Page:Alexander and Dindimus (Skeat 1878).djvu/21

 also of weight. I have said that fragment C is a close translation from one Latin text, but the others are not so. In both of them, however, the same treatment of the Latin version is observed. The text of the "Alexander de preliis" is taken as a general guide, on which account it is here printed at the foot of every page of the English text, with a summary of the later chapters on p. 43. It is, however, supplemented from other sources, and the author seems to have aimed at telling the story in his own way, plainly with the intention of making it more interesting and attractive. Even where he follows the text "de prelii," he by no means translates closely, but gives rather the general sense of the passage, with poetical interpolations ad libitum. Take, for example, a couple of lines from the Latin text printed at the foot of p. 6; and observe the result.


 * Latin text. "Deinde amoto exercituvenit ad fluuium bragmanorum magnum, vocatum ga[n]gei; et castra metata sunt ibi."
 * Fragment C, ll. 4188, 4189, close translation.

"'Þen rade he in aray · remowis his ostis, To þe grete flode off gangem · and graythid þer his tents.'"
 * Fragment B, ll. 137-142; free translation.

"'As sone þe king sai · þat it so ferde, He dide him forþ to flod · þat phison is called, TThhat writen is in holi wriht · & wrouht so to name. From perlese paradis · passeþ þe stronde; In cost þere þe king was · men called it gena, As was þe langage of þe lond · wiþ ludus of inde.'"

It is evident that our author has here had further access to some other text, whence he acquired the notion if identity between the rivers Phison and Ganges. The following passage from Palladius de Bragmanibus (of which more hereafter) shews the source of his knowledge. In speaking of Alexander's approach to the Ganges, the remark is made:-"Fluvius vero Ganges iste est qui nobis vocatur Phison, ferturque in S. Literis fluviorum quator Paradiso exentium unus;" ed. Bisse, p. 2.

This point being perceived, we next proceed to consider the supplemental sources of information possessed by our author. I have