Probability that the prose version of the Metra was intended merely as a basis for the verse translation. Illustration from the Old High German version. Mutual relations of the two editions. Illustration from two French versions.
§ 114. For my own part, so far from regarding the existence of the prose translation of Boethius’ Metra as inconsistent with Alfred’s authorship of the alliterative version, I am inclined to regard the former as intended from the first to serve as the basis of the latter. I would bring into connexion with this the interesting statement of William of Malmesbury, that Asser, for Alfred’s benefit, unravelled the meaning of the De Consolatione in plainer words; ‘a labour,’ says Malmesbury, with the sniff of the superior person, ‘in those days necessary, in ours ridiculous[898].’ Zimmermann understood this as meaning a preliminary translation made by Asser. ‘Entschieden falsch,’ cries Professor Wülker[899], with the usual brusqueness of a German critic. But the criticism may be retorted on his own explanation that Asser glossed a manuscript for the king’s use. The passage clearly refers to a paraphrase of the original in simpler language, and more natural order, like that which occupies the margin of some of the Delphin Classics, an illustration which had occurred to myself before I knew that Dr. Schepss had also made use of it in his admirable essay referred to above[900]. It is an interesting fact that in the case of early High German we possess just such a paraphrase of this very work. This is how Mr. Stewart, in his excellent monograph on Boethius, describes the translation of the Consolatio made by Notker III of St. Gallen, about a century after Alfred’s time: ‘His method of translation is to give a sentence or group of words of the original, which he arranges for the sake of his pupils in as simple and straightforward a form as possible, followed by the German equivalent. This last is expanded, as the occasion seems to require, by passages of explanation and paraphrase of varying length[901].’ Except as to the ‘German equivalent,’ this illustrates very aptly what I conceive to have been Asser’s procedure. It also illustrates the way in which many of Alfred’s additions may have found their way into his translation. And it would be especially in the poetical portions of the work that such a paraphrase, giving the words of the original in a less intricate order, would be required. So that while Asser paraphrased Boethius’ poetry in prose, Alfred, by a reverse process, first translated Asser’s prose into prose, and then at a later time paraphrased his own prose version in verse. That, in the interval which elapsed between the two versions, the earlier edition should have been copied and circulated, that at a later time scribes should have prefixed to copies of the first edition the prose proem which in strictness is only applicable to the second, is easily intelligible[902]; and it is curious that to this also an almost exact parallel can be produced from the fortunes of the Consolatio in another European country. There exist in French two thirteenth-century translations of the Consolatio. To quote Mr. Stewart once more: ‘The one is in prose, a word-for-word rendering; … the other, a more scholarly performance, follows the scheme of the Latin original’; i.e. in the alternation of verse and prose. Yet to both versions the same prologue is prefixed, in which the translation which follows is in each case attributed to Jehan de Meun[903]. That Alfred intended from the first to give a verse rendering of the Metra, and that he did not see his way at once to carry out his intention, seems to me to be hinted at in a passage near the end of the book, which has very little corresponding to it in the original: ‘It is nigh unto the time when I had purposed to take other work in hand, and I have not yet done with this; … I cannot now so soon sing it, nor have I leisure therefor[904].’
Another point which, as Hartmann showed[905], tells in favour of Alfred’s authorship is the way in which in the poems references are made to the prose portions of the work.
The attack has broken down.
On the whole I regard the attack on Alfred’s authorship of the Metra as having decidedly broken down[906]; and in this opinion I am glad to have the concurrence of a very competent critic in the Times of August 20, 1901. I am breaking no confidence in identifying that critic with my friend and teacher Professor Earle.
Alfred’s last work, the Soliloquies, or ‘Blooms.’
§ 115. The last undoubted work of Alfred’s that has come down to us is one which bears the title ‘Blooms,’ or, as we might say, ‘Anthology[907].’ The first two books are derived mainly from St. Augustine’s two books of Soliloquies. The first book and part of the second follow the original fairly closely, but the remainder of the second book is very free, and is mainly Alfred’s own. The third book is based to some extent on St. Augustine’s Epistle to Paulina on the Vision of God, with additions from the De Ciuitate Dei, St. Gregory’s Dialogues, the Moralia, together with reflexions of Alfred’s own[908]. The use of the De Ciuitate Dei is especially interesting, as it was the favourite book of Charles the Great[909]. It is a noteworthy proof of Alfred’s advance in literary art, that whereas in this third book his materials were not originally in dialogue form, he has very skilfully thrown them into that form in order to make them harmonise with the first two books.
Bad state of the text.
The work has come down to us in a pitiable condition, in a single late and corrupt manuscript, mutilated both at the beginning and end, and with evident lacunae in other places. At the beginning part of the preface is gone; at the end I do not myself think that more is lost than part of the final colophon; the concluding words of the actual text seem to me to mark undoubtedly the close of the work. Professor Wülker indeed thought otherwise; but he was led to his conclusion partly by the wish to give greater probability to his theory which would identify this work with Alfred’s Encheiridion or Commonplace Book; a theory from which, as already stated[910], I strongly dissent, and which Wülker himself has since withdrawn[911]. Still even in its ruin the work reflects clearly the features of its author. The Preface in particular is so characteristic that, as it is comparatively little known, I give it here:—