54   EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE   55

of doctrine. Apart from the prefaces to the various issues of the Bible, the most elaborate discussion of technical matters 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, published 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 liable to become cumbrous and confusing. Like the prefaces, the glosses sometimes contained theological rather than linguistic 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 prologue . . . 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." 1 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 argument 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 English centered particularly around the early versions of the Scriptures. Secretary Cecil sends the Archbishop "a very ancient Bible written in Latin and old English or

Pollard, p. 241.

Saxon," and Parker in reply comments on "the fair antique writing with the Saxon interpretation." 1 Moreover the slight 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 Lives of the Saints. Above all things he desires that his work may be clear and readable. Hence he has a peculiar regard for brevity. The Homilies are rendered "non garrula verbositate"; 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 accuracy. 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 English idiom.'

Apart from Aelfric's prefaces Anglo-Saxon translators of the Scriptures have left no comment 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 translation are frequent throughout the course of Biblical translation but are generally vague. The Preface to Eusebius and the Epistle to Pammachius contain the most complete statements of the principles which guided Jerome. Both emphasize the necessity of giving sense for sense rather than

Strype, Life of Parker, London, 1711, p. 536.

2 For a further account of Aelfric's theories, see Chapter I.