King Alfred's Old English Version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies/Introduction
Introduction.
King Alfred died exactly one thousand years ago. Great Britain and the English-speaking world have just held fitting commemorations of this event. It is an occasion when the civilized world dwells with admiration upon one of the world's greatest characters. His name is on all lips, his thoughts are in all minds, his heroic deeds fire all hearts. Eulogies have been pronounced and volumes written, but in this edition of one of his works the king speaks for himself in his own royal way. Alfred's version of St. Augustine's Soliloquies is probably his last writing extant, and for this reason alone deserves to be regarded with the veneration with which we hearken to the last words of the departed great and good.
But there is an intrinsic merit in the thoughts themselves. They pertain to the world-old subjects of the immortality of the soul and the search after God. Such themes appeal strongly to thinking men of all ages. An additional interest is given them by the fact that they spring from the yearning soul and great mind of the greatest of the Christian Fathers. St. Augustine, in his two books of Soliloquies, reveals an all-consuming thirst for wisdom and passion for God, which were, it is true, characteristic of his age, but which he possessed with greater intensity than any one else. Still keener is the interest at least to the student of English, when King Alfred, royal, in mind as in lineage, plays the rôle of translator, and gives us his 'blossoms', culled from the rich garden of St. Augustine's writings. And the pathos becomes almost tragic as we contemplate this warrior-king, then forty years old, vowing to give half his means and time to God's service, patiently studying Latin books, and translating them 'sometimes word for word, sometimes according to the sense', but always adapting the thoughts and expressions to the needs of his unlettered subjects.
The scholarship of the world has already accepted the unity of the English language and literature from Cædmon to the present. But in the study of the writings of Alfred we are acquainting ourselves with the prime mover of two great persistent tendencies in the English literature. One pertains to the manner of expression, the other to the matter expressed. The first is the use of prose — a simple but virile prose as the means of reaching the minds of his readers. The second is the use of theological ideas as an appeal to the heart for a higher and holier life. Whatever other honors the critics may steal from Alfred's name, we shall continue to read, on the ever-during monument of his writings, at least these two truths: that he was Father of English Prose, and that he was the first writer of Religious Literature in English Prose.
In working out and establishing these facts, and in otherwise dealing with the work before us, it will be needful to present the following topics in order:
I. The Manuscript and Reprints.
II. Grammatical Observations.
III. Relation of Alfred to Augustine.
IV. Relation of the Soliloquies to Alfred's Other Works.
V. Discussion of Alfred's Version of the Soliloquies.