Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/13

Rh Geschichtschreiber in his Geschichte des Hussitenthums (1869), Höfler’s text is one of considerable value, and contains many letters that had not previously been published. For the translation of the few Czech letters, we have depended entirely on J. Kvičala’s Latin rendering in Palackẏ, carefully compared with Höfler’s German translation in the Geschichtschreiber.

The Letters of Hus present not a few difficulties to the translator. First of all, there is the nervousness, terseness, and rapidity of his style, especially in the letters of the Trial. Allusions which would be plain to his correspondents have often, by the lapse of time, become obscure. In such cases it is not easy to give a rendering which is intelligible, or which escapes the tendency to a loose paraphrase. In certain other cases Hus deliberately wrote obscurely in order to escape the consequences of the capture of his correspondence. Another difficulty, apart from the occasional corruptness of the text, arises from his Latinity. It goes without saying that the style lacks classical grace and correctness and, as compared with the earlier mediæval writers such as Anselm or John of Salisbury, or such later curialists as Dietrich of Niem, it is full of pitfalls for the unwary. In our judgment, the Latin of Wyclif is the Latin of one who had ceased to think in that language; the Latin of Hus, though apparently more