58   EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION

THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE   59

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 Biblical translation, when grammatical information was more accessible, such elementary comment was not likely to be committed to print, but echoes of similar technical difficulties are occasionally heard. Tyndale, speaking of the Hebraisms in the Greek Testament, asks his critics to "consider the Hebrew phrase . . . whose preterperfect 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." 1 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 preterperfect tense," and the Bishop of Ely advises "the translation of the verbs in the Psalms to be used uniformly in one tense." 2

Purvey's explanations, however, suggest that his mind is occupied, not merely with details, but with a somewhat larger problem. Medieval translators were frequently disturbed 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 avoiding superfluous words, is especially emphasized in connection with the Bible. Conciseness, necessary for accuracy, is also an admirable quality in itself. Aelfric's approval of this characteristic has already been noted. The metrical preface to Rolle's Psalter reads: "This holy man in expounding,

1 Prologue to the New Testament, printed in Matthew's Bible, 1551.

2 Strype, Life of Parker, p. 208.

he followeth 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 openlier and shortlier the Bible than the old doctors have expounded it in Latin." Besides approving the avoidance 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, will "seek to bring to compendiousness that which is now translated at the length." I 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." 2 Coverdale finds a corresponding difficulty in turning Latin into English: "The figure called Eclipsis divers times used in the scriptures . . . though she do garnish 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." 4 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." 6 Strype says of Cheke in a passage chiefly concerned with Cheke's attempt at translation of the Bible, "He brought in a short and expressive way of writing without long and intricate periods," 6 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"; 7 the preface

Pollard, p. 116.

2 Preface to The Obedience of a Christian Man, in Doctrinal Treatises,

Parker Society, 1848, p. 390.   ' Pollard, p. 211.

4 Ibid., p. 277.   5 Ibid., p. 306.

6 Life of Cheke, p. 212.   7 Strype, Life of Parker, p. 404.