74 EARLY THEORIES OF TRANSLATION
THE TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE 75
English words for the thirteen Hebrew words: except you would coin such ridiculous inkhorn terms, as you do in the New Testament, Azymes, prepuce, neophyte, sandale, parasceve, and such like." "When you say `evangelized,' you do not translate, but feign a new word, which is not understood of mere English ears." 2
Fulke describes himself as never having been "of counsel with any that translated the scriptures into English," 3 but his works were regarded with respect, and probably had considerable influence on the version of 1611.4 Ironically enough, they did much to familiarize the revisers with the Rhemish version and its merits. On the other hand, Fulke's own views had a distinct value. Though on some points he is narrowly conservative, and though some of the words which he condemns have established themselves in the language nevertheless most of his ideas regarding linguistic usage are remarkably sound, and, like those of More, commend themselves to modern opinion.
Between the translators of the Bible and the translators of other works there were few points of contact. Though similar problems confronted both groups, they presented themselves in different guises. The question of increasing the vocabulary, for example, is in the case of biblical translation so complicated by the theological connotation of words as to require a treatment peculiar to itself. Translators of the Bible were scarcely ever translators of secular works and vice versa. The chief link between the two kinds of translation is supplied by the metrical versions of the Psalms. Such verse translations were counted of sufficient importance to engage the efforts of men like Parker and Coverdale, influential in the main course of Bible translation. Men like Thomas Norton, the translator of Calvin's Institutes, Richard Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, and
1 Defence, p. 206. 2 p. 549.
3 Ibid., p. 89. 4 Pollard, Introduction, p. 37.
others of greater literary fame, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Milton, Bacon, experimented, as time went on, with these metrical renderings. The list even includes the name of King James.'
At first there was some idea of creating for such songs a vogue in England like that which the similar productions of Marot had enjoyed at the French court. Translators felt free to choose what George Wither calls "easy and passionate Psalms," and, if they desired, create "elegant-seeming paraphrases . . . trimmed . .. up with rhetorical illustrations (suitable to their fancies, and the changeable garb of affected language)." 2 The expectations of courtly approbation were, however, largely disappointed, but the metrical Psalms came, in time, to have a wider and more democratic employment. Complete versions of the Psalms in verse came to be regarded as a suitable accompaniment to the Bible, until in the Scottish General Assembly of 1601 the proposition for a new translation of the Bible was accompanied by a parallel proposition for a correction of the Psalms in metre.'
Besides this general realization of the practical usefulness of these versions in divine service, there was in some quarters an appreciation of the peculiar literary quality of the Psalms which tended to express itself in new attempts at translation. Arthur Golding, though not himself the author of a metrical version, makes the following comment: "For whereas the other parts of holy writ (whether they be historical, moral, judicial, ceremonial, or prophetical) do commonly set down their treatises in open and plain declaration: this part consisting of them all, wrappeth up things
See Holland, The Psalmists of Britain, London, 1843, for a detailed account of such translations.
2 Preface to The Psalms of David translated into lyric verse, 1632, reprinted by the Spenser Society, 1881.
Holland, p. 251.
