Old English Psalms

735 Pages·2016·17.521 MB·English

by  Patrick P. O’Neill

Old English
Psaltns
Edited and Translated by
PATRICK P. O'NEILL
'DUMBARTON OAKS
Ji'EDIEVAL oQ}RARY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
2016
Copyright ©2016bythe President and Fellows ofHarvard College
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed inthe United States ofAmerica
Library ofCongress Cata/oging-in-Pub/ication Data
Names: O'Neill, Patrick P.,editor, translator.
Title: Old English psalms /edited and translated byPatrick P.O'Neill.
Other titles: Dumbarton Oaks medieval library ;42.
Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2016.1
Series:Dumbarton Oaks medieval library ;42IEnglish translation on
the rectos, and Old English onthe versos; introductory matter inEnglish. I
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 20150373161ISBN 9780674504752 (alk.paper)
Classification: LCC BSI421.043 20161DDC 223/.20529-dc23 LCrecord
available athttp://lccn.loc.govh0I5037316
Contents
Introduction
Vtl
PROSE PSALMS, I-50 I
METRICAL PSALMS, 51-150 191
Abbreviations 609
Note onthe Texts 6Il
Notes tothe Texts 6I3
Notes tothe Translations 635
Bibliography 709
Index 7I3
Introduction
The Psalter, with its 150psalms, is the longest book of the
Bible.'FortheAnglo-Saxons itwasalsothe preeminent work
of the Old Testament, the one they knew best and recited
most frequently.l It had severalclaimson them: asawisdom
book composed inpoetry, agenre that their learned classes
cultivated and cherished; asthe basicclassroom text used to
teach clerical students how to read and write Latin, a pro-
cessthat entailed memorizing largeportions of the psalms;
and, most important, as the central text of the Divine Of-
fice. In this last function the psalms were recited at seven
mandated times of the day (the Hours), in what was the
most important ritual of Christian liturgy after the Mass.
This practice was obligatory for ecclesiastics, but it also
found its wayinto the livesof the secular elite as a private
devotion; we find it used in France by the late eighth cen-
tury and in England bythe ninth, asattested byBishopAs-
serinhisLifeofKingAlfred ofWessex.2
Butwhat setstheAnglo-Saxons apart from other western
European cultures wastheir engagement with the psalms in
the vernacular.They knew that the Latin Psalter,which they
inherited from Roman and Irish missionaries, had under-
gone severalstages of translation, from its original Hebrew
into Greek, and from Greek into Latin. This awarenessmay
Vll
INTRODUCTION
well have encouraged them to embark on the hazardous
undertaking of translating it yet again from Latin into Old
English. Even more remarkable was that Anglo-Saxon ver-
nacularization of the psalms took three different forms.
The most elementary was the word-for-word translation
(often called a "gloss"),with the Old English rendering in
each casewritten in smaller script above the corresponding
Latin word ofthe maintext.Asmanyastwenty suchglossed
Psalters have survived.The second mode of translation was
prose paraphrase, anadvanceon the gloss,sincethe empha-
sis shifted from focus on the individual word to convey-
ingthe meaning ofpsalmverses inidiomatic sentences. The
Old English paraphrase ofPsalmsIto 50 (hereafter referred
to asthe Prose Psalms),generally attributed to KingAlfred,
exemplifies this development. The third mode of transla-
tion, adopted in the Metrical Psalms, maintained the focus
on aliteral rendering, while recasting the psalms in the me-
dium ofAnglo-Saxon poetry.
Byahappy coincidence the Prose Psalms and the Metri-
calPsalms have survived in a singlemanuscript, Paris, Bib-
liotheque nationale de France, fonds latin MS 8824, which
was copied about the middle of the eleventh century, more
than a century after their likely date of composition.3 In
this manuscript the two Old Englishversions and the'corre-
sponding Latin text ofthe Roman Psalter arecopied inlong
parallel columns, the Latin on the left, the Old English on
the right; the remaining contents comprise twelve Canti-
cles, a litany,and a collection of eight prayers, allin Latin.
The combination of texts resembles that found in other
Psalters known to havebeen intended forprivate devotions
(rather than monastic observance), while the prominent
viii
INTRODUCTION
position ofthe vernacular translations, which enjoyequalvi-
sualstatus with the Latin, suggests a layaudience of pious
readers and reciters ofthe psalms.
On the finalpage of the manuscript, at the very end, the
scribe adds a colophon, in which he identifies himself as
Wulfwinus, "the one dedicated to God" (sacerDei), "with
the surname Cada" (cognomento Cada). Although the name
has not been identified, he may be "Wulfwinus the scribe"
(Wulfwinus scriptor), who was a member of the community
of SaintAugustine's, Canterbury; around the time when the
ParisPsalter wascopied.4 Whatever hisidentity;he doesnot
seem to display any special interest or expertise in Psalter
matters, judging by the significant number of copying er-
rors, some of them involvingwhole sentences, in both the
Latin and the Old English parts. Indeed, the indifferent
qualityofthe copied texts, andthe useofthe Roman Psalter
at this late date rather than the widely used Gallican ver-
sion, fitswellwith the proposed layaudience.
Within the Paris manuscript, the Prose Psalms provide
the text of Psalms to 50, and the Metrical Psalms the re-
I
maining Psalms 51to 150. The most likely explanation for
this arrangement is that only the first fifty psalms of the
prose were available, and so for the remaining psalms the
metrical version (which evidently covered the fullPsalter)5
was supplied for want of a better alternative. The present
edition combines the Prose andMetrical Psalmsinthe same
complementary sequence, to provide a fullvernacular ren-
dering ofthe 150psalms.
The Prose Psalms, onlinguistic grounds, aregenerallyac-
cepted as having been composed in the early West-Saxon
dialect of Old English, probably in the late ninth century; a
ix
INTRODUCTION
combination of circumstances that would locate it in the
kingdom of Wessex during the reign of King Alfred (871-
899).Indeed, many scholars believe that they are aproduct
of his ambitious plan to translate from Latin into English
"certain books, those which are the most necessary for all
people to know" (sum& bee, aa ae niedbeaearfosta sien eallum
monnum towiotonne). 6In support they point toAlfred's daily
recitation of the psalms as apersonal devotion, attested by
Asser,7and the statement of William of Malmesbury (ca.
1125)that at the time ofhis death the king had just finished
translating the first fiftypsalms.8William's statement would
accord neatly with the fact that the prose version in its ex-
tant form contains precisely that number ofpsalms. But the
most compelling evidence forAlfredian authorship isinter-
nal; the vocabulary and word usage of the Prose Psalms,
which, asdemonstrated byBately,showaremarkable degree
of agreement with that of other works attributed toAlfred,
notably,his translations of Pope Gregory the Great's Pasto-
ral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, and Saint Au-
gustine's Soliloquies.9 There seems to be a general, if not
unanimous, consensus that the work isaproduct ofAlfred's
circle of scholars and that the king played an active role in
the process.
Byalmost any standard, the Prose Psalms are a remark-
ablepiece ofwork; indeed, there isnothing quite likethem
amongthe other earlymedievalvernaculars ofthe West. For
one thing, the work represents a bold foray into the per-
ilous field of scriptural translation, which, while not ex-
presslyforbidden bythe Roman Church, washardly encour-
aged.And in the same venturesome spirit, it offers not so
much a"safe"literal translation asagenuine paraphrase, one
x
INTRODUCTION
focused on conveying the meaning of the psalms in exposi-
tory prose. The base text for this translation was the Roman
Psalter (Ro), the version of the psalms current (and domi-
nant) in England from the early eighth to the late tenth cen-
turies. However, as part of his effort to convey the literal
meaning asaccurately and intelligibly aspossible, the author
had recourse to two other versions of the Latin Psalter then
available in the medieval West, the Gallican (Ga) and the
Hebrew (He)versions. Quite frequently, he drew from them
readings to parallel or even replace the corresponding read-
ing of the Roman Psalter. For example, Psalm 11.3,jJa ofer-
sprd?canand jJayfel-sprd?can tungan (those boastful and those
malicious tongues) combines Gamagniloquam and Romalilo-
quam; Psalm 34.15, hi blissedon ... on minum ungelimpe (they
rejoiced ... in my misfortune) reflects He in infirmitate mea
laetabantur (Roand Ga aduersum me laetati sunt).l0
The defining feature ofthe Prose Psalms istheir combin-
ing of literal translation with historically oriented interpre-
tation. In practice this meant accounting as far as possible
for the full Latin text, even to the level of the individual
word, while at the same time ordering the text ofthe psalms
as a record of King David and other major figures (and
events) ofJewish history after his time, such as the Babylo-
nian Captivity, King Hezekiah, and the Maccabees. While
this approach to reading the Old Testament might seem ob-
vious to modern readers, it was exceptional for its time and
place, running counter to the type of scriptural exegesis
generally practiced in the medieval West, which was based
on the allegorical approach developed at the school ofAlex-
andria. The mode of interpretation adopted in the Prose
Psalms might loosely be described asAntiochene, atype of
xi
INTRODUCTION
exegesispracticed in the school ofAntioch, which empha-
sized the literal meaning of the psalms. Its most influential
exponent wasTheodore ofMopsuestia (ca.350-428), whose
commentary on the psalms heavily influenced the Prose
Psalms, though indirectly through Latin translations and
abridgments.ll
Although foregrounded in a literal and historical ap-
proach, the Prose Psalmsquite frequently advert to allegori-
cal interpretation, especially of the type that treated the
psalms assignifyingevents inthe lifeofChrist and the con-
temporary Christian community; for example, the psalmist
suffering at the hands ofhis enemies could be read allegori-
cally as Christ, or the Church, or the individual Christian
enduring similar difficulties at the hands of the Jews or the
devil.The Prose Psalms acknowledges this approach byfre-
quently supplying allegorical renderings in juxtaposition to
their literal counterparts, though normally confining them
to individualwords orphrases. Noteworthy isitstranslation
of Psalm 44, where more than half of the verses pair a lit-
eralwith acorresponding allegorical interpretation, the lat-
ter introduced bythe formulap&t is/p&t synt.
In a remarkable innovation, the Prose Psalms incorpo-
rated allegorical interpretation more formally by means of
anintroductory paragraph entered atthe head ofeachpsalm.
The "Introduction" laysout informulaic styleaset ofpossi-
ble interpretations (normally four) for its particular psalm.
Thus, the typical Introduction provides: (I) afirst historical
interpretation, referring to King David and his time; (2) a
second historical interpretation, referring to post-Davidic
figures(andevents) ofthe OldTestament, forexample, King
Hezekiah or the Maccabees; (3)amoral clause,designed, for
xii
INTRODUCTION
"everyjustperson who singsthis psalm either on his own be-
half or on behalf of another person"; and (4) a Christologi-
calclause, referring to Christ's time on earth.12 Other four-
fold systems for interpreting Scripture were common in the
West, notably that of Saint Augustine of Hippo (historical,
allegorical, anagogical, and moral), but the Old English In-
troductions differ significantly in assigning adominant role
to David in the psalms, both as king and prophet, and in
having two historical interpretations. For both its distinc-
tive fourfold scheme and its historical, Davidic emphasis,
the Prose Psalms drew heavily on aputative Irish (Hiberno-
Latin) Psalter commentary.13
Among Old English translations of the Latin Bible, the
Prose Psalms stand apart asastylistic tour de force, inwhich
translation becomes "transformation" ofthe original (to use
Bately's term).14Thus, the characteristic style of the Latin
psalms, where clauses within averse are sometimes left un-
connected or,more often, simply linked byet (and), istrans-
formed mainly by adding relative clauses, conjunctions, or
adverbs.IS Take, for example, Psalm 10:5,Dominus in templo
sancto suoDominus in caelosedis eius,which translates literally,
"The Lord in his holy temple, the Lord in heaven his seat."
Compare the rendering of the Prose Psalms 10.4, Drihten ys
on his halgan temple, seDrihten seP&ssetl ys on heofenum (The
Lord resides in his holy temple, that Lord whose seat is in
the heavens), where two phrases are made into two clauses
by supplying a verb for each, with the second clause con-
nected to the first bymeans of arelative construction seP&S
(whose). Likewise, Psalm 36:35-36, vidi impium superexalta-
tum et elevatum super cedrosLibani (36) transivi et eccenon erat
quaesivi eum etnon estinventus locuseius (I sawthe wicked one
xiii