The Epistle of Sir John Trevisa, Chaplain unto Lord Thomas of Barkley, upon the translation of Polychronicon into our English tongue.
ealth and worship to my worthy and worshipful Lord Sir Thomas, Lord of Barkley! I, John Trevisa, your priest and beadsman, obedient and buxom to work your will, hold in heart, think in thought, and mean in mind your needful meaning and speech that ye spake and said, that ye would have English translation of Ranulphus of Chester's books of chronicles. Therefore I will fond to take that travail, and make English translation of the same books, as God granteth me grace, for blame of backbiters will I not blinne; for envy of enemies, for evil spiting and speech of evil speakers will I not leave to do this deed; for travail will I not spare. Comfort I have in meedful making and pleasing to God, and in knowing that I wot that it is your will for to make this translation clear and plain to be known and understood. In some place I shall set word for word, and active for active, and passive for passive, a-row right as it standeth, without changing of the order of words. But in some place I must change the order of words, and set active for passive, and again-ward. And in some place I must set a reason for a word, and tell what it meaneth. But for all such changing, the meaning shall stand and not be changed. But some words and names of countries, of lands, of cities, of waters, of rivers, of mountains and hills, of persons, and of places, must be set and stand for themselves in their own kind, as Asia, Europe, Africa, and Syria, Mount Atlas, Sindi, and Oreb, Marach, Jordan, and Arnon, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Damascus, Hannibal, Rasin, Ahasuerus, and Cyrus, and many such words and names. If any man make of these books of chronicles a better English translation, and more profitable, God do him meed! And because ye make me do this meedful deed, He that quiteth all good deeds quite your meed in the bliss of heaven, in wealth and liking, with all the holy saints of mankind and the nine orders of angels; as Angels, Archangels, Principates, Potestates, Virtutes, Dominations, Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim, to see God in his blissful face, in joy without any end. Amen.
Thus endeth he his epistle.