The Prose Psalms

Together with the Mosaic Prologue to Alfred’s Domboc discussed in the next chapter, the Prose Psalms constitute the first major extant continuous prose translation of the Bible into the English language. Adopting a sense-for-sense or functional equivalence approach, the anonymous author translated Psalms 1–50 of the Romanum Psalter into fluent and at times even stylish Old English prose. By contrast with the interlinear glossed psalters, which sought to ‘move the reader to the text’, the Prose Psalms are a ‘communicative translation’ which aims to ‘move the text to the reader’. While the glosses serve as an adjunct to the Latin text for monastic readers, the Prose Psalms effectively displace the source text by presenting an authoritative English version of the first fifty Psalms for readers who are untrained in Latin. With these (largely) monolingual readers in mind, the translator domesticates the biblical source, smoothing out cultural and linguistic differences. The Prose Psalms are also an interpretative translation, drawing on a range of exegetical materials, including the Argumenta of Pseudo-Bede and a Latin translation and epitome of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s commentary made by Julian of Eclanum, as well, perhaps, as Cassiodorus’ Expositio Psalmorum.1 For full discussion of the sources, see Patrick P. O’Neill, King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms, Medieval Academy Books 104 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 2001), pp. 31–44. All quotations are from this edition. O’Neill’s text of the Prose Psalms is reprinted together with that of the Metrical Psalms and facing-page translation in his Old English Psalms, DOML 42 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016). Other possible sources identified by O’Neill include the Pseudo-Jerome Breviarum in Psalmos and the Glossa Psalmorum ex tradtione seniorum. O’Neill suggests that all of these sources except for the Romanum Psalter itself may have been available to the author via a single Irish glossed psalter, given the popularity of these works in early medieval Ireland: ‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, in Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 256–81, at 276. For the Irish background, see Martin McNamara, ‘Psalter Text and Psalter Study in the Early Irish Church (A.D. 600–1200)’, in his The Psalms in the Early Irish Church, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 165 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 19–142. Like Otfrid, the author of the Prose Psalms confidently uses the vernacular to convey not only the literal but also the spiritual meaning of the biblical source.2 On Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch, see above, pp. 10–11.

Linguistic, stylistic and thematic affinities between the Prose Psalms and the Old English Pastoral Care, Boethius and Soliloquies have encouraged the view that this work was part of the body of translations commissioned by King Alfred as part of his educational programme.3 The connection between the Prose Psalms and the Alfredian corpus was first noticed by John I’A Bromwich, ‘Who Was the Translator of the Prose Portion of the Paris Psalter’, in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe, ed. Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), pp. 289–304. See further Janet Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence for the Authorship of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter’, ASE 10 (1982), 69–95. For a more sceptical view of the relationship between the Prose Psalms and the Alfredian corpus, see Michael Treschow, Paramjit S. Gill and Tim B. Swartz, ‘King Alfred’s Scholarly Writings and the Authorship of the First Fifty Prose Psalms’, Heroic Age 12 (2009). For a recent discussion, which sets the Prose Psalms within a broader context of burgeoning European interest in the psalter in this period, see M. J. Toswell, ‘The Ninth-Century Psalter in England’, in Age of Alfred, ed. Faulkner and Leneghan, pp. 389–408. Stanton treats the Alfredian Prose Psalms as a development from the tradition of psalter glossing (Culture of Translation, pp. 121–9). Noting the translator’s eclectic method, ‘which insouciantly blends the allegorical interpretations of the Alexandrian school with the literal/historical of the Antiochene’, O’Neill envisages a ‘secular author – no doubt assisted by clerical exegetes – composing for a lay audience’, and concludes that this author might well have been Alfred himself (‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, pp. 280–1). Amy Faulkner has recently highlighted affinities between the sustained exploration of the workings of the mind (mod) in the Prose Psalms and the Boethius: ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’, RES 70 (2019), 597–617. On Alfred’s evocation of the translation of Pentateuch from Hebrew to Greek to Latin and then into vernaculars of all Christian peoples in the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care, see above, pp. 3–4. Unlike these works, however, the sole manuscript copy of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter does not feature a preface, epilogue or colophon attributing the translation to the king himself. Such an attribution, if it ever existed, might have become detached during the transmission of the text. However, each individual Old English prose psalm (except for Ps. 1) is preceded by its own Introduction which attributes its composition to King David or other kings of Israel, notably Hezekiah. After foregrounding the ‘historical’ interpretation, the Introductions then provide readers with a ‘moral’ and ‘Christological’ context for understanding each psalm.4 The Argumenta are printed with each Prose Psalm in Liber Psalmorum: The West-Saxon Psalms, Being the Prose Portion, or the ‘First Fifty’, of the so-called Paris Psalter, ed. James W. Bright and Robert L. Ramsay (Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1907). For discussion, see esp. Emily Butler, ‘Alfred and the Children of Israel in the Prose Psalms’, N&Q 57 (2010), 10–17; Emily Butler, ‘“And Thus Did Hezekiah”: Perspectives on Judaism in the Old English Prose Psalms’, RES 67 (2016), 617–35. O’Neill notes that the placement of the moral interpretation before the Christological violates the normal fourfold method of Irish exegesis as well as the chronology of Scripture, suggesting that the translator, whom he refers to as the ‘paraphrast’, ‘regarded the moral interpretation as more important’ (‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, p. 279). For connections between Alfred and David, see Allen J. Frantzen, King Alfred (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986), pp. 89–105; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 31–2; Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 242–63; Michael Treschow, ‘Godes Word for Vox Domini in Psalm 28 of the Paris Psalter: Biblical Translation and Alfredian Politics’, Florilegium 31 (2014), 165–80; Daniel Orton, ‘Royal Piety and Davidic Imitation: Cultivating Political Capital in the Alfredian Psalms’, Neophilologus 98 (2014), 477–92; Toswell, Anglo-Saxon Psalter, pp. 75–82; Gates, ‘Alfredian Prose Psalms’. This prioritising of the literal level of interpretation aligns the Introductions to the Prose Psalms with a tradition of psalm commentary ultimately derived from the writing of the Greek scholar Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428) which treats David as a prophet and the author of all the Psalms. This tradition proved popular in early medieval Ireland and it is therefore possible that the author had access to Irish sources. These Introductions reveal the author’s special interest in the way the Psalms give voice to the physical and mental suffering of a pious king and the tribulations of his people, surrounded by enemies.5 Emily Butler has recently argued, ‘Although some psalms are clearly focused on praise, the apparatus surrounding the Prose Psalms seems most often to reflect a sense of threat or precarity’: ‘Examining Dualities in the Old English Prose Psalms’, in Age of Alfred, ed. Faulkner and Leneghan, pp. 409–28, at 409. For example, the Introduction to Psalm 2 explains how David seofode on þæm sealme and mænde to Drihtne be his feondum, ægðer ge inlendum ge utlendum, and be eallum his earfoðum (‘lamented in the psalm and complained to the Lord about his enemies, domestic and foreign, and about all his difficulties’),6 O’Neill, ed. and trans., Old English Psalms, pp. 4–5 (O’Neill translates Drihtne as ‘God’). David’s enemies are further mentioned in the Introductions to Psalms 4, 9, 12, 16, 17, 21, 27, 29, 40, 42, 46 and 47. while the Introduction to Psalm 5 states that Hezekiah sang this psalm þa he alysed wæs of his mettrumnesse (‘when he had been freed from his illness’).7 O’Neill, ed. and trans., Old English Psalms, pp. 12–13. For further references to Hezekiah’s illness, see the Introductions to Psalms 6, 15, 27, 28, 29 and 31. Although this focus on royal suffering could resonate with the predicament of almost any English king in this period, Alfred’s wars with the Vikings and his physical illnesses present a particularly compelling context for these Psalm Introductions.8 On Alfred’s illnesses, see Asser, Life of Alfred, chs 74, 76 and 91 (Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, pp. 54–9, 76–9; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 88–91, 101–2). See further David Pratt, ‘The Illnesses of King Alfred the Great’, ASE 30 (2001), 31–90. Indeed, the image of David lamenting þæt on his dagum sceolde rihtwisnes and wisdom beon swa swiðe alegen (‘that in his time justice and wisdom should be brought so very low’) in the Introduction to Psalm 11 presents a striking biblical counterpart to Alfred’s famous lament on the decline of learning among the Angelcynn in the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care.9 O’Neill, ed. and trans., Old English Psalms, pp. 32–3. On the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care, see pp. 3–4, 34–5 Asser records Alfred’s personal devotion to the Psalter,10 Life of Alfred, chs 24 and 76; Stevenson, pp. 21, 59; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 75, 91. See further David Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 242–5. while as we have seen, William of Malmesbury states that the West Saxon ruler ‘began to translate the Psalter, but reached the end of his life when he had barely completed the first part’.11 Mynors, Thomson and Winterbottom, eds, I, Book II.123, p. 194. Although it is possible that the author’s plan was only to translate the first fifty psalms,12 Since the time of Cassiodorus (d. c. 585), it had become conventional to divide the Psalter into three groups of fifty. William’s portrait of Alfred translating the Bible at the moment of his death echoes the monk Cuthbert’s account of Bede’s unfinished translation of the Gospel of John.13 See above, pp. 16–19. The Psalter was almost certainly high on the list of essential books that the king requested be translated in the Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care. Although Alfred’s personal authorship of the Prose Psalms cannot be proved, it seems probable that this work – with its pronounced interest in royal wisdom and suffering – was composed in response to the king’s call for a renewal of education among the Angelcynn.

The sole extant copy of the Prose Psalms is preserved in the Paris Psalter, an eleventh-century codex, where it is presented alongside the Latin text of the Romanum Psalter in parallel columns.14 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Lat. 8824; Ker §367. Images of the Paris Psalter are viewable online at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8451636f. For an overview of scholarship, see O’Neill, ‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’. The compiler completed the English section of this bilingual Psalter by including verse translations of Psalms 51–150 from a mid-tenth-century verse paraphrase known as the Metrical Psalms.15 Excerpts from Metrical Psalms 1–50 missing from the Paris Psalter appear in another manuscript of this period, Junius 121, indicating that this work originally constituted a translation of the entire Psalter; for discussion of the Metrical Psalms, see Anlezark, ‘Old English Benedictine Office’; Leneghan, ‘Making the Psalter Sing’. The book is highly unusual in shape and design: it is long and narrow, as though intended to be kept in a box and carried around, but at the same time its appearance is aesthetically pleasing, and the attractive pen-and-ink illustrations in the margins of the first few psalms draw the reader into the text (fig. 4).16 As suggested by Toswell, Anglo-Saxon Psalter, pp. 128–9. These features suggest that the codex was a presentation copy, perhaps designed as a gift for a wealthy patron who wanted to read the Psalms in both Latin and Old English. The Old English prose and verse in the right-hand column of the Paris Psalter is not provided to guide the reader in understanding the Latin in the manner of the glossed psalters. Rather, the layout of this codex reflects the remarkable prestige of written English in eleventh-century England.

The presentation of the Old English text of Psalms 1–50 in the Paris Psalter is probably unrepresentative, however, of the original purpose for which the Prose Psalms were designed. Indeed, as we shall see below, the translation strategies adopted by the author indicate that this translation was meant to be read in isolation from – and indeed instead of – its Latin source text. The Prose Psalms are a biblical translation which displaces the source text rather than supplementing it in the manner of the psalter glosses discussed above. I therefore present below the Old English text of Psalm 3 from the Prose Psalms without the Latin that accompanies it in the Paris Psalter:

Although many of the introductions to the Prose Psalms feature two historical interpretations, Ps. 3 has only one,19 For commentary, see O’Neill, King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms, pp. 169–70. followed by the usual brief moral and Christological interpretation. The opening of the Introduction is derived from the titulus that normally accompanies this psalm in the Romanum Psalter but which is absent from the Paris Psalter: Psalmus David cum fugeret a facie Abessalon filii sui (‘The psalm of David when he fled from the face of his son Absalom’). The final clause of the Introduction, and seofode þa yrmðe to Drihtne (‘and lamented that distressing situation to the Lord’), is derived from the other main source for the Introductions, the Pseudo-Bedan Argumenta, which attributes this Psalm to Hezekiah, qui circumdatus Assyrio exercitu Dominum inuocauerit. Aliter, uox Christi ad Patrem de Iudaeis (‘who, surrounded by the Assyrian army, called upon the Lord. Alternatively, the voice of Christ calling to the Father concerning the Jews’).20 Bright and Ramsay, p. 4. O’Neill notes that the substitution of David for Hezekiah occurs throughout the Introductions (King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 169). As is the case in many of the Introductions, the phrase seofode/seofað to Drihtne (‘lamented/laments to the Lord’) serves as a rhetorical frame, linking the lamenting voices of David, ælc þæra manna þe þisne sealm singð (‘everyone who sings this psalm’), and Christ. Stylistic flourishes of this nature signal that we are dealing with a confident author of vernacular prose.

Alliteration is also used for ornamental effect in the translation of the psalm itself:

By comparison, the Latin source does not feature any identifiable pattern of alliteration, save for the repeated use of forms of the personal pronoun me, the threefold repetition of multi- in verses 1(2)–2(3), and the phrase sancto suo in verse 4(5). The introduction of alliteration in the Prose Psalms can therefore be safely regarded as a conscious stylistic choice on the part of the Old English translator. Further stylistic flourishes include the use of polyptoton (the repetition of words with different inflections), such as in Ps. 3.5: dormiui et somnum coepi > slapan/slep, and doublets, as in Ps. 3.3: gloria mea > min fultum and min wuldor;28 In his discussion of these very verses, Cassiodorus draws attention to the use of this same rhetorical device in the Latin text, commenting: ‘We have here the splendid figure called by the Greeks auxesis, which increases and redoubles by appending words in individual phrases’ (Walsh, p. 69). The Latin style thus partly influences the Old English prose style. Ps. 3.5: resurrexi > me awehte and me upparærde; Ps. 3.8: salus > ure hæl and ure tohopa.

The addition of the intensifier eall (‘all’) provides further alliteration with the twofold repetition of the added personal pronoun ure, further heightening the plaintive tone of this moving vernacular version of the lament psalm.

For what sort of readership was this confident, stylish and communicative prose translation of the Psalms made? We have seen how, by contrast to the Old English psalter glosses which were intended to assist monastic readers in language acquisition and prayer, the Prose Psalms were probably designed to be read as an independent vernacular biblical translation for an audience with little or no Latin. In his Prose Preface to the Pastoral Care, Alfred himself called for the basic education of all young English free men:29 Life of Alfred, chs 75 and 102 (Stevenson, Asser’s Life of Alfred, pp. 58, 88–9; Keynes and Lapidge, Alfred the Great, pp. 90, 107).

Regardless as to whether the phrase to hieran hade (‘to higher office’) refers to those who are being ordained into the clergy or to members of the laity who wish to continue their studies, Alfred’s letter implies that vernacular translations of essential books will suffice for most of the lay nobility.31 For the argument that to hieran hade denotes those being ordained, see Dorothy Whitelock, ‘The Prose of Alfred’s Reign’, in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric G. Stanley (London: Nelson, 1966), pp. 67–103, at 68–9. For an alternative reading allowing for the possibility of a higher stratum of lay education, see Godden, ‘King Alfred’s Preface’. Some lay people were educated in both Old English and Latin, among them – according to Asser – Alfred’s own son, Æthelweard (Life of Alfred, ch. 75). In his discussion of Alfred’s frustration with the poor education of his judges, Asser implies that even some slaves could read books in English at this time (Life of Alfred, ch. 106); see further below, p. 57. The Introductions to the Prose Psalms might have been designed to educate such lay readers in key facts of biblical history while also providing them with clear instruction in how to apply each psalm’s spiritual meaning to their own lives.32 O’Neill, ‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, notes that the historical Introductions ‘could act as cues for expanding on the narratives of David’s (and Ezechias’) life as related in the Book of Kings or Paralipomenon (Chronicles) and thus serve an educational purpose’ (p. 277). Noting the focus on Christ’s suffering in the Introductions, O’Neill suggests the Prose Psalms may also have served a devotional purpose, reminding readers of their debt to Christ (p. 278). Similarly, the subtle stylistic touches highlighted above in the translations themselves serve to enhance the work’s readability, bringing the biblical source’s meaning over to an audience unable to access the Psalms via the Latin text.33 As O’Neill notes, the case for a secular readership of the Prose Psalms is further strengthened by the ‘consistent theme of release from all present tribulations – rather than temptations or vices, as one finds for this interpretation in commentaries of monastic provenance’ (‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, pp. 279–80).

As the most widely read and studied book of the Bible, the Psalms present a strong case for inclusion in Alfred’s list of ‘books most necessary for all people to know’.36 See Anlezark, ‘Which books are “most necessary” to know?’ Indeed, together with the translations of parts of Exodus and Acts contained in the Mosaic Prologue to Alfred’s Domboc, the Prose Psalms may have served as the cornerstone of the royal project of lay education and ecclesiastical revival. As we shall see in Chapters Three and Four, lay demand for access to books otherwise only available to those in religious orders would increase in the tenth and eleventh centuries, driving the practice of biblical translation to new heights.