Asser's Life of King Alfred
By John Asser
()
About this ebook
Related to Asser's Life of King Alfred
Related ebooks
Asser's Life of King Alfred Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAsser's Life of King Alfred Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpenser Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDelphi Collected Works of Ælfric of Eynsham Illustrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAndreas: The Legend of St. Andrew Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAndreas: The Legend of St. Andrew Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpenser Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAndreas: The Legend of St. Andrew (Start Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of King Alfred by Asser Delphi Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpenser (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): English Men of Letters Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes and Queries, Number 20, March 16, 1850 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlfred the Great (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chaucer and His Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFifteenth Century Prose and Verse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poems of Jonathan Swift Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlfred the Great Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWisdom from King Alfred's Middle Earth- Books Most Necessary to Know Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life and Times of Alfred the Great: Being the Ford lectures for 1901 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdmund Spenser – The Major Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes and Queries, Number 17, February 23, 1850 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdmund Spenser: The Best Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Collection of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of Early Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShakespeare's Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory of English Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes and Queries, Number 42, August 17, 1850 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5H. P. Lovecraft Complete Collection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for Asser's Life of King Alfred
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Asser's Life of King Alfred - John Asser
John Asser
Asser's Life of King Alfred
EAN 8596547089643
DigiCat, 2022
Contact: [email protected]
Table of Contents
PREFACE
ASSER’S LIFE OF KING ALFRED
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX I Alfred’s Preface to his translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care
THIS BOOK IS FOR WORCESTER
APPENDIX II Letter from Fulco, Archbishop of Rheims and Primate of the Franks, and legatus natus of the Apostolic See, to Alfred, the most Christian King of the Angles
INDEX
PREFACE
Table of Contents
The issue of Stevenson’s long and eagerly expected edition of Asser’s Life of King Alfred has provided an opportunity to supply the ever increasing number of the great king’s admirers with a more satisfactory rendering into English of this, perhaps the most precious document, notwithstanding all its faults, for the comprehension of his life and character.
The authenticity of the Life was impugned by Thomas Wright in 1841, by Sir Henry Howorth in 1876–77, and by an unknown writer in 1898, and it had become somewhat the fashion to regard it as a production of a later period, and therefore entitled to but little credence. The doubts as to its authenticity have been satisfactorily dispelled by the two eminent scholars who have most recently discussed the difficulties, Plummer and Stevenson.
The former, in his Life and Times of Alfred the Great, Oxford, 1902, says (p. 52): ‘The work which bears Asser’s name cannot be later than 974, and the attempt to treat it as a forgery of the eleventh or twelfth century must be regarded as having broken down. I may add that I started with a strong prejudice against the authenticity of Asser, so that my conclusions have at any rate been impartially arrived at.’ The latter, in his noble edition (Oxford, 1904), remarks (p. vii): ‘In discussing the work I have attempted to approach it without any bias for or against it, and throughout my endeavor has been to subject every portion of it to as searching an examination as my knowledge and critical powers would permit. The net result has been to convince me that, although there may be no very definite proof that the work was written by Bishop Asser in the lifetime of King Alfred, there is no anachronism or other proof that it is a spurious compilation of later date. The serious charges brought against its authenticity break down altogether under examination, while there remain several features that point with varying strength to the conclusion that it is, despite its difficulties and corruptions, really a work of the time it purports to be. This result is confirmed by the important corroboration of some of its statements by contemporary Frankish chroniclers. Thus the profession of belief in its authenticity by such eminent historians as Kemble, Pauli, Stubbs, and Freeman agrees with my own conclusion.’
Notwithstanding their general rehabilitation of the work, however, neither critic is prepared to trust it implicitly. Plummer says (p. 52): ‘On the whole, then, Asser is an authority to be used with criticism and caution; partly because we have always to be alive to the possibility of interpolation, partly because the writer’s Celtic imagination is apt to run away with him.’ And thus Stevenson (p. cxxx): ‘The work still presents some difficulties. Carelessness of transcription may possibly explain those that are merely verbal, but there still remain certain passages that lay the author open to the charge of exaggeration, such as his mention of gold-covered and silver-covered buildings, if that be the literal meaning of the passage, and his statement that Alfred might, if he had chosen, have been king before his elder brother Æthelred, with whom, it is clear, he was on most intimate terms.’
The style of the book is not uniform. The passages translated from the Chronicle are simpler, while in the more original parts the author displays an unfortunate tendency to a turgid and at times bombastic manner of writing. Indeed, it displays, in many passages, the traits of that Hesperic Latinity which, invented or made fashionable in the sixth century, probably by a British monk in the southwestern part of England, was more or less current in England from the time of Aldhelm until the Norman Conquest. This Hesperic, or Celtic, Latinity has been compared to the mock euphuism of Sir Piercie Shafton in Scott’s Monastery (Professor H.A. Strong, in American Journal of Philology 26. 205), and may be illustrated by Professor Strong’s translation into English of certain sentences from the Hisperica Famina, the production, as it is believed, of the monk referred to above: ‘This precious shower of words glitters, by no awkward barriers confining the diction, and husbands its strength by an exquisite balance and by equable device, trilling sweet descant of Ausonian speech through the speaker’s throat by this shower of words passing through Latin throats; just as countless swarms of bees go here and there in their hollow hives, and sip the honey-streams in their homes, and set in order, as they are wont, their combs with their beaks.’
With the passage just quoted may be compared an extract from chapter 88 of Asser, the translation of which is given below (pp. 49, 50): ‘Ac deinde cotidie inter nos sermocinando, ad hæc investigando aliis inventis æque placabilibus testimoniis, quaternio ille refertus succrevit, nec immerito, sicut scriptum est, super modicum fundamentum ædificat justus et paulatim ad majora defluit,
velut apis fertilissima longe lateque gronnios interrogando discurrens, multimodos divinæ scripturæ flosculos inhianter et incessabiliter congregavit, quis præcordii sui cellulas densatim replevit.’ Such Latin as this is difficult to translate into satisfactory English. If one renders it literally, the result is apt to look rather absurd; and beyond a certain point condensation is impracticable, or else misrepresents the original, faults and merits alike.
Hitherto there have been three translations of Asser into English—that by J.A. Giles in Bohn’s Six Old English Chronicles, London, 1848; that by Joseph Stevenson in Church Historians of England, Vol. 2, London, 1854; and that by Edward Conybeare, Alfred in the Chroniclers, London, 1900. As the basis of my work I have taken the translation of Giles, sometimes following it rather closely, and at other times departing from it more or less widely.
The reader familiar with the traditional Asser will miss some matter with which he is familiar, such as the story of Alfred and the cakes, that of the raven-banner of the Danes, etc. These are derived from interpolations made in the manuscript by Archbishop Parker, which modern critical scholarship has at length excised. For all matters regarding the manuscript, the earlier editions, etc., as well as for copious illustrative notes on the text, the reader is referred to Stevenson’s edition.
Insertions made in the text by Stevenson, on what he considers sufficient grounds, are indicated by <>. The chapter-divisions and -numbering are Stevenson’s; the chapter-headings mine. Where modern forms of proper names exist, I have not hesitated to adopt them, and in general have tended rather to normalize them than scrupulously to follow the sometimes various spellings of the text. The notes have almost always been derived from Stevenson’s edition, whether or not explicit acknowledgment has been made, but now and then, as in the case of the long note on chapter 56, are my own.
Yale University
July 4, 1905
ASSER’S LIFE OF KING ALFRED
Table of Contents
To my lord Alfred, king of the Anglo-Saxons, the worshipful and pious ruler of all Christians in the island of Britain, Asser, least of all the servants of God, wisheth thousandfold prosperity for both lives, according to the desires of his