Alfred the Great and the Anonymous Prose Proem to the Boethius

by NICOLE GUENTHER DISCENZA, University of South Florida


The Prose Proem to the Old English Boethius presents readers with serious difficulties. Scholars value it because it describes Alfred the Great's process of first translating Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae into vernacular prose and then transforming the Meters into alliterative verse:

Ælfred kuning wæs wealhstod ðisse bec, 7 hie of boclædene on englisc wende, swa hio nu is gedon. Hwilum he sette word be worde, hwilum andgit of andgite, swa swa he hit þa sweotolost 7 andgitfullicast gereccan mihte for þam mistlicum 7 manigfealdum weoruldbisgum þe hine oft ægðer ge on mode ge on lichoman bisgodan. Ða bisgu us sint swipe earfoþrime þe on his dagum on þa ricu becoman þe he underfangen hæfde, 7 þeah da þas boc hæfde geleornode 7 of lædene to engliscum spelle gewende, 7 geworhte hi eft to leode, swa swa heo nu gedon is; 7 nu bit 7 for Godes naman he halsað ælcne þara þe pas boc rædan lyste, þæt he for hine gebidde, 7 him ne wite gif he hit rihtlicor ongite þonne he mihte; forþamþe ælc mon sceal be his andgites mæðe 7 be his æmettan sprecan pæt he sprecð, 7 don þæt þæt he deþ.

(King Alfred was translator of this book, and he rendered it from Latin into English, as it is now done. Sometimes he translated word by word, sometimes sense by sense, just as he could most clearly and most meaningfully render it amid the various and manifold worldly cares that often troubled him both in mind and in body. The cares that befell the kingdom in the days when he had succeeded to it are very difficult for us to enumerate, and yet when he had learned this book and translated it from Latin into English prose, he worked it afterwords into song, just as it is now done. And now he bids and for God's name he prays each of those who wish to read this book, that they pray for him, and not blame him if they may understand it more rightly than he could. For every man must speak what he speaks and do what he does according to the measure of his understanding and his leisure.)