KingAlfredsOldEnglishTranslationofAugustines.doc

King Alfred’s Old English Translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies A Rendering into Modern English [1r]…then gathered for myself poles and posts and beams, and handles for all those tools that I knew how to work with, and house-lumber and hall-lumber, and the most beautiful trees for each of those buildings that I knew how to make, as much as I could manage to carry away. Nor did I ever come home with any load without wishing that I could bring home the whole forest, if I could carry all of it. On every tree I saw something that I needed at home. Therefore I instruct everyone who is able and has many a wagon to make his way to the same wood where I cut down these posts. Let him fetch more there for himself and set wings on his wagons with beautiful sticks so that he might plait many a fair wall and erect many a splendid house and build a beauteous manor [1v] and there always, and there!, might likewise dwell pleasantly and comfortably, through both winters and summers, as I now have not yet done. But he who taught me, he whom the wood pleased, he can make it that I dwell more comfortably, both in this transitory dwelling along this way while I am in this world and also in the eternal home that he has promised to us through Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory and Saint Jerome and through many other holy fathers. So I believe also that he will do for all their merits: both make this way more bearable than it was before, and moreover enlighten the eyes of my mind to it, so that I can find the right way to that eternal home and to that eternal reward and to that eternal rest which is promised to us through the [2r] holy fathers. Be it so! It is no wonder that someone would work with such material, both in gathering and also in building. But every man desires, once he has built a dwelling on leasehold from his lord with his help, that he might rest himself there a while, and hunt and fowl and fish and provide for himself in every way on that leasehold, both by sea and by lan