Early Theories of Translation. Flora Ross Amos
theory as may aid in the interpretation of detail. Such statements are few, generally late in date, and, even when not directly translated from a predecessor, are obviously repetitions of the conventional rule associated with the name of Jerome and adopted in Anglo-Saxon times by Alfred and Aelfric. An early fifteenth-century translator of the Secreta Secretorum, for example, carries over into English the preface of the Latin translator: "I have translated with great travail into open understanding of Latin out of the language of Araby … sometimes expounding letter by letter, and sometimes understanding of understanding, for other manner of speaking is with Arabs and other with Latin."[40] Lydgate makes a similar statement:
I wyl translate hyt sothly as I kan,
After the lettre, in ordre effectuelly.
Thogh I not folwe the wordes by & by,
I schal not faille teuching the substance.[41]
Osbern Bokenam declares that he has translated
Not wurde for wurde—for that ne may be
In no translation, aftyr Jeromys decree—
But fro sentence to sentence.[42]
There is little attempt at the further analysis which would give this principle fresh significance. The translator makes scarcely any effort to define the extent to which he may diverge from the words of his original or to explain why such divergence is necessary. John de Trevisa, who translated so extensively in the later fourteenth century, does give some account of his methods, elementary, it is true, but honest and individual. His preface to his English prose version of Higden's Polychronicon explains: "In some place I shall set word for word, and active for active, and passive for passive, a-row right as it standeth, without changing of the order of words. But in some place I must change the order of words, and set active for passive and again-ward. And in some place I must set a reason for a word and tell what it meaneth. But for all such changing the meaning shall stand and not be changed."[43] An explanation like this, however, is unusual.
Possibly the fact that the translation was in prose affected Trevisa's theorizing. A prose rendering could follow its original so closely that it was possible to describe the comparatively few changes consequent on English usage. In verse, on the other hand, the changes involved were so great as to discourage definition. There are, however, a few comments on the methods to be employed in poetical renderings. According to the Proem to the Boethius, Alfred, in the Anglo-Saxon period, first translated the book "from Latin into English prose," and then "wrought it up once more into verse, as it is now done."[44] At the very beginning of the history of Middle English literature Orm attacked the problem of the verse translation very directly. He writes of his Ormulum:
Icc hafe sett her o thiss boc
Amang Godspelles wordess,
All thurrh me sellfenn, manig word
The rime swa to fillenn.[45]
Such additions, he says, are necessary if the readers are to understand the text and if the metrical form is to be kept.
Forr whase mot to laewedd follc
Larspell off Goddspell tellenn,
He mot wel ekenn manig word
Amang Godspelless Wordess.
& icc ne mihhte nohht min ferrs
Ayy withth Godspelless wordess
Wel fillenn all, & all forrthi
Shollde icc wel offte nede
Amang Godspelless wordess don
Min word, min ferrs to fillenn.[46]
Later translators, however, seldom followed his lead. There are a few comments connected with prose translations; the translator of The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry quotes the explanation of his author that he has chosen prose rather than verse "for to abridge it, and that it might be better and more plainly to be understood";[47] the Lord in Trevisa's Dialogue prefixed to the Polychronicon desires a translation in prose, "for commonly prose is more clear than rhyme, more easy and more plain to understand";[48] but apparently the only one of Orm's successors to put into words his consciousness of the complications which accompany a metrical rendering is the author of The Romance of Partenay, whose epilogue runs:
As ny as metre can conclude sentence,
Cereatly by rew in it have I go.
Nerehand stafe by staf, by gret diligence,
Savyng that I most metre apply to;
The wourdes meve, and sett here & ther so.[49]
What follows, however, shows that he is concerned not so much with the peculiar difficulty of translation as with the general difficulty of "forging" verse. Whether a man employs Latin, French, or the vernacular, he continues,
Be it in balede, vers, Rime, or prose,
He most torn and wend, metrely to close.[50]
Of explicit comment on general principles, then, there is but a small amount in connection with Middle English translations. Incidentally, however, writers let fall a good deal of information regarding their theories and methods. Such material must be interpreted with considerable caution, for although the most casual survey makes it clear that generally the translator felt bound to put into words something of his debt and his responsibility to his predecessors, yet one does not know how much significance should attach to this comment. He seldom offers clear, unmistakable information as to his difficulties and his methods of meeting them. It is peculiarly interesting to come upon such explanation of processes as appears at one point in Capgrave's Life of St. Gilbert. In telling the story of a miracle wrought upon a sick man, Capgrave writes: "One of his brethren, which was his keeper, gave him this counsel, that he should wind his head with a certain cloth of linen which St. Gilbert wore. I suppose verily," continues the translator, "it was his alb, for mine author here setteth a word 'subucula,' which is both an alb and a shirt, and in the first part of this life the same author saith that this holy man wore next his skin no hair as for the hardest, nor linen as for the softest, but he went with wool, as with the mean."[51] Such care for detail suggests the comparative methods later employed by the translators of the Bible, but whether or not it was common, it seldom found its way into words. The majority of writers acquitted themselves of the translator's duty by introducing at intervals somewhat conventional references to source, "in story as we read," "in tale as it is told," "as saith the geste," "in rhyme I read," "the prose says," "as mine author doth write," "as it tells in the book," "so saith the French tale," "as saith the Latin." Tags like these are everywhere present, especially in verse, where they must often have proved convenient in eking out the metre. Whether they are to be interpreted literally is hard to determine. The reader of English versions can seldom be certain whether variants on the more ordinary forms are merely stylistic or result from actual differences in situation; whether, for example, phrases like "as I have heard tell," "as the book says," "as I find in parchment spell" are rewordings of the same fact or represent real distinctions.
One group of doubtful references apparently question the reliability of the written source. In most cases the seeming doubt is probably the result of awkward phrasing. Statements like "as the story doth us both write and mean,"[52] "as the book says and true men tell us,"[53] "but the book us lie,"[54] need have little more significance than the slightly absurd declaration,
The gospel nul I forsake nought
Thaugh it be written in parchemyn.[55]
Occasional more direct questionings incline one, however, to take the matter a little more seriously. The translator of a Canticum de Creatione, strangely fabulous in content, presents his material with the words,
—as we finden in lectrure,
I not whether it be in holy scripture.[56]
The author of one of the legends of the Holy Cross says,
This tale, quether hit be il or gode,
I fande hit writen