[900] u. s., p. 159.
[901] u. s., p. 193.
[902] The first edition would probably have no preface of its own, because Alfred regarded it as only a preliminary draft.
[903] Stewart, u. s., p. 202.
[904] c. xxxix. § 4 ad fin. (p. 127). Leicht is absolutely arbitrary when he says: ‘wir dürfen nicht annehmen dass er, als er an seine Prosa-Uebersetzung ging, schon den Plan hatte, später der Form seiner Vorlage insofern mehr Gerechtigkeit widerfahren zu lassen, als er die Metra in das Gewand der angelsächsischen Dichtung kleiden wollte,’ Wülker, p. 430. This is precisely what we may very fairly suppose on the evidence.
[905] In Wülker, Grundriss, p. 426; e.g. ix. 61 (p. 164), xxi. 3, 4 (p. 185), xxvi. 3 (p. 193), xxvii. 30 (p. 198).
[906] The two points in which the Metra are said to show less accuracy than the prose version, viz. the making Ulysses king of Thracia instead of Ithaca, and calling Homer the friend as well as the teacher of Virgil, are possibly merely due to the needs of alliteration, xxvi. 7; xxx. 3 (pp. 193, 203). Almost the only thing in the Metra to which there is nothing corresponding in the prose version is the well-known simile of the egg, xx. 169 ff. (p. 182), and this, though possibly suggested by a commentary, is thoroughly Alfredian. Editors have, I think, unduly prejudiced the question by either omitting the Metra altogether (as Cardale, who merely gives one as a specimen), or printing them as a sort of appendix at the end. It would be fairer to print them in the text in parallel columns with the prose version, an arrangement which would also greatly facilitate the study of them. They have, be it remembered, the authority of the MS. which is by nearly 200 years the more ancient of the two.
[907] On the editions of this work, see above, p. 128, note 4. See also Professor Wülker’s interesting Essay, Paul und Braune, Beiträge, iv. 101 ff., to which I am much indebted; also Grundriss, pp. 415 ff.
[908] Wülker, Beiträge, pp. 119, 120.
[909] ‘Delectabatur et libris S. Augustini, praecipueque his qui de Ciuitate Dei praetitulati sunt,’ Einhard, c. 24.