- 
 lating, let the sentence be ever whole and open, for the words 
 owe to serve to the intent and sentence." ^ The growing 
 distrust of the Vulgate in some quarters probably accounts 
 in some measure for the translator's attempt to make the 
 meaning if necessary "more true and more open than it is in 
 the Latin." In any case these contrasted theories represent 
 
 '■ The Psalter translated by Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. Bramley, 
 Oxford, 1884. 
 
 ' Chapter 15, in Pollard, Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 57 
 
 roughly the position of the Roman CathoHc and, to some 
 extent, the Anglican party as compared with the more dis- 
 tinctly Protestant attitude throughout the period when the 
 English Bible was taking shape, the former stressing the 
 difficulties of translation and consequently discouraging it, 
 or, when permitting it, insisting on extreme faithfulness to the 
 original; the latter profiting by experiment and criticism 
 and steadily working towards a version which would give 
 due heed not only to the claims of the original but to the 
 genius of the English language. 
 
 Regarded merely as theory, however, a statement Hke the 
 one just quoted obviously failed to give adequate recognition 
 to what the original might justly demand, and in that re- 
 spect justified the fears of those who opposed translation. 
 The high standard of accuracy set by such critics demanded of 
 the translator an increasing consciousness of the difficulties 
 involved and an increasingly clear conception of what things 
 were and were not permissible. Purvey himself contributes 
 to this end by a definite statement of certain changes which 
 may be allowed the English writer.' Ablative absolute or 
 participial constructions may be replaced by clauses of various 
 kinds, "and this will, in many places, make the sentence 
 open, where to English it after the word would be dark and 
 doubtful. Also," he continues, "a relative, which, may be 
 resolved into his antecedent with a conjunction copulative, 
 as thus, which runneth, and he runneth. Also when a word 
 is once set in a reason, it may be set forth as oft as it is under- 
 stood, either as oft as reason and need ask; and this word 
 autem either vero, may stand for forsooth either for but, and 
 thus I use commonly; and sometimes it may stand for and, 
 as old grammarians say. Also when rightful construction is 
 letted by relation, I resolve it openly, thus, where this reason, 
 Dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus, should be Enghshed 
 thus by the letter, the Lard his adversaries shall dread, I 
 ' Prologue, Chapter 15. 
 
58 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 English it thus by resolution, the adversaries of the Lord shall 
 dread him; and so of other reasons that be like." In the 
 later period of Biblicaf translation, when grammatical in- 
 formation was more accessible, such elementary comment 
 was not likely to be committed to print, but echoes of similar 
 technical difficulties are occasionally heard. Tyndale, speak- 
 ing of the Hebraisms in the Greek Testament, asks his 
 critics to "consider the Hebrew phrase . . . whose preter- 
 perfect tense and present tense is both one, and the future 
 tense is the optative mood also, and the future tense is oft 
 the imperative mood in the active voice and in the passive 
 voice. Likewise person for person, number for number, 
 and interrogation for a conditional, and such like is with the 
 Hebrews a common usage." ^ The men concerned in the 
 preparation of the Bishops' Bible discuss the rendering of 
 tenses in the Psalms. At the beginning of the first Psalm 
 the Bishop of Rochester turns "the preterperfect tense into 
 the present tense; because the sense is too harsh in the pre- 
 terperfect tense," and the Bishop of Ely advises "the trans- 
 lation of the verbs in the Psalms to be used uniformly in one 
 tense." ^ 
 
 Purvey's explanations, however, suggest that his mind is 
 occupied, not merely with details, but with a somewhat 
 larger problem. Medieval translators were frequently dis- 
 turbed by the fact that it was almost impossible to confine 
 an English version to the same number of words as the Latin. 
 When they added to the number, they feared that they were 
 unfaithful to the original. The need for brevity, for avoid- 
 ing superfluous words, is especially emphasized in connection 
 with the Bible. Conciseness, necessary for accuracy, is also 
 an admirable quahty in itself. Aelfric's approval of this 
 characteristic has already been noted. The metrical preface 
 to RoUe's Psalter reads: "This holy man in expounding, 
 
 ' Prologue to the New Testament, printed in Matthew's Bible, 1561. 
 ' Strype, Life of Parker, p. 208. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 59 
 
 he foUoweth holy doctors, and in all his Englishing right after 
 the Latin taketh course, and makes it compendious, short, 
 good, and profitable." Purvey says, "Men might expound 
 much openUer and shortlier the Bible than the old doctors 
 have expounded it in Latin." Besides approving the avoid- 
 ance of verbose commentary and exposition, critics and 
 translators are always on their guard against the employment 
 of over many words in translation. Tyndale, in his revision, 
 wiU "seek to bring to compendiousness that which is now 
 translated at the length." ' In certain cases, he says, 
 English reproduces the Hebrew original more easily than 
 does the Latin, because in Latin the translator must "seek 
 a compass." ^ Coverdale finds a corresponding difiiculty in 
 turning Latin into EngUsh: "The figure called EcHpsis 
 divers times used in the scriptures . . . though she do garn- 
 ish the sentence in Latin will not so be admitted in other 
 tongues." ^ The translator of the Geneva New Testament 
 refers to the "Hebrew and Greek phrases, which are strange 
 to render into other tongues, and also short." * The preface 
 to the Rhemish Testament accuses the Protestant translators 
 of having in one place put into the text "three words more 
 . . . than the Greek word doth signify." ^ Strype says of 
 Cheke in a passage chiefly concerned with Cheke's attempt 
 at translation of the Bible, "He brought in a short and ex- 
 pressive way of writing without long and intricate periods," * 
 a comment which suggests that possibly the appreciation of 
 conciseness embraced sentence structure as well as phrasing. 
 As Tyndale suggests, careful revision made for brevity. In 
 Laurence's scheme for correcting his part of the Bishop's 
 Bible was the heading "words superfluous";' the preface 
 
 1 PoUard, p. 116. 
 
 ^ Preface to The Obedience of a Christian Man, in Doctrinal Treatises, 
 Parker Society, 1848, p. 390. » Pollard, p. 211. 
 
 * lUd., p. 277. 5 Ibid., p. 306. 
 
 « Life of Cheke, p. 212. ' Strype, Ufe of Parker, p. 404. 
 
60 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 to the Authorized Version says, "If anything be halting, or 
 superjluous, or not so agreeable to the original, the same may 
 be corrected, and the truth set in place." ^ As time went on, 
 certain technical means were employed to meet the situation. 
 Coverdale incloses in brackets words not in the Latin text; 
 the Geneva translators put added words in italics; Fulke 
 criticizes the Rhemish translators for neglecting this device; ^ 
 and the matter is finally settled by its emplojonent in the 
 Authorized Version. Fulke, however, i rritate d by what he 
 considers a superstitious regard for the number of words in 
 the original on the part of the Rhemish translators, puts the 
 whole question on a common-sense basis. He charges his 
 opponents with making "many imperfect sentences . . . 
 because you will not seem to add that which in translation 
 is no addition, but a true translation." ' "For to translate 
 out of one tongue into another," he says in another place, 
 "is a matter of greater difficulty than is commonly taken, I 
 mean exactly to yield as much and no more than the original 
 containeth, when the words and phrases are so different, 
 that few are found which in all points signify the same thing, 
 neither more nor less, in divers tongues." * And again, 
 "Must not such particles in translation be always expressed 
 to make the sense plain, which in EngUsh without the particle 
 hath no sense or understanding. To translate precisely out 
 of the Hebrew is not to observe the number of words, but 
 the perfect sense and meaning, as the phrase of our tongue 
 will serve to be understood." ^ 
 
 For the distinguishing characteristics of the Authorized 
 Version, the beauty of its rhythm, the vigor of its native 
 Saxon vocabulary, there is httle to prepare one in the com- 
 ment of its translators or their predecessors. Apparently 
 the faithful effort to render the original truly resulted in a 
 perfection of style of which the translator himself was largely 
 
 '■ Pollard, p. 36L ^ Fulke, Defence, Parker Society, p. 552. 
 
 « Defence, p. 552. * IMd., p. 97. ' Ibid., p. 408. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 61 
 
 unconscious. The declaration in the preface to the version 
 of 1611 that "niceness in words was always counted the next 
 step to trifling," ^ and the general condemnation of CastaUo's 
 "lewd translation," ^ point to a respect for the original 
 which made the translator merely a mouthpiece and the 
 English language merely a medixmi for a divine utterance. 
 Possibly there is to be found in appreciation of the style of 
 the original Hebrew, Greek, or Latin some hint of what 
 gave the Enghsh version its pecuhar beauty, though even 
 here it is hard to distinguish the tribute paid to style from 
 that paid to content. The characterization may be only a 
 bit of vague comparison like that in the preface to the 
 Authorized Version, "Hebrew the ancientest, . . . Greek 
 the most copious, . . . Latin the finest," ^ or the reference 
 in the preface to the Rhemish New Testament to the Vulgate 
 as the translation "of greatest majesty." * The prefaces to 
 the Geneva New Testament and the Geneva Bible combine 
 fairly definite Unguistic comment with less obvious references 
 to style: "And because the Hebrew and Greek phrases, 
 which are hard to render in other tongues, and also short, 
 shoxild not be so hard, I have sometimes interpreted them 
 without any whit diminishing the grace of the sense, as our 
 language doth use them";* "Now as we have chiefly ob- 
 served the sense, and labored always to restore it to all in- 
 tegrity, so have we most reverently kept the propriety of 
 the words, considering that the Apostles who spoke and wrote 
 to the Gentiles in the Greek tongue, rather constrained them 
 to the hvely phrase of the Hebrew, than enterprised far by 
 mollifying their language to speak as the Gentiles did. 
 And for this and other causes we have in many places re- 
 served the Hebrew phrases, notwithstanding that they 
 may seem somewhat hard in their ears that are not well 
 practised and also delight in the sweet sounding phrases of 
 
 > PoUard, p. 375. » E.g., Pulke, Defence, p. 163. 
 
 ' PoUard, p. 349. * Ibid., p. 303. ' Ibid., p. 277. 
 
62 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 the holy Scriptures. " ^ On the other hand the Rhemish 
 translators defend the retention of these Hebrew phrases 
 on the ground of stylistic beauty : " There is a certain majesty 
 and more signification in these speeches, and therefore both 
 Greek and Latin keep them, although it is no more the Greek 
 or Latin phrase, than it is the English." ^ Of peculiar in- 
 terest is Tyndale's estimate of the relative possibiHties of 
 Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. Of the Bible he writes: 
 "They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue, it 
 is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the 
 Greek tongue agreeth more with the Enghsh than with the 
 Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth 
 a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. 
 The manner of speaking is both one; so that in a thousand 
 places thou needest not but to translate it into the EngUsh 
 word for word; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, 
 and yet shalt have much work to translate it well-favoredly, 
 so that it have the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure 
 understanding with it in the Latin, and as it hath in the 
 Hebrew." ' The implication that the English version might 
 possess the "grace and sweetness" of the Hebrew original 
 suggests that Tyndale was not entirely unconscious of the 
 charm which his own work possessed, and which it was to 
 transmit to later renderings. 
 
 The questions most definitely discussed by those concerned 
 in the translation of the Bible were questions of vocabulary. 
 Primarily most of these discussions centered ajeuiid points of 
 doctrine and were concerned as largely with the meaning of 
 the word in the original as with its connotation in English. 
 Yet though not in their first intention hnguistic, these dis- 
 cussions of necessity had their bearing on the general problems 
 debated by rhetoricians of the day and occasionally resulted 
 
 ' Pollard, p. 281. ^ Ibid., p. 309. 
 
 ' Preface to The Obedience of a Christian Man, Doctrinal Treatises, 
 pp. 148-9. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 63 
 
 in definite comment on English usage, as when, for example. 
 More says: "And in our EngUsh tongue this word senior 
 signifieth nothing at all, but is a French word used in EngHsh 
 more than half in mockage, when one will call another my 
 lord in scorn." With the exception of Sir John Cheke few 
 of the translators say anything which can be construed as 
 advocacy of the employment of native English words. Of 
 Cheke's attitude there can, of course, be no doubt. His 
 theory is thus described by Strype: "And moreover, in 
 writing any discourse, he would allow no words, but such 
 as were pure English, or of Saxon original; suffering no 
 adoption of any foreign word into the English speech, which 
 he thought was copious enough of itself, without borrowing 
 words of other countries. Thus in his own translations into 
 English, he would not use any but pure English phrase and 
 expression, which indeed made his style here and there a 
 little affected and hard: and forced him to use sometimes 
 odd and uncouth words." ^ His BibUcal translation was a 
 conscious attempt at carrying out these ideas. "Upon this 
 account," writes Strype, "Cheke seemed to dislike the 
 EngUsh translation of the Bible, because in it there were so 
 many foreign words. Which made him once attempt a new 
 translation of the New Testament, and he completed the 
 gospel of St. Matthew. And made an entrance into St. 
 Mark; wherein all along he labored to use only true Anglo- 
 Saxon words." ^ Since Cheke's translation remained in 
 manuscript tiU long after the EUzabethan period, its influence 
 was probably not far-reaching, but his uncompromising 
 views must have had their effect on his contemporaries. 
 Taverner's Bible, a less extreme example of the same ten- 
 dency, seemingly had no influence on later renderings.' 
 
 1 Ufe of Cheke, p. 212. ^ Ihid., p. 212. 
 
 ' An interesting comment of later date than the Authorized Version 
 is found in the preface to William L'Isle's Divers Ancient Monuments of 
 the Saxon Tongue, published in 1638. L'Isle writes: "These monu- 
 
64 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Regarding the value of synonyms there is considerable 
 comment, the prevailing tendency of which is not favorable 
 to unnecessary discrimination between pairs of words. This 
 seems to be the attitude of Coverdale in two somewhat con- 
 fused passages in which he attempts to consider at the same 
 time the signification of the original word, the practice of 
 other translators, and the facts of English usage. Defend- 
 ing diversities of translations, he says, "For that one 
 inter preteth something obscurely in one place, the same 
 translateth another, or else he himself, more manifestly by a 
 more plain vocable of the same meaning in another place." * 
 As illustrations Coverdale mentions scribe and lawyer; 
 elders, and father and mother; repentance, penance, and 
 amendment; and continues: "And in this manner have I 
 used in my translation, calling at in one place penance that 
 in another place I call repentance; and that not only because 
 the interpreters have done so before me, but that the ad- 
 versaries of the truth may see, how that we abhor not this 
 word penance as they untruly report of us, no more than the 
 interpreters of Latin abhor poenitare, when they read re- 
 scipiscere." In the preface to the Latin-English Testament 
 of 1535 he says: "And though I seem to be all too scrupulous 
 calling it in one place penance, that in another I call re- 
 pentance: and gelded that another calleth chaste, this 
 methinks ought not to offend the saying that the holy ghost 
 (I trust) is the author of both our doings . . . and therefore 
 I heartily require thee think no more harm in me for calling 
 
 ments of reverend antiquity, I mean the Saxon Bibles, to him that under- 
 standingly reads and well considers the time wherein they were written, 
 will in many places convince of affected obscurity some late transla- 
 tions." After criticizing the inkhorn terms of the Rhemish transla- 
 tors, he says, "The Saxon hath words for Trinity, Unity, and all such 
 foreign words as we are now fain to use, because we have forgot better 
 of our own." (In J. L. Moore, Titdor-Sluart Views on the Growth, 
 Status, and Destiny of the English Language.) 
 • Prologue to Bible of 1535. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 65 
 
 it in one place penance that in another I call repentance, 
 than I think harm in him that calleth it chaste, which by 
 the nature of this word Eunuchus I call gelded . . . And for 
 my part I ensure thee I am indifferent to call it as well with 
 one term as with the other, so long as I know that it is 
 no prejudice nor injury to the meaning of the holy ghost." * 
 Fulke in his answer to Gregory Martin shows the same tend- 
 ency to ignore differences in meaning. Martin says: "Note 
 also that they put the word 'just,' when faith is joined withal, 
 as Rom. i, 'the just shall live by faith,' to signify that justi- 
 fication is by faith. But if works be joined withal and keep- 
 ing the commandments, as in the place alleged, Luke i, there 
 they say 'righteous' to suppose justification by works." 
 Fulke rephes: "This is a marvellous difference, never heard 
 of (I think) in the English tongue before, between 'just' and 
 'righteous,' 'justice' and 'righteousness.' I am sure there 
 is none of our translators, no, nor any professor of justifica- 
 tion by faith only, that esteemeth it the worth of one hair, 
 whether you say in any place of scripture 'just' or 'righteous,' 
 'justice' or 'righteousness'; and therefore freely have they 
 used sometimes the one word, sometimes the other. . . . 
 Certain it is that no Englishman knoweth the difference be- 
 tween 'just' and 'righteous,' 'unjust' and 'unrighteous,' sav- 
 ing that 'righteousness' and 'righteous' are the more famihar 
 English words." ^ Martin and Fulke differ in the same way 
 over the use of the words "deeds" and "works." The 
 question whether the same English word should always be 
 used to represent the same word in the original was frequently 
 a matter of discussion. It was probably in the mind of the 
 Archbishop of Ely when he wrote to Archbishop Parker, 
 "And if ye translate bonitas or misericordiam, to use it 
 likewise in all places of the Psahns." ' The surprising 
 amount of space devoted by the preface to the version of 
 
 ' Pollard, p. 212. ^ Fulke, pp. 337-8. 
 
 s Pollard, p. 291. 
 
66 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 1611 to explaining the usage followed by the translators 
 gives some idea of the importance attaching to the matter. 
 "We have not tied ourselves," they say, "to an uniformity 
 of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure 
 would wish that we had done, because they observe, that 
 some learned men somewhere, have been as exact as they 
 could that way. Truly, that we might not vary from the 
 sense of that which we had translated before, if the word 
 signified the same in both places (for there be some words 
 that be not of the same sense everywhere) we were especially 
 careful, and made a conscience, according to our duty. But 
 that we should express the same notion in the same particular 
 word; as for example, if we translate the Hebrew or Greek 
 word once by Purpose, never to call it Intent; if one where 
 Journeying, never Travelling; if one where Think, never 
 Suppose; if one where Pain, never Ache; if one where Joy, 
 never Gladness, etc. Thus to mince the matter, we thought 
 to savor more of curiosity than wisdom. . . . For is the 
 kingdom of God become words or syllables? why should we 
 be in bondage to them if we may be free, use one precisely 
 when we may use another no less fit, as commodiously? " ^ 
 
 It was seldom, however, that the translator felt free to 
 interchange words indiscriminately. Of his treatment of 
 the original Purvey writes: "But in translating of words 
 equivocal, that is, that hath many significations under one 
 letter, may lightly be peril, for Austin saith in the 2nd. book 
 of Christian Teaching, that if equivocal words be not trans- 
 lated into the sense, either understanding, of the author, it 
 is error; as in that place of the Psalm, the feet of them be 
 swift to shed out blood, the Greek word is equivocal to sharp 
 and swift, and he that translated sharp feet erred, and a book 
 that hath sharp feet is false, and must be amended; as that 
 sentence unkind young trees shall not give deep roots oweth to 
 be thus, the plantings of adultery shall not give deep roots. . . . 
 1 Ibid., p. 374. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 67 
 
 Therefore a translator hath great need to study well the 
 sentence, both before and after, and look that such equivocal 
 words accord with the sentence." ^ Consideration of the 
 connotation of EngUsh words is required of the translators 
 of the Bishops' Bible. ' ' Item that all such words as soundeth 
 in the Old Testament to any offence of hghtness or obscenity 
 be expressed with more convenient terms and phrases." ^ 
 Generally, however, it was the theological connotation of 
 words that was at issue, especially the question whether 
 words were to be taken in their ecclesiastical or their profane 
 sense, that is, whether certain words which through long 
 association with the church had come to have a peculiar 
 technical meaning should be represented in EngUsh by such 
 words as the church habitually employed, generally words 
 similar ia form to the Latin. The question was a large one, 
 and affected other languages than EngHsh. Foxe, for ex- 
 ample, has difficulty in turning into Latin the controversy 
 between Archbishop Cranmer and Gardiner, Bishop of 
 Winchester. "The English style also stuck with him; which 
 having so many ecclesiastical phrases and manners of speech, 
 no good Latin expressions could be found to answer them."' 
 In England trouble arose with the appearance of Tyndale's 
 New Testament. More accused him of mistranslating 
 "three words of great weight," ^ priests, church, and charity, 
 for which he had substituted seniors, congregation, and love. 
 Robert Ridley, chaplain to the Bishop of London, wrote of 
 Tyndale's version: "By this translation we shall lose all 
 these Christian words, penance, charity, confession, grace, 
 priest, church, which he always calleth a congregation. — 
 Idolatria caUeth he worshipping of images." ^ Much longer 
 is the Hst of words presented to Convocation some years 
 later by the Bishop of Winchester "which he desired for 
 
 1 Prologue, Chapter 15. " Pollard, p. 298. 
 
 ' Strype, Life of Grindal, Oxford, 1821, p. 19. 
 
 * Pollard, p. 127. ' Ihid., p. 124. 
 
68 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 their germane and native meaning and for the majesty of 
 their matter might be retained as far as possible in their 
 own nature or be turned into English speech as closely as 
 possible." ' It goes so far as to include words like Pontifex, 
 Ancilla, Lites, Egenus, Zizania. This theory was largely 
 put into practice by the translators of the Rhemish New 
 Testament, who say, "We are very precise and religious in 
 following our copy, the old vulgar approved Latin: not only 
 in sense, which we hope we always do, but sometimes in the 
 very words also and phrases," ^ and give as illustrations of 
 their usage the retention of Corbana, Parasceve, Pasche, 
 Azymes, and similar words. Between the two extreme 
 positions represented by Tyndale on the one hand and the 
 Rhemish translators on the other, is the attitude of Grindal, 
 who thus advises Foxe in the case previously mentioned: 
 "In all these matters, as also in most others, it will be safe 
 to hold a middle course. My judgment is the same with 
 regard to style. For neither is the ecclesiastical style to be 
 fastidiously neglected, as it is by some, especially when the 
 heads of controversies cannot sometimes be perspicuously 
 explained without it, nor, on the other hand, is it to be so 
 superstitiously followed as to prevent us sometimes from 
 sprinkling it with the ornaments of language." ' The 
 Authorized Version, following its custom, approves the 
 middle course: "We have on the one side avoided the 
 scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical 
 words, and betake themselves to other, as when they put 
 washing for Baptism, and Congregation instead of Church : 
 as also on the other side we have shunned the obscurity of 
 the Papists, in their Azimes, Tunike, Rational, Holocausts, 
 Praepuce, Pasche, and a number of such like." * 
 In the interval between Tyndale's translation and the 
 
 1 Pollard, p. 274. ^ Ibid., p. 305. 
 
 ' Translated in Remains of Archbishop Grindal, Parker Society, 1843, 
 p. 234. < Pollard, pp. 375-6. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 69 
 
 appearance of the Authorized Version the two parties shifted 
 their ground rather amusingly. More accuses Tyndale of 
 taking hberties with the prevaihng Enghsh usage, especially 
 when he substitutes congregation for church, and insists 
 that the people understand by church what they ought to 
 understand. "This is true," he says, "of the usual significa- 
 tion of these words themselves in the English tongue, by 
 the common custom of us Enghsh people, that either now do 
 use these words in owe language, or that have used before 
 our days. And I say that this common custom and usage 
 of speech is the only thing by which we know the right and 
 proper signification of any word, in so much that if a word 
 were taken out of Latin, French, or Spanish, and were for 
 lack of imderstanding of the tongue from whence it came, 
 used for another thing in English than it was in the former 
 tongue: then signifieth it in England none other thing than 
 as we use it and xmderstand thereby, whatsoever it signify 
 anyTvhere else. Then say I now that in England this word 
 congregation did never signify the niunber of Christian 
 people with a connotation or consideration of their faith or 
 Christendom, no more than this word assemble, which hath 
 been taken out of the French, and now is by custom be- 
 come English, as congregation is out of the Latin." ^ Later 
 he returns to the charge with the words, "And then must he 
 with his translation make us an Enghsh vocabulary too." ^ 
 In the later period, however, the positions are reversed. 
 The conservative party, represented by the Rhemish trans- 
 lators, admit that they are employing unfamihar words, but 
 say that it is a question of faithfulness to originals, and that 
 the new words " will easily grow to be current and familiar," ' 
 a contention not without basis when one considers how 
 much acceptance or rejection by the English Bible could af- 
 fect the status of a word. Moreover the introduction of 
 
 1 More, Confutation of Tyndale, Wttrks, p. 417. 
 
 ^ lUd., p. 427. ' Pollard, p. 307. 
 
70 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 new words into the Scriptures had its parallel in the efforts 
 being made elsewhere to enrich the language. The Rhemish 
 preface, published in 1582, almost contemporaneously with 
 Lyly's Ewphues and Sidney's Arcadia, justifies its practice 
 thus: "And why should we be squamish at new words or 
 phrases in the Scripture, which are necessary: when we 
 do easily admit and follow new words coined in court and 
 in courtly or other secular writings?" ' 
 
 The points at issue received their most thorough con- 
 sideration in the controversy between Gregory Martin and 
 William Fulke. Martin, one of the translators of the 
 Rhemish Testament, pubUshed, in 1582, A Discovery of the 
 Manifold Corruptions of the Holy Scriptures by the Heretics of 
 our Days, a book in which apparently he attacked all the 
 Protestant translations with which he was famihar, in- 
 cluding Beza's Latin Testament and even attempting to 
 involve the EngUsh translators in the same condemnation 
 with Castalio. Fulke, in his Defence of the Sincere and True 
 Translation of the Holy Scriptures, reprinted Martin's Dis- 
 covery and replied to it section by section. Both discussions 
 are fragmentary and inconsecutive, but there emerges from 
 them at intervals a clear statement of principles. Funda- 
 mentally the positions of the two men are very different. 
 Martin is not concerned with questions of abstract scholar- 
 ship, but with matters of religious belief. "But because 
 these places concern no controversy," he says, "I say no 
 more." ^ He does not hesitate to place the authority of 
 the Fathers before the results of contemporary scholarship. 
 " For were not he a wise man, that would prefer one Master 
 Humfrey, Master Fulke, Master Whitakers, or some of 
 us poor men, because we have a httle smack of the three 
 tongues, before St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Augustine, 
 St. Gregory, or St. Thomas, that understood well none but 
 one?" ' Since his field is thus narrowed, he finds it easy 
 
 1 PoUard, p. 291. ^ Defence, p. 42. ^ ji,i^^ p 507. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 71 
 
 to lay down definite rules for translation. FuUse, on the 
 other hand, believes that translation may be dissociated 
 from matters of belief. "If the translator's purpose were 
 evil, yet so long as the words and sense of the original 
 tongue will bear him, he cannot justly be called a false and 
 heretical translator, albeit he have a false and heretical 
 meaning." ' He is not willing to accept unsupported au- 
 thority, even that of the leaders of his own party. "If 
 Luther misliked the Tigurine translation," he says in an- 
 other attack on the Rhemish version, "it is not sufficient 
 to discredit it, seeing truth, and not the opinion or authority 
 of men is to be followed in such matters," ^ and again, in 
 the Defence, "The Geneva bibles do not profess to translate 
 out of Beza's Latin, but out of the Hebrew and Greek; and 
 if they agree not always with Beza, what is that to the pur- 
 pose, if they agree with the truth of the original text?" ' 
 Throughout the Defence he is on his guard against Martin's 
 attempts to drive him into unqualified acceptance of any 
 set formula of translation. 
 
 The crux of the controversy was the treatment of ec- 
 clesiastical words. Martin accuses the EngHsh translators 
 of interpreting such words in their "etymological" sense, 
 and consulting profane writers. Homer, PHny, Tully, Virgil,* 
 for their meaning, instead of observing the ecclesiastical 
 use, which he calls "the usual taking thereof in all vulgar 
 speech and writing." * Fulke admits part of Martin's 
 claim: "We have also answered before that words must not 
 always be translated according to their original and general 
 signification, but according to such signification as by use 
 they are appropried to be taken. We agree also, that 
 words taken by custom of speech into an ecclesiastical mean- 
 ing are not to be altered into a strange or profane significa- 
 
 1 Defence, p. 210. 
 
 ^ Confutation of the Rhemish Testament, New York, 1834, p. 21. 
 
 3 Defence, p. 118. " lUd., p. 160. ' lUd., p. 217. 
 
72 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 tion." 1 But ecclesiastical authority is not always a safe 
 guide. "How the fathers of the church have used words, 
 it is no rule for translators of the scriptures to follow; who 
 oftentimes used words as the people did take them, and not 
 as they signified in the apostles' time." ^ In difficult cases 
 there is a peculiar advantage in consulting profane writers, 
 "who used the words most indifferently in respect of our 
 controversies of which they were altogether ignorant." ' 
 Fulke refuses to be reduced to accept entirely either the 
 "common" or the "etymological" interpretation. "A 
 translator that hath regard to interpret for the ignorant 
 people's instruction, may sometimes depart from the ety- 
 mology or common signification or precise turning of word 
 for word, and that for divers causes." ^ To one principle, 
 however, he will commit himself: the translator must ob- 
 serve common English usage. "We are not lords of the 
 common speech of men," he writes, "for if we were, we 
 would teach them to use their terms more properly; but 
 seeing we cannot change the use of speech, we follow Aris- 
 totle's counsel, which is to speak and use words as the com- 
 mon people useth." ^ Consequently ecclesiastical must 
 always give way to popular usage. "Our meaning is not, 
 that if any Greek terms, or words of any other language, 
 have of long time been usurped in our English language, 
 the true meaning of which is unknown at this day to the 
 common people, but that the same terms may be either in 
 translation or exposition set out plainly, to inform the sim- 
 plicity of the ignorant, by such words as of them are better 
 understood. Also when those terms are abused by custom 
 of speech, to signify some other thing than they were first 
 appointed for, or else to be taken ambiguously for divers 
 things, we ought not to be superstitious in these cases, but 
 to avoid misunderstanding we may use words according 
 
 1 Defence, p. 217. " Ibid., p. 162. ' lUd., p. 161. 
 
 * lUd., p. 58. 5 Ihid., p. 267. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 73 
 
 to their original signification, as they were taken in such 
 time as they were written by the instruments of the Holy 
 Ghost." 1 
 
 Fulke's support of the claims of the English language is 
 not confined to general statements. Acquaintance with 
 other languages has given him a definite conception of the 
 properties of his own, even in matters of detail. He resents 
 the importation of foreign idiom. "If you ask for the 
 readiest and most proper English of these words, I must 
 answer you, 'an image, a worshipper of images, and wor- 
 shipping of images,' as we have sometimes translated. The 
 other that you would have, 'idol, idolater, and idolatry,' 
 be rather Greekish than English words; which though they 
 be used by many Englishmen, yet are they not understood 
 of all as the other be." ^ "You . . . avoid the names of 
 elders, calUng them ancients, and the wise men sages, as 
 though you had rather speak French than EngUsh, as we do ; 
 like as you translate confide, 'have a good heart,' after the 
 French phrase, rather than you would say as we do, 'be of 
 good comfort.'" ' Though he admits that English as com- 
 pared with older languages is defective in vocabulary, he 
 insists that this cannot be remedied by unwarranted coin- 
 age of words. "That we have no greater change of words 
 to answer so many of the Hebrew tongue, it is of the riches 
 of that tongue, and the poverty of our mother language, 
 which hath but two words, image and idol, and both of them 
 borrowed of the Latin and Greek: as for other words equiv- 
 alent, we know not any, and we are loth to make any new 
 words of that signification, except the multitude of Hebrew 
 words of the- same sense coming together do sometimes 
 perhaps seem to require it. Therefore as the Greek hath 
 fewer words to express this thing than the Hebrew, so hath 
 the Latin fewer than the Greek, and the EngUsh fewest 
 of all, as will appear if you would undertake to give us 
 1 Defence, p. 217. ^ IIM., p. 179. » Ibid., p. 90. 
 
74 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 English words for the thirteen Hebrew words: except you 
 would coin such ridiculous inkhorn terms, as you do in the 
 New Testament, Azymes, prepuce, neophyte, sandale, 
 parasceve, and such like." ^ "When you say 'evangeUzed,' 
 you do not translate, but feign a new word, which is not 
 understood of mere English ears." ^ 
 
 Fulke describes himself as never having been "of counsel 
 with any that translated the scriptures into English," ' but 
 his works were regarded with respect, and probably had 
 considerable influence on the version of 1611.'* Ironically 
 enough, they did much to familiarize the revisers with the 
 Rhemish version and its merits. On the other hand, Fulke's 
 own views had a distinct value. Though on some points 
 he is narrowly conservative, and though some of the words 
 which he condemns have established themselves in the lan- 
 guage nevertheless most of his ideas regarding linguistic 
 usage are remarkably sound, and, like those of More, com- 
 mend themselves to modern opinion. 
 
 Between the translators of the Bible and the translators 
 of other works there were few points of contact. Though 
 similar problems confronted both groups, they presented 
 themselves in different guises. The question of increasiog 
 the vocabulary, for example, is in the case of bibUcal trans- 
 lation so compUcated by the theological connotation of 
 words as to require a treatment pecuUar to itself. Trans- 
 lators of the Bible were scarcely ever translators of secular 
 works and vice versa. The chief link between the two kinds 
 of translation is suppUed by the metrical versions of the 
 Psalms. Such verse translations were counted of sufficient 
 importance to engage the efforts of men hke Parker and 
 Coverdale, influential in the main course of Bible trans- 
 lation. Men hke Thomas Norton, the translator of Calvin's 
 Institutes, Richard Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, and 
 
 1 Defence, p. 206. ' Ibid., p. 549. 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 89. * Pollard, Introduction, p. 37. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 75 
 
 others of greater literary fame, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, 
 Milton, Bacon, experimented, as time went on, with these 
 metrical renderings. The Ust even includes the name of 
 King James. 1 
 
 At first there was some idea of creating for such songs a 
 vogue in England like that which the similar productions of 
 Marot had enjoyed at the French court. Translators felt 
 free to choose what George Wither calls "easy and pas- 
 sionate Psalms," and, if they desired, create "elegant- 
 seeming paraphrases . . . trimmed ... up with rhetorical 
 illustrations (suitable to their fancies, and the changeable 
 garb of affected language)." ^ The expectations of courtly 
 approbation were, however, largely disappointed, but the 
 metrical Psalms came, in time, to have a wider and more 
 democratic employment. Complete versions of the Psalms 
 in verse came to be regarded as a suitable accompaniment to 
 the Bible, until in the Scottish General Assembly of 1601 
 the proposition for a new translation of the Bible was ac- 
 companied by a parallel proposition for a correction of the 
 Psalms in metre.' 
 
 Besides this general reaUzation of the practical usefulness 
 of these versions in divine service, there was in some quar- 
 ters an appreciation of the peculiar literary quahty of the 
 Psalms which tended to express itseK in new attempts at 
 translation. Arthur Golding, though not himself the 
 author of a metrical version, makes the following comment: 
 "For whereas the other parts of holy writ (whether they be 
 historical, moral, judicial, ceremonial, or prophetical) do 
 conmionly set down their treatises in open and plain decla- 
 ration: this part consisting of them all, wrappeth up things 
 
 ' See Holland, The Psalmists of Britain, London, 1843, for a detailed 
 account of such translations. 
 
 ^ Preface to Th^ Psalms of David translated into lyric verse, 1632, re- 
 printed by the Spenser Society, 1881. 
 
 ' Holland, p. 251. 
 
76 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 in types and figures, describing them under borrowed per- 
 sonages, and oftentimes winding in matters of prevention, 
 speaking of things to come as if they were past or present, 
 and of things past as if they were in doing, and every man 
 is made a betrayer of the secrets of his own heart. And 
 forasmuch as it consisteth chiefly of prayer and thanks- 
 giving, or (which comprehendeth them both) of invocation, 
 which is a communication with God, and requireth rather 
 an earnest and devout Ufting up of the mind than a loud or 
 curious utterance of the voice: there be many imperfect 
 sentences, many broken speeches, and many displaced 
 words: according as the party that prayed, was either pre- 
 vented with the swiftness of his thoughts, or interrupted 
 with vehemency of joy or grief, or forced to surcease through 
 infirmity, that he might recover more strength and cheer- 
 fulness by interminding God's former promises and bene- 
 fits." ^ George Wither finds that the style of the Psalms 
 demands a verse translation. "The language of the Muses," 
 he declares, "in which the Psalms were originally written, 
 is not so properly expressed in the prose dialect as in verse." 
 "I have used some variety of verse," he explains, "because 
 prayers, praises, lamentations, triiunphs, and subjects which 
 are pastoral, heroical, elegiacal, and mixed (all which are 
 found in the Psalms) are not properly expressed in one sort 
 of measure." ^ 
 
 Besides such perception of the general poetic quality of 
 the Psalms as is found in Wither's comment, there was some 
 realization that metrical elements were present in various 
 books of Scripture. Jerome, in his Preface to Job, had 
 called attention to this,' but the regular translators, whose 
 
 ^ Epistle Dedicatory, to The Psalms with M. John Calvin's Com- 
 mentaries, 1571. 
 
 2 Op. cit. 
 
 ' See The Nicene and Post-Nicens Fathers, ed. Schaff and Wace, 
 New York, 1893, p. 491. 
 
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 77 
 
 references to Jerome, though frequent, are somewhat vague, 
 apparently made nothing of the suggestion. Elsewhere, 
 however, there was an attempt to justify the inclusion of 
 translations of the Psalms among other metrical experi- 
 ments. Googe, defending the having of the Psalms in 
 metre, declares that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other parts of 
 the Bible "were written by the first authors in perfect and 
 pleasant hexameter verses." ' Stany hurst ^ and Fraunce ' 
 both tried putting the Psalms into English hexameters. 
 There was, however, no accurate knowledge of the Hebrew 
 verse system. The preface to the American Bay Psalm 
 Booh, pubhshed in 1640,^ explains that "The psalms are 
 penned in such verses as are suitable to the poetry of the 
 Hebrew language, and not in the common style of such 
 other books of the Old Testament as are not poetical. . . . 
 Then, as all owe EngUsh songs (according to the com-se of 
 our English poetry) do run in metre, so ought David's 
 psalms to be translated into metre, that we may sing the 
 Lord's songs, as in our English tongue so in such verses as 
 are familiar to an English ear, which are commonly metri- 
 cal." It is not possible to reproduce the Hebrew metres. 
 "As the Lord hath hid from us the Hebrew tunes, lest we 
 should think ourselves bound to imitate them; so also the 
 course and frame (for the most part) of their Hebrew poetry, 
 that we might not think oiu'selves bound to imitate that, 
 but that every nation without scruple might follow as the 
 grave sort of tunes of their own coimtry, so the graver sort 
 of verses of their own coimtry's poetry." This had already 
 become the common solution of the difficulty, so that even 
 Wither keeps to the kinds of verse used in the old Psalm 
 books in order that the old times may be used. 
 
 1 Holland, Note, p. 89. 
 
 2 Published at the end of his Virgil. 
 
 * In The Countess of Pembroke's Emanuell, 1591. 
 ' Reprinted, New York, 1903. 
 
78 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 But though the metrical versions of the Psalms often 
 inclined to doggerel, and though they probably had Uttle, 
 if any, influence on the Authorized Version, they made 
 their own claims to accuracy, and even after the appear- 
 ance of the King James Bible sometimes demanded atten- 
 tion as improved renderings. George Wither, for example, 
 believes that in using verse he is being more faithful 
 to the Hebrew than are the prose translations. "There 
 is," he says, "a poetical emphasis in many places, which 
 requires such an alteration in the grammatical expression, 
 as will seem to make some difference in the judgment of 
 the common reader; whereas it giveth best Ufe to the au- 
 thor's intention; and makes that perspicuous which was 
 made obscure by those mere grammatical interpreters, who 
 were not acquainted with the proprieties and liberties of this 
 kind of writing." His version is, indeed, "so easy to be un- 
 derstood, that some readers have confessed, it hath been 
 instead of a comment unto them in sundry hard places." 
 His rendering is not based merely on existing English ver- 
 sions; he has "the warrant of best Hebrew grammarians, 
 the authority of the Septuagint, and Chaldean paraphrase, 
 the example of the ancient and of the best modern prose 
 translators, together with the general practice and allow- 
 ance of all orthodox expositors." Like Wither, other trans- 
 lators went back to original sources and made their verse 
 renderings real exercises in translation rather than mere 
 variations on the accepted English text. From this point 
 of view their work had perhaps some value; and though it 
 seems regrettable that practically nothing of permanent 
 literary importance should have resulted from such repeated 
 experiments, they are interesting at least as affording some 
 connection between the sphere of the regular translators and 
 the literary world outside. 
 
III. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
Ill 
 
 THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 The Elizabethan period presents translations in as- 
 tonishing number and variety. As the spirit of the Re- 
 naissance began to inspire England, translators responded 
 to its stimulus with an enthusiasm denied to later times. 
 It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and 
 of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the 
 century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, WUham 
 Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of 
 Latin in English impressions." ' Thomas Nicholls, the 
 goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Ehzabeth trans- 
 lated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection 
 suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard 
 Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus's Treatise on the 
 Lord's Prayer, made by Margaret Roper, the daughter of 
 Sir Thomas More, "And as for the translation thereof, I 
 dare be bold to say it, that whoso list and well can confer 
 and examine the translation with the original, he shall not 
 fail to find that she hath showed herself not only erudite 
 and elegant in either tongue, but hath also used such wis- 
 dom, such discreet and substantial judgment, in expressing 
 lively the Latin, as a man may peradventure miss in many 
 thingfe translated and turned by them that bear the name of 
 right wise and very well learned men." ^ Nicholas Udall 
 writes to Queen Katherine that there are a number of women 
 in England who know Greek and Latin and are "in the 
 
 ' Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. I, p. 313. 
 2 Introduction, in Foster Watson, Yives and the Renaissance Educa- 
 tion of Women, 1912. 
 
 81 
 
82 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 holy scriptures and theology so ripe that they are able 
 aptly, cunningly, and with much grace either to endite or 
 translate into the vulgar tongue for the public instruction 
 and edifying of the unlearned multitude." ^ 
 
 The greatness of the field was fitted to arouse and sus- 
 tain the ardor of English translators. In contrast with the 
 number of manuscripts at command in earlier days, the 
 sixteenth century must have seemed endlessly rich in books. 
 Printing was making the Greek and Latin classics newly 
 accessible, and France and Italy, awake before England to 
 the new life, were storing the vernacular with translations 
 and with new creations. Translators might find their 
 tasks difficult enough and they might flag by the way, as 
 Hoby confesses to have done at the end of the third book 
 of The Courtier, but plucking up courage, they went on to 
 the end. Hoby declares, with a vigor that suggests Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim, "I whetted my style and settled myself to 
 take in hand the other three books " ; ^ Edward Hellowes, 
 after the hesitation which he describes in the Dedication to 
 the 1574 edition of Guevara's Familiar Epistles, "began to 
 call to mind my God, my Prince, my country, and also your 
 worship," and so adequately upheld, went on with his 
 undertaldng; Arthur Golding, with a breath of reUef, sees 
 his rendering of Ovid's Metamorphoses at last complete. 
 
 Through Ovid's work of turned shapes I have with painful pace 
 Passed on, until I had attained the end of all my race. 
 And now I have him made so well acquainted with our tongue, 
 As that he may in English verse as in his own be sung." ' 
 
 Sometimes the toilsomeness of the journey was lightened 
 by companionship. Now and then, especially in the case 
 
 • Letter prefixed to John, in Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New Testa- 
 ment, London, 1548. 
 
 * Dedication, 1588. 
 
 ' To the Reader, in Shakespeare's Ovid, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, 1904. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 of religious works, there was collaboration. Luther's Com- 
 mentary on Galatians was undertaken by "certain godly 
 men," of whom "some began it according to such skill as 
 they had. Others godly affected, not suffering so good a 
 matter in handling to be marred, put to their helping hands 
 for the better framing and furthering of so worthy a work."* 
 From Thomas Norton's record of the conditions under 
 which he translated Calvin's Institution of the Christian 
 Religion, it is not difficult to feel the atmosphere of sjmi- 
 pathy and encoiuragement in which he worked. "There- 
 fore in the very beginning of the Queen's Majesty's most 
 blessed reign," he writes, "I translated it out of Latin into 
 English, for the commodity of the Church of Christ, at the 
 special request of my dear friends of worthy memory, 
 Reginald Wolfe and Edward Whitchurch, the one Her 
 Majesty's Printer for the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin 
 tongues, the other her Highness' Printer of the books of 
 Common Prayer. I performed my work in the house of my 
 said friend, Edward Whitchurch, a man well known of 
 upright heart and dealing, an ancient zealous Gospeller, as 
 plain and true a friend as ever I knew living, and as de- 
 sirous to do anything to common good, specially to the ad- 
 vancement of true rehgion. ... In the doing, hereof I 
 did not only trust mine own wit or abihty, but examined 
 my whole doing from sentence to sentence throughout the 
 whole book with conference and overlooking of such learned 
 men, as my translation being allowed by their judgment, 
 I did both satisfy mine own conscience that I had done 
 truly, and their approving of it might be a good warrant 
 to the reader that nothing should herein be dehvered him 
 but sound, immingled and uncorrupted doctrine, even in 
 such sort as the author himself had first framed it. All 
 that I wrote, the grave, learned, and virtuous man, M. 
 
 1 Bishop of London's preface To the Reader, in A Commentary of Dr. 
 Martin Luther upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, London, 1577. 
 
84 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 David Whitehead (whom I name with honorable remem- 
 brance) did among others, compare with the Latin, examin- 
 ing every sentence throughout the whole book. Beside all 
 this, I privately required many, and generally all men with 
 whom I ever had any talk of this matter, that if they found 
 anything either not truly translated or not plainly Eng- 
 lished, they would inform me thereof, promising either to 
 satisfy them or to amend it." ^ Norton's next sentence, 
 "Since which time I have not been advertised by any man 
 of anjrthing which they would require to be altered" prob- 
 ably expresses the fate of most of the many requests for 
 criticism that accompany translations, but does not es- 
 sentially modify the impression he conveys of unusually 
 favorable conditions for such work. One remembers that 
 Tyndale originally anticipated with some confidence a resi- 
 dence in the Bishop of London's house while he translated 
 the Bible. Thomas Wilson, again, says of his translation 
 of scjme of the orations of Demosthenes that "even in these 
 my small travails both Cambridge and Oxford men have 
 given me their learned advice and in some things have set 
 to their helping hand," ^ and Florio declares that it is owing 
 to the help and encouragement of "two supporters of knowl- 
 edge and friendship," Theodore Diodati and Dr. Gwinne, 
 that "upheld and armed" he has "passed the pikes." ' 
 
 The translator was also sustained by a conception of the 
 importance of his work, a conception sometimes exag- 
 gerated, but becoming, as the century progressed, clearly 
 and truly defined. Between the lines of the dedication 
 which Henry Parker, Lord Morley, prefixes to his transla- 
 tion of Petrarch's Triumphs,'^ one reads a pathetic story of 
 an appreciation which can hardly have equaled the hopes 
 
 1 Preface to The Institution of the Christian Religion, London, 1578. 
 ^ Preface to The Three Orations of Demosthenes, London, 1570. 
 ' Dedication of Montaigne's Essays, London, 1603. 
 - Reprinted, Roxburghe Club, 1887. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 85 
 
 of the author. He writes of "one of late days that was 
 groom of the chamber with that renowned and valiant 
 prince of high memory, Francis the French king, whose 
 name I have forgotten, that did translate these triumphs 
 to that said king, which he 'took so thankfully that he gave 
 to him for his pains an hundred crowns, to him and to his 
 heirs of inheritance to enjoy to that value in land forever, 
 and took such pleasure in it that wheresoever he went, 
 among his precious jewels that book always carried with 
 him for his pastime to look upon, and as much esteemed by 
 him as the richest diamond he had." Moved by patriotic 
 emulation, Lord Morley "translated the said book to that 
 most worthy king, our late sovereign lord of perpetual 
 memory, King Henry the Eighth, who as he was a prince 
 above all others most excellent, so took he the work very 
 thankfully, marvelhng much that I could do it, and think- 
 ing verily I had not done it without help of some other, 
 better knowing in the Italian tongue than I; but when he 
 knew the very truth, that I had translated the work myseK, 
 he was more pleased therewith than he was before, and so 
 what his highness did with it is to me unknown." 
 
 Hyperbole in estimating the value of the translator's 
 work is not common among Lord Morley's successors, but 
 their very recognition of the secondary importance of trans- 
 lation often resulted in a modest yet dignified insistence on 
 its real value. Richard Eden says that he has labored 
 "not as an author but as a translator, lest I be injurious to 
 any man in ascribing to myself the travail of other." ^ 
 Nicholas Grimald qualifies a translation of Cicero as "my 
 work," and immediately adds, "I call it mine as Plautus 
 and Terence called the comedies theirs which they made 
 out of Greek." ^ Harrington, the translator of Orlando 
 
 ' Preface to The Book of Metals, in Arber, The First Three English 
 Books on America, 1885. 
 
 ^ Dedication of Marcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 1558. 
 
86 EAIILY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 Furioso, says of his work: "I had rather men should see 
 and know that I borrow at all than that I steal any, and I 
 would wish to be called rather one of the worst translators 
 than one of the meaner makers, specially since the Earl of 
 Surrey and Sir Thomas Wiat, that are yet called the first 
 refiners of the Enghsh tongue, were both translators out of 
 the Italian. Now for those that count it such a contempt- 
 ible and trifhng matter to translate, I will but say to them 
 as M. Bartholomew Clarke, an excellent learned man and 
 a right good translator, said in a manner of pretty challenge, 
 in his Preface (as I remember) upon the Courtier, which 
 book he translated out of Italian into Latin. 'You,' saith 
 he, 'that think it such a toy, lay aside my book, and take 
 my author in hand, and try a leaf or such a matter, and 
 compare it with mine.'" ^ Philemon Holland, the "trans- 
 lator general" of his time, writes of his art: "As for myself, 
 since it is neither my hap nor hope to attain to such per- 
 fection as to bring forth something of mine own which may 
 quit the pains of a reader, and much less to perform any 
 action that might minister matter to a writer, and yet so 
 far bound unto my native country and the blessed state 
 wherein I have lived, as to render an accovmt of my years 
 passed and studies employed, during this long time of peace 
 and tranquilhty, wherein (under the most gracious and 
 happy government of a peerless princess, assisted with so 
 prudent, politic, and learned Counsel) all good literature 
 hath had free progress and flourished in no age so much: 
 methought I owed this duty, to leave for my part also (after 
 many others) some small memorial, that might give testi- 
 mony another day what fruits generally this peaceable age 
 of ours hath produced. Endeavored I have therefore to 
 stand in the third rank, and bestowed those hours which 
 might be spared from the practice of my profession and the 
 necessary cares of life, to satisfy my countrymen now living 
 ' A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 219. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 87 
 
 and to gratify the age ensuing in this kind." ^ To Holland's 
 simple acceptance of his rightful place, it is pleasant to add 
 the lines of the poet Daniel, whose imagination was stirred 
 in true Elizabethan fashion by the larger relations of the 
 translator. Addressing Florio, the interpreter of Montaigne 
 to the Enghsh people, he thanks him on behaK of both 
 author and readers for 
 
 ... his studious caxe 
 
 Who both of him and us doth merit much, 
 
 Having as sumptuously as he is rare 
 
 Placed him in the best lodging of our speech, 
 
 And made him now as free as if born here, 
 
 And as well ours as theirs, who may be proud 
 
 To have the franchise of his worth allowed. 
 
 It being the proportion of a happy pen. 
 
 Not to b'invassal'd to one monarchy. 
 
 But dwell with all the better world of men 
 
 Whose spirits are of one community. 
 
 Whom neither Ocean, Deserts, Rocks, nor Sands 
 
 Can keep from th' intertraflBc of the mind." ^ 
 
 In a less exalted strain come suggestions that the trans- 
 lator's work is valuable enough to deserve some tangible 
 recognition. Thomas Fortescue urges his reader to con- 
 sider the case of workmen like himself, "assuring thyself 
 that none in any sort do better deserve of their country, 
 that none swink or sweat with Hke pain and anguish, 
 that none in like sort hazard or adventure their credit, that 
 none desire less stipend or salary for their travail, that 
 none in fine are worse in this age recompensed. " ' Nicholas 
 Udall presents detailed reasons why it is to be desired that 
 "some able, worthy, and meet persons for doing such pubhc 
 benefit to the commonweal as translating of good works 
 
 ' Preface to The Natural History 0/ C. Plinius Secundus, London, 
 1601. 
 
 * Letter to John Florio, in Florio's Montaigne, Tudor Translations. 
 3 To the Reader, in The Forest, London, 1576. 
 
88 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 and writing of chronicles might by some good provision and 
 means have some condign sustentation in the same." ^ 
 "Besides," he argues, "that such a translator travaileth 
 not to his own private commodity, but to the benefit and 
 pubhc use of his country: besides that the thing is such 
 as must so thoroughly occupy and possess the doer, and 
 must have him so attent to apply that same exercise only, 
 that he may not during that season take in hand any other 
 trade of business whereby to purchase his Uving: besides 
 that the thing cannot be done without bestowing of long 
 time, great watching, much pains, diligent study, no small 
 charges, as well of meat, drink, books, as also of other neces- 
 saries, the labor self is of itself a more painful and more 
 tedious thing than for a man to write or prosecute any 
 argimient of his own invention. A man hath his own in- 
 vention ready at his own pleasure without lets or stops, to 
 make such discourse as his argument requireth: but a 
 translator must ... at every other word stay, and sus- 
 pend both his cogitation and his pen to look upon his author, 
 so that he might in equal time make thrice as much as he 
 can be able to translate." 
 
 The belief present in the comment of both Fortescue and 
 UdaU that the work of the translator is of pecuUar service 
 to the state is expressed in connection with translations of 
 every sort. Richard Taverner declares that he has been 
 incited to put into Enghsh part of the Chiliades of Erasmus 
 by "the love I bear to the furtherance and adornment 
 of my native country." ^ William Warde translates The 
 Secrets of Maister Alexis of Piemont in order that "as well 
 Englishmen as Italians, Frenchmen, or Dutchmen may 
 suck knowledge and profit hereof." ' John Brende, in the 
 
 ' Dedication to Edward VI, in Paraphrase of Erasmus. 
 2 Prologue to Proverbs or Adagies with new additions gathered out of the 
 Chiliades of Erasmus by Richard Taverner, London, 1539. 
 ' Epistle prefixed to translation, 1568. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 89 
 
 Dedication of his History of Quintus Curtius, insists on the 
 importance of historical knowledge, his appreciation of 
 which has made him desire "that we Englishmen might be 
 foimd as forward in that behalf as other nations, which have 
 brought all worthy histories into their natm^al language." ' 
 Patriotic emulation of what has been done in other coun- 
 tries is everywhere present as a motive. Occasionally the 
 Englishman shows that he has studied foreign translations 
 for his own guidance. Adlington, in his preface to his 
 rendering of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, says that he does 
 not follow the original in certain respects, "for so the French 
 and Spanish translators have not done " ; ^ Hoby says of 
 his translation of The Courtier, "I have endeavored myself 
 to follow the very meaning and words of the author, without 
 being misled by fantasy or leaving out any parcel one or 
 other, whereof I know not how some interpreters of this 
 book into other languages can excuse themselves, and the 
 more they be conferred, the more it will perchance ajj- 
 pear." ' On the whole, however, the comment confines 
 itseK to general statements like that of Grimald, who in 
 translating Cicero is endeavoring "to do likewise for my 
 coimtrymen as ItaUans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Dutchmen, 
 and other foreigners have liberally done for theirs." * In 
 spite of the remarkable output England lagged behind other 
 coimtries. Lord Morley complains that the printing of a 
 merry jest is more profitable than the putting forth of such 
 excellent works as those of Petrarch, of which England has 
 "very few or none, which I do lament in my heart, con- 
 sidering that as well in French as in the Italian (in the 
 which both tongues I have some httle knowledge) there is 
 no excellent work in the Latin, but that straightway they 
 set it forth in the vulgar." ^ Morley wrote in the early days 
 
 1 Published, Tottell, 1561. « Reprinted, London, 1915. 
 
 ' Dedication in edition of 1588. * Op. cit. 
 
 ' Dedication, op. cit. 
 
90 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 of the movement for translation, but later translators made 
 similar complaints. Hoby says in the preface to The Court- 
 ier: "In this point (I know not by what destiny) EngUsh- 
 men are most inferior to most of all other nations: for 
 where they set their deUght and bend themselves with an 
 honest strife of matching others to turn into their mother 
 tongue not only the witty writings of other languages but 
 also of all philosophers, and all sciences both Greek and 
 Latin, our men ween it sufficient to have a perfect knowl- 
 edge to no other end but to profit themselves and (as it 
 were) after much pains in breaking up a gap bestow no less 
 to close it up again." To the end of the century translation 
 is encouraged or defended on the ground that it is a pubhc 
 duty. Thomas Danett is urged to translate the History 
 of Philip de Comines by certain gentlemen who think it "a 
 great dishonor to our native land that so worthy a history 
 being extant in all languages almost in Christendom should 
 be suppressed in ours";^ Chapman writes indignantly of 
 Homer, "And if Italian, French, and Spanish have not 
 made it dainty, nor thought it any presumption to turn 
 him into their languages, but a fit and honorable labor and 
 (in respect of their country's profit and their prince's credit) 
 almost necessary, what curious, proud, and poor shamefast- 
 ness should let an English muse to traduce him?" ^ 
 
 Besides all this, the translator's conception of his audience 
 encouraged and guided his pen. While translations in 
 general could not pretend to the strength and universality 
 of appeal which belonged to the Bible, nevertheless taken 
 in the mass and judged only by the comment associated 
 with them, they suggest a varied pubhc and a surprising 
 contact with the essential interests of mankind. The ap- 
 peals on title pages and in prefaces to all kinds of people, 
 
 1 Dedication, dated 1596, of The History of Philip de Comines, London, 
 1601. 
 
 ^ Dedication of Achilles' Shield in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 300. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 91 
 
 from ladies and gentlemen of rank to the common and 
 simple sort, not infrequently resemble the calculated praises 
 of the advertiser, but admitting this, there still remains 
 much that imphes a simple confidence in the response of 
 friendly readers. Rightly or wrongly, the translator pre- 
 supposes for himself in many cases an audience far removed 
 from academic preoccupations. Richard Eden, translating 
 from the Spanish Martin Cortes' Arte de Navigar, says, 
 "Now therefore this work of the Art of Navigation being 
 published in our vulgar tongue, you may be assured to have 
 more store of skilful pilots." ^ Golding's translations of 
 Pomponius Mela and JuHus Solinus Polyhistor are described 
 as, "Right pleasant and profitable for Gentlemen, Mer- 
 chants, Mariners, and Travellers." ^ Hellowes, with an 
 excess of rhetoric which takes from his convincingness, pre- 
 sents Guevara's Familiar Epistles as teaching "rules for 
 kings to rule, counselors to counsel, prelates to practise, 
 captains to execute, soldiers to perform, the married to 
 follow, the prosperous to prosecute, and the poor in ad- 
 versity to be comforted, how to write and talk with all men 
 in all matters at large." ' Holland's honest simpUcity gives 
 greater weight to a similarly sweeping characterization of 
 Pliny's Natural History as "not appropriate to the learned 
 only, but acconunodate to the rude peasant of the coimtry; 
 fitted for the painful artisan in town or city; pertinent to 
 the bodily health of man, woman, or child; and in one word 
 suiting with all sorts of people living in a society and com- 
 monweal." * In the same preface the need for replying to 
 those who oppose translation leads Holland to insist further 
 on the practical applicabihty of his matter. Alternating 
 his own with his critics' position, he writes: "It is a shame 
 (quoth one) that lAvy speaketh English as he doth; Latin- 
 
 ' Preface in Arber, op. cit. 
 
 * Pr^ace, dated 1584, to translation published 1590. 
 
 ' Title page, 1574. * To the Reader, op. cit. 
 
92 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 ists only owe to be acquainted with him: as who should 
 say the soldier were to have recourse to the university for 
 military skill and knowledge, or the scholar to put on arms 
 and pitch a camp. What should Pliny (saith another) be 
 read in English and the mysteries couched in his books 
 divulged; as if the husbandman, the mason, carpenter, gold- 
 smith, lapidary, and engraver, with other artificers, were 
 bound to seek unto great clerks or linguists for instructions 
 in their several arts." Wilson's translation of Demosthenes, 
 again, undertaken, it has been said, with a view to rousing 
 a national resistance against Spain, is described on the title 
 page as "most needful to be read in these dangerous days 
 of all them that love their country's hberty." ^ 
 
 Naturally enough, however, especially in the case of trans- 
 lations from the Latin and Greek, the academic interest 
 bulks largely in the audience, and sometimes makes an un- 
 expected demand for recognition in the midst of the more 
 practical appeal. Holland's Pliny, for example, addresses 
 itself not only to peasants and artisans but to young stu- 
 dents, who "by the light of the Enghsh . . . shall be able 
 more readily to go away with the dark phrase and obscure 
 constructions of the Latin." Chapman, refusing to be 
 burdened with a popular audience, begins a preface with 
 the insidious compliment, "I suppose you to be no mere 
 reader, since you intend to read Homer." ^ On the other 
 hand, the academic reader, whether student or critic, is, 
 if one accepts the translator's view, very much on the alert, 
 anxious to confer the English version with the original, either 
 that he may improve his own knowledge of the foreign 
 language or that he may pick faults in the new rendering. 
 Wilson attacks the critics as "drones and no bees, lubbers 
 and no learners," but the fault he finds in these "croaking 
 
 1 London, 1570. 
 
 ° Preface to Seven Books of the Iliad of Homer, in Gregory Smith, 
 vol. 2, p. 293. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 93 
 
 paddocks and mahifest overweeners of themselves" is that 
 they are "out of reason curious judges over the travail and 
 painstaking of others" instead of being themselves pro- 
 ducers. ' Apparently there was Uttle fear of the indifference 
 which is more discouraging than hostile criticism, and 
 though, as is to be expected, it is the hostile criticism that 
 is most often reflected in prefaces, there must have been 
 much kindly comment like that of Webbe, who, after dis- 
 cussing the relations of Phaer's Virgil to the Latin, con- 
 cludes, "There is not one book among the twelve which 
 win not yield you most excellent pleasure in conferring the 
 translation with the copy and marking the gallant grace 
 which our English speech affordeth." ^ 
 
 Such encouragements and incentives are enough to 
 awaken the envy of the modern translator. But the six- 
 teenth century had also its peculiar difficulties. The 
 EngUsh language was neither so rich in resources nor so 
 carefully standardized as it has become of later times. It 
 was often necessary, indeed, to defend it against the charge 
 that it was not equal to translation. Pettie is driven to 
 reply to those who oppose the use of the vernacular be- 
 cause "they count it barren, they count it barbarous, they 
 coimt it imworthy to be accounted of." ' Chapman says 
 in his preface to Achilles' Shield: "Some will convey their 
 imperfections under his Greek shield, and from thence 
 bestow bitter arrows against the traduction, afirrming their 
 want of admiration grows from the defect of our language, 
 not able to express the copiousness (coppie) and elegancy 
 of the original." Richard Green way, who translated the 
 Annals of Tacitus, admits cautiously that his medium is 
 "perchance not so fit to set out a piece drawn with so cm-i- 
 ous a pencil." * One cannot, indeed, help recognizing that 
 
 1 Op. dt. '' Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 262. 
 
 ' Preface to Civile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586. 
 
 * Dedication of The End of Nero and Beginning of Galba, 1598. 
 
94 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 as compared with modern English EUzabethan EngUsh was 
 weak in resources, limited in vocabulary, and somewhat 
 uncertain in sentence structure. These disadvantages prob- 
 ably account in part for such explanations of the relative 
 difficulty of translation as that of Nicholas Udall in his plea 
 that translators should be suitably recompensed or that of 
 John Brende in his preface to the translation of Quintus 
 Ciuliius that "in translation a man cannot always use his 
 own vein, but shall be compelled to tread in the author's 
 steps, which is a harder and more difficult thing to do, than 
 to walk his own pace." ' 
 
 Of his difficulties with sentence structure the translator 
 says httle, a fact rather surprising to the modern reader, 
 conscious as he is of the awkwardness of the Elizabethan 
 sentence. Now and then, however, he hints at the problems 
 which have arisen in the handling of the Latin period. 
 Udall writes of his translation of Erasmus: "I have in some 
 places been driven to use mine own judgment in rendering 
 the true sense of the book, to speak nothing of a great num- 
 ber of sentences, which by reason of so many members, or 
 parentheses, or digressions as have come in places, are so 
 long that unless they had been somewhat divided, they 
 would have been too hard for an unlearned brain to con- 
 ceive, much more hard to contain and keep it still." ^ Ad- 
 lington, the translator of The Golden Ass of Apuleius, says, 
 "I have not so exactly passed through the author as to point 
 every sentence exactly as it is in the Latin." ' A comment 
 of Foxe on his difficulty in translating contemporary Eng- 
 lish into Latin suggests that he at least was conscious of 
 the weakness of the English sentence as compared with the 
 Latin. Writing to Peter Martyr of his Latin version of 
 the controversy between Cranmer and Gardiner, he says 
 of the latter: "In his periods, for the most part, he is so 
 
 ' Op. cit. ' Address to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke. 
 
 ' Preface. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 95 
 
 profuse, that he seems twice to forget himself, rather than 
 to find his end. The whole phrase hath in effect that 
 structure that consisting for the most part of relatives, it 
 refuses almost all the grace of translation." ^ 
 
 Though the question of sentence structm^e was not given 
 prominence, the problem of rectifying deficiencies in vocab- 
 ulary touched the translator very nearly. The possibility 
 of augmenting the language was a vital issue in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, but it had a peculiar significance where 
 translation was concerned. Here, if anywhere, the need for 
 a large vocabulary was felt, and in translations many new 
 words first made their appearance. Sir Thomas Elyot 
 early made the connection between translation and the 
 movement for increase in vocabulary. In the Proheme to 
 The Knowledge which maketh a wise man he explains that in 
 The Governor he intended "to augment the EngUsh tongue, 
 whereby men should . . . interpret out of Greek, Latin, or 
 any other tongue into English." ^ Later in the century 
 Peele praises the translator Harrington, 
 
 . . . well-letter'd and discreet. 
 
 That hath so purely naturalized 
 
 Strange words, and made them all free denizens,' 
 
 and — to go somewhat outside the period — the fourth 
 edition of Bullokar's English Expositor, originally designed 
 to teach "the interpretation of the hardest words used in 
 our language," is recommended on the ground that those 
 who know no language but the mother tongue, but "are 
 yet studiously desirous to read those learned and elegant 
 treatises which from their native original have been ren- 
 dered EngUsh (of which sort, thanks to the company of 
 
 • Translated in Strype, Life of Grindal, Orford, 1821, p. 22. 
 2 Preface to The Governor, ed. Croft. 
 
 ' Ad Maecenatem Prologus to Order of the Garter, in Works, ed. 
 Dyce, p. 584. 
 
96 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 painful translators we have not a few) have here a volume 
 fit for their purposes, as carefully designed for their 
 assistance." ^ 
 
 Whether, however, the translator should be allowed to 
 add to the vocabulary and what methods he should em- 
 ploy were questions by no means easy of settlement. As 
 in Caxton's time, two possible means of acquiring new words 
 were suggested, naturalization of foreign words and revival 
 of words from older EngUsh sources. Against the first of 
 these methods there was a good deal of prejudice. Grimald 
 in his preface to his translation of Cicero's De Offidis, pro- 
 tests against the translation that is "uttered with inkhorn 
 terms and not with usual words." Other critics are more 
 specific in their condemnation of non-Enghsh words. Put- 
 tenham complains that Southern, in translating Ronsard's 
 French rendering of Pindar's hymns and Anacreon's odes, 
 "doth so impudently rob the French poet both of his praise 
 and also of his French terms, that I cannot so much pity 
 him as be angry with him for his injurious dealing, our 
 said maker not being ashamed to use these French words, 
 freddon, egar, suberbous, filanding, celest, calabrois, thebanois 
 and a number of others, which have no manner of con- 
 formity with our language either by custom or derivation 
 which may make them tolerable." ^ Richard Willes, in 
 his preface to the 1577 edition of Eden's History of Travel 
 in the West and East Indies, says that though English Ht- 
 erature owes a large debt to Eden, still "many of his English 
 words cannot be excused in my opinion for smelUng too 
 much of the Latin." ' The list appended is not so remote 
 from the modern English vocabulary as that which Putten- 
 ham supplies. Willes cites " dominators, 'ponderous, dition^ 
 
 ' Quoted in J. L. Moore, Tvdor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, 
 and Destiny of the English Language. 
 
 ' InGiegoiy Sadth, Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. 2, p. 17L 
 ' Quoted in Moore, op. cit. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 97 
 
 aries, portentous, antiques, despicable, solidtate, obsequious^ 
 homicide, imbibed, destructive, prodigious, with other such 
 like, in the stead of lords, weighty, subjects, wonderful, an- 
 cient, low, careful, dutiful, man-slaughter, drunken, noisome^ 
 monstrous, &c." Yet there were some advocates of the use 
 of foreign words. Florio admits with mock humiUty that 
 he has employed "some uncouth terms as entraine, con- 
 scientious, endear, tarnish, comport, efface, facilitate, amusing 
 debauching, regret, effort, emotion, and such like," and con- 
 tinues, "If you like them not, take others most commonly 
 set by them to expound them, since they were set to 
 make such likely French words famiUar with our Eng- 
 lish, which may well bear them," ^ a contention which 
 modern usage supports. Nicholas Udall pronounces judi- 
 cially in favor of both methods of enriching the language. 
 "Some there be," he says, "which have a mind to renew 
 terms that are now almost worn clean out of use, which I 
 do not disallow, so it be done with judgment. Some others 
 would ampliate and enrich their native tongue with more 
 vocables, which also I commend, if it be aptly and wittily 
 assayed. So that if any other do innovate and bring up 
 to me a word afore not used or not heard, I would not dis- 
 praise it : and that I do attempt to bring it into use, another 
 man should not cavil at." ^ George Pettie also defends the 
 use of inkhorn terms. "Though for my part," he says, 
 "I use those words as Uttle as any, yet I know no reason 
 why I should not use them, for it is indeed the ready way 
 to enrich our tongue and make it copious." ^ On the whole, 
 however, it was safer to advocate the formation of words 
 from Anglo-Saxon sources. Golding says of his transla- 
 tion of Philip of Mornay: "Great care hath been taken by 
 forming and deriving of fit names and terms out of the 
 
 1 To the Reader, in 1603 edition of Montaigne's Essays. 
 
 2 AMress to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke. 
 
 ' To the Reader in Civile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586. 
 
98 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 fountains of our own tongue, though not altogether most 
 usual yet always conceivable and easy to be understood; 
 rather than by usurping Latin terms, or by borrowing the 
 words of any foreign language, lest the matters, which in 
 some cases are mystical enough of themselves by reason of 
 their own profoundness, might have been made more ob- 
 scure to the unlearned by setting them down in terms 
 utterly unknown to them." ' Holland says in the preface 
 to his translation of Livy: "I framed my pen, not to any 
 affected phrase, but to a mean and popular style. Wherein 
 if I have called again into use some old words, let it be at- 
 tributed to the love of my country's language." Even in 
 this matter of vocabulary, it will be noted, there was some- 
 thing of the stimulus of patriotism, and the possibility of 
 improving his native tongue must have appealed to the 
 translator's creative power. Phaer, indeed, alleges as one 
 of his motives for translating Virgil "defence of my country's 
 language, which I have heard discommended of many, and 
 esteemed of some to be more than barbarous." ^ 
 
 Convinced, then, that his undertaking, though difficult, 
 meant much both to the individual and to the state, the 
 translator gladly set about making some part of the great 
 field of foreign Uterature, ancient and modern, accessible to 
 English readers. Of the technicahties of his art he has a 
 good deal to say. At a time when prefaces and dedications 
 so frequently established personal relations between author 
 and audience, it was natural that the translator also should 
 take his readers into his confidence regarding his aims and 
 methods. His comment, however, is largely incidental. 
 Generally it is applicable only to the work in hand; it does 
 not profess to be a statement, even on a small scale, of what 
 translation in general ought to be. There is no discussion 
 
 1 Prejmx, 1587. 
 
 ^ Master Phaer' s Conclusion to his Interpretation of the Aeneidos of 
 Virgil, in edition of 1573. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 99 
 
 in English corresponding to the small, but comprehensive 
 treatise on La maniere de Men traduire d'une langue en autre 
 which fitienne Dolet pubhshed at Lyons in 1540. This 
 casual quality is evidenced by the peculiar way in which 
 prefaces in different editions of the same book appear and 
 disappear for no apparent reason, possibly at the conven- 
 ience of the printer. It is scarcely fair to interpret as con- 
 sidered, deUberate formulation of principles, utterances so 
 unpremeditated and fragmentary. The theory which ac- 
 companies secular translation is much less clear and con- 
 secutive than that which accompanies the translation of 
 the Bible. Though in the, latter case the formulation of 
 theories of translation was almost equally iacidental, re- 
 spect for the original, repeated experiment, and constant 
 criticism and discussion united to make certain principles 
 take very definite shape. Secular translation produced 
 nothing so homogeneous. The existence of so many trans- 
 lators, working for the most part independently of each 
 other, resulted in a confused mass of comment whose real 
 value it is difficult to estimate. It is true that the new 
 scholarship with its clearer estimate of hterary values and 
 its appreciation of the individual's proprietary rights in his 
 own writings made itself strongly felt in the sphere of secular 
 translation and introduced new standards of accuracy, new 
 definitions of the latitude which might be accorded the 
 translator; but much of the old freedom in handhng ma- 
 terial, with the accompanying vagueness as to the limits 
 of the translator's function, persisted throughout the time 
 of Elizabeth. 
 
 In many cases the standards recognized by sixteenth- 
 century translators were little more exacting than those 
 of the medieval period. With many writers adequate recog- 
 nition of source was a matter of choice rather than of ob- 
 Hgation. The English translator might make suitable 
 attribution of a work to its author and he might undertake 
 
100 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 to reproduce its substance in its entirety, but he might, on 
 the other hand, fail to acknowledge any indebtedness to a 
 predecessor or he might add or omit material, since he was 
 governed apparently only by the extent of his own powers 
 or by his conception of what would be most pleasing or 
 edifying to his readers. To the theory of his art he gave 
 little serious consideration. He did not attempt to analyse 
 the style of the source which he had chosen. If he praised 
 his author, it was in the conventional language of compli- 
 ment, which showed no real discrimination and which, one 
 suspects, often disguised mere advertising. His estimate of 
 his own capabilities was only the repetition of the medieval 
 formula, with its profession of inadequacy for the task and 
 its claim to have used simple speech devoid of rhetorical 
 ornament. That it was nothing but a formula was recog- 
 nized at the time and is good-naturedly pointed out in the 
 words of Harrington: "Certainly if I should confess or 
 rather profess that my verse is unartificial, the style rude, 
 the phrase barbarous, the metre unpleasant, many more 
 would believe it to be so than would imagine that I thought 
 them so." ' 
 
 This medieval quality, less excusable later in the century 
 when the new learning had declared itself, appears with 
 more justification in the comment of the early sixteenth 
 century. Though the translator's field was widening and 
 was becoming more broadly European, the works chosen for 
 translation belonged largely to the types popular in the 
 Middle Ages and the conament attached to them was a 
 repetition of timeworn phrases. Alexander Barclay, who 
 is best known as the author of The Ship of Fools, published 
 in 1508, but who also has to his credit several other trans- 
 lations of contemporary moral and allegorical poems from 
 Latin and French and even, in anticipation of the newer 
 
 ' A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, voL 1, pp. 217-18. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 101 
 
 era, a version of Sallust's Jugurthine War, offers his trans- 
 lations of The Ship of Fools ' and of Mancini's Mirror of 
 Good Manners '' not to the learned, who might judge of their 
 correctness, but to "rude people," who may hope to be 
 benefited morally by perusing them. He has written The 
 Ship of Fools in "common and rural terms"; he does not 
 follow the author "word by word"; and though he professes 
 to have reproduced for the most part the "sentence" of the 
 original, he admits "sometimes adding, sometimes detract- 
 ing and taking away such things as seemeth me unnecessary 
 and superfluous." ' His contemporary. Lord Berners, writes 
 for a more courtly audience, but he profeisses much the same 
 methods. He introduces his Arthur of Little Britain, "not 
 presuming that I have reduced it into fresh, ornate, polished 
 English, for I know myself insufficient in the facundious art 
 of rhetoric, and also I am but a learner, of the language of 
 French: howbeit I trust my simple reason hath led me to 
 the understanding of the true sentence of the matter." * 
 Of his translation of Froissart he says, "And in that I have 
 not followed mine author word by word, yet I trust I have 
 ensued the true report of the sentence of the matter." ^ 
 Sir Francis Bryan, under whose direction Berners' transla- 
 tion of The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius was issued in 
 1535, the year after its author's death, expresses his admira- 
 tion of the "high and sweet styles" ^ of the versions in other 
 languages which have preceded this Enghsh rendering, but 
 similar phrases had been used so often in the characteriza- 
 tion of undistinguished writings that this comment hardly 
 suggests the new and peculiar quality of Guevara's style. 
 As the century advanced, these older, easier standards 
 
 1 Ed. T. H. Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1874. 
 
 2 Reprinted, Spenser Society, 1885. ' The Argument. 
 
 * Reprinted, London, 1814, Prologite. 
 
 * Ed. E. V. Utterson, London, 1812, Preface. 
 
 * The Golden Book, London, 1538, Conclusion. 
 
102 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 were maintained especially among translators who chose 
 material similar to that of Barclay and Berners, the popular 
 work of edification, the novella, which took the place of 
 the romance. The purveyors of entertaining narrative, 
 indeed, reahzed in some degree the minor importance of 
 their work as compared with that of more serious scholars 
 and acted accordingly. The preface to Turbervile's Tragi- 
 cal Tales throws some light on the author's idea of the com- 
 parative values of translations. He thought of translating 
 Lucan, but Melpomene appeared to warn him against so 
 ambitious an enterprise, and admitting his unfitness for the 
 task, he applied himself instead to this translation "out of 
 sundry Italians." ^ Anthony Munday apologizes for his 
 "simple translation" of Palmerin d'Oliva by remarking that 
 "to translate allows little occasion of fine pen work," ^ a 
 comment which goes far to account for the doubtful quality 
 of his productions in this field. 
 
 Even when the translator of pleasant tales ranked his 
 work high, it was generally on the ground that his readers 
 would receive from it profit as well as amusement; he laid 
 no claim to academic correctness. He mentioned or re- 
 frained from mentioning his som-ces at his own discretion. 
 Painter, in inaugurating the vogue of the novella, is ex- 
 ceptionally careful in attributing each story to its author,' 
 but Whetstone's Rock of Regard contains no hint that it is 
 translated, and The Petit Palace of Pettie his Pleasure con- 
 veys the impression of original work. "I dare not com- 
 pare," runs the prefatory Letter to Gentlewomen Readers by 
 R. B., "this work with the former Palaces of Pleasure, be- 
 cause comparisons are odious, and because they contain 
 histories, translated out of grave authors and learned writers; 
 and this containeth discourses devised by a green youthful 
 
 ' Title page, in Turbervile, Tragical Tales, Edinburgh, 1837. 
 * To the Reader, in Palmerin d'Oliva, London, 1637. 
 ' See Painter, Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, 1890. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 103 
 
 capacity, and repeated in a manner extempore." ' It was, 
 again, the personal preference of the individual or the extent 
 of his linguistic knowledge that determined whether the 
 translator should employ the origuial Italian or Spanish 
 versions of some collections or should content himself with 
 an intermediary French rendering. Painter, accurate as he 
 is in describing his sources, confesses that he has often used 
 the French version of Boccaccio, though, or perhaps be- 
 cause, it is less finely written than its original. Thomas 
 Fortescue uses the French version for his translation of The 
 Forest, a collection of histories "written in three sundry 
 tongues, in the Spanish first by Petrus Mexia, and thence 
 done into the Itahan, and last into the French by Claudius 
 Gringet, late citizen of Paris." ^ The most regrettable 
 latitude of all, judging by theoretic standards of translation, 
 was the careless freedom which writers of this group were 
 inclined to appropriate. Anthony Munday, to take an ex- 
 treme case, translating Palmerin of England from the French, 
 makes a perfunctory apology in his Epistle Dedicatory for 
 his inaccuracies: "If you find the translation altered, or 
 the true sense in some place of a matter impaired, let this 
 excuse answer in default in that case. A work so large is 
 sufficient to tire so simple a workman in himself. Beside 
 the printer may in some place let an error escape." ' Fortes- 
 cue justifies, adequately enough, his omission of various 
 tales by the plea that "the lack of one annoyeth not or 
 maimeth not the other," but incidentally he throws light 
 on the practice of others, less conscientious, who "add or 
 change at their pleasure." 
 
 There is perhaps danger of underrating the value of the 
 theory which accompanies translations of this sort. The 
 translators have left comparatively little comment on their 
 
 1 The Petit Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, ed. Gollancz, 1908. 
 
 ' Dedication. 
 
 ' Palmerin of England, ed. Southey, London, 1807. 
 
104 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 methods, and it may be that now and then more satisfactory- 
 principles were impUcit. Yet even when the translator 
 took his task seriously, his prefatory remarks almost always 
 betrayed that there was something defective in his theory 
 or careless in his execution. Bartholomew Young trans- 
 lates Montemayor's Diana from the Spanish after a careful 
 consideration of texts. "Having compared the French 
 copies with the Spanish original," he writes, "I judge the 
 first part to be exquisite^ the other two corruptly done, with 
 a confusion of verse into prose, and leaving out in many 
 places divers hard sentences, and some leaves at the end 
 of the third part, wherefore they are but blind guides of 
 any to be imitated." * After this, unhappily, in the press 
 of greater affairs he lets the work come from the printer 
 unsupervised and presumably full of errors, "the copy being 
 very dark and interlined, and I loath to write it out again." 
 Robert Tofte addresses his Honor's Academy or the Famous 
 Pastoral of the Fair Shepherdess Julietta "to the courteous 
 and judicious reader and to none other"; he explains that 
 he refuses to write for "the sottish multitude," that monster 
 "who knows not when aught well is or amiss"; and blames 
 "such idle thieves as do purloin from others' mint what's 
 none of their own coin." ^ In spite of this, his preface 
 makes no mention of Nicholas de Montreux, the original 
 author, and if it were not for the phrase on the title page, 
 "done into Enghsh," one would not suspect that the book 
 was a translation. The apology of the printer, Thomas 
 Creede, "Some faults no doubt there be, especially in the 
 verses, and to speak truth, how could it be otherwise, 
 when he wrote all this volume (as it were) cursorily and 
 in haste, never having so much leisure as to overlook 
 one leaf after he had scribbled the same," stamps Tofte 
 
 1 Prejace to divers learned genUemen, in Diana of George of Monte- 
 mayor, London, 1598. 
 
 " To the Reader, in Honor's Academy, London, 1610. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 105 
 
 as perhaps a facile, but certainly not a conscientious 
 workman. 
 
 Another fashionable form of literature, the popular re- 
 ligious or didactic work, was governed by standards of 
 translation not unhke those which controlled the fictitious 
 narrative. In the work of Lord Berners the romance had 
 not yet made way for its more sophisticated rival, the no- 
 vella. His translation from Guevara, however, marked the 
 beginning of a new fashion. While Barclay's Ship of Fools 
 and Mirror of Good Manners were addressed, like their 
 medieval predecessors, to "lewd" people, with The Golden 
 Book began the vogue of a new tjrpe of didactic Uteratiire, 
 similar in its moral purpose and in its frequent employment 
 of narrative material to the reUgious works of the Middle 
 Ages, but with new stylistic elements that made their ap- 
 peal, as did the novella, not to the rustic and unlearned, 
 but to courtly readers. The prefaces to The Golden Book 
 and to the translations .which succeeded it throw little Ught 
 on the theory of their authors, but what comment there is 
 points to methods like those employed by the translators of 
 the rom^ance and the novella. Though later translators hke 
 Hellowes went to the original Spanish, Berners, Bryan, and 
 North employ instead the intermediary French rendering. 
 Praise of Guevara's style becomes a wearisome repetition of 
 conventional phrases, a rhetorical exercise for the English 
 writer rather than a serious attempt to analyze the pe- 
 culiarities of the Spanish. Exaggeratedly typical is the 
 comment of Hellowes in the 1574 edition of Guevara's 
 EpisUes, where he repeats with considerable complacency the 
 commendation of the original work which was "contained 
 in my former preface, as followeth. Being furnished so 
 fully with sincere doctrine, so unused eloquence, so high 
 a style, so apt similitudes, so excellent discourses, so 
 convenient examples, so profound sentences, so old 
 antiquities, so ancient histories, such variety of matter, 
 
106 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 so pleasant recreations, so strange things alleged, and 
 certain parcels of Scripture with such dexterity handled, 
 that it may hardly be discerned, whether shall be greater, 
 either thy pleasure by reading, or profit by following 
 the same." ^ 
 
 Guevara himself was perhaps responsible for the failure 
 of his translators to make any formal recognition of re- 
 sponsibility for reproducing his style. His fictitious account 
 of the sources of The Golden Book is medieval in tone. He 
 has translated, not word for word, but thought for thought, 
 and for the rudeness of his original he has substituted a 
 more lofty style.^ His English translators reverse the latter 
 process. Hellowes affirms that his translation of the 
 Epistles "goeth agreeable xmto the Author thereof," but 
 confesses that he wants "both gloss and hue of rare elo- 
 quence, used in the polishing of the rest of his works." 
 North later translated from the French Amyot's epoch- 
 making principle: "the office of a fit translator consisteth 
 not only in the faithful expressing of his author's meaning, 
 but also in a certain resembling and shadowing out of 
 the form of his style and manner of his speaking," ' 
 but all that he has to say of his Dial of Princes is 
 that he has reduced it into English "according to my 
 small knowledge and tender years." ^ Here again, though 
 the translator may sometimes have tried to adopt newer 
 and more difficult standards, he does not make this explicit 
 in his comment. 
 
 Obviously, however, academic standards of accuracy 
 were not likely to make their first appearance in connection 
 
 ' The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthony of Guevara, London, 1574, To 
 the Reader. 
 
 ^ Prologue and Argument of Guevara, translated in North, Dial of 
 Princes, 1619. 
 
 ' In North, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, 1579. 
 
 ' Dedication in edition of 1668. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 107 
 
 with fashionable court literature; one expects to find them 
 associated rather with the translations of the great classical 
 literature, which Renaissance scholars approached with 
 such enthusiasm and respect. One of the first of these, the 
 translation of the Aeneid made by the Scotch poet, Gavin 
 Douglas, appeared, like the translations of Barclay and 
 Berners, in the early sixteenth century. Douglas's com- 
 ment,^ which shows a good deal of conscious effort at defi- 
 nition of the translator's duties, is an odd mingling of the 
 medieval and the modern. He begins with a eulogy of 
 Virgil couched in the undiscriminating, exaggerated terms 
 of the previous period. UnUke the many medieval redac- 
 tors of the Troy story, however, he does not assume the 
 historian's hberty of selection and combination from a 
 variety of sources. He regards VirgU as "a per se," and 
 waxes indignant over Caxton's Eneydos, whose author rep- 
 resented it as based on a French rendering of the great 
 poet. It is, says Douglas, "no more hke than the devil 
 and St. Austin." In proof of this he cites Caxton's treat- 
 ment of proper names. Douglas claims, reasonably enough, 
 that if he followed his original word for word, the result 
 would be unintelUgible, and he appeals to St. Gregory and 
 Horace in support of this contention. AH his plea, however, 
 is for freedom rather than accuracy, and one scarcely knows 
 how to interpret his profession of faithfulness: 
 
 And thus I am constrenyt, as neir I may, 
 To hald his vers & go nane other way, 
 Les smn history, subtill word, or the ryme 
 Causith me make digressione sum tyme. 
 
 Yet whether or not Douglas's "digressions" are permissible, 
 such renderings as he illustrates involve no more latitude 
 than is sanctioned by the schoolboy's Latin Grammar. 
 He is disturbed by the necessity for using more words in 
 
 1 Prologtie to Book I, Aeneid, reprinted Bamiatyne Club. 
 
108 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 English than the Latin has, and he feels it incumbent upon 
 him to explain, 
 
 . . . sum tyme of a word I mon mak thre, 
 In witness of this term oppetere. 
 
 EngUsh, he says in another place, cannot without the use 
 of additional words reproduce the difference between syn- 
 onymous terms like animal and homo; genus, sexus, and 
 species; objectum and subjedum; arbor and lignum. Such 
 comment, interesting because definite, is nevertheless no 
 more significant than that which had appeared in the Purvey 
 preface to the Bible more than a hundred years earlier. 
 One is reminded that most of the material which the present- 
 day translator finds in grammars of foreign languages was 
 not yet in existence in any generally accessible form. 
 
 Such elementary aids were, however, in process of formu- 
 lation during the sixteenth century. Mr. Foster Watson 
 quotes from an edition of Mancinus, published as early 
 probably as 1520, the following directions for putting Latin 
 into English: "Whoso will learn to turn Latin into English, 
 let him first take of the easiest Latin, and when he under- 
 standeth clearly what the Latin meaneth, let him say the 
 English of every Latin word that way, as the sentence may 
 appear most clearly to his ear, and where the English of the 
 Latin words of the text will not make the sentence fair, 
 let him take the EngUsh of those Latin words by whom 
 (which) the Latin words of the text should be expounded 
 and if that (they) will not be enough to make the sentence 
 perfect, let him add more English, and that not only 
 words, but also when need requireth, whole clauses such 
 as will agree best to the sentence." ^ By the new 
 methods of study advocated by men like Cheke and 
 
 ' Foster Watson, The English Or(immar Schools to 1660, Cambridge, 
 1908, pp. 405-6. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 109 
 
 Ascham translation as practiced by students must have 
 become a much more intelHgent process, and the literary 
 man who had received such preparatory training must 
 have realized that variations from the original such as 
 had troubled Douglas needed no apology, but might be 
 taken for granted. 
 
 Further help was offered to students in the shape of 
 various hteral translations from the classics. The trans- 
 lator of Seneca's Hercules Fur ens undertook the work "to 
 conduct by some means to further understanding the un- 
 ripened scholars of this realm to whom I thought it should 
 be no less thankful for me to interpret some Latin work into 
 this our own tongue than for Erasmus in Latin to expound 
 the Greek." ' "Neither could I satisfy myself," he con- 
 tinues, "till I had throughout this whole tragedy of Seneca 
 so travailed that I had in English given verse for verse (as 
 far as the English tongue permits) and word for word the 
 Latin, whereby I might both make some trial of myseK and 
 as it were teach the little children to go that yet can but 
 creep." Abraham Fleming, translating Virgil's Georgics 
 "grammatically," expresses his original "in plain words 
 applied to blunt capacities, considering the expositor's 
 drift to consist in delivering a direct order of construction 
 for the relief of weak grammatists, not in attempting by 
 curious device and disposition to content courtly hmnanists, 
 whose desire he hath been more willing at this time to sus- 
 pend, because he would in some exact sort satisfy such as 
 need the supply of his travail." ^ WilHam Bullokar pref- 
 aces his translation of Esop's Fables with the words: "I 
 have translated out of Latin into Enghsh, but not in the 
 best phrase of English, though English be capable of the 
 perfect sense thereof, and might be used in the best phrase, 
 
 1 Dedication, in Spearing, The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's 
 Tragedies, Cambridge, 1912. 
 
 ' To the Reader, in The Georgics translated by A. F., London, 1589. 
 
no EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 had not my care been to keep it somewhat nearer the Latin 
 phrase, that the EngUsh learner of Latin, reading over 
 these authors in both languages, might the more easily 
 confer them together in their sense, and the better under- 
 stand the one by the other: and for that respect of easy 
 conference, I have kept the like course in my translation 
 of Tully's Offices out of Latin into English to be imprinted 
 shortly also." ^ 
 
 Text books Uke these, valuable and necessary as they 
 were, can scarcely claim a place in the history of hterature. 
 BuUokar himself, recognizing this, promises that "if God 
 lend me life and ability to translate any other author into 
 English hereafter, I will bend myself to follow the excellency 
 of English in the best phrase thereof, more than I will bend 
 it to the phrases of the language to be translated." In 
 avoiding the overliteral method, however, the translator of 
 the classics sometimes assumed a regrettable freedom, not 
 only with the words but with the substance of his source. 
 With regard to his translation of the Aeneid Phaer repre- 
 sents himself as "Trusting that you, my right worshipful 
 masters and students of universities and such as be teachers 
 of children and readers of this author in Latin, wUl not be 
 too much offended though every verse answer not to your 
 expectation. For (besides the diversity between a con- 
 struction and a translation) you know there be many mys- 
 tical secrets in this writer, which uttered in English would 
 show little pleasure and in my opinion are better to be un- 
 touched than to diminish the grace of the rest with tedious- 
 ness and darkness. I have therefore followed the counsel 
 of Horace, touching the duty of a good interpreter. Qui 
 quae desperat nitescere posse, relinquit, by which occasion 
 somewhat I have in places omitted, somewhat altered, and 
 some things I have expounded, and all to the ease of inferior 
 
 ' Preface, reprinted in Plessow, Fabeldichtung in England, Berlin, 
 1906. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 111 
 
 readers, for you that are learned need not to be in- 
 structed." 1 Though Jasper Heywood's version of Her- 
 cules Furens is an example of the literal translation for the 
 use of students, most of the other members of the group of 
 young men who in 1581 pubUshed their translations of 
 Seneca protest that they have reproduced the meaning, not 
 the words of their author. Alexander Neville, a precocious 
 youth who translated the fifth tragedy in "this sixteenth 
 year of mine age," determined "not to be precise in follow- 
 ing the author word for word, but sometimes by addition, 
 sometimes by subtraction, to use the aptest phrases in giv- 
 ing the sense that I could invent." ^ Neville's translation 
 is "oftentimes rudely increased with mine own simple in- 
 vention";' John Studley has changed the first chorus of 
 the Medea, "because in it I saw nothing but an heap of 
 profane stories and names of profane idols";* Heywood 
 himself, since the existing text of the Troas is imperfect, 
 admits having "with addition of mine own pen supplied 
 the want of some things," * and says that he has also re- 
 placed the third chorus, because much of it is "heaped 
 number of far and strange countries." Most radical of all 
 is the theory according to which Thomas Drant translated 
 the Satires of Horace. That Drant could be faithful even 
 to excess is evident from his preface to The Wailings of 
 Jeremiah included in the same volume with his version of 
 Horace. "That thou mightest have this rueful parcel of 
 Scriptiu-e pure and sincere, not swerved or altered, I laid it 
 to the touchstone, the native tongue. I weighed it with the 
 
 ' Conclusion, edition of 1573. 
 
 ^ Seneca His Ten Tragedies, 1581, Dedication of Fifth. 
 
 ' To the Reader. 
 
 * Agamemrum and Medea from edition of 1656, ed. Spearing, 1913, 
 Preface of Medea. 
 
 * To the Readers, prefixed to Troas, in Spearing, The Elizabethan 
 Translations o/ Seneca's Tragedies. 
 
112 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Chaldee Targum and the Septuaginta. I desired to jump 
 so nigh with the Hebrew, that it doth erewhile deform the 
 vein of the English, the proprieties of that language and 
 ours being in some speeches so much dissemblable." But 
 with Horace Drant pursues a different course. As a moral- 
 ist it is justifiable for him to translate Horace because the 
 Latin poet satirizes that wickedness which Jeremiah mourned 
 over. Horace's satire, however, is not entirely applicable to 
 conditions in England; "he never saw that with the view of 
 his eye which his pensive translator cannot but overview 
 with the languish of his soul." Moreover Horace's style is 
 capable of improvement, an improvement which Drant is 
 qiiite ready to provide. "His eloquence is sometimes too 
 sharp, and therefore I have blunted it, and sometimes too 
 dull, and therefore I have whetted it, helping him to ebb 
 and helping him to rise." With his reader Drant is equally 
 high-handed. "I dare not warrant the reader to under- 
 stand him in all places," he writes, "no more than he did 
 me. Howbeit I have made him more Ughtsome well nigh 
 by one half (a small accomplishment for one of my con- 
 tinuance) and if thou canst not now in all points perceive 
 him (thou must bear with me) in sooth the default is thine 
 own." After this one is somewhat prepared for Drant's 
 remarkable summary of his methods. "First I have now 
 done as the people of God were commanded to do with their 
 captive women that were handsome and beautiful: I have 
 shaved off his hair and pared off his nails, that is, I have 
 wiped away all his vanity and superfluity of matter. Fur- 
 ther, I have for the most part drawn his private carpings of 
 this or that man to a general moral. I have Englished 
 things not according to the vein of the Latin propriety, but 
 of his own vulgar tongue. I have interfered (to remove his 
 obscurity and sometimes to better his matter) much of mine 
 own devising. I have pieced his reason, eked and mended 
 his similitudes, mollified his hardness, prolonged his cortall 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 113 
 
 kind of speeches, changed and much altered his words, but 
 not his sentence, or at least (I dare say) not his purpose." * 
 Even the novella does not afford examples of such deUberate 
 justification of undue liberty with source. 
 
 Why such a situation existed may be partially explained. 
 The EUzabethan writer was almost a,s slow as his medieval 
 predecessor to make distinctions between different kinds of 
 Hterature. Both the novella and the epic might be classed 
 as "histories," and "histories" were valuable because they 
 aided the reader in the actual conduct of Hfe. Arthur 
 Golding tells in the preface to his translation of Justin the 
 story of how Alexander the Great "coming into a school 
 and finding not Homer's works there . . . gave the master 
 a biiffet with his fist: meaning that the knowledge of His- 
 tories was a thing necessary to all estates and degrees." ^ 
 It was the content of a work that was most important, and 
 comment Hke that of Drant makes us realize how persistent 
 was the conception that such content was common property 
 which might be adjusted to the needs of different readers. 
 The lesser freedoms of the translator were probably largely 
 due to the difiicxilties inherent in a metrical rendering. It 
 is "ryme" that partially accounts for some of Douglas's 
 "digressions." Seneca's Hercules Furens, literal as the 
 translation purports to be, is reproduced "verse for verse, 
 as far as the English tongue permits." Thomas Twyne, who 
 completed the work which Phaer began, calls attention to 
 the difficulty "in this kind of translation to enforce their 
 rime to another man's meaning." ' Edward Hake, it is not 
 
 ' A Medidnable Moral, that is, the two books of Horace his satires 
 Englished acccording to the prescription of St. Hierome, London, 1566, 
 To the Reader. 
 
 ' Preface to the Earl of Oxford, in The Abridgment of the Histories of 
 Tragus Pompeius collected and written in the Latin tongue by Justin, 
 London, 1563. 
 
 3 To the Gentle Reader, in Phaer's Virgil, 1583. 
 
114 EAKLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 unlikely, expresses a common idea when he gives as one of 
 his reasons for employing verse rather than prose "that 
 prose requireth a more exact labor than metre doth." ^ If 
 one is to believe Abraham Fleming, one of the adherents of 
 Gabriel Harvey, matters may be improved by the adoption 
 of classical metres. Fleming has translated Virgil's Bucolics 
 and Georgics "not in foolish rhyme, the nice observance 
 whereof many times darkeneth, corrupteth, perverteth, and 
 falsifieth both the sense and the signification, but with due 
 proportion and measure." ^ 
 
 Seemingly, however, the translators who advocated the 
 employment of the hexameter made little use of the argu- 
 ment that to do so made it possible to reproduce the original 
 more faithfully. Stanyhurst, who says that in his transla- 
 tion of the first four books of the Aeneid he is carrying out 
 Ascham's wish that the university students should "apply 
 their wits in beautifying our English language with heroical 
 verses," chooses Virgil as the subject of his experiment for 
 "his peerless style and matchless stuff," ' leaving his reader 
 with the impression that the claims of his author were 
 probably subordinate in the translator's mind to his in- 
 terest in Ascham's theories. Possibly he shared his master's 
 belief that "even the best translation is for mere necessity 
 but an evil imped wing to fly withal, or a heavy stump leg 
 of wood to go withal." * In discussion of the style to be 
 employed in the metrical rendering there was the same 
 failure to make explicit the connection between the original 
 and the translation. Many critics accepted the principle 
 
 ' Epistle Dedicatory to A Compendious Form of lAving, quoted in 
 Introduction to News out of Powles Churchyard, reprinted London, 1872, 
 
 p. XXX. 
 
 * The Busies of Virgil together with his Georgics, London, 1589, The 
 Argument. 
 
 ' Preface in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 137. 
 
 * The Schoolmaster, in Works, London, 1864, vol. 3, p. 226. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 115 
 
 that "decorum" of style was essential in the translation of 
 certain kinds of poetry, but they based their demand for 
 this quality on its extrinsic suitability much more than on 
 its presence in the work to be translated. In Turbervile's 
 elaborate comment on the style which he has used in his 
 translation of the Eclogues of Mantuan, there is the same 
 baffling vagueness in his references to the quality of the 
 original that is felt in the prefaces of Lydgate and Caxton. 
 "Though I have altered the tongue," he says, "I trust I 
 have not changed the author's meaning or sense in anything, 
 but played the part of a true interpreter, observing that we 
 call Decorimi in each respect, as far as the poet's and our 
 mother tongue will give me leave. For as the conference 
 between shepherds is famUiar stuff and homely, so have I 
 shaped my style and tempered it with such common and 
 ordinary phrase of speech as countrymen do use in their 
 affairs; alway minding the saying of Horace, whose sentence 
 I have thus EngUshed: 
 
 To set a manly head upon a horse's neck 
 
 And all the limbs with divers plumes of divers hue to deck, 
 
 Or paint a woman's face aloft to open show, 
 
 And make the picture end in fish with scaly skin below, 
 
 I think (my friends) would cause you laugh and smile to see 
 
 How ill these ill-compacted things and numbers would agree. 
 
 For indeed he that shall translate a shepherd's tale and use 
 the talk and style of an heroical personage, expressing the 
 silly man's meaning with lofty thundering words, in my 
 simple judgment joins (as Horace saith) a horse's neck and 
 a man's head together. For as the one were monstrous to 
 see, so were the other too fond and foolish to read. Where- 
 fore I have (I say) used the common country phrase ac- 
 cording to the person of the speakers in every Eclogue, as 
 though indeed the man himself should tell his tale. If 
 there be anything herein that thou shalt happen to mistake, 
 neither blame the learned poet, nor conirol the clownislt 
 
116 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 shepherd (good reader) but me that presumed rashly to 
 offer so unworthy matter to thy survey." ^ Another phase 
 of "decorum," the necessity for employing a lofty style in 
 dealing with the affairs of great persons, comes in for dis- 
 cussion in connection with translations of Seneca and Virgil. 
 Jasper Heywood makes his excuses in case his translation 
 of the Troas has "not kept the royalty of speech meet for 
 a tragedy"; ^ Stany hurst praises Phaer for his "picked and 
 lofty words"; ' but he himself is blamed by Puttenham be- 
 cause his own words lack dignity. "In speaking or writing 
 of a prince's affairs and fortunes," writes Puttenham, 
 "there is a certain decorum, that we may not use the same 
 terms in their business as we might very well do in a meaner 
 person's, the case being all one, such reverence is due to 
 their estates." * He instances Stanyhm'st's renderings, 
 "Aeneas was fain to trudge out of Troy" and "what moved 
 / Juno to tug so great a captain as Aeneas," and declares that 
 the term trudge is "better to be spoken of a beggar, or of a 
 rogue, or of a lackey," and that the word tug "spoken in 
 this case is so undecent as none other could have been de- 
 vised, and took his first original from the cart." A similar 
 objection to the employment of a "plain" style in telling 
 the Troy story was made, it will be remembered, in the early 
 fifteenth century by Wyntoun. 
 
 The matter of decorum was to receive further attention 
 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In general, 
 however, the comment associated with verse translations 
 does not anticipate that of later times and is scarcely more 
 significant than that which accompanies the novella. So 
 long, indeed, as the theory of translation was so largely 
 
 1 To the Reader, prefixed to translation of Eclogues of Mantuan, 
 1567. 
 
 * To the Reader, in The Elizabethan Translations o} Seneca's Tragedies. 
 
 2 Stanyhurst's Aeneid, in Arher's Scholar's Ldbrary, p. 5. 
 
 * Ibid., Introduction, p. xix, quoted from The Art of English Poesy. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 117 
 
 concerned with the claims of the reader, there was little 
 room for initiative. It was no mark of originality to say 
 that the translation must be profitable or entertaining, clear 
 and easily understood; these rules had already been laid 
 down by generations of translators. The real opportunity 
 for a fresh, individual approach to the problems of transla- 
 tion lay in consideration of the claims of the original author. 
 Renaissance scholarship was bringing a new knowledge of 
 texts and authors and encouraging a new alertness of mind 
 ia approaching texts written in foreign languages. It was 
 now possible, while making faithfulness to sovu-ce obligatory 
 instead of optional, to put the matter on a reasonable basis. 
 The most vigorous and suggestive conunent came from a 
 small number of men of scholarly tastes and of active minds, 
 who brought to the subject both learning and enthusiasm, 
 and who were not content with vague, conventional forms 
 of words. 
 
 It was prose rather than verse renderings that occupied 
 the attention of these theorists, and in the works which they 
 chose for translation the intellectual was generally stronger 
 than the artistic appeal. Their translations, however, 
 showed a variety peculiarly characteristic of the Enghsh 
 Renaissance. Interest in classical scholarship was nearly 
 always associated with interest in the new religious doc- 
 trines, and hence the new theories of translation were at- 
 tached impartially either to renderings of the classics or to 
 versions of contemporary theological works, valuable on 
 account of the close, cfireful thinking which they contained, 
 as contrasted with the more superficial charm of writings 
 like those of Guevara. An Ehzabethan scholar, indeed, 
 might have hesitated if asked which was the more im- 
 portant, the Greek or Latin classic or the theological treatise. 
 Nash praises Golding indiscriminately "for his industrious 
 toil in EngUshing Ovid's Metamorphoses, besides many 
 other exquisite editions of divinity turned by him out of the 
 
118 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 French tongue into our own." ^ Golding himself, translat 
 ing one of these "exquisite editions of divinity," Calvin's 
 Sermons on the Book of Job, insists so strongly on the "sub- 
 stance, importance, and travail" ^ which belong to the work 
 that one is ready to beUeve that he ranked it higher than 
 any of his other translations. Nor was the contribution 
 from this field to be despised. Though the translation of 
 the Bible was an isolated task which had few relations with 
 other forms of translation, what few affihations it developed 
 were almost entirely with theological works like those of 
 Erasmus, Melanchthon, Calvin, and to the translation of 
 such writings Biblical standards of accuracy were trans- 
 ferred. On the other hand the translator of Erasmus or 
 Calvin was likely to have other and very different inter- 
 ests, which did much to save him from a narrow pedantry. 
 Nicholas Udall, for example, who had a large share in the 
 translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase on the New Testament, 
 also translated parts of Terence and is best known as the 
 author of Ralph Roister Doister. Thomas Norton, who 
 translated Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion, has 
 been credited with a share in Gorboduc. 
 
 It was towards the middle of the century that these trans- 
 lators began to formulate their views, and probably the 
 decades immediately before and after the accession of 
 Elizabeth were more fruitful in theory than any other part 
 of the period. Certain centers of influence may be rather 
 clearly distinguished. In contemporary references to the 
 early part of the century Sir Thomas Elyot and Sir Thomas 
 More are generally coupled together as authorities on trans- 
 lation. SHghtly later St. John's College, Cambridge, "that 
 most famous and fortunate nurse of all learning," ^ exerted 
 through its masters and students a powerful influence. 
 
 ' Preface to Greene's Menaphon, in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 316. 
 * Dedication, dated 1573, in edition of 1584. 
 ' Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 313. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 119 
 
 Much of the fame of the college was due to Sir John Cheke, 
 "a man of men," according to Nash, " supernatiu'ally 
 traded in all tongues." Cheke is associated, in one way 
 and another, with an odd variety of translations — Nicholls' 
 translation of a French version of Thucydides,^ Hoby's 
 Courtier,^ Wilson's Demosthenes ' — suggesting something of 
 the range of his sympathies. Though little of his own com- 
 ment survives, the echoes of his opinions in Ascham's School- 
 master and the preface to Wilson's Demosthenes make one 
 suspect that his teaching was possibly the strongest force 
 at work at the time to produce higher standards for trans- 
 lation. As the century progressed Sir William Cecil, in his 
 early days a distinguished student at St. John's and an inti- 
 mate associate of Cheke's, maintained, in spite of the cares of 
 state, the tradition of his college as the patron of various trans- 
 lators and the recipient of numerous dedications prefixed 
 to their productions. It is from the midcentury translators, 
 however, that the most distinctive comment emanates. 
 United in various combinations, now by religious sympa- 
 thies, now by a common enthusiasm for learning, now by the 
 influence of an individual, they form a group fairly homo- 
 geneous so far as their theories of translation are concerned, 
 appreciative of academic correctness, but ready to consider 
 also the claims of the reader and the nature of the vernacular. 
 The earher translators, Elyot and More, have left small 
 but significant comment on methods. More's expression 
 of theory was eUcited by Tyndale's translation of the Bible; 
 of the technical difficulties involved in his own translation 
 of The Life of Pico della Mirandola he says nothing. Elyot 
 is one of the first translators to approach his task from a 
 new angle. Translating from Greek to English, he ob- 
 served, like Tyndale, the differences and correspondences 
 
 1 Dedicated to Cheke. 
 
 ' See Cheke's Letter in The Courtier, Tudor Translations, London, 
 1900. ' See Epistle prefixed to translation. 
 
120 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 between the two languages. His Doctrinal of Princes was 
 translated "to the intent only that I would assay if our 
 English tongue might receive the quick and proper sentences 
 pronounced by the Greeks." ^ The experiment had inter- 
 esting results. "And in this experience," he continues, "I 
 have found (if I be not much deceived) that the form of 
 speaking, called in Greek and also in English Phrasis, muqh 
 nearer approacheth to that which at this day we -use, thain 
 the order of the Latin tongue. I mean in the sentences 
 and not in the words." 
 
 A peculiarly good exponent of the new vitaUty which was 
 taking possession of the theory of translation is Nicholas 
 Udall, whose opinions have been already cited in this chap- 
 ter. The versatility of intellect evinced by the list of his 
 varied interests, dramatic, academic, reUgious, showed it- 
 self also in his views regarding translation. In the various 
 prefaces and dedications which he contributed to the trans- 
 lation of Erasmus's Paraphrase he touches on problems of 
 all sorts — stipends for translators, the augmentation of 
 the English vocabulary, sentence structiu-e in translation, 
 the style of Erasmus, the individual quality in the style of 
 every writer — but all these questions he treats hghtly and 
 imdogmatically. Translation, according to Udall, should 
 not conform to iron rules. He is not disturbed by the 
 diversity of methods exhibited in the Paraphrase. "Though 
 every translator," he writes, "follow his own vein in turn- 
 ing the Latin into EngUsh, yet doth none willingly swerve 
 or dissent from the mind and sense of his author, albeit 
 some go more near to the words of the author, and some use 
 the liberty of translating at large, not so precisely binding 
 themselves to the strait interpretation of every word and 
 syllable." ^ In his own share of the translation Udall in- 
 clines rather to the free than to the literal method. He 
 
 ' Quoted in Life prefixed to The Governor, ed. Croft. 
 ^ Address to Queen Katheritie prefixed to Paraphrase. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 121 
 
 has not been able "fully to discharge the office of a good 
 translator," ^ partly because of the ornate quaUty of Eras- 
 mus's style, partly because he wishes to be understood by 
 the unlearned. He does not feel so scrupxilous as he would 
 if he were translating the text of Scripture, though even in 
 the latter connection he is guilty of the heretical opinion 
 that "if the translators were not altogether so precise as 
 they are, but had some more regard to expressing of the 
 sense, I think in my judgment they should do better." 
 It will be noted, however, that Udall's advocacy of freedom 
 is an individual reaction, not the repetition of a formula. 
 The preface to his translation of the Apophthegmes of Eras- 
 mus helps to redress the balance in favor of accuracy. "I 
 have labored," he says, "to discharge the duty of a trans- 
 lator, that is, keeping and following the sense of my book, 
 to interpret and turn the Latin into English, with as much 
 grace of our vulgar tongue as in my slender power and 
 knowledge hath lain." ^ The rest of the preface shows that 
 Udall, in his concern for the quality of the English, did not 
 make "following the sense" an excuse for undue Uberties. 
 Writing "with a regard for young scholars and students, 
 who get great value from comparing languages," he is most 
 careful to note such slight changes and omissions as he has 
 made in the text. Explanations and annotations have 
 been printed "in a small letter with soine directory mark," 
 and "any Greek or Latin verse or word, whereof the pith 
 and grace of the saying dependeth" has been retained, a 
 sacrifice to scholarship for which he apologizes to the un- 
 learned reader. 
 
 Nicholas Grimald, who pubHshed his translation of 
 Cicero's Offices shortly after the accession of Elizabeth, is 
 much more dogmatic in his rules for translation than is 
 
 ' Address to Kathenne prefixed to Luke. 
 
 2 To the Reader, in edition of 1564, literally reprinted Boston, 
 Lincolnshire, 1877. 
 
122 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Udall. "Howbeit look," runs the preface, "what rule the 
 Rhetorician gives in precept, to be observed of an Orator 
 in telling of his tale: that it be short, and without idle 
 words: that it be plain, and without dark sense: that it 
 be provable, and without any swerving from the truth: the 
 same rule should be used in examining and judging of trans- 
 lation. For if it be not as brief as the very author's text 
 requireth, what so is added to his perfect style shall appear 
 superfluous, and to serve rather to the making of some para- 
 phrase or commentary. Thereto if it be uttered with ink- 
 horn terms, and not with usual words: or if it be phrased 
 with wrested or far-fetched forms of speech, not fair but 
 harsh, not easy but hard, not natural but violent it shall 
 seem to be. Then also, in case it yield not the meaning of 
 the author, but either following fancy or misled by error 
 forsakes the true pattern, it cannot be approved for a faith- 
 ful and sure interpretation, which ought to be taken for the 
 greatest praise of all." ^ In Grimald's insistence on a brev- 
 ity equal to that of the original and in his unmodified op- 
 position to innovations in vocabulary, there is something of 
 pedantic narrowness. His criticism of Cicero is not il- 
 limainating and his estimate, in this connection, of his own 
 accomplishment is amusingly complacent. In Cicero's 
 work "marvellous is the matter, flowing the eloquence, 
 rich the store of stuff, and full artificial the enditing: but 
 how I," he continues, "have expressed the same, the more 
 the book be perused, the better it may chance to appear. 
 None other translation in our tongue have I seen but one, 
 which is of all men of any learning so well liked that they 
 repute it and consider it as none: yet if ye list to compare 
 this somewhat with that nothing, peradventure this some- 
 what will serve somewhat the more." Yet in spite of his 
 limitations Grimald has some breadth of outlook. A work 
 
 ' To the Reader, in Marcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 
 1658. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 123 
 
 like his own, he beUeves, can help the reader to a greater 
 conunand of the vernacular. "Here is for him occasion 
 both to whet his wit and also to file his tongue. For al- 
 though an EngUshman hath his mother tongue and can 
 talk apace as he learned of his dame, yet is it one thing to 
 tittle tattle, I wot not how, or to chatter like a jay, and 
 another to bestow his words wisely, orderly, pleasantly, 
 and pithily." The writer knows men who could speak Latin 
 "readily and well-favoredly, who to have done as much in 
 our language and to have handled the same matter, would 
 have been half black." Careful study of this translation 
 will help a man "as well in the Enghsh as the Latin, to 
 weigh well properties of words, fashions of phrases, and the 
 ornaments of both." 
 
 Another interesting document is the preface entitled The 
 Translator to the Reader which appeared in 1578 in the 
 fourth edition of Thomas Norton's translation of Calvin's 
 Institution of the Christian Religion. The opinions which it 
 contains took shape some years earher, for the author ex- 
 pressly states that the translation has not been changed at 
 all from what it was in the first impression, pubhshed in 
 1561, and that the considerations which he now formulates 
 governed him in the beginning. Norton, like Grimald, in- 
 sists on extreme acciuracy in following the original, but he 
 bases his demand on a truth largely ignored by translators 
 up to this time, the essential relationship between thought 
 and style. He makes the following surprisingly penetra- 
 tive comment on the nature and significance of Calvin's 
 Latin style: "I considered how the author thereof had of 
 long time piu'posely labored to write the same most ex- 
 actly, and to pack great plenty of matter in small room of 
 words, yea and those so circumspectly and precisely ordered, 
 to avoid the cavUlations of such, as for enmity to the truth 
 therein contained, would gladly seek and abuse all advan- 
 tages which might be foimd by any oversight in penning of 
 
124 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 it, that the sentences were thereby become so full as nothing 
 might well be added without idle superfluity, and again so 
 nighly pared that nothing might be minished without 
 taking away some necessary substance of matter therein 
 expressed. This manner of writing, beside the peculiar 
 terms of arts and figures, and the difficulty of the matters 
 themselves, being throughout interlaced with the school- 
 men's controversies, made a great hardness in the author's 
 own book, in that tongue wherein otherwise he is both 
 plentiful and easy, insomuch that it sufficeth not to read 
 him once, unless you can be content to read in vain." Then 
 follows Norton's estimate of the translator's duty in such a 
 case: "I durst not presume to warrant myself to have his 
 meaning without his words. And they that wot well what 
 it is to translate well and faithfully, specially in matters of 
 religion, do know that not only the grammatical construc- 
 tion of words sufficeth, but the very building and order to 
 observe all advantages of vehemence or grace, by placing 
 or accent of words, maketh much to the true setting forth 
 of a writer's mind." Norton, however, did not entirely 
 forget his readers. He approached his task with "great 
 doubtfulness," fully conscious of the dilemma involved. 
 "If I should follow the words, I saw that of necessity the 
 hardness of the translation must needs be greater than was 
 in the tongue wherein it was originally written. If I should 
 leave the course of words, and grant myself liberty after 
 the natural manner of my own tongue, to say that in Eng- 
 lish which I conceived to be his meaning in Latin, I plainly 
 perceived how hardly I might escape error." In the end 
 he determined "to follow the words so near as the phrase 
 of the English tongue would suffer me." Unhappily Nor- 
 ton, like Grimald and like some of the translators of the 
 Bible, has an exaggerated regard for brevity. He claims 
 that "if the English book were printed in such paper and 
 letter as the Latin is, it should not exceed the Latin in 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 125 
 
 quantity," and that students "shall not find any more 
 English than shall suffice to construe the Latin withal, 
 except in such few places where the great difference of the 
 phrases of the languages enforced me." Yet he believes 
 that his version is not unnecessarily hard to understand, 
 and he urges readers who have found it difficult to "read 
 it ofter, in which doing you shall find (as many have con- 
 fessed to me that they have found by experience) that 
 those things which at first reading shall displease you for 
 hardness shall be found so easy as so hard matter would 
 suffer, and for the most part more easy than some other 
 phrase which should with greater looseness and smoother 
 sliding away deceive your understanding." 
 
 Thomas Wilson, who dedicated his translation of Dem- 
 osthenes to Sir WiUiam Cecil in 1570, links himself with 
 the earlier group of translators by his detailed references 
 to Cheke. Like Norton he is very conscious of the difficulty 
 of translation. "I never found in my life," he writes of 
 this piece of work, "anything so hard for me to do." "Such 
 a hard thing it is," he adds later, "to bring matter out of 
 any one language into another." A vigorous advocate of 
 translation, however, he does not despise his own tongue. 
 "The cimning is no less," he declares, "and the praise as 
 great in my judgment, to translate anything excellently 
 into English, as into any other language," and he hopes 
 that, if his own attempt proves unsuccessful, others will 
 make the trial, "that such an orator as this is might be so 
 framed to speak our tongue as none were able to amend 
 him, and that he might be found to be most like himself." 
 WUson comes to his task with all the equipment that the 
 period could afford; his preface gives evidence of a critical 
 acquaintance with nimaerous Latin renderings of his author. 
 From Cheke, however, he has gained something more 
 valuable, the power to feel the vital, permanent quahty in 
 the work of Demosthenes. Cheke, he says, "was moved 
 
126 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 greatly to like Demosthenes above all others, for that he 
 saw him so familiarly applying himself to the sense and 
 understanding of the common people, that he sticked not 
 to say that none ever was more fit to make an Englishman 
 tell his tale praiseworthily in any open hearing either in 
 parliament or in pulpit or otherwise, than this only orator 
 was." Wilson shares this opinion and, representative of 
 the changing standards of Elizabethan scholarship, prefers 
 Demosthenes to Cicero. "Demosthenes used a plain, 
 familiar manner of writing and speaking in all his actions," 
 he says in his Preface to the Reader, " applying himself to 
 the people's nature and to their understanding without 
 using of proheme to win credit or devising conclusion to 
 move affections and to purchase favor after he had done his 
 matters. . . . And were it not better and more wisdom to 
 speak plainly and nakedly after the common sort of men in 
 few words, than to overflow with unnecessary and super- 
 fluous eloquence as Cicero is thought sometimes to do." 
 "Never did glass so truly represent man's face," he writes 
 later, "as Demosthenes doth show the world to us, and as 
 it was then, so is it now, and will be so still, tiU the con- 
 summation and end of all things shall be." From Cheke 
 Wilson has received also training in methods of translation 
 and especially in the handling of the vernacular. "Master 
 Cheke's judgment was great," he recalls, "in translating 
 out of one tongue into another, and better skill he had in 
 our English speech to judge of the phrases and properties 
 of words and to divide sentences than any one else that I 
 have known. And often he would English his matters out 
 of the Latin or Greek upon the sudden, by looking of the 
 book only, without reading or construing anything at all, 
 an usage right worthy and very profitable for all men, as 
 well for the understanding of the book, as also for the apt- 
 ness of framing the author's meaning, and bettering thereby 
 their judgment, and therewithal perfecting their tongue and 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 127 
 
 utterance of speech." In speaking of his own methods, 
 however, Wilson's emphasis is on his faithfubiess to the 
 original. "But perhaps," he writes, "whereas I have been 
 somewhat curious to follow Demosthenes' natural phrase, 
 it may be thought that I do speak over bare English. Well 
 I had rather follow his vein, the which was to speak simply 
 and plainly to the common people's understanding, than 
 to overflourish with superfluous speech, although I might 
 thereby be coimted equal with the best that ever wrote 
 EngUsh." 
 
 Though now and then the comment of these men is 
 sHghtly vague or inconsistent, in general they describe their 
 methods clearly and fuUy. Other translators, expressing 
 themselves with less sureness and adequacy, leave the im- 
 pression that they have adopted similar standards. Trans- 
 lations, for example, of Calvin's Commentary on Acts * 
 and Luther's Commentary on Galatians ^ are described on 
 their title pages as "faithfully translated" from the Latin. 
 B. R.'s preface to his translation of Herodotus, though its 
 meaning is somewhat obscured by rhetoric, suggests a 
 suitable regard for the original. "Neither of these," he 
 writes of the two books which he has completed, "are 
 braved out in their colors as the use is nowadays, and yet 
 so seemly as either you will love them because they are 
 modest, or not misUke them because they are not impudent, 
 since in refusing idle pearls to make them seem gaudy, they 
 reject not modest apparel to cause them to go comely. 
 The truth is (Gentlemen) in making the new attire, I was 
 fain to go by their old array, cutting out my cloth by an- 
 other man's measure, being great difference whether we 
 invent a fashion of our own, or imitate a pattern set down 
 by another. Which I speak not to this end, for that my- 
 self could have done more eloquently than our author hath 
 
 ' Translated by Christopher Featherstone, reprmted, Edinburgh, 
 1844. ^ London, 1577. 
 
128 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 in Greek, but that the course of his writing being most 
 sweet in Greek, converted into English loseth a great part 
 of his grace." ^ Outside of the field of theology or of clas- 
 sical prose there were translators who strove for accuracy. 
 Hoby, profiting doubtless by his association with Cheke, 
 endeavored in translating The Courtier "to follow the very 
 meaning and words of the author, without being misled 
 by fantasy, or leaving out any parcel one or other." ^ 
 Robert Peterson claims that his version of Delia Casa's 
 Galateo is "not cunningly but faithfully translated." * The 
 printer of Carew's translation of Tasso explains: "In that 
 which is done, I have caused the Italian to be printed to- 
 gether with the English, for the delight and benefit of those 
 gentlemen that love that most lively language. And 
 thereby the learned reader shall see how strict a course the 
 translator hath tied himself in the whole work, usurping as 
 little hberty as any whatsoever as ever wrote with any 
 commendations." ^ Even translators who do not profess to 
 be overfaithful display a consciousness of the existence of 
 definite standards of accmracy. Thomas Chaloner, another 
 of the friends of Cheke, translating Erasmus's Praise of 
 Folly for "mean men of baser wits and condition," chooses 
 "to be counted a scant true interpreter." "I have not 
 pained myself," he says, "to render word for word, nor 
 proverb for proverb . . . which may be thought by some 
 cunning translators a deadly sin." ^ To the author of the 
 Menechmi the word "translation" has a distinct connota- 
 tion. The printer of the work has found him "very loath 
 and unwilling to hazard this to the curious view of envious 
 
 ' To the Gentlemen Readers, in Herodotus, translated by B. R., London, 
 1584. 2 Op. cit. 
 
 ' Dedication, in edition of 1576, reprinted, ed. Spingarn, Boston, 
 1914. 
 
 • Preface, in Godfrey of Bidlmgne, London, 1594, reprinted in Grosart, 
 Occasional Issiies, 1881. ' To the Reader, ia edition of 1549. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 129 
 
 detraction, being (as he tells me) neither so exactly written 
 as it may carry any name of translation, nor such liberty 
 therein used as that he would notoriously differ from the 
 poet's own order." ^ Richard KnoUes, whose translation of 
 Bodin's Six Books of a Commonweal was pubHshed in 1606, 
 employed both the French and the Latin versions of the 
 treatise, and describes himself as on this account "seeking: 
 therein the true sense and meaning of the author, rather 
 than precisely following the strict rules of a nice trans- 
 lator, in observing the very words of the author." ^ The 
 translators of this later time, however, seldom put into 
 words theories so scholarly as those formulated earUer in 
 the period, when, even though the demand for accuracy 
 might sometimes be exaggerated, it was nevertheless the 
 result of thoughtful discrimination. There was some 
 reason why a man like Gabriel Harvey, hving towards the 
 end of Elizabeth's reign, should look back with regret to 
 the time when England produced men hke Cheke and his 
 contemporaries .' 
 
 One must frequently remind oneself, however, that the 
 absence of expressed theory need not involve the absence 
 of standards. Among translators as among original writers 
 a fondness for analyzing and describing processes did not 
 necessarily accompany literary skill. Much more activity 
 of mind and respect for originals may have existed among 
 verse translators than is evident from their scanty com- 
 ment. The most famous prose translators have httle to say 
 about their methods. Golding, who produced so much both 
 in verse and prose, and who usually wrote prefaces to his 
 translations, scarcely ever discusses technicahties. Now and 
 then, however, he lets fall an incidental remark which sug- 
 gests very definite ideals. In translating Caesar, for ex- 
 ample, though at first he planned merely to complete Brend's 
 
 1 The Printer to the Reader, reprinted in Shakespeare's Library, 1875. 
 ' To the Reader. ' See Works, ed. Grosart, II, 50. 
 
130 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 translation, he ended by taking the whole work into his 
 own hands, because, as he says, "I was desirous to have 
 the body of the whole story compacted uniform and of one 
 style throughout," ^ a comment worthy of a much more 
 modern critic. Philemon Holland, again, contributes al- 
 most nothing to theory, though his vigorous defense of his 
 art and his appreciation of the stylistic qualities of his 
 originals bear witness to true scholarly enthusiasm. On 
 the whole, however, though the distinctive contribution of 
 the period is the plea of the renaissance scholars that a 
 reasonable faithfulness should be displayed, the comment of 
 the mass of translators shows little grasp of the new prin- 
 ciples. When one considers, in addition to their very in- 
 adequate expression of theory, the prevailing characteristics 
 of their practice, the balance turns unmistakably in favor 
 of a careless freedom in translation. 
 
 Some of the deficiencies in sixteenth-century theory are 
 suppUed by Chapman, who applies himself with consider- 
 able zest to laying down the principles which in his opinion 
 should govern poetical translations. Producing his ver- 
 sions of Homer in the last years of the sixteenth and early 
 years of the seventeenth century, he forms a Unk between 
 the two periods. In some respects he anticipates later 
 critics. He attacks both the overstrict and the overloose 
 methods of translation: 
 
 the brake 
 That those translators stick in, that affect 
 Their word for word traductions (where they lose 
 The free grace of their natural dialect, 
 And shame their authors with a forced gloss) 
 I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor 
 More Ucense from the words than may express 
 Their full compression, and make clear the author.'' 
 
 1 Dedication, London, 1590. 
 
 2 To the Reader, in The Iliads of Homer, Charles Scribner's Sons, 
 p. xvi. 
 
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 131 
 
 It is literalism, however, which bears the brunt of his 
 attack. He is always conscious, "how pedantical and 
 absurd an affectation it is in the interpretation of any 
 author (much more of Homer) to turn him word for word, 
 when (according to Horace and other best lawgivers to 
 translators) it is the part of every knowing and judicial in- 
 terpreter, not to follow the number and order of words, 
 but the material things themselves, and sentences to weigh 
 dihgently, and to clothe and adorn them with words, and 
 such a style and form of oration, as are most apt for the 
 language in which they are converted." ^ Strangely enough, 
 he thinks this literalism the prevaihng fault of translators. 
 He hardly dares present his work 
 
 To reading judgments, since so gen'rally, 
 
 Custom hath made ev'n th'ablest agents err 
 
 In these translations; all so much apply 
 
 Their pains and cunnings word for word to render 
 
 Their patient authors, when they may as well 
 
 Make fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender, 
 
 Or their tongues' speech in other mouths compell.'' 
 
 Chapman, however, beheves that it is possible to overcome 
 the difficulties of translation. Although the "sense and 
 elegancy" of Greek and English are of "distinguished 
 natures," he holds that it requires 
 
 Only a judgment to make both consent 
 In sense and elocution; and aspire, 
 As well to reach the spirit that was spent 
 In his example, as with art to pierce 
 His grammar, and etymology of words. 
 
 This same theory was taken up by numerous seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centmy translators. Avoiding as it does 
 the two extremes, it easily commended itself to the reason. 
 Unfortunately it was frequently appropriated by critics 
 
 ' P. XXV. ^ P. XV. 
 
132 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 who were not inclined to labor strenuously with the prob- 
 lems of translation. One misses in much of the later 
 comment the vigorous thinking of the early Renaissance 
 translators. The theory of translation was not yet regarded 
 as "a common work of building" to which each might con- 
 tribute, and much that was valuable in sixteenth-century 
 comment was lost by forgetfulness and neglect. 
 
IV. FROM COWLEY TO POPE 
 
IV 
 FROM COWLEY TO POPE 
 
 Although the ardor of the Elizabethan translator as he 
 approached the vast, almost unbroken field of foreign lit- 
 erature may well awaken the envy of his modern successor, 
 in many respects the period of Dryden and Pope has more 
 claim to be regarded as the Golden Age of the English 
 translator. Patriotic enthusiasm had, it is true, lost some- 
 thing of its earher fire, but national conditions were in gen- 
 eral not unfavorable to translation. Though the seven- 
 teenth century, torn by civil discords, was very unhke the 
 period which Holland had lovingly described as "this long 
 time of peace and tranqmlHty, wherein ... all good Utera- 
 ture hath had free course and flourished," ^ yet, despite 
 the rise and fall of governments, the stream of translation 
 flowed on almost uninterruptedly. Sandys' Ovid is pre- 
 sented by its author, after his visit to America, as "bred in 
 the New World, of the rudeness whereof it cannot but parti- 
 cipate; especiaUy having wars and tumiilts to bring it to 
 light instead of the Muses," ^ but the more ordinary trans- 
 lation, bred at home in England during the seventeenth 
 century, apparently suffered little from the pohtical strife 
 which siuTOunded it, while the eighteenth century afforded 
 a "peace and tranquilhty" even greater than that which 
 had prevailed under Elizabeth. 
 
 1 Preface to the Reader, in The Natural History of C. Plinius Seamdus, 
 London, 1601. 
 
 ^ Dedication, in Ovid's Metamorphosis, Englished by G. S., London, 
 1640. 
 
 135 
 
136 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 Throughout the period translation was regarded as an 
 important labor, deserving of every encouragement. As in 
 the sixteenth century, friends and patrons united to offer 
 advice and aid to the author who engaged in this work. 
 Henry Brome, dedicating a translation of Horace to Sir 
 William Backhouse, writes of his own share of the volume, 
 "to the translation whereof my pleasant retirement and con- 
 .veniencies at your deUghtsome habitation have liberally 
 contributed." 1 Doctor Barten HoUday includes in his pref- 
 ace to a version of Juvenal and Persius an interesting list of 
 "worthy friends" who have assisted him. "My honored 
 friend, Mr. John Selden (of such eminency in the studies of 
 antiquities and languages) and Mr. Farnaby . . . procured 
 me a fair copy from the famous library of St. James's, and 
 a manuscript copy from our herald of learning, Mr. Cam- 
 den. My dear friend, the patriarch of our poets, Ben Jon- 
 son, sent in an ancient manuscript partly written in the 
 Saxon character." Then follow names of less note, Cas- 
 aubon, Anyan, Price.^ Dryden tells the same story. He 
 has been permitted to consult the Earl of Lauderdale's 
 manuscript translation of Virgil. " Besides this help, which 
 was not inconsiderable," he writes, "Mr. Congreve has 
 done me the favor to review the Aeneis, and compare my 
 version with the original." ' Later comes his recognition 
 of indebtedness of a more material character. "Being in- 
 vited by that worthy gentleman, Sir William Bowyer, to 
 Denham Court, I translated the First Georgic at his house, 
 and the greatest pairt of the last Aeneid. A more friendly 
 entertaiiunent no man ever found. . . . The Seventh 
 
 ' Dedication, in The Poems of Horace rendered into Verse hy Several 
 Persons, London, 1666. 
 
 * Juvenal and Persius, translated by Barten Holyday, Oxford, 1673 
 (published posthumously). 
 
 ' Dedication of the Aeneis, in Essays of John Dryden, ed. W. P. Ker, 
 V. 2, p. 235. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 137 
 
 Aeneid was made English at Burleigh, the magnificent 
 abode of the Earl of Exeter." ^ 
 
 While private individuals thus rallied to the help of the 
 translator, the world in general regarded his work with in- 
 creasing respect. The great Dryden thought it not un- 
 worthy of his powers to engage in putting classical verse 
 into English garb. His successor Pope early turned to the 
 same pleasant and profitable task. Johnson, the literary 
 dictator of the next age, described Rowe's version of Lucan 
 as "one of the greatest productions of English poetry." ^ 
 The comprehensive editions of the works of British poets 
 which began to appear towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century regularly included EngUsh renderings, generally 
 contemporaneous, of the great poetry of other countries. 
 
 The growing dignity of this department of Uterature and 
 the Augustan fondness for literary criticism combined to 
 produce a large body of comment on methods of translation. 
 The more ambitioiis translations of the eighteenth century, 
 for example, were accompanied by long prefaces, contain- 
 ing, in addition to the elaborate paraphernaUa of contem- 
 porary scholarship, detailed discussion of the best rules 
 for putting a foreign classic into EngUsh. Almost every 
 possible phase of the art had been broached in one 
 place and another before the century ended. In its 
 last decade there appeared the first attempt in English 
 at a complete and detailed treatment of the theory of 
 translation as such, Tytler's Essay on the Principles of 
 Translation. 
 
 From the sixteenth-century theory of translation, so much 
 of which is incidental and uncertain in expression, it is a 
 pleasure to come to the deliberate, reasoned statements, 
 unnoistakable in their piu-pose and meaning, of the earlier 
 critics of our period, men hke Denham, Cowley, and Dryden. 
 
 • Postscript to the Header, Essays, v. 2, p. 243. 
 
 * Rowe, in lAves of the Poets, Dublin, 1804, p. 284. 
 
138 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 In contrast to the mass of unrelated individual opinions at- 
 tached to the translations of Elizabeth's time, the criticism 
 of the seventeenth century emanates, for the most part, 
 from a small group of men, who supply standards for 
 lesser commentators and who, if they do not invariably 
 agree with one another, are yet thoroughly familiar with 
 one another's views. The field of discussion also has 
 narrowed considerably, and theory has gained by becoming 
 less scatteri»g. Translation in the seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth centuries showed certain new developments, the most 
 marked of which was the tendency among translators who 
 aspired to the highest rank to confine their efforts to verse 
 renderings of the Greek and Latin classics. A favorite 
 remark was that it is the greatest poet who suffers most 
 in being turned from one language into another. In spite 
 of this, or perhaps for this reason, the common ambition 
 was to undertake Virgil, who was generally regarded as the 
 greatest of epic poets, and attempts to translate at least a 
 part of the Aeneid were astonishingly frequent. As early 
 as 1658 the Fourth Book is described as "translated . . . 
 in oiu- day at least ten times into English." ' Horace came 
 next in popularity; by the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, according to one translator, he had been "trans- 
 lated, paraphrased, or criticized on by persons of all con- 
 ditions and both sexes." ^ As the century progressed. 
 Homer usurped the place formerly occupied by Virgil as 
 the object of the most ambitious effort and the center of 
 discussion. But there were other translations of the clas- 
 sics. Cooke, dedicating his translation of Hesiod to the 
 Duke of Argyll, says to his patron: "You, my lord, know 
 how the works of genius lift up the head of a nation above 
 her neighbors, and give as much honor as success in arms; 
 
 ' The Argument, in The Passion of Dido for Aeneas, translated by 
 Edmund Waller and Sidney Godolphin, London, 1668. 
 
 ^ Dedication, in Translations of Horace, John Hanway, 1730. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 139 
 
 among these we must reckon our translations of the classics; 
 by which when we have naturalized all Greece and Rome, 
 we shall be so much richer than they by so many original 
 productions as we have of our own." ^ Seemingly there 
 was an attempt to natm-alize "all Greece and Rome." 
 Anacreon, Pindar, ApoUonius Rhodius, Lucretius, Tibullus, 
 Statius, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, Lucan, are names taken 
 almost at randonf from the hst of seventeenth and eight- 
 eenth-century translations. Criticism, however, was ready 
 to concern itself with the translation of any classic, ancient 
 or modern. Denham's two famous pronouncements are 
 connected, the one with his own translation of the Second 
 Book of the Aeneid, the other with Sir Richard Fanshaw's 
 rendering of II Pastor Fido. In the later eighteenth century 
 voliuninous comment accompanied Hoole's Ariosto and 
 Mickle's Camoens. 
 
 At present, however, we are concerned not with the 
 nvunber and variety of these translations, but with their 
 homogeneity. As translators showed themselves less in- 
 cUned to wander over the whole field of literature, the theory 
 of translation assumed much more manageable proportions. 
 A further limitation of the area of discussion was made by 
 Denham, who expressly excluded from his consideration 
 "them who deal in matters of fact or matters of faith," ^ 
 thus disposing of the theological treatises which had for- 
 merly divided attention with the classics. 
 
 The aims of the translator were also clarified by defini- 
 tion of his audience. John Vicars, pubhshing in 1632 The 
 XII. Aeneids of Virgil translated into English decasyllables, 
 adduces as one of his motives "the conunon good and public 
 utility which I hoped might accrue to young students and 
 
 1 Dedication, dated 1728, reprinted in The English Poets, London, 
 1810, V. 20. 
 
 2 Preface to The Destruction of Troy, in Denham, Poems and Transla- 
 tions, London, 1709. 
 
140 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 grammatical tyros," ^ but later writers seldom repeat this 
 appeal to the learner. The next year John Brinsley issued 
 Virgil's Eclogues, with his book De Apibus, translated gram- 
 matically, and also according to the propriety of our English 
 tongue so far as Grammar and the verse will permit. A sig- 
 nificant comment in the "Directions" runs: "As for the 
 fear of making truants by these translations, a conceit which 
 arose merely upon the abuse of other translations, never in- 
 tended for this end, I hope that happy experience of this 
 kind will in time drive it and all like to it utterly out of 
 schools and out of the minds of all." Apparently the 
 schoolmaster's ban upon the unauthorized use of transla- 
 tions was establishing the distinction between the English 
 version which might claim to be ranked as literature and 
 that which Johnson later designated as "the clandestine 
 refuge of schoolboys." ^ 
 
 Another limitation of the audience was, however, less 
 admirable. For the widely democratic appeal of the Eliza- 
 bethan translator was substituted an appeal to a class, dis- 
 tinguished, if one may believe the philosopher Hobbes, as 
 much by social position as by intellect. In discussing the 
 vocabulary to be employed by the translator, Hobbes pro- 
 fesses opinions not unlike those of the sixteenth-century 
 critics. Like Puttenham, he makes a distinction between 
 words as suited or unsuited for the epic style. "The names 
 of instruments and tools of artificers, and words of art," 
 he says in the preface to his Homer, "though of ^se in the 
 schools, are far from being fit to be spoken by a hero. He 
 may delight in the arts themselves, and have skill in some 
 of them, but his glory lies not in that, but in courage, no- 
 bility, and other virtues of nature, or in the command he has 
 over other men." In Hobbes' objection to the use of un- 
 familiar words, also, there is nothing new; but in the stand- 
 
 ' To the courtecms not curious reader. 
 
 ^ Comment on Trapp's "blank version" of Virgil, in Life of Dryden. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 141 
 
 ards by which he tries such terms there is something 
 amusingly characteristic of his time. In the choice of 
 words, "the first indiscretion is in the use of such words as 
 to the readers of poesy (which are commonly Persons of 
 the best Quality) " — it is only fair to reproduce Hobbes' 
 capitalization — "are not sufficiently known. For the work 
 of an heroic poem is to raise admiration (principally) for 
 three virtues, valor, beauty, and love; to the reading 
 whereof women no less than men have a just pretence 
 though their skill in language be not so universal. And 
 therefore foreign words, till by long use they become vulgar, 
 are unintelligible to them." Dryden is similarly restrained 
 by the thought of his readers. He does not try to reproduce 
 the "Doric dialect" of Theocritus, "for Theocritus writ to 
 Sicilians, who spoke that dialect; and I direct this part of 
 my translations to our ladies, who neither understand, nor 
 will take pleasure in such homely expressions." ' In trans- 
 lating the Aeneid he follows what he conceives to have been 
 Virgil's practice. "I will not give the reasons," he de- 
 clares, "why I writ not always in the proper terms of navi- 
 gation, land-service, or in the cant of any profession. I wiU 
 only say that Virgil has avoided those properties, because 
 he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, 
 peasants, etc., but to all in general, and in particular to men 
 and ladies of the first quahty, who have been better bred 
 than to be too nicely knowing in such things." ^ 
 
 Another element in theory which displays the strength 
 and weakness of the time is the treatment of the work of 
 other countries and other periods. A changed attitude 
 towards the achievements of foreign translators becomes 
 evident early in the seventeenth century. In the prefaces 
 to an edition of the works of Du Bartas in EngHsh there 
 are signs of a growing satisfaction with the English language 
 
 ' Preface to Sylvae, Essays, v. 1, p. 266. 
 
 ' Dedication of the Aeneis, Essays, v. 2, p. 236. 
 
142 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 as a medium and an increasing conviction that England 
 can surpass the rest of Europe in the work of translation. 
 Thomas Hudson, in an address to James VI of Scotland, 
 attached to his translation of The History of Judith, quotes 
 an interesting conversation which he held on one occasion 
 with that pedantic monarch. "It pleased your Highness," 
 he recalls, "not only to esteem the peerless style of the Greek 
 Homer and the Latin Virgil to be inimitable to us (whose 
 tongue is barbarous and corrupted), but also to allege 
 (partly through delight your majesty took in the haughty 
 style of those most famous writers, and partly to sound the 
 opinion of others) that also the lofty phrases, the grave 
 inditement, the facund terms of the French Salust (for the 
 like resemblance) could not be followed nor sufficiently 
 expressed in our rough and unpolished EngHsh language." ' 
 It was to prove that he could reproduce the French poet 
 "succinctly and sensibly in our vulgar speech" that Hudson 
 undertook the Judith. According to the complimentary 
 verses addressed to the famous Sylvester on his translations 
 from the same author, the English tongue has responded 
 nobly to the demands, put upon it. Sylvester has shown 
 
 . . . that French tongue's plenty to be such. 
 And yet that oura can utter full as much.^ 
 
 John Davies of Hereford, writing of another of Sylvester's 
 translations, describes English as acquitting itself well when 
 it competes with French, and continues 
 
 If French to English were so strictly bound 
 It would but passing lamely strive with it; 
 And soon be forc'd to lose both grace and ground, 
 Although they strove with equal skill and wit.' 
 
 ' In Du Bartas, His Divine Words and Works, translated by Syl- 
 vester, London, 1641. 
 
 " Lines by E. G., same edition. 
 ' Same edition, p. 322. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 143 
 
 An opinion characteristic of the latter part of the century- 
 is that of the Earl of Roscommon, who, after praising the 
 work of the earher French translators, says, 
 
 From hence our generous emulation came, 
 We undertook, and we performed the same: 
 But now we show the world another way. 
 And in translated verse do more than they.' 
 
 Dryden finds little to praise in the French and Italian 
 renderings of Virgil. "Segrais ... is wholly destitute of 
 elevation, though his version is much better than that of 
 the two brothers, or any of the rest who have attempted 
 Virgil. Hannibal Caro is a great name among the Italians; 
 yet his translation is most scandalously mean." ^ "What I 
 have said," he declares somewhat farther on, "though it 
 has the face of arrogance, yet is intended for the honor of 
 my country; and therefore I will boldly own that this 
 Enghsh translation has more of Virgil's spirit in it than 
 either the French or ItaUan." ' 
 
 On translators outside their own period seventeenth- 
 century critics bestowed even less consideration than on 
 their French or Itahan contemporaries. Earlier writers 
 were forgotten, or remembered only to be condemned. 
 W. L., Gent., who in 1628 pubUshed a translation of Vir- 
 gU's Eclogues, expresses his surprise that a poet like Virgil 
 "should yet stand stUl as a noli me tangere, whom no man 
 either durst or would undertake; only Master Spenser 
 long since translated the Gnat (a Uttle fragment of Virgil's 
 excellence), giving the world peradventure to conceive that 
 he would at one time or other have gone through with 
 the rest of this poet's work." * Vicars' translation of the 
 Aeneid is accompanied by a letter in which the author's 
 
 ' An Essay on Translated Verse. 
 
 2 Dedication of the Aeneis, Essays, v. 2, p. 220. 
 
 3 P. 222. * To the worthy reader. 
 
144 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 cousin, Thomas Vicars, congratulates him on his "great 
 pains in transplanting this worthiest of Latin poets into a 
 mellow and neat English soil (a thing not done before)," ^ 
 Denham announces, "There are so few translations which 
 deserve praise, that I scarce ever saw any which deserved 
 pardon; those who travail in that kind being for the most 
 part so unhappy as to rob others without enriching them- 
 selves, pulling down the fame of good authors without 
 raising their own. Brome,^ writing in 1666, rejoices in 
 the good fortune of Horace's "good friend Virgil . . . who 
 being plundered of all his ornaments by the old translators, 
 was restored to others with double lustre by those standard- 
 bearers of wit and judgment, Denham and Waller," ' and 
 in proof of his statements puts side by side translations of 
 the same passage by Phaer and Denham. Later, in 1688, 
 an anonymous writer recalls the work of Phaer and Stany- 
 hurst only to disparage it. Introducing his translation of 
 Virgil, "who has so long unhappily continued a stranger to 
 tolerable English," he says that he has "observed how 
 Player and Stainhurst of old . . . had murdered the most 
 absolute of poets." * One dissenting note is found in Robert 
 Gould's lines prefixed to a 1687 edition of Fairfax's Godfrey 
 of Bullaigne. 
 
 See here, you dull translators, look with shame 
 Upon this stately monument of fame, 
 And to amaze you more, reflect how long 
 It is, sines first 'twas taught the- English tongue: 
 In what a dark age it was brought to light; 
 Dark? No, our age is dark, and that was bright. 
 Of all these versions which now brightest shine. 
 Most, Fairfax, are but foils to set off thine: 
 
 ' To the courteous not curious reader, in The XII. Aeneids of Virgil, 
 1632. 
 
 * Preface to Th^ Destruction of Troy. 
 ' Dedication of The Poems of HoroAX. 
 
 * To the Reader, in The First Booh of Virgil's Aeneis, London, 1688. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 145 
 
 Ev'n Horace can't of too much justice boast, 
 His unaffected, easy style is lost: 
 And Ogilby's the lumber of the stall; 
 But thy translation does atone for all.' 
 
 Dryden, too, approves of Fairfax, considered at least as 
 a metrist. He includes him with Spenser among the "great 
 masters of our language," and adds, "many besides myself 
 have heard our famous WaUer own that he derived the 
 harmony of his mmibers from Godfrey of Bulloign, which 
 was turned into English by Mr. Fairfax. " ^ But even 
 Dryden, who sometimes saw beyond his own period, does 
 not share the admiration which some of his friends entertain 
 for Chapman. "The Earl of Mulgrave and Mr. Waller," 
 he writes in the Examen Poeticum, "two of the best judges 
 of our age, have assured me that they could never read over 
 the translation of Chapman without incredible pleasure and 
 extreme transport. This admiration of theirs must needs 
 proceed from the author himself, for the translator has 
 thrown him down as far as harsh numbers, improper Eng- 
 lish, and a monstrous length of verse could carry him." ' 
 
 In this satisfaction with their own country and their own 
 era there lurked certain dangers for seventeenth-century 
 writers. The quahty becomes, as we shall see, more notice- 
 able in the eighteenth century, when the shackles which Eng- 
 Ksh taste laid upon original poetry were imposed also upon 
 translated verse. The theory of translation was hampered 
 in its development by the narrow complacency of its ex- 
 ponents, and the record of this time is by no means one of 
 uniform progress. The seventeenth centiuy shows clearly 
 marked alternations of opinion; now it sanctions extreme 
 methods; now, by reaction, it inchnes towards more mod- 
 erate views. The eighteenth centmy, during the greater 
 
 ' Reprinted in Godfrey of Bulloigne, translated by Fairfax, New York, 
 1849. 
 
 ' Essays, v. 2, p. 249. ' Essays, v. 2, p. 14. 
 
146 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 part of its course, produces little that is new in the way of 
 theory, and adopts, without much attempt to analyze them, 
 the formulas left by the preceding period. We may now 
 resume the history of these developments at the point where 
 it was dropped in Chapter III, at the end of EUzabeth's 
 reign. 
 
 In the first part of the new century the few minor trans- 
 lators who described their methods held theories much like 
 those of Chapman. W. L., Gent., in the extremely flowery 
 and discursive preface to his version of Virgil's Eclogues, 
 says, "Some readers I make no doubt they (the translations) 
 will meet with in these dainty mouthed times, that will 
 tax me with not coming resolved word for word and line for 
 line with the author. ... I used the freedom of a transla- 
 tor, not tying myself to the tyranny of a grammatical con- 
 struction but breaking the shell into many pieces, was only 
 careful to preserve the kernel safe and whole from the 
 violence of a wrong or wrested interpretation." After a 
 long simile drawn from the hunting field he concludes, "No 
 more do I conceive my course herein to be faulty though I 
 do not affect to follow my author so close as to tread upon 
 his heels." John Vicars, who professes to have robed Virgil 
 in "a homespun English gray-coat plain," says of his man- 
 ner, "I have aimed at these three things, perspicuity of the 
 matter, fidelity to the author, and facility or smoothness to 
 recreate thee my reader. Now if any critical or curious wit 
 tax me with a Frustra fit per plura &c. and blame my not 
 curious confinement to my author line for line, I answer 
 (and I hope this answer will satisfy the moderate and in- 
 genuous) that though peradventure I could (as in my Babel's 
 Balm I have done throughout the whole translation) yet 
 in regard of the lofty majesty of this my author's style, I 
 would not adventure so to pinch his spirits, as to make him 
 seem to walk hke a lifeless ghost. But on thinking on that 
 of Horace, Brevis esse Idboro obscurus fio, I presumed (yet 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 147 
 
 still having an eye to the genuine sense as I was able) to 
 expatiate with poetical liberty, where necessity of matter 
 and phrase enforced." Vicars' warrant for his practice is 
 the oftquoted caution of Horace, Nee verhum verba curahis 
 redder e. 
 
 But the seventeenth century was not disposed to con- 
 tinue uninterruptedly the tradition of previous translators. 
 In translated, as in original verse a new era was to begin, 
 acclaimed as such in its own day, and associated hke the 
 new poetry, with the names of Denham and Cowley as both 
 poets and critics and with that of Waller as poet. Pe- 
 cuUarly characteristic of the movement was its hostihty 
 towards hteral translation, a hostility apparent also, as we 
 have seen, in Chapman. "I consider it a vulgar error in 
 translating poets," writes Denham in the preface to his 
 Destruction of Troy, "to affect being Fidus Interpres," and 
 again in his hnes to Fanshaw: 
 
 That servile path thou nobly dost deoUne 
 
 Of tracing word by word, and line by line. 
 
 Those are the labored births of slavish brains, 
 
 Not the effect of poetry but pains; 
 
 Cheap, vulgar arts, whose narrowness affords 
 
 No flight for thoughts, but poorly sticks at words. 
 
 Sprat is anxious to claim for Cowley much of the credit 
 for introducing "this way of leaving verbal translations and 
 chiefly regarding the sense and genius of the author," which 
 "was scarce heard of in England before this present age." ^ 
 Why Chapman and later translators should have fixed 
 upon extreme literalness as the besetting fault of their pred- 
 ecessors and contemporaries, it is hard to see. It is true 
 that the recognition of the desirability of faithfulness to the 
 original was the most distinctive contribution that six- 
 
 ' Sprat, Lije of Cowley, in Prose Works of Abraham Cowley, London,, 
 1826. 
 
148 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 teenth-century critics made to the theory of translation, 
 but this principle was largely associated with prose render- 
 ings of a different type from that now under discussion. 
 If, like Denham, one excludes "matters of fact and matters 
 of faith," the body of translation which remains is scarcely 
 distinguished by slavish adherence to the letter. As a 
 matter of fact, however, sixteenth-century translation was 
 obviously an unfamiliar field to most seventeenth-century 
 commentators, and although their generalizations include 
 all who have gone before them, their illustrations are usually 
 drawn from the -early part of their own century. Ben Jon- 
 son, whose translation of Horace's Art of Poetry is cited 
 by Dry den as an example of "metaphrase, or turning an 
 author word by word and line by line from one language 
 to another," ' is perhaps largely responsible for the mis- 
 taken impression regarding the earher translators. Thomas 
 May and George Sandys are often included in the same cate- 
 gory. Sandys' translation of Ovid is regarded by Dryden 
 as typical of its time. Its UteraUsm, its resulting lack of 
 poetry, "proceeded from the wrong judgment of the age in 
 which he Uved. They neither knew good verse nor loved 
 it; they were scholars, 'tis true, but they were pedants; 
 and for all their pedantic pains, all their translations want 
 to be translated into English." ^ 
 
 But neither Jonson, Sandys, nor May has much to say 
 with regard to the proper methods of translation. The most 
 
 ' Preface to the Translation of Ovid's Epistks, Essays, v. 1, p. 237. 
 
 * Dedication of Examen Poeticum, Essays, v. 2, p. 10. Johnson, 
 writing of the latter part of the seventeenth century, says, "The au- 
 thority of Jonson, Sandys, and Holiday had fixed the judgment of the 
 nation" {The Idler, 69), and Tytler, in his Essay on the Principles of 
 Translation, 1791, says, "In poetical translation the English writers of 
 the sixteenth, and the greatest part of the seventeenth centxiry, seem to 
 have had no other care than (in Denham's phrase) to translate language 
 into language, and to have placed their whole merit in presenting a 
 literal and servile transcript of their original." 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 149 
 
 definite utterance of the group is found in the lines which 
 Jonson addressed to May on his translation of Lucan: 
 
 But who hath them interpreted, and brought 
 Lucan's whole frame unto us, and so wrought 
 As not the smallest joint or gentlest word 
 In the great mass or machine there is stirr'd? 
 The self same genius I so the world will say 
 The sun translated, or the son of May.' 
 
 May's own preface says nothing of his theories. Sandys 
 says of his Ovid, "To the translation I have given what 
 perfection my pen could bestow, by polishing, altering, or 
 restoring the harsh, improper, or mistaken with a nicer ex- 
 actness than perhaps is required in so long a labor," " a 
 comment open to various interpretations. His metrical 
 version of the Psalms is described as "paraphrastically 
 translated," and it is worthy of note that Cowley, in his 
 attack on the practice of too hteral translation, should have 
 chosen this part of Sandys' work as illustrative of the methods 
 which he condemns. For the translators of the new school, 
 though professedly the foes of the word for word method, 
 carried their hostihty to existing theories of translation 
 much farther. Cowley begins, reasonably enough, by point- 
 ing out the absurdity of translating a poet hterally. "If a 
 man should undertake to translate Pindar word for word, 
 it would be thought that one madman had translated an- 
 other; as may appear when a person who understands not 
 the original reads the verbal traduction of him into Latin 
 prose, than which nothing seems more raving. . . . And 
 I would gladly know what applause our best pieces of Eng- 
 lish poesy could expect from a Frenchman or Itahan, if 
 converted faithfully and word for word into French or 
 
 ' In Lucan's Pharsalia, translated May, 1659. 
 
 ^ To the Reader, in Ovid's Metamorphosis, translated Sandys, 
 London, 1640. 
 
150 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Italian prose." ^ But, ignoring the possibility of a reason- 
 able regard for both the original and the Enghsh, such as 
 had been advocated by Chapman or by minor translators 
 like W. L. and Vicars, Cowley suggests a more radical 
 method. Since of necessity much of the beauty of a poem 
 is lost in translation, the translator must supply new beau- 
 ties. "For men resolving in no case to shoot beyond the 
 mark," he says, "it is a thousand to one if they shoot not 
 short of it." "We must needs confess that after all these 
 losses sustained by Pindar, all we can add to him by our wit 
 or invention (not deserting still his subject) is not Ukely to 
 make him a richer man than he was in his own country." 
 Finally comes a definite statement of Cowley's method: 
 "Upon this ground I have in these two Odes of Pindar 
 taken, left out and added what I please; nor make it so 
 much my aim to let the reader know precisely what he 
 spoke as what was his way and manner of speaking, which 
 has not been yet (that I know of) introduced into Enghsh, 
 though it be the noblest and highest kind of writing in 
 verse." Denham, in his lines on Fanshaw's translation of 
 Guarini, had already approved of a similar method: 
 
 A new and nobler way thou dost pursue 
 To make translations and translators too. 
 They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame. 
 True to his sense, but truer to his fame. 
 Feeding his current, where thou find'st it low 
 Let'st in thine own to make it rise and flow; 
 Wisely restoring whatsoever grace 
 Is lost by change of times, or tongues, or place. 
 
 Denham, however, justifies the procedure for reasons which 
 must have had their appeal for the translator who was 
 conscious of real creative power. "Poesy," he says in the 
 preface to his translation from the Aeneid, "is of so subtle 
 
 ' Preface to Pindaric Odes, reprinted in Essays and other Prose 
 Writings, Oxford, 1915. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 151 
 
 a spirit that in the pouriag out of one language into an- 
 other it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added 
 m transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mor- 
 tuum." The new method, which Cowley is willing to 
 designate as imitation if the critics refuse to it the name of 
 translation, is described by Dryden with his usual clearness. 
 "I take imitation of an author in their sense," he says, "to 
 be an endeavor of a later poet to write like one who has 
 written before him, on the same subject; that is, not to 
 translate his words, or be confined to his sense, but only to 
 set him as a pattern, and to write as he supposes that 
 author would have done, had he lived in oiu- age, and in 
 our coimtry." ^ 
 
 Yet, after aU, the new fashion was far from revolution- 
 izing either the theory or the practice of translation. Dry- 
 den says of Denham that "he advised more liberty than he 
 took himseK," and of both Denham and Cowley, "I dare 
 not say that either of them have carried this libertine way 
 of rendering authors (as Mr Cowley calls it) so far as my 
 definition reaches; for in the Pindaric Odes the customs and 
 ceremonies of ancient Greece are still observed." ^ In the 
 theory of the less distinguished translators of the second and 
 third quarters of the century, the influence of Denham and 
 Cowley shows itself, if at all, in the claim to have trans- 
 lated paraphrastically and the complacency with which 
 translators describe their practice as "new," a condition of 
 things which might have prevailed without the intervention 
 of the method of imitation. About the year 1680 there 
 comes a definite reaction against too great Uberty in the 
 treatment of foreign authors. Thomas Creech, defining 
 what may justly be expected of the translator of Horace, 
 says, "If the sense of the author is dehvered, the variety 
 of expression kept (which I must despair of after QuintilUan 
 
 ' Preface to Ovid's Epistles, Essays, v. 1, p. 239. 
 2 Pp. 23&-40. 
 
152 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 hath assured us that he is most happily bold in his words) 
 and his fancy not debauched (for I cannot think myself 
 able to improve Horace) 'tis all that can be expected from a 
 version."^ After quoting with approval what Cowley has 
 said of the inadequacy of any translation, he continues: 
 '"Tis true he (Cowley) improves this consideration, and 
 urges it as concluding against all strict and faithful ver- 
 sions, in which I must beg leave to dissent, thinking it bet- 
 ter to convey down the learning of the ancients than their 
 empty sound suited to the present times, and show the age 
 their whole substance, rather than their ghost embodied in 
 some light air of my own." An anonymous writer presents 
 a group of critics who are disgusted with contemporary 
 fashions in translation and wish to go back to those which 
 prevailed in the early part of the century.^ 
 
 Acer, incensed, exclaimed against the age, 
 
 Said some of our new poets had of late 
 
 Set up a lazy fashion to translate. 
 
 Speak authors how they please, and if they call 
 
 Stuff they make paraphrase, that answers all. 
 
 Pedantic verse, effeminately smooth, 
 
 Racked through all little rules of art to soothe, 
 
 The soft'ned age industriously compile. 
 
 Main wit and cripple fancy all the while. 
 
 A license far beyond poetic use 
 
 Not to translate old authors but abuse 
 
 The wit of Romans; and their lofty sense 
 
 Degrade into new poems made from thence, 
 
 Disguise old Rome in our new eloquence. 
 
 Aesculape shares the opinion of Acer. 
 
 And thought it fit wits should be more confined 
 To author's sense, and to their periods too, 
 
 1 Dedication to Dryden, 1684, in The Odes, Satires, and Epistles of 
 Horace done into English, London, 1688. 
 
 ^ Metellus his Dialogues, Relation of a Journey to Tunbridge Wells, 
 vnth the Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid in English, London, 1693. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 153 
 
 Must leave out nothing, every sense must do, 
 And though they cannot render verse for verse, 
 Yet every period's sense they must rehearse. 
 
 Finally Metellus, speaking for the group, orders Laelius, 
 one of their number, to translate the Fourth Book of the 
 Aeneid, keeping himself in due subordination to Virgil. 
 
 We all bid then translate it the old way 
 Not a-la-mode, but like George Sandys or May; 
 Show Virgil's every period, not steal sense 
 To make up a new-fashioned poem thence. 
 
 Other translators, though not defending the literal method, 
 do not advocate imitation. Roscommon, in the Essay on 
 Translated Verse, demands fideUty to the substance of the 
 original when he says, 
 
 The genuine sense, inteUigibly told. 
 Shows a translator both discreet and bold. 
 Excursions are inexpiably bad. 
 And 'tis much safer to leave out than add, 
 
 but, unlike Phaer, he forbids the omission of difficult pas- 
 sages : 
 
 Abstruse and mystic thoughts you must express. 
 With painful care and seeming easiness. 
 
 Dryden considers the whole situation in detail.^ He ad- 
 mires Cowley's Pindaric Odes and admits that both Pindar 
 and his translator do not come under ordinary rules, but 
 he fears the effect of Cowley's example "when writers of 
 unequal parts to him shall imitate so bold an undertaking," 
 and beUeves that only a poet so "wild and ungovernable" 
 as Pindar justifies the method of Cowley. "If Virgil, or 
 Ovid, or any regular intelligible authors be thus used, 'tis 
 no longer to be called their work, when neither the thoughts 
 nor words are drawn from the original; but instead of them 
 
 • Preface to the Translation of Ovid's Epistles, Essays, vol. 1, p. 240. 
 
154 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 there is something new produced, which is ahnost the crea- 
 tion of another hand. ... He who is inquisitive to know 
 an author's thoughts will be disappointed in his expecta- 
 tion; and 'tis not always that a man will be contented to 
 have a present made him, when he expects the payment of 
 a debt. To state it fairly; imitation is the most advanta- 
 geous way for a translator to show himself, but the greatest 
 wrong which can be done to the memory and reputation of 
 the dead." 
 
 Though imitation was not generally accepted as a stand- 
 ard method of translation, certain elements in the theory 
 of Denham and Cowley remained popular throughout the 
 seventeenth and even the eighteenth century. A favorite 
 comment in the complimentary verses attached to trans- 
 lations is the assertion that the translator has not only 
 equaled but surpassed his original. An extreme example of 
 this is Dryden's fatuous reference to the Earl of Mulgrave's 
 translation of Ovid: 
 
 How will sweet Ovid's ghost be pleased to hear 
 His fame augmented by an English peer, 
 How he embellishes his Helen's loves. 
 Outdoes his softness, and his sense improves.' 
 
 His earher lines to Sir Robert Howard on the latter's trans- 
 lation of the Achilleis of Statins are somewhat less bald: 
 
 To understand how much we owe to you, 
 We must your numbers with your author's view; 
 Then shall we see his work was lamely rough. 
 Each figure stiff as if designed in buff; 
 His colours laid so thick on every place. 
 As only showed the paint, but hid the face; 
 But as in perspective we beauties see 
 Which in the glass, not in the picture be, 
 
 ' To the Earl of Roscommon on his excellent Essay on Translated 
 Verse. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 155 
 
 So here our sight obligingly mistakes 
 
 That wealth which his your bounty only makes. 
 
 Thus vulgar dishes are by cooks disguised, 
 
 More for their dressing than their substance prized.' 
 
 It was especially in cases where the original lacked smooth- 
 ness and perspicuity, the qualities which appealed most 
 strongly to the century, that the claim to improvement was 
 made. Often, however, it was associated with notably ac- 
 curate versions. Cartwright calls upon the readers of Holi- 
 day's Persius, 
 
 who when they shall view 
 How truly with thine author thou dost pace, 
 How hand in hand ye go, what equal grace 
 Thou dost observe with him in every term, 
 They cannot but, if just, justly affirm 
 That did your times as do your lines agree, 
 He might be thought to have translated thee. 
 But that he's darker, not so strong; wherein 
 Thy greater art more clearly may be seen. 
 Which does thy Persius' cloudy storms display 
 With lightning and with thunder; both which lay 
 Couched perchance in him, but wanted force 
 To break, or light from darkness to divorce, 
 Tin thine exhaled skill compressed it so. 
 That forced the clouds to break, the light to show. 
 The thunder to be heard. That now each child 
 Can prattle what was meant; whilst thou art styled 
 Of all, with titles of true dignity 
 For lofty phrase and perspicuity.'' 
 
 J. A. addresses Lucretius in Unes prefixed to Creech's trans- 
 lation, 
 
 But Lord, how much you're changed, how much improv'd! 
 
 Your native roughness all is left behind. 
 
 But still the same good man tho' more refin'd,' 
 
 » In Sir Robert Howard's Poems, London, 1660. 
 
 2 In Holiday's Persius, Fifth Edition, 1650. 
 
 ' In Creech's Lucretius, Third Edition, Oxford, 1683. 
 
156 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 and Otway says to the translator: 
 
 For when the rich original we peruse, 
 
 And by it try the metal you produce, 
 
 Though there indeed the purest ore we find, 
 
 Yet still by you it something is refined; 
 
 Thus when the great Lucretius gives a loose 
 
 And lashes to her speed his fiery Muse, 
 
 Still with him you maintain an equal pace, 
 
 And bear full stretch upon him all the race; 
 
 But when in rugged way we find him rein 
 
 His verse, and not so smooth a stroke maintain. 
 
 There the advantage he receives is found, 
 
 By you taught temper, and to choose his ground.' 
 
 So authoritative a critic as Roscommon, however, seems to 
 oppose attempts at improvement when he writes, 
 
 Your author always will the best advise, 
 Fall when he falls, and when' he rises, rise, 
 
 a precept which Tytler, writing at the end of the next cen- 
 tury, considers the one doubtful rule in The Essay on Trans- 
 lated Verse. "Far from adopting the former part of this 
 maxim," he declares, "I corisider it to be the duty of a 
 poetical translator, never to suffer his original to fall. He 
 must maintain with him a perpetual contest of genius; 
 he must attend him in his highest flights, and soar, if he can, 
 beyond him: and when he perceives, at any time a dimin- 
 ution of his powers, when he sees a drooping wing, he must 
 raise him on his own pinions." ^ 
 
 The influence of Denham and Cowley is also seen in what 
 is perhaps the most significant element in the seventeenth- 
 century theory of translation. These men advocated 
 freedom in translation, not because such freedom would 
 give the translator a greater opportunity to display his own 
 
 1 In Creech's Lucretius, Third Edition, Oxford, 1683. 
 
 2 Essay on the Principles oj Translation, Everyman's Library, 
 pp. 46-6. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 157 
 
 powers, but because it would enable him to reproduce more 
 truly the spirit of the original. A good translator must, 
 first of all, know his author intimately. Where Denham's 
 expressions are fuller than Virgil's, they are, he says, "but 
 the impressions which the often reading of him hath left 
 upon my thoughts." Possessing this intimate acquaintance, 
 the English writer must try to think and write as if he were 
 identified with his author. Dryden, who, in spite of his 
 general principles, sometimes practised something uncom- 
 monly like imitation, says in the preface to Sylvae: "1 
 must acknowledge that I have many times exceeded my 
 commission; for I have both added and omitted, and even 
 sometimes very boldly made such expositions of my authors 
 as no Dutch commentator wiU forgive me. . . . Where I 
 have enlarged them, I desire the false critics would not 
 always think that those thoughts are wholly mine, but either 
 that they are secretly in the poet, or may be fairly deduced 
 from him; or at least, if both these considerations should 
 fail, that my own is of a piece with his, and that if he were 
 living, and an Englishman, they are such as he would prob- 
 ably have written." ^ 
 
 By a sort of irony the more faithfxil translator came in 
 time to recognize this as one of the precepts of his art, and 
 sometimes to use it as an argument against too much lib- 
 erty. The Earl of Roscommon says in the preface to his 
 translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, " I have kept as close 
 as I could both to the meaning and the words of the author, 
 and done nothing but what I believe he would forgive if he 
 were alive; and I have often asked myself this question." 
 Dryden follows his protest against imitation by saying: 
 "Nor must we understand the language only of the poet, 
 but his particular turn of thoughts and expression, which 
 are the characters that distinguish, and, as it were, indi- 
 viduate him -from aU other writers. When we come thus 
 
 s, V. 1, p. 252. 
 
158 EAKLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 far, 'tis time to look into ourselves, to conform our genius 
 to his, to give his thought either the same turn, if our tongue 
 will bear it, or if not, to vary but the dress, not to alter or 
 destroy the substance." ^ Such faithfulness, according to 
 Dryden, involves the appreciation and the reproduction of 
 the qualities in an author which distinguish him from others, 
 or, to use his own words, "the maintaining the character 
 of an author which distinguishes him from all others, and 
 makes him appear that individual poet whom you would 
 interpret." ^ Dryden thinks that EngUsh translators have 
 not sufficiently recognized the necessity for this. "For 
 example, not only the thoughts, but the style and versifica- 
 tion of Virgil and Ovid are very different : yet I see, even in 
 our best poets who have translated some parts of them, 
 that they have confounded their several talents, and, by 
 endeavoring only at the sweetness and harmony of numbers, 
 have made them so much alike that, if I did not know the 
 originals, I should never be able to judge by the copies which 
 was Virgil and which was Ovid. It was objected against a 
 late noble painter that he drew many graceful pictvires, but 
 few of them were like. And this happened because he 
 always studied himself more than those who sat to him. 
 In such translators I can easily distinguish the hand which 
 performed the work, but I cannot distinguish their poet from 
 another." 
 
 But critics recognized that study and pains alone could 
 not furnish the translator for his work. " To be a thorough 
 translator," says Dryden, "he must be a thorough poet," ' 
 or to put it, as does Roscommon, somewhat more mildly, 
 he must by nature possess the more essential characteristics 
 of his author. Admitting this, Creech writes with a sUght 
 air of apology, "I cannot choose but smile to think that I, 
 who have ... too little ill nature (for that is commonly 
 
 1 Preface to the Translatim 0/ Ovid's Epistka, Essays, v. 1, p. 241. 
 
 2 Preface to Sylvae, Essays, v. 1, p. 254. ' Ibid., p. 264. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 159 
 
 thought a necessary ingredient) to be a satirist, should ven- 
 ture upon Horace." ^ Dryden finds by experience that he 
 can more easily translate a poet akin to himself. His 
 translations of Ovid please him. "Whether it be the par- 
 tiality of an old man to his youngest child I know not; but 
 they appear to me the best of all my endeavors in this kind. 
 Perhaps this poet is more easy to be translated than some 
 others whom I have lately attempted; perhaps, too, he was 
 more according to my genius." ^ He looks forward with 
 pleasure to putting the whole of the Iliad into English. 
 "And this I dare assure the world beforehand, that I have 
 found, by trial, Homer a more pleasing task than Virgil, 
 though I say not the translation will be less laborious; for 
 the Grecian is more according to my genius than the Latin 
 poet." ' The insistence on the necessity for kinship between 
 the author and the translator is the principal idea in Ros- 
 common's Essay on Translated Verse. According to Ros- 
 common, 
 
 Each poet with a different talent writes, 
 One praises, one instructs, another bites. 
 Horace could ne'er aspire to epic bays, 
 Nor lofty Maro stoop to lyric lays. 
 
 This, then, is his advice to the would-be translator: 
 
 Examine how your humour is inclined, 
 
 And which the ruling passion of your mind; 
 
 Then, seek a poet who your way does bend, 
 
 And choose an author as you choose a friend. 
 
 United by this sympathetic bond. 
 
 You grow familiar, intimate, and fond; 
 
 Your thoughts, your words, your styles, your souls agree. 
 
 No longer his interpreter but he. 
 
 1 Preface, in Second Edition of Odes of Horace, London, 1688. 
 
 2 Examen Poeticum, Essays, v. 2, p. 9. 
 
 3 Preface to the Fables, Essays, v, 2, p. 25L 
 
160 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 Though the plea of reproducing the spirit of the original 
 was sometimes made a pretext for undue latitude, it is evi- 
 dent that there was here an important contribution to the 
 theory of translation. In another respect, also, the con- 
 sideration of metrical effects, the seventeenth century shows 
 some advance, — an advance, however, which must be laid 
 chiefly to the credit of Dryden. Apparently there was no 
 tendency towards innovation and experiment in the matter 
 of verse forms. Seventeenth-century translators, satisfied 
 with the couplet and kindred measures, did not consider, as 
 the Elizabethans had done, the possibility of introducing 
 classical metres. Creech says of Horace, '"Tis certain our 
 language is not capable of the numbers of the poet," ' and 
 leaves the matter there. Holiday says of his translation 
 of the same poet: "But many, no doubt, will say Horace is 
 by me forsaken, his lyric softness and emphatical Muse 
 maimed; that there is a general defection from his genuine 
 harmony. Those I must tell, I have in this translation 
 rather sought his spirit than numbers; yet the music of 
 verse not neglected neither, since the English ear better 
 heareth the distich, and findeth that sweetness and air which 
 the Latin affecteth and (questionless) attaineth in sapphics 
 or iambic measures." ^ Dryden frequently complains of the 
 difficulty of translation into English metre, especially when 
 the poet to be translated is Virgil. The use of rhyme causes 
 trouble. It "is certainly a constraint even to the best 
 poets, and those who make it with most ease. . . . What 
 it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who 
 loses the least by it may be called a gainer. It often makes 
 us swerve from an author's meaning; as, if a mark be set 
 up for an archer at a great distance, let him aim as exactly 
 as he can, the least wind will take his arrow, and divert it 
 
 ' To the Reader, in The Odes, Satires, and Epistles of Horace, London, 
 1688. 
 
 ^ Preface to translation of Horace, 1652. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 161 
 
 from the white." ^ The hne of the heroic couplet is not 
 long enough to reproduce the hexameter, and Virgil is es- 
 pecially succinct. "To make him copious is to alter his 
 character; and to translate him hne for line is impossible, 
 because the Latin is naturally a more succinct language 
 than either the Italian, Spanish, French, or even than the 
 Enghsh, which, by reason of its monosyllables, is far the 
 most compendious of them. Virgil is much the closest of 
 any Roman poet, and the Latin hexameter has more feet 
 than the Enghsh heroic." ^ Yet though Dryden admits 
 that Caro, the Itahan translator, who used blank verse, 
 made his task easier thereby, he does not think of abandon- 
 ing the couplet for any of the verse forms which earher 
 translators had tried. He finds Chapman's Homer char- 
 acterized by "harsh numbers . . . and a monstrous length of 
 verse," and thinks his own period "a much better age than 
 was the last ... for versification and the art of num- 
 bers." ' Roscommon, whose version of Horace's Art of 
 Poetry is in blank verse, says that Jonson's translation 
 lacks clearness as a result not only of his hteralness but of 
 "the constraint of rhyme," ^ but makes no further attack 
 on the couplet as the regular vehicle for translation. 
 
 Dryden, however, is pecuUarly interested in the general 
 effect of his verse as compared with that of his originals. 
 "I have attempted," he says in the Examen Poeticum, "to 
 restore Ovid to his native sweetness, easiness, and smooth- 
 ness, and to give my poetry a kind of cadence and, as we 
 call it, a run of verse, as like the original as the Enghsh can 
 come to the Latin." ^ In his study of Virgil previous to 
 translating the Aeneid he observed "above all, the elegance 
 
 1 Dedication of the Eneis, Essays, v. 2, pp. 220-1. 
 
 ^ Preface to Sylvae, Essays, v. 1, pp. 256-7. 
 
 ' Examen Poeticum, Essays, v. 2, p. 14. 
 
 * Preface. 
 
 5 Essays, v. 2, p. 10. 
 
162 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 of his expressions and the harmony of his numbers." ' 
 Elsewhere he says of his author, "His verse is everywhere 
 sounding the very thing in your ears whose sense it bears, 
 yet the numbers are perpetually varied to increase the de- 
 Ught of the reader; so that the same sounds are never re- 
 peated twice together." ^ These metrical effects he has 
 tried to reproduce in English. "The turns of his verse, his 
 breakings, his munbers, and his gravity, I have as far imi- 
 tated as the poverty of our language and the hastiness of 
 my performance would allow," he says in the preface to 
 Sylvae.' In his translation of the whole Aeneid he was 
 guided by the same considerations. "Virgil ... is every- 
 where elegant, sweet, and flowing in his hexameters. His 
 words are not only chosen, but the places in which he ranks 
 them for the sound. He who removes them from the sta- 
 tion wherein their master set them spoils the harmony. 
 What he says of the Sibyl's prophecies may be as properly 
 apphed to every word of his : they must be read in order as 
 they he; the least breath discomposes them and some- 
 what of their divinity is lost. I cannot boast that I have 
 been thus exact in my verses; but I have endeavored to 
 follow the example of my master, and am the first English- 
 man, perhaps, who made it his design to copy him in his 
 numbers, his choice of words, and his placing them for the 
 sweetness of the sound. On this last consideration I have 
 shunned the caesura as much as possibly I could: for, 
 wherever that is used, it gives a roughness to the verse; of 
 which we have little need in a language which is overstocked 
 with consonants." * Views hke these contribute much to 
 an adequate conception of what faithfulness in translation 
 demands. 
 
 ' Dedication of the Eneis, Essays, v. 2, p. 223. 
 2 Preface to Sylvae, Essays, v. 1, p. 255. 
 " Essays, v. 1, p. 258. 
 * Dedication of the Eneis, Essays, v. 2, p. 215. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 163 
 
 From the lucid, intelligent comment of Dryden it is dis- 
 appointing to turn to the body of doctrine produced by his 
 successors. In spite of the widespread interest in transla- 
 tion during the eighteenth century, Uttle progress was made 
 in formulating the theory of the art, and many of the volu- 
 minous prefaces of translators deserve the criticism which 
 Johnson appUed to Garth, "his notions are half-formed." 
 So far as concerns the general method of translation, the 
 principles laid down by critics are often mere repetitions of 
 the conclusions already reached in the preceding century. 
 Most theorists were ready to adopt Dryden's view that the 
 translator should strike a middle coinse between the very 
 free and the very close method. Put into words by a 
 recognized authority, so reasonable an opinion could hardly 
 fail of acceptance. It appealed to the eighteenth-centmy 
 mind as adequate, and more than one translator, professing 
 to give rules for translation, merely repeated in his own 
 words what Dryden had already said. Garth declares in 
 the preface condemned by Johnson: "Translation is com- 
 monly either verbal, a paraphrase, or an imitation. . . . 
 The manner that seems most suitable for this present under- 
 taking is neither to follow the author too close out of a criti- 
 cal timorousness, nor abandon him too wantonly through a 
 poetic boldness. The original should always be kept in 
 noind, without too apparent a deviation from the sense. 
 Where it is otherwise, it is not a version but an imitation." ' 
 Grainger says in the introduction to his Tibullus: "Verbal 
 translations are always inelegant, because always destitute 
 of beauty of idiom and language; for by their fideUty to 
 an author's words, they become treacherous to his reputa- 
 tion; on the other hand, a too wanton departure from the 
 letter often varies the sense and alters the manner. The 
 translator chose the middle way, and meant neither to tread 
 
 1 In Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Dryden, Addison, Garth, etc., 
 reprinted in The English Poets, v. 20. 
 
164 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 on the heels of Tibullus nor yet to lose sight of him." i The 
 preface to Fawkes' Theocritus harks back to Dryden: "A 
 too faithful translation, Mr. Dryden says, must be a 
 pedantic one. . . . And as I have not endeavored to 
 give a verbal translation, so neither have I indulged 
 myself in a rash paraphrase, which always loses the spirit 
 of an ancient by degenerating into the modern manners of 
 exprfession." ^ 
 
 Yet behind these well-sounding phrases there lay, one 
 suspects, little vigorous thought. Both the clarity and the 
 honesty which belong to Dryden's utterances are absent 
 from much of the comment of the eighteenth century. The 
 apparent judicial impartiality of Garth, Fawkes, Grainger, 
 and their contemporaries disappears on closer examination. 
 In reahty the balance of opinion in the time of Pope and 
 Johnson inclines very perceptibly in favor of freedom. Im- 
 itation, it is true, soon ceases to enter into the discussion of 
 translation proper, but literahsm is attacked again and again, 
 till one is ready to ask, with Dryden, "Who defends it?" 
 Mickle's preface to The Lusiad states with unusual frankness 
 what was probably the underlying idea in most of the theory 
 of the time. Writing "not to gratify the dull few, whose 
 greatest pleasure is to see what the author exactly says," 
 but "to give a poem that might live in the EngUsh language," 
 Mickle puts up a vigorous defense of his methods. "Lit- 
 eral translation of poetry," he insists, "is a solecism. You 
 may construe your author, indeed, but if with some trans- 
 lators you boast that you have left your author to speak 
 for himself, that you have neither added nor diminished, 
 you have in reality grossly abused him, and deceived your- 
 self. Your Uteral translations • can have no claim to the 
 original felicities of expression, the energy, elegance, and 
 fire of the original poetry. It may bear, indeed, a resem- 
 
 '■ Advertisement to Elegies of TibvllTis, reprinted in same volume. 
 * Preface to Idylliums of Theocritus, reprinted in same volume. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 165 
 
 blance, but such an one as a corpse in the sepulchre bears 
 to the former man, when he moved in the bloom and vigor 
 of life. 
 
 Neo verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus 
 Interpres — 
 
 was the taste of the Augustan age. None but a poet can 
 translate a poet. The freedom which this precept gives 
 will, therefore, in a poet's hands, not only infuse the energy, 
 elegance, and fire of the author's poetry into his own version, 
 but will give it also the spirit of an original." ' A similarly 
 clear statement of the real facts of the situation appears in 
 Johnson's remarks on translators. His test for a transla- 
 tion is its readability, and to attain this quality he thinks 
 it permissible for the translator to improve on his author. 
 "To a thousand cavils," he writes in the course of his com- 
 ments on Pope's Homer, "one answer is necessary; the 
 purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which 
 would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside." ^ 
 The same view comes forward in his estimate of Cowley's 
 work. "The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, 
 has admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which 
 he is undoubtedly more amiable to common readers, and 
 perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own percep- 
 tions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy and 
 ignorance are content to style the learned." * 
 
 In certain matters, however, the translator claimed 
 especial freedom. "A work of this nature," says Trapp of 
 his translation of the Aeneid, "is to be regarded in two dif- 
 ferent views, both as a poem and as a translated poem." 
 This gives the translator some latitude. "The thought and 
 contrivance are his author's, but his language and the turn 
 
 ' Dissertation on The Lusiad, reprinted in The English Poets, v. 21. 
 2 Pope, in Lives of the Poets, p. '568. 
 ' Cowley, in Lives, p. 25. 
 
166 EAELY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 of his versification are his own." ^ Pope holds the same 
 opinion. A translator must "give his author entire and un- 
 maimed" but for the rest the diction and versification are 
 his own province.^ Such a dictum was sure to meet with 
 approval, for dignity of language and smoothness of verse 
 were the very qualities on which the period prided itself. 
 It was in these respects that translators hoped to improve 
 on the work of the preceding age. Fawkes, the translator 
 of Theocritus, beheves that many lines in Dryden's Mis- 
 cellany "will sound very harshly in the poHshed ears of the 
 present age," and that Creech's translation of his author can 
 be popular only with those who "having no ear for poetical 
 numbers, are better pleased with the rough music of the last 
 age than the refined harmony of this." Johnson, who 
 strongly approved of Dryden's performance, accepts it as 
 natural that there should be other attempts at the transla- 
 tion of Virgil, "since the English ear has been accustomed to 
 the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of 
 poetry has become more splendid." ' There was something 
 of poetic justice in this attitude towards the seventeenth 
 century, itself so unappreciative of the achievements of 
 earlier translators, but exemplified in practice, it showed 
 the peculiar limitations of the age of Pope. 
 
 As in the seventeenth century, ^he heroic couplet was the 
 predominant form in translations. Blank verse, when em- 
 ployed, was generally associated with a protest against the 
 prevaihng methods of translators. Trapp and Brady, both 
 of whom early in the century attempted blank verse render- 
 ings of the Aeneid, justify their use of this form on the 
 ground that it permits greater faithfulness to the original. 
 Brady intends to avoid the rock upon which other trans- 
 
 1 Preface of 1718, reprinted in The Works of Virgil translated into 
 English blank verse by Joseph Trapp, London, 1735. 
 ^ Preface to Homer's Iliad. 
 ' Dryden in Lives of the Poets, p. 226. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 167 
 
 lators have split, "and that seems to me to be their trans- 
 lating this noble and elegant poet into rhyme; by which 
 they were sometimes forced to abandon the sense, and at 
 other times to cramp it very much, which inconveniences 
 may probably be avoided in blank verse." ' Trapp makes 
 a more violent onslaught upon earher translations, which 
 he finds "commonly so very Ucentious that they can scarce 
 be called so much as paraphrases," and presents the em- 
 ployment of blank verse as in some degree a remedy for this. 
 "The fetters of rhyme often cramp the expression and spoil 
 the verse, and so you can both translate more closely and 
 also more fully express the spirit of yoxir author without it 
 than with it." ^ Neither version however was kindly re- 
 ceived, and though there continued to be occasional efforts 
 to break away from what Warton calls "the Gothic shackles 
 of rhyme" ' or from the oversmoothness of Augustan verse, 
 the more popular translators set the stamp of their approval 
 on the couplet in its classical perfection. Grainger, who 
 translated TibuUus, discusses the possibiUty of using the 
 "alternate" stanza, but ends by saying that he has generally 
 "preferred the heroic measure, which is not better suited 
 to the lofty sound of the epic muse than to the complaining 
 tone of the elegy." ^ Hoole chooses the couplet for his 
 version of Ariosto, because it occupies the same place in 
 English that the octave stanza occupies in ItaUan, and be- 
 cause it is capable of great variety. "Of all the various 
 styles used by the best poets," he says, "none seems so well 
 adapted to the mixed and familiar narrative as that of Dry- 
 den in his last production, known by the name of his Fables, 
 which by their harmony, spirit, ease, and variety of versi- 
 fication, exhibit an admirable model for a translation of 
 
 1 Proposals for u, translation of Virgil's Aeneis in Blank Verse, 
 London, 1713. ^ Preface, op. cit. 
 
 ' Prefatory Dedication, in The Works of Virgil in English Verse, 
 London, 1763. * Advertisement, op. cit. 
 
168 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 Ariosto." ^ It was, however, to the regularity of Pope's 
 couplet that most translators aspired. Francis, the trans- 
 lator of Horace, who succeeded in pleasing his readers in 
 spite of his failure to conform with popular standards, puts 
 the situation well in a comment which recalls a similar ut- 
 terance of Dryden. "The misfortune of our translators," 
 he says, "is that they have only one style; and consequently 
 all their authors, Homer, Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, are 
 compelled to speak in the same numbers, and the same un- 
 varied expression. The free-born spirit of poetry is confined 
 in twenty constant syllables, and the sense regularly ends 
 with every second line, as if the writer had not strength 
 enough to support himself or courage enough to venture 
 into a third." ^ 
 
 Revolts against the couplet, then, were few and generally 
 unsuccessful. Prose translations of the epic, such as have 
 in our own day attained some popularity, were in the eight- 
 eenth century regarded with especial disfavor. It was 
 known that they had some vogue in France, but that was 
 not considered a recommendation. The English transla- 
 tion of Madame Dacier's prose Homer, issued by OzeU, 
 Oldisworth, and Broome, was greeted with scorn. Trapp, 
 in the preface to his Virgil, refers to the new French fashion 
 with true insular contempt. Segrais' translation is "almost 
 as good as the French language will allow, which is just as 
 fit for an epic poem as an ambling nag is for a war horse. 
 . . . Their language is excellent for prose, but quite other- 
 wise for verse, especially heroic. And therefore tho' the 
 translating of poems into prose is a strange modern inven- 
 tion, yet the French transprosers are so far in the right 
 because their language will not bear verse." Mickle, men- 
 tioning in his Dissertation on the Lusiad that "M. Duperron 
 de Castera, in 1735, gave in French prose a loose unpoetical 
 
 1 Preface to Ariosto, reprinted in The English Poets, v. 21. 
 ' Preface, reprinted in The English Poets, v. 19. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 169 
 
 paraphrase of the Lusiad," feels it necessary to append in a 
 note his opinion that "a hteral prose translation of poetry 
 is an attempt as absurd as to translate fire into water." 
 
 If there was little encouragement for the translator to 
 experiment with new solutions of the problems of versifica- 
 tion, there was equally Uttle latitude allowed him in the 
 other division of his pecuhar province, diction. In ac- 
 cordance with existing standards, critics doubled their in- 
 sistence on Decorum, a quahty in which they foimd the 
 productions of former times lacking. Johnson criticizes 
 Dryden's Juvenal on the ground that it wants the dignity 
 of its original.' Fawkes finds Creech "more rustic than any 
 of the rustics in the Sicilian bard," and adduces in proof 
 many illustrations, from his calling a "noble pastoral cup 
 a fine two-handled pot" to his dubbing his characters 
 "Tawney Bess, Tom, Will, Dick" in vulgar English style.* 
 Fanshaw, says Mickle in the preface to his translation of 
 Camoens, had not "the least idea of the dignity of the epic 
 style." The originals themselves, however, presented ob- 
 stacles to suitable rendering. Preston finds this so in the 
 case of ApoUonius Rhodius, and offers this, explanation of 
 the matter: "Ancient terms of art, even if they can be made 
 intelligible, cannot be rendered, with any degree of grace, 
 into a modern language, where the corresponding terms are 
 debased into vulgarity by low and familiar use. Many 
 passages of this kind are to be found in Homer. They are 
 frequent also in ApoUonius Rhodius; particularly so, from 
 the exactness which he affects in describing everything." ' 
 Warton, unusually tolerant of Augustan taste in this re- 
 spect, finds the same difficulty in the Eclogues and Georgics 
 of Virgil. "A poem whose excellence peculiarly consists 
 in the graces of diction," his preface runs, "is far more dif- 
 ficult to be translated, than a work where sentiment, or 
 
 ' Dryden, in Lives, p. 226. '' Op. dt, 
 
 ' Preface, reprinted in The British Poets, Chiswick, 1822, v. 90. 
 
170 EARLY THEORIES OP TRANSLATION 
 
 passion, or imagination is chiefly displayed. . . . Besides, 
 the meanness of the terms of husbandry is concealed and lost 
 in a dead language, and they convey no low and despicable 
 image to the mind; but the coarse and common words I 
 was necessitated to use in the following translation, viz. 
 plough and sow, wheat, dung, ashes, horse and cow, etc., will, 
 I fear, unconquerably disgust many a delicate reader, if 
 he doth not make proper allowance for a modern com- 
 pared with an ancient language." * According to Hoole, 
 the English language confines the translator within narrow 
 limits. A translation of Berni's Orlando Innamorato into 
 EngUsh verse would be almost impossible, "the narrative 
 descending to such familiar images and expressions as would 
 by no means suit the genius of our language and poetry." ^ 
 The task of translating Ariosto, though not so hopeless, is 
 still arduous on this account. "There is a certain easy 
 neghgence in his muse that often assumes a playful mode 
 of expression incompatible with the nature of our present 
 poetry. ... An English translator will have frequent 
 reason to regret the more rigid genius of the language, that 
 rarely permits him in this respect, to attempt even an imi- 
 tation of his author." 
 
 The comments quoted in the preceding pages make one 
 realize that, while the translator was left astonishingly free 
 as regarded his treatment of the original, it was at his peril 
 that he ran counter to • contemporary literary standards. 
 The discussion centering aJWied- Pope's Homer, at once the 
 most popular and the most typical translation of the period, 
 may be taken as presenting the situation in epitome. Like 
 other prefaces of the time, Pope's introductory remarks 
 are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, misleading. 
 He begins, in orthodox fashion, by advocating the middle 
 
 1 Prefatory Dedication, in The Works of Virgil in English Verse, 
 London, 1763. 
 
 2 Preface to Ariosto, reprinted in The English Poets, v. 21. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 171 
 
 course approved by Dryden. "It is certain," he writes, 
 "no literal translation can be just to an excellent original 
 in a superior language: but it is a great mistake to imagine 
 (as many have done) that a rash paraphrase can make 
 amends for this general defect; which is no less in danger 
 to lose the spirit of an ancient, by deviating into the modern 
 manners of expression." Continuing, however, he urges 
 an vmusual degree of faithfulness. The translator must 
 not think of improving upon his author. "I will venture 
 to say," he declares, "there have not been more men misled 
 in former times by a servile, dull adherence to the letter, 
 than have been deluded in ours by a chimerical insolent 
 hope of raising and improving their author. . . . 'Tis a 
 great secret in writing to know when to be plain, and when 
 poetical and figurative; and it is what Homer will teach us, 
 if we wiU but follow modestly in his footsteps. Where his 
 diction is bold and lofty, let us raise ours as high as we can; 
 but where his is plain and humble, we ought not to be de- 
 terred from imitating him by the fear of incirrring the cen- 
 sure of a mere Enghsh critic." The translator ought to 
 endeavor to "copy him in all the variations of his style, 
 and the different modulations of his numbers; to preserve, 
 in the more active or descriptive parts, a warmth and ele- 
 vation; in the more sedate or narrative, a plainness and 
 solemnity; in the speeches a fullness and perspicuity; in 
 the sentences a shortness and gravity: not to neglect even 
 the httle figirres and turns on the words, nor sometimes the 
 very cast of the periods; neither to omit nor confound any 
 rites and customs of antiquity." 
 
 Declarations hke this would, if taken alone, make one 
 rate Pope as a pioneer in the art of translation. Unfor- 
 tunately the comment of his critics, even of those who ad- 
 mired him, tells a different story. "To say of this noble 
 work that it is the best which ever appeared of the kind, 
 would be speaking in much lower terms than it deserves," 
 
172 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 writes Melmoth, himseK a successful translator, in Fitz- 
 osborne's Letters. Melmoth's description of Pope's method 
 is, however, very different from that offered by Pope him- 
 self. "Mr. Pope," he says, "seems, in most places, to have 
 been inspired with the same sublime spirit that animates his 
 original; as he often takes fire from a single hint in his 
 author, and blazes out even with a stronger and brighter 
 flame of poetry. Thus the character of Thersites, as it 
 stands in the English Iliad, is heightened, I think, with 
 more masterly strokes of satire than appear in the Greek; 
 as many of those similes in Homer, which would appear, 
 perhaps, to a modern eye too naked and unornamented, 
 are painted by Pope in all the beautiful drapery of the most 
 graceful metaphor"- — a statement backed by citation of 
 the famous moonlight passage, which Melmoth finds finer 
 than the corresponding passage in the original. There is 
 no doubt in the critic's mind as to the desirability of im- 
 proving upon Homer. "There is no ancient author," he 
 declares, "more likely to betray an injudicious interpreter 
 into meannesses than Homer. . . . But a skilful artist 
 knows how to embelHsh the most ordinary subject; and 
 what would be low and spiritless from a less masterly pencil, 
 becomes pleasing and graceful when worked up by Mr. 
 Pope." 1 
 
 Melmoth's last comment suggests Matthew Arnold's re- 
 mark, "Pope composes with his eye on his style, into which 
 he translates his object, whatever it may be," ^ but in in- 
 tention the two criticisms are very different. To the average 
 eighteenth-century reader Homer was entirely acceptable 
 "when worked up by Mr. Pope." Slashing Bentley might 
 declare that it "must not be called Homer," but he admitted 
 that "it was a pretty poem." Less competent critics, un- 
 hampered by Bentley's scholarly doubts, thought the work 
 
 1 Pp. 53-4. 
 
 * Essays, Oxford Edition, p. 258. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 173 
 
 adequate both as a poem and as a translated poem. Dennis, 
 in his Remarks upon Pope's Homer, quotes from a recent 
 review some characteristic phrases. "I know not which I 
 should most admire," says the reviewer, "the justness of 
 the original, or the force and beauty of the language, or the 
 soimding variety of the numbers." ^ Prior, with more 
 honesty, refuses to bother his head over "the justness of 
 the original, " and gratefully welcomes the Enghsh version. 
 
 Hang Homer and Virgil; their meaning to seek, 
 
 A man must have pok'd into Latin and Greek; 
 
 Those who love their own tongue, we have reason to hope. 
 
 Have read them translated by Dryden and Pope.* 
 
 In general, critics, whether men of letters or Grub Street 
 reviewers, saw both Pope's Iliad and Homer's Iliad through 
 the medium of eighteenth-century taste. Even Dennis's 
 onslaught, which begins with a violent contradiction of the 
 hackneyed tribute quoted above, leaves the impression that 
 its vigor comes rather from personal animus than from dis- 
 trust of existing hterary standards or from any new and in- 
 dividual theory of translation. 
 
 With the romantic movement, however, comes criticism 
 which presents to us Pope's Iliad as seen in the light of com- 
 mon day instead of through the flattering illusions which 
 had previously veUed it. New translators hke Macpherson 
 and Cowper, though too courteous to direct their attack 
 specifically against the great Augustan, make it evident 
 that they have adopted new standards of faithfulness and 
 that they no longer admire either the diction or the versi- 
 fication which made Pope supreme among his contempora- 
 ries. Macpherson gives it as his opinion that, although 
 Homer has been repeatedly translated into most of the 
 languages of modern Europe, "these versions were rather 
 
 1 Mr. Dennis's Remarks upon Pope's Homer, London, 1717, p. 9. 
 ' In Down Hall, a Ballad. 
 
174 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 paraphrases than faithful translations, attempts to give the 
 spirit of Homer, without the character and pecuharities of 
 his poetry and diction," and that translators have failed 
 especially in reproducing "the magnificent simphcity, if 
 the epithet may be used, of the original, which can never be 
 characteristically expressed in the antithetical quaintness 
 of modern fine writing." ^ Cowper's prefaces show that 
 he has given serious consideration to all the opinions of the 
 theorists of his century, and that his own views are funda- 
 mentally opposed to those generally professed. His own 
 basic principle is that of fidelity to his author, and, hke every 
 sensible critic, he sees that the translator must preserve a 
 mean between the free and the close methods. This ap- 
 proval of compromise is not, however, a mere formula; 
 Cowper attempts to throw light upon it from various angles. 
 The couplet he immediately repudiates as an enemy to 
 fidehty. "I will venture to assert that a just translation 
 of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible," he declares. 
 "No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing 
 every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the 
 same time the full sense of his original. The translator's 
 ingenuity, indeed, in this case becomes itself a snare, and 
 the readier he is at invention and expedient, the more likely 
 he is to be betrayed into the wildest departures from the 
 guide whom he professes to follow." ^ The popular idea 
 that the translator should try to imagine to himself the 
 style which his author would have used had he been writing 
 in English is to Cowper "a direction which wants nothing 
 but practicabihty to recommend it. For suppose six per- 
 sons, equally qualified for the task, employed to translate 
 the same Ancient into their own language, with this rule to 
 
 ^ Preface to The Iliad of Homer, translated by James Macpherson, 
 London, 1773. 
 
 ^ Preface to first edition, taken from The Iliad of Homer, translated 
 by the late William Cowper, London, 1802. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 175 
 
 guide them. In the event it would be found that each had 
 fallen on a manner different from that of aU the rest, and by 
 probable inference it would foUow that none had fallen on 
 the right." 1 
 
 Cowper's advocacy of Miltonic blank verse as a suitable 
 vehicle for a translation of Homer need not concern us here, 
 but another innovation on which he lays considerable stress 
 in his prefaces helps to throw hght on the practice and the 
 standards of his immediate predecessors. With more 
 veracity than Pope, he represents himself as having followed 
 his author even in his "plainer" passages. "The passages 
 which will be least noticed, and possibly not at all, except 
 by those who shall wish to find me at a fault," he writes in 
 the preface to the first edition, "are those which have cost 
 me abimdantly the most labor. It is difficult to kUl a sheep 
 with dignity in a modern language, to slay and prepare it 
 for the table, detailing every circumstance in the process. 
 Difficult also, without sinking below the level of poetry, to 
 harness mules to a wagon, particularizing every article of 
 their furniture, straps, rings, staples, and even the tying of 
 the knots that kept all together. Homer, who writes al- 
 ways to the eye with all his sublimity and grandeur, has the 
 minuteness of a Flemish painter." In the preface to his 
 second edition he recurs to this problem and makes a sig- 
 nificant comment on Pope's method of solving it. "There 
 is no end of passages in Homer," he repeats, "which must 
 creep unless they be Ufted; yet in aU such, all embellish- 
 ment is out of the question. The hero puts on his clothes, 
 or refreshes himself with food and wine, or he yokes his 
 steeds, takes a journey, and in the evening preparation is 
 made for his repose. To give relief to subjects prosaic as 
 these without seeming unseasonably tumid is extremely 
 difficult. Mr. Pope abridges some of them, and others he 
 
 ' Preface to first editioii, taken from The Iliad of Homer, translated 
 by the late William Cowper, London, 1802. 
 
176 EAELY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 omits; but neither of these liberties was compatible with 
 the nature of my undertaking." ^ 
 
 That Cowper's reaction against Pope's ideals was not a 
 thing of sudden growth is evident from a letter more out- 
 spoken than the prefaces. "Not much less than thirty 
 years since," he writes in 1788, "Alston and I read Homer 
 through together. The result was a discovery that there is 
 hardly a thing in the world of which Pope is so entirely 
 destitute as a taste for Homer. ... I remembered how we 
 had been disgusted; how often we had sought the simpUcity 
 and majesty of Homer in his Enghsh representative, and had 
 found instead of them puerile conceits, extravagant meta- 
 phors, and the tinsel of modern embeUishment in every 
 possible position." ^ 
 
 Cowper's "discovery," startling, almost heretical at the 
 time when it was made, is now Uttle more than a common- 
 place. We have long recognized that Pope's Homer is not 
 the real Homer; it is scarcely an exaggeration to say, as 
 does Mr. Andrew Lang, "It is almost as if he had taken 
 Homer's theme and written the poem himself." ' Yet it is 
 surprising to see how nearly the eighteenth-century ambi- 
 tion, "to write a poem that will live in the EngUsh language " 
 has been answered in the case of Pope. Though the "tinsel" 
 of his embelUshment is no longer even "modern," his 
 translation seems able to hold its own against later verse 
 renderings based on sounder theories. The Augustan 
 translator strove to give his work "elegance, energy, 
 and fire," and despite the false elegance, we can still 
 feel something of true energy and fire as we read the 
 Iliad and the Odyssey. 
 
 The truth is that, in translated as in original literature 
 
 * Preface prepared by Mr. Cowper for a Second Edition, in edition of 
 1802. 
 
 » Letters, ed. Wright, London, 1904, v. 3, p. 233. 
 ' History of English Literature, p. 384. 
 
FROM COWLEY TO POPE 177 
 
 the permanent and the transitory elements are often oddly 
 mingled. The fate of Pope's Homer helps us to reconcile 
 two opposed views regarding the future history of verse 
 translations. Our whole study of the varying standards 
 set for translators makes us feel the truth of Mr. Lang's 
 conclusion: "There can be then, it appears, no final EngUsh 
 translation of Homer. In each there must be, lq addition 
 to what is Greek and eternal, the element of what is mod- 
 ern, personal, and fleeting." ' The translator, it is obvious, 
 must speak in the dialect and move in the measures of his 
 own day, thereby very often faiHng to attract the attention 
 of a later day. Yet there must be some place in our scheme 
 for the faith expressed by Matthew Arnold in his essays on 
 translating Homer, that "the task of translating Homer into 
 English verse both will be re-attempted, and may be 
 re-attempted successfully." ^ For in translation there is 
 involved enough of creation to supply the iacalculable 
 element which cheats the theorist. Possibly some day 
 the miracle may be wrought, and, in spite of changing 
 hterary fashions, we may have our English version of 
 Homer in a form sufficient not only for an age but for 
 all time. 
 
 It is this incalculable quality in creative work that has 
 made theorizing on the methods of translation more than a 
 mere academic exercise. Forced to adjust itself to the 
 facts of actual production, theory has had to follow new 
 paths as literature has followed new paths, and in the process 
 it has acquired fresh vigor and flexibility. Even as we leave 
 the period of Pope, we can see the dull inadequacy of a 
 worn-out collection of rules giving way before the honest, 
 individual approach of Cowper. "Many a fair precept in 
 poetry," says Dryden apropos of Roscommon's rules for 
 translation, "is Uke a seeming demonstration in the mathe- 
 
 1 Preface to The Odyssey of Homer done into English Prose. 
 
 2 Lecture, III, in Essays, p. 311. 
 
178 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION 
 
 matics, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the 
 mechanic operation." ^ Confronted by such discrepancies, 
 the theorist has again and again had to modify his "specious" 
 rules, with the result that the theory of translation, though 
 a small, is yet a living and growing element in human 
 thought. 
 
 ' Prejace to Sylvae, in Essays, v. 1, p. 252. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adlington, William, 89, 94. 
 
 Aelfric, 4r-5, 15, 55, 56, 58. 
 
 Alfred, 3-i, 15, 17. 
 
 Alexander, 10, 34. 
 
 Amyot, Jacques, xii, 106. 
 
 Andreas, 6, 7. 
 
 Andrew of Wyntoun, 35-6, 39, 
 
 116. 
 Arnold, Matthew, xi, 172, 177. 
 Arthur, 45. 
 
 Ascham, Roger, 109, 114. 
 Augustine, St., 50, 55. 
 Avihorized Version of 1611, 51, 52, 
 
 54, 60, 61, 66, 68. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 75. 
 
 Barbour, John, 36-7. 
 
 Barclay, Alexander, 100-1. 
 
 Bay Psalm Book, 77. 
 
 Bentley, Richard, 172. 
 
 Bemers, Lord, 101, 105. 
 
 Bevis of Hamtoun, 23, 24. 
 
 Birth of Jesus, 43. 
 
 Bishops' Bible, 58, 59, 67. 
 
 Blood of Hayles, 40. 
 
 Bokenam, Osbem, 8, 16, 40, 43-4, 
 
 46. 
 Book of the Knight of La Tour 
 
 Landry, 18. 
 B. R., 127-8. 
 Bradshaw, Henry, 8. 
 Brady, N., 166-7. 
 Brende, John, 88-9, 94, 129. 
 Brinsley, John, 140. 
 Brome, Henry, 136, 144. 
 
 Bryan, Sir Francis, 101, 105. 
 BuUokar, John, 95. 
 Bullokar, WilMam, 109-10. 
 
 Caedmon, 6. 
 
 Canticum de Creatione, 15, 20. 
 
 Capgrave, John, 14, 19, 20-1, 22, 
 
 40, 45. 
 Carew, Richard, 128. 
 Cartwright, WiUiam, 155. 
 CastaUo, 51, 61, 70. 
 Castle of Love, Grosseteste's, 9, 13. 
 Caxton, William, 9, 12, 31, 44, 96, 
 115. 
 
 Blanchardyn and Eglantine, 
 38. 
 
 Charles the Great, 38, 46. 
 
 Eneydos, 35, 38, 39. 
 
 Fayttes of Arms, 12. 
 
 Godfrey of Bullogne, 33. 
 
 Mirror of the World, 12. 
 
 Recuyell of the Histories of 
 Troy, 38. 
 Cecil, Sir WiUiam, 119, 125. 
 Chaloner, Sir Thomas, 128. 
 Chapman, George, 90, 92, 93, 
 130-1, 145, 146, 147, 150, 
 161. 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, 9, 10, 30. 
 
 Franklin's Tale, 30. 
 
 Knight's Tale, 30. 
 
 Legend of Good Women, 8. 
 
 Life of St. Cecilia, 8. 
 
 Man of Law's Tale, 27, 28. 
 
 Romance of the Rose, 8. 
 
 181 
 
182 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Sir Thopas, 24. 
 Troilus and Criseyde, 6, 8, 
 
 30-1. 
 Cheke, Sir John, 59, 63, 108, 
 
 119, 125-6, 128. 
 Child of Bristow, 39-40. 
 Chretien de Troyes, 30. 
 Cooke, Thomas, 138-9. 
 Coverdale, MUes, 50-1, 52, 59, 60, 
 
 64-5, 74. 
 Cowley, Abraham, 137, 147, 149- 
 
 50, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 
 
 165. 
 Cowper, Wilham, 173, 174 B. 
 Creech, Thomas, 151-2, 155-6, 
 
 158-9, 160, 166, 169. 
 Cromwell, Thomas, 51. 
 Cursor Mundi, 10. 
 Cynewxilf, 6. 
 
 Dacier, Mme., 168. 
 
 Danett, Thomas, 90. 
 
 Daniel, Samuel, 87. 
 
 Davies of Hereford, John, 142. 
 
 Denham, Sir John, 137, 139, 144, 
 
 147, 150-1, 154, 156, 157. 
 Dennis, John, 173. 
 Dolet, ]Etienne, 99. 
 Douglas, Gavin, 107-8. 
 Drant, Thomas, lllff. 
 Dryden, John, 136-7, 141, 143, 
 
 145, 148, 151, 153-4, 154-5, 
 
 157-8, 159, 160-1, 162, 163, 
 
 166, 169, 177-8. 
 
 Earl of Tovlouse, 23, 27. 
 
 Eden, Richard, 85, 91, 96. 
 
 Elene, 6. 
 
 Ely, Bishop of, 65. 
 
 Elyot, Sir Thomas, 11, 95, 118, 
 
 119-20. 
 Emare, 21. 
 
 Fairfax, Edward, 144^5. 
 
 Falls of Princes, Boccaccio's, 7, 
 
 37. 
 Fanshaw, Sir Richard, 139, 147, 
 
 169. 
 Fawkes, Francis, 164, 166, 169. 
 Fleming, Abraham, 109, 114. 
 Florio, John, 84, 87, 97. 
 Floris and Blancheflor, 45. 
 Fortescue, Thomas, 87, 103. 
 Foxe, John, 54, 67, 68, 94^5. 
 Francis, Philip, 168. 
 Fraunce, Abraham, 77. 
 Fulke, William, 54, 60, 65, 70 ff. 
 
 Garth, Sir Samuel, 163. 
 Geneva Bible, 53, 60, 61. 
 Geneva New Testament, 59, 61. 
 Gesta Romanorum, 28. 
 Golagros and Gawain, 21. 
 Golden Legend, 41. 
 Golding, Arthur, 75-6, 82, 91, 
 
 97-8, 113, 117-8, 129-30. 
 Googe, Barnaby, 77. 
 Gould, Robert, 144. 
 Grainger, James, 163-4, 167. 
 Greenway, Richard, 93. 
 Grimald, Nicholas, 85, 89, 96, 
 
 121-3. 
 Grindal, Archbishop, 68. 
 Guevara, 106. 
 Guido deUe Colonne, 34. 
 
 Hake, Edward, 113-4. 
 Handlyng Synne, 42. 
 Harrington, Sir John, 85-6, 95, 
 
 100. 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 114, 129. 
 Hellowes, Edward, 82, 91, 105-6. 
 Heywood, Jasper, 111, 116. 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 140-1. 
 
INDEX 
 
 183 
 
 Hoby, Sir Thomas, 82, 89, 90, 
 
 119, 128. 
 HoUday, Barten, 136, 155, 160. 
 Holy Grail, 31. 
 Holland, Philemon, 86, 91-2, 98, 
 
 130, 135. 
 Hoole, John, 139, 167, 170. 
 Howard, Sir Robert, 154. 
 Hudson, Thomas, 142. 
 Hue de Rotelande, 21. 
 Hyrde, Richard, 81. 
 
 Incestuous Daughter, 13. 
 Ipomadon, 21. 
 
 James VI of Scotland, 75, 142. 
 Jerome, St., 5, 15, 55-6, 76. 
 
 Martin, Gregory, 65, 70-1. 
 May, Thomas, 148, 149. 
 Mehnoth, WiUiam, 171, 172. 
 Menechmi, trans, of, 128. 
 Metellus his Dialogues, 152-3. 
 Mickle, WiUiam Julius, 139, 164-5, 
 
 168-9. 
 Milton, John, 75. 
 Mirk, John, 10. 
 More, Sir Thomas, 52, 53, 63, 67, 
 
 69, 118, 119. 
 Morley, Lord, 84-5, 89. 
 Morte Arthur, 33. 
 Mulgrave, Earl of, 154. 
 Munday, Anthony, 102, 103. 
 
 Nash, Thomas, 81, 117. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, 137, 140, 148, NeviUe, Alexander, 111 
 
 note, 163, 165, 166, 169. Nicholls, Thomas, 81, 119. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 136, 148, 149, 161. 
 Joye, George, 50. 
 
 King Alexander, 34. 
 King Horn, 26. 
 Knolles, Richard, 129. 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 176, 177. 
 
 Launfal, 7. 
 
 Laurent de Premierfait, 7. 
 
 Layamon, 34. 
 
 Le Bone Florence of Rome, 27, 28. 
 
 Life of St. Augustine, 41-2. 
 
 L'Isle, William, 63, note. 
 
 Lonelich, Harry, 31. 
 
 Love, Nicholas, 41, 43, 45. 
 
 North, Sir Thomas, 105, 106. 
 Northern Passion, 45. 
 Norton, Thomas, 74, 83-4, 118, 
 123-5. 
 
 Octavian, 27, 28, 29. 
 
 Orm, 17. 
 
 Otway, Thomas, 156. 
 
 Painter, WiUiam, 102, 103. 
 Paris, WiUiam, 11. 
 Parker, Archbishop, 54-5, 74. 
 Partonope of Blois, 24, 32-3. 
 Peele, George, 95. 
 Peterson, Robert, 128. 
 Pettie, George, 93, 97. 
 
 Lydgate, John, 7, 8, 16, 31, 37-8, Phaer, Thomas, 93, 98, 110-1, 
 
 44, 115. 
 
 Macpherson, James, 173-4. 
 Malory, Sir Thomas, 26. 
 Mancinus, 108. 
 Marot, Clement, 75. 
 
 116, 144, 153. 
 Polychronicon, 16. 
 Pope, Alexander, 137, 165, 166, 
 
 170 ff. 
 Preston, W., 169. 
 Prior, Matthew, 173. 
 
184 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Purvey, John, 56, 57-8, 69, 66-7. 
 Puttenham, (?) Richard, 96, 116, 
 140, 144, 153. 
 
 Rauf Coilyear, 21. 
 
 Bhemish Testament, 59, 61, 62, 68, 
 
 70. 
 Richard Cceur de Lion, 9-10. 
 Ridley, Robert, 67. 
 Rivers, Earl, 10-1. 
 Roberd of Cisyle, 22-3. 
 Robert of Bruime, 22, 34r-5, 42. 
 Rolle, Richard, 66, 68-9. 
 Romance of Partenay, 18, 24, 29, 
 
 31-2. 
 Roscommon, Earl of, 12, 143, 153, 
 
 156, 167, 158, 169, 161, 177. 
 Rowe, Nicholas, 137. 
 
 Sandys, George, 135, 148, 149. 
 Secreta Secretorum, 15-16. 
 Sege of Melayne, 24. 
 Seneca's Tragedies, trans, of, 109, 
 
 111, 113. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 75. 
 Sir Eglamour of Artois, 23, 27. 
 Sir Perdval of Galles, 26. 
 Southern, John, 96. 
 Sprat, Thomas, 146. 
 St. Etheldred of Ely, 10, 22. 
 St. Katkerine of Alexandria, 13. 
 St. Paula, 41. 
 Stanyhurst, Richard, 74, 77, 114, 
 
 116, 144. 
 Studley, John, 111. 
 Surrey, Earl of, 75. 
 Sylvester, Joshua, 142. 
 
 Tavemer, Richard, 63, 88. 
 Thomas de Cabham, 22. 
 Tofte, Robert, 104. 
 Torrent of Portyngale, 24, 27. 
 Trapp, Joseph, 165, 167, 168. 
 Trevisa, John de, 16-17, 18. 
 Turbervile, George, 102, 115-6. 
 Twyne, Thomas, 113. 
 Tyndale, William, 49, 50, 58, 69, 
 
 62, 67, 84, 119. 
 Tytler, Alexander, x, 137, 148, 
 
 note, 166. 
 
 Udall, Nicholas, 81-2, 87-8, 94, 
 97, 118, 120-1. 
 
 Vicars, John, 139-40, 143-4, 
 146-7, 150. 
 
 W. L., Gent., 143, 146, 160. 
 WaUer, Edmund, 144, 145. 
 Warde, William, 88. 
 Wars of Alexander, 23, 25. 
 Warton, Joseph, 167, 169-70. 
 Webbe, William, 93. 
 Whetstone, George, 102. 
 Willes, Richard, 96-7. 
 William of Palerne, 30. 
 Wilson, Thomas, 84, 92-3, 119, 
 
 125 ff. 
 Winchester, Bishop of, 67-8. 
 Wither, George, 75, 76, 77, 78. 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 75. 
 
 Young, Bartholemew, 104. 
 
 Ypotis, 43. 
 
 Ywain and Gawin, 21, 23, 29, 30. 
 
VITA 
 
 Born 1881, at Aurora, Ontario, Canada. Attended the 
 Aurora Public School, the Aurora High School, the Univer- 
 sity of Toronto (1898-1902, B.A. 1902), the Ontario Nor- 
 mal College (1902-3), Columbia University (1908-9, 1910- 
 12, A.M. 1909). 
 
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