English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 1066-1485 -- Sources
In translating into English, many
resolutions may make the sentence open, as an ablative case absolute may
be resolved into these three words, with covenable verb, _the while_,
_for_, _if_, as grammarians say; as thus, _the master reading, I stand_,
may be resolved thus, _while the master readeth, I stand_, either _if
the master readeth_, etc., either _for the master_, etc.; and sometimes
it will accord well with the sentence to be resolved into _when_, either
into _afterward_, thus _when the master read, I stood_, either _after
the master read, I stood_; and sometime it may well be resolved into a
verb of the same tense, as other be in the same reason, and into this
word _et_, that is, _and_ in English, as thus, _arescentibus hominibus
prae timore_, that is, _and men shall wax dry for dread_. Also a
participle of a present tense, either preterite, of active voice, either
passive, may be resolved into a verb of the same tense, and a
conjunction copulative, as thus, _dicens_, that is, _saying_, may be
resolved thus, _and saith_, either _that saith_; and this will, in many
places, make the sentence open, where to English it after the word,
would be dark and doubtful. Also a relative, _which_, may be resolved
into his antecedent with a conjunction copulative, as thus, _which
runneth, and he runneth_. Also when a word is once set in a reason, it
may be set forth as oft as it is understood, either as oft as reason and
need ask; and this word _autem_ either _vero_, may stand for _forsooth_,
either for _but_, and thus I use commonly; and sometimes it may stand
for _and_, as old grammarians say. Also when rightful construction is
letted by relation, I resolve it openly, thus, where this reason,
_Dominum formidabunt adversarii ejus_, should be Englished thus by the
letter, _the Lord his adversaries shall dread_, I English it thus by
resolution, _the adversaries of the Lord shall dread him_; and so of
other reasons that be like. At the beginning I purposed, with God's
help, to make the sentence as true and open in English as it is in
Latin, either more true and more open than it is in Latin; and I pray,
for charity and for common profit of Christian souls, that if any wise
man find any default of the truth of translation, let him set in the
true sentence and open of holy writ, but look that he examine truly his
Latin bible, for no doubt he shall find full many bibles in Latin full
false, if he look, many, namely new; and the common Latin bibles have
more need to be corrected, as many as I have seen in my life, than hath
the English bible late translated; and where the Hebrew, by witness of
Jerome, of Lyra, and other expositors discordeth from our Latin bibles,
I have set in the margin, by manner of a glose, what the Hebrew hath,
and how it is understood in some place; and I did this most in the
Psalter, that of all our books discordeth most from Hebrew; for the
church readeth not the Psalter by the last translation of Jerome out of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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