The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ would seem much more likely that, after EV was produced, a change of translational philosophy occurred, which dictated the LV transformations. It might well be that John Trevisa underwent the same kind of conversion in translation theory when working on the Polychronicon. Sven Fristedt has identified a large relic of what looks like an original very literal translation; it occurs far along in the work, in chapters 15–26 of book 6. He compares it to the transformed rendering of the same chapters found in other manuscripts, with ablative absolutes and other participles removed, and so on—corresponding to the rest of the existing Englished work.⁶⁷

      It is possible to imagine Trevisa and Nicholas Hereford, who both arrived at Queen’s College in 1369, working on EV, with Trevisa eventually turning aside, while still at Queen’s, to produce a similarly literal version of the Polychronicon.⁶⁸ As Fristedt notes, David Fowler has “ascertained that Trevisa had his hand on the Latin Polychronicon as early as 1377,”⁶⁹ and therefore Trevisa may have been at work on Englishing it “for at least ten years”⁷⁰—and possibly more. Then, when the decision was made to produce a more fluent version of the Bible, Trevisa perhaps participated in producing LV, before or while doing a like revision of his first rendering of Higden’s work.⁷¹

      However, there is a weighty argument against such a hypothesis of Trevisa’s participation in the MEB. Although we might admit that for Trevisa “the translation of the Bible is the most important precursor to the translation of the Polychronicon,”⁷² it seems clear from the dialogue that serves as an introduction to the final version of his Englished Polychronicon,⁷³ that he is not aware of any significant effort to translate the whole Bible, a point made by Margaret Deanesly.⁷⁴ After mentioning some works translated out of Greek into Latin, the sensible lord of the exchange says, “[Also, Holy Writ was translated out of Hebrew into Greek and out of Greek into Latin, and then out of Latin into French.] Then what [how] has English trespassed, that it might not be translated into English?”⁷⁵ He goes on to name some other translations, including King Alfred’s rendering of a large part of the Psalter into English, and Bede’s translation of St. John’s Gospel into English. He continues: “Also the Gospel and prophecy and the right faith of Holy Church must be taught and preached to Englishmen that ken no Latin. Then the Gospel and prophecy and the right faith of Holy Church must be told them in English, and that is not done but by English translation, for such English preaching is very [true] translation, and such English preaching is good and needful.”⁷⁶

      We notice that lord of the dialogue fails to mention not only the MEB, but also Rolle’s well-known translations of the Psalms. We will see that another fervent advocate of Bible translation from Queen’s College, Richard Ullerston, will also fail to mention the MEB, though he does mention Rolle.

      There is a third way of explaining EV, suggested by David Lawton and Lilo Moessner, and K. B. McFarlane before them: that translation was foreseen as having a permanent value in assisting persons with only elementary Latin, particularly run-of-the-mill clergy, to use as a guide to understanding the Latin text.⁷⁷ Lewis Brewer Hall also assumes that assisting the clergy with their understanding of Scripture was one of the purposes of EV, with the further assumption that they themselves could render the literal meaning in better English.⁷⁸ And, we should add, the unpromising minor clergy at Oxford and laymen (if there were any students not in minor orders) would also find such translations helpful, not to mention both clergy and laity everywhere throughout the realm.⁷⁹ Ullerston will make this argument for all biblical translations.⁸⁰

      We cannot, of course, prove that EV was designed to help the parish priests who went to Oxford to study the Bible, but, whatever its intended purpose, both masters and students would have been foolish not to welcome it, and LV as well, when it became available, as an aid not only to understanding the Latin Bible but also to preaching the Word of God (or “God’s Law,” if that is how they preferred to call it), especially the Gospel pericopes featured in Sunday masses.

       The Transformation of EV to LV

      From my analyses of EV and LV, especially in the Gospel of Luke, I confirm the long-standing view that LV systematically de-Latinizes EV. The translators responsible for LV employed a form of English that resonates better with Modern English than that of EV, for the most part. We need not assume, with McFarlane, that the reason for producing LV was that the presumed purpose of EV, “to enable a reader of weak Latinity to construe the Vulgate for himself,” proved unsatisfactory.⁸¹

      Most of the constructions endorsed by Simple Creature in the General Prologue turn out to be those used in transforming EV Luke to LV Luke, the book that I have analyzed most thoroughly, though it is not always true in other books. Anne Hudson shares with others the conclusion that, while more intermediate versions of EV are being discovered, the LV translation is remarkably uniform throughout, as well as being generally stable from copy to copy.⁸² But I have found some interesting differences in various parts of the translation, and the stability of the text may help to establish that these differences are original rather than merely scribal.⁸³

      The obvious goals of all translators of the Bible are accuracy and clarity. Lindberg considers that these goals were aimed at in LLV, Bodley 277, Henry VI’s Bible: it was “a conscious attempt to merge original features (at times more ancient than EV) with modernisms (not all the most recent) to form a text true to the double aim of this translation of the Bible: to be true to the Word, and to help the reader.”⁸⁴ Modern-day scholars who have studied the EV and LV have usually judged them on the basis of literary style and fluency.⁸⁵ But, as Nicholas Watson notes, the Middle Ages had no word for “literary,”⁸⁶ though they did, of course, have criteria for judging what was awkward or not. Sometimes, nowadays, “literary” is contrasted with “literal,” and “literalism” is often a bad word; but, properly understood, as fidelity to the original meaning, it is essential, particularly in the case of the Bible.⁸⁷ Even for Simple Creature in the GP, sticking to the letter is the best, and the LV often follows the EV word for word. But when clarity is sacrificed, the language should be modified, even at the expense of altering the original data. It is obvious that the supervisors of LV wished to resolve ambivalences and difficulties in the original Latin rather than to present the problems to the English readers and let them puzzle over them. This is sometimes taken to be a characteristic of the proto-Protestant reformist impulse behind this medieval Bible project.⁸⁸ Such a conclusion would make sense if, as has usually been assumed, the sentiments enunciated by the Wycliffite author of GP were, as he claimed, the driving force of the LV text. But if, as I think, he was a Johnny-come-lately to the enterprise, we need to arrive at other explanations. The rationale that first suggests itself is that for nonscholarly devotional reading it was assumed that plausible resolutions to textual problems were preferable to ambiguities or puzzles in the text.

      The iconic method of translation followed in EV resembles that followed in various Vetus Latina translations of the Bible. In the Old Testament, these translations were replaced by fresh ones made by Jerome—still, however, following characteristics of the Hebrew (and Greek) and at the same time respecting the Latin versions he was replacing.⁸⁹ But in the New Testament, the iconicity was left more in place, since the old translations were only edited anew, the Gospels by Jerome, and the other books by unknown editors. It might not be too far from the truth to see the LV revision of the EV text of the Middle English Bible as a process somewhat in between these two methods of producing the Vulgate.

      But whatever advantages could be perceived in the EV text in facilitating understanding of the Latin Bible, the peculiar virtues of more familiar kinds of speech found in LV proved preferable, as can be seen from the far greater survivals of LV manuscripts. This was the version that won the hearts of the English reading public of all persuasions.

       LV Motivations as Inferred Versus GP Motivations as Stated

      Let СКАЧАТЬ