40   EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

The beste song that ever was made Is not worth a lekys blade

But men wol tende 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"; 2 Osbern Bokenam will speak and write "plainly, after the language of Southfolk speech " ;3 John Capgrave, finding that the earlier translator of the life of St. Katherine has made the work "full hard . . . right for the strangeness of his dark language," undertakes to translate it "more openly" and "set it more plain." 4 This conception of the audience, together with the writer's consciousness that even in presenting narrative he is conveying spiritual truths of supreme importance to his readers, probably increases the tendency of the translator to incorporate into his English version such running commentary as at intervals suggests itself to him. He may add a line or two of explanation, of exhortation, or, if he recognizes a quotation from the Scriptures or from the Fathers, he may supply the authority for it. John Capgrave undertakes to translate the life of St. Gilbert "right as I find before me, save some additions will I put thereto which men of that order have told me, and eke other things that shall fall to my mind in the writing which be pertinent to the matter." 5 Nicholas Love puts into English The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, "with more put to in certain parts, and also with drawing out of divers authorities and matters as it seemeth to the writer hereof most speedful and edifying to them that be of simple understanding." 6 Such incidental

1 In Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, 11. 7-9.

2 Ibid., 11. 33, 35.

Osbern Bokenam's Legenden, St. Agnes, 11. 29-30.

St. Katherine of Alexandria, Prologue, 11. 61-2, 232-3, 64.

5 Lives of St. Augustine and St. Gilbert, Prologue.

6 Oxford, Clarendon Press, Prohemium.

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD 41. citation of authority is evident in S'. Paula, published by Dr. Horstmann side by side with its Latin original.' With

more simplicity and less display of learning, the translator of religious works sometimes vaguely adduces authority, as did the translator of romances, in connection with an unfamiliar name. One finds such statements as: "Manna, so it is written "; 2 "Such a fiend, as the book tells us, is called Incubus "; 3 "In the country of Champagne, as the book tells"; 4 " Cursates, saith the book, he bight"; 5

Her body lyeth in strong castylle

And Bulstene, seith the boke, it hight; 6

In the yer of ur lord of hevene Four hundred and eke ellevene Wandaly the province tok

Of Aufrike — so seith the bok. 7

Often, however, the reference to source is introduced apparently at random. On the whole, indeed, the comment which accompanies religious writings does not differ essentially in intelligibility or significance from that associated with romances; its interest lies mainly in the fact that it

brings into greater relief tendencies more or less apparent in the other form.

One of these is the large proportion of borrowed comment. The constant citation of authority in a work such as, for example, The Golden Legend was likely to be reproduced in the English with varying degrees of faithfulness. A Life of St. Augustine, to choose a few illustrations from many, reproduces the Latin as in the following examples: "as the

1 In Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden.

2 Minor Poems of the Vernon MS., De Festo Corporis Christi, 1. 170.

3 Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, St. Bernard, 11. 943-4.

4 Ibid., Erasmus, 1. 41.

5 Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge, St. Katherine, p. 243, 1. 451.

6 Sammlung Altenglischer Legenden, Christine, 11. 489-90.

7 Ibid., St. Augustine, 11. 1137-40.