The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-611
Author(s):  
Hans Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
British Library ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Entire Text ◽  
King Alfred

Abstract A special kind of a short text that is embedded in a larger text is the prayer near the beginning of St Augustine’s Soliloquia, which serves as a kind of introduction to the ensuing dialogue. The relatively independent nature of this prayer was recognized early on, and in addition to its transmission in the manuscripts of the Soliloquia it has also been transmitted as an independent prayer. Something similar happened to the Old English translation. There is a full translation of the entire text, traditionally ascribed to King Alfred (and his learned helpers), but preserved only in a much later manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv); however, a shortened version of the prayer was included in a collection of brief penitential texts in an earlier manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii). In the present article I look at the structure of the Latin prayer and at its Old English translation, especially the relation of the two manuscript versions and their value for textual criticism and the reconstruction of the original version, their relation to the Latin source, and the rhetoric of the Latin prayer and its Old English translation, including a brief discussion of the binomials used. The Appendix provides a synoptic version of the Latin text and the two manuscript versions of the Old English translation, highlighting their rhetorical structure, something that to my knowledge has never been done for the Old English translation.

The text of Aldhelm's Enigma no. c in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697 and Exeter Riddle 40

1985 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Latin Text

Exeter Riddle 40 presents two related problems as a translation of one of Aldhelm's Enigmata (no. c: ‘Creatura’): its dislocation, in an otherwise accurate translation, of six lines from their position in the Latin text; and its connection with the so-called ‘Lorica’ of Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. lat. Q. 106, the only other surviving Old English translation of an Aldhelmian enigma. In his edition of the Exeter Riddles, Tupper addressed these problems by postulating that both Old English riddles were the work of one translator and that Exeter Riddle 40 was revised from an earlier version of Aldhelm's enigma now lost to us. Although Tupper's view has been widely accepted, it presents a number of difficulties. It is the purpose of the present article to suggest an alternate interpretation of the evidence: that Exeter Riddle 40 – a much later poem than the ‘Leiden Riddle’, a Northumbrian poem perhaps of the eighth century – was translated from a ninth-century continental manuscript with tenth-century English corrections: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697.

Francis Junius (1591–1677): copyist or editor?

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 279-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Dekker
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
British Library ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Scholarly Edition ◽  
The University ◽  
Made In

In September 1890, Hendrik Logeman, professor of English and Germanic philology at the University of Ghent in Belgium, had the audacity to accuse no less a scholar than Henry Sweet of misleading his readers. Logeman based his accusation on an unfortunate remark Sweet had made in his edition of the Old English translation of Pope Gregory'sPastoral Care. For this scholarly edition, Sweet had wished to include the text of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. xi. However, having barely survived the Ashburnham House blaze of 1731, this manuscript had been almost entirely consumed by fire at a bookbinder's in 1865. As a replacement, Sweet had used Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 53, a transcript made by the seventeenth-century philologist Francis Junius (1591–1677) when the Cotton manuscript was still unscathed. Sweet praised Junius and emphasized the accuracy of the transcript by stating that Junius only ‘swerved from the path of literal accuracy in a few unimportant particulars’. Hendrik Logeman had collated the Old English glosses to the Benedictine Rule from Cotton Tiberius A. iii with a Junius transcript, Junius 52, for his 1888 edition, but he found, instead, that Junius failed to distinguish between 〈ð〉 and 〈þ〉 that he corrected his text without giving the reading of the manuscript, and that he added, omitted or transposed entire words.

The several compilers of Bald's Leechbook

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Scott Nokes
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
British Library ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Medical Learning ◽  
King Alfred

The critical history of the Old English charms is replete with examples of scholars claiming that the charms are pagan remnants with a thread-bare Christian garment covering ancient pre-Christian rituals. Other scholars, more interested in combing the charms for magical elements, have viewed them as even more primitive than a pre-Christian religion and have instead treated them as Germanic magic. The first two of three texts found in London, British Library, Royal 12. D. XVII, more commonly known as Bald's Leechbook, certainly do not fit this description. In this manuscript, we find medical referencebooks produced by a team of compilers, perhaps as part of the intellectual renaissance sponsored by King Alfred. Evidence in the manuscript also suggests that the Anglo-Saxons had considerable access to Latin sources of medical learning and also had a well-developed native medical knowledge.

A third Old English translation of part of Gregory's Dialogues, this time embedded in the Rule of Chrodegang

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 197-204
Author(s):  
Brigitte Langefeld
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Latin Text

Gregory's Dialogues are a hitherto unnoticed source of the final chapter of the enlarged version of the Rule of Chrodegang of Metz. The chapter in question, no. 84 or 86 depending on the recension of the Latin text, is preserved in the following manuscripts (the letters in brackets are the sigla used for these manuscripts throughout this article):Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1535 (P), 113V–149V. Second quarter of the ninth century, possibly written at Fécamp. Latin text only, 86 chapters.

An Alfredian Reading Project

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-136
Author(s):  
Francesca Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
English Hegemony ◽  
Cultural Project ◽  
Rhetorical Tropes ◽  
King Alfred ◽  
Christian History

Chapter 2 compares the rhetorical tropes employed in the ‘Preface’ to The Anathemata (often overlooked in the scholarship) with those of the preface to King Alfred’s Old English translation of the Pastoral Care. This comparison establishes the idea of Jones’s artful construction of his ‘Preface’ as a manifesto for the cultural project of The Anathemata. Reflecting on the Alfredian rhetorical ideal of an English nation (and more specifically an English nation of Catholics) as both a medieval and a post-medieval construct, this chapter illuminates the direct challenge of Jones’s ‘Preface’ to Alfredian assertions of English hegemony. Key to this effort to disrupt the hegemony of British Christian history, this chapter argues, is Jones’s use of Latin and how this implicates the work of two other ninth-century writers—Asser and Nennius—in Jones’s dialogue with King Alfred.

The scribe of the Paris Psalter

1999 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 179-183
Author(s):  
Richard Emms
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
English Prose ◽  
The Right ◽  
King Alfred

The Paris Psalter (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 8824) has attracted much interest because of its long, thin format, its illustrations in the Utrecht Psalter tradition and its Old English prose translation of the first fifty psalms, which has been convincingly attributed to King Alfred himself. It is a bilingual psalter, with Latin (Roman version) on the left and Old English on the right. The first fifty psalms are in the prose translation connected with King Alfred, the remainder in a metrical version made by an author whose work has not been identified elsewhere. The leaves are approximately 526 × 186 mm, with a writing space of about 420 × 95 mm. It has been estimated that there were originally 200 leaves in twenty-five quires, but fourteen leaves, including those carrying all the major decoration, have been removed. There remain thirteen outline drawings integrated into the text on the first six folios. Some drawings may have functioned as ‘fillers’ where the Latin text was shorter than the Old English. Further on in the manuscript, in order to solve this problem, the scribe either left gaps or made the columns of Latin thinner than the corresponding Old English ones. The Old English introductions were set out across both columns, suggesting that the book was made for someone who read English more easily than Latin. The manuscript was written around the middle of the eleventh century, and it is clearly the work of a single skilled scribe who used a neat Anglo-Caroline minuscule for the Latin texts, and matching English vernacular minuscule with many Caroline letter forms for the Old English. Unfortunately, his hand has not been identified in any other books or charters; however, he did record in a colophon (186r; see pl.V) that he was called Wulfwinus cognomento Cada.

scholarly journals Identities in Seamus Heaney’s Translation of Beowulf

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Eleonora Nakova Katileva
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Seamus Heaney ◽  
English Version ◽  
Cultural Roots ◽  
First Time

The present article sets out to prove the hypothesis that the Modern English translation of Beowulf by Seamus Heaney reflects his Irish political and cultural roots. His interpretation aroused the interest of critics by its use of Hiberno-English and dealing with linguistic structural tasks in a different way for the first time. By considering specific examples from the original and the translated version of the poem, the present article analyses the linguistic choices made by Heaney in his translation of the Old English version of Beowulf taking into account its critical reception and the author’s personal opinions and experiences. It sets out to establish the roots of this translation in Heaney’s upbringing in rural Ireland by observing specific memories from his own childhood, family members, politics and surroundings. The article also compares this translation to previous ones to provide the reasons for the uniqueness of Heaney’s rendering and establish its importance in today’s literary scene. 

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