English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500; Great Britain -- History -- 14th century -- Sources
A fuller study by Vogels (_Handschriftliche Untersuchungen über die
Englische Version Mandeville's_, Crefeld 1891) brings to light a new
fact: the two Bodleian MSS., E Museo 116 and Rawlinson D 99, contain an
English translation (say L) made from a Latin text of the _Travels_.
Vogels also shows that E is based on D, because the characteristic
lacuna of D is filled in E by a passage which is borrowed from L and is
not homogeneous with the rest of E. So far there is no conflict with the
view of Nicholson and Warner. But, after adducing evidence in favour of
the contention that C, D, and E are at base one translation, Vogels
concludes that D derives from C, arguing thus: There is good evidence
that C is a direct translation from the French, and if it be granted
that a single translation from the French is the base of C and D, it
follows that D derives from C.
In short, the one party maintains that C is an expansion of D, the other
that D is an abridgement of C; and this flat opposition results from
the acceptance of common ground: that C and D represent in the main one
translation and not two translations.
To return to our interpolation:
(1) Vogels's first piece of evidence that C, D, and E are at base one
translation is the appearance in all of this interpolation, which is
absent from the MSS. in French. But a passage so remarkable might spread
from one to the other of two independent English texts; or if the
interpolation originated in England in a MS. of the French text since
lost, it might be twice translated.
(2) Vogels assumes that the interpolation first appeared in type C. But
C is the form in which it would be least likely to originate, because
here the contradiction of statement is sharpest owing to the rendering
at ll. 313-14: _and now I am comen hom_, which is peculiar to C (see the
French).
(3) If, in order to eliminate individual peculiarities, we take two MSS.
of the D type—say Harley 2386 and Royal 17 C. XXXVIII—we find that
their text of the interpolation is identical with that of E. This is
consistent with Vogels's finding that the body of E derives from D; and
it confirms the evidence of all the defective MSS. that the
interpolation in this particular form was an integral part of the D
type.
(4) But between the text of the interpolation in D and that in C there
are differences in matter, in sentence order, and in phrasing, which,
while they do not exclude the possibility of interdependence, do not
suggest such a relation. In D the passage is a naked attempt at
authentication; in C it is more artfully though more shamelessly
introduced by the touch of piety conventional in epilogues. And as the
signs of a French original that appear in C are absent from D, it is
unlikely that the text of the interpolation in C derives from D.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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