6   EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD   7

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 oivn creative ability came into play. The preface to St. Augustine's Soliloquies quoted above carries with it a stimulus, not only to translation or compilation, but to work like that of Caedmon or Cynewulf, essentially original in many respects, though based, in the main, on material already given literary shape in other languages. Both characteristics are recognized in Anglo-Saxon comment. Caedmon, according to the famous passage in Bede, "all that he could learn by hearing meditated with himself, and, as a clean animal ruminating, turned into the sweetest verse." 1 Cynewulf in his Elene, gives us a remarkable piece of author's comment 2 which describes the action of his own mind upon material already committed to writing by others. On the other hand, it may be noted that the Andreas, based like the Elene on a single written source, contains no hint that the author owes anything to a version of the story in another language.'

In the English literature which developed in course of time after the Conquest the methods of handling borrowed material were similar in their variety to those we have observed in Anglo-Saxon times. Translation, faithful except for the omission or addition of certain passages, compilation, epitome, all the gradations between the close rendering and such an individual creation as Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, are exemplified in the

1 Trans. in Thorpe, Caedmon's Metrical Pharaphrase, London, 1832, p. xxv.

2 Ll. 1238 ff. For trans. see The Christ of Cynewulf, ed. Cook, pp. xlvi—xlviii.

3 Cf. comment on 1. 1, in Introduction to Andreas, ed. Krapp, 1906, p. lii: "The Poem opens with the conventional formula of the epic, citing tradition as the source of the story, though it is all plainly of literary origin."

works appearing from the thirteenth century on. When Lydgate, as late as the fifteenth century, describes one of the processes by which literature is produced, we are reminded of Anglo-Saxon comment. "Laurence," 1 the poet's predecessor in translating Boccaccio's Falls of Princes, is represented as

In his Prologue affirming of reason, That artificers having exercise,

May chaunge & turne by good discretion Shapes & formes, & newly them devise: As Potters whiche to that craft entende Breake & renue their vessels to amende. .   .   .   .   .   .   . And semblably these clerkes in writing

Thing that was made of auctours them beforn They may of newe finde & fantasye: Out of olde chaffe trye out full fayre 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 .2

The great majority of these Middle English works contain within themselves no clear statement as to which of the many possible methods have been employed in their production. As in the case of the Anglo-Saxon Andreas, a retelling in English of a story already existing in another language often presents itself as if it were an original composition. The author who puts into the vernacular of his country a French romance may call it "my tale." At the end of Launfal, a version of one of the lays of Marie de France, appears the declaration, "Thomas Chestre made this tale." 3 The terms used to characterize literary productions and literary processes often have not their modern connotation. "Translate" and "translation" are applied

1 I.e. Laurent de Premierfait.   2 Bochas' Falls of Princes, 1558.
3 Ed. Ritson, II. 1138-9.