4 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION
THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 5-
for each of the tools that I could work with, and bow-timbers and bolt-timbers for every work that I could perform, the comeliest 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 like that of Alfred. He declares repeatedly 2 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.3 Instead of unfamiliar terms, he uses "the pure and open words of the language of this people." 4 In connection with the translation of the Bible he lays down the principle that Latin must give way to English idiom.' For all these things Aelfric has
1 Trans. in Hargrove, King Alfred's Old English Version of St. Augustine'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.
3 Latin Preface to Homilies II.
4 Ibid. 6 Preface to Genesis.
definite reasons. Keeping always in mind a clear conception of the nature of his audience, he does whatever seems to him necessary to make his work attractive and, consequently, profitable. Preparing his Grammar for "tender youths," though he knows that words may be interpreted in many ways, he follows a simple method of interpretation in order that the book may not become tiresome.' The Homilies, intended for simple people, are put into simple English, that they may more easily reach the hearts of those who read or hear.2 This popularization is extended even farther. Aelfric explains 3 that he has abbreviated both the Homilies 4 and the Lives of the Saints,' again of deliberate purpose, as appears in his preface to the latter: "Hoc sciendum etiam quod prolixiores passiones breuiamus verbis non adeo sensu, ne fastidiosis ingeratur tedium si tanta prolixitas 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 explicationem quam tractatus auctorum habent, sive non quod per ordinem ecclesiastici ritus omnia Evangelia percurrimus." The Preface to Genesis suggests that the writer was familiar with Jerome's insistence on the necessity for unusual faithfulness in translating the Bible.' Such comment implies a mind surprisingly awake to the problems of translation.
Latin Preface of the Grammar. 2 Latin Preface to Homilies I.
3 In the selections from the Bible various passages, e.g., genealogies, are omitted without comment.
4 Latin Preface to Homilies I. 5 Latin Preface.
6 For further comment, see Chapter II.
