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]