lish, not over rude
nor curious, but in such terms as shall be understood, by God's grace,
according to the copy." Though Caxton does not avail himself of
Wyntoun's theory that the Troy story must be told in "curious and
subtle" words, it is probable that, like other translators of his
century, he felt the attraction of the new aureate diction while he
professed the simplicity of language which existing standards demanded
of the translator.

Turning from the romance and the history and considering religious
writings, the second large group of medieval productions, one finds the
most significant translator's comment associated with the saint's
legend, though occasionally the short pious tale or the more abstract
theological treatise makes some contribution. These religious works
differ from the romances in that they are more frequently based on Latin
than on French originals, and in that they contain more deliberate and
more repeated references to the audiences to which they have been
adapted. The translator does not, like Caxton, write for "a clerk and a
noble gentleman"; instead he explains repeatedly that he has striven to
make his work understandable to the unlearned, for, as the author of
_The Child of Bristow_ pertinently remarks,

The beste song that ever was made
Is not worth a lekys blade
But men wol tende ther-tille.[126]

Since Latin enditing is "cumbrous," the translator of _The Blood at
Hayles_ presents a version in English, "for plainly this the truth will
tell";[127] Osbern Bokenam will speak and write "plainly, after the
language of Southfolk speech";[128] John Capgrave, finding that the
earlier translator of the life of St. Katherine has made the work "full
hard ... right for the strangeness of his dark language," undertakes to
translate it "more openly" and "set it more plain."[129] This conception
of the audience, together with the writer's consciousness that even in
presenting narrative he is conveying spiritual truths of supreme
importance to his readers, probably increases the tendency of the
translator to incorporate into his English version such running
commentary as at intervals suggests itself to him. He may add a line or
two of explanation, of exhortation, or, if he recognizes a quotation
from the Scriptures or from the Fathers, he may supply the authority for
it. John Capgrave undertakes to translate the life of St. Gilbert "right
as I find before me, save some additions will I