o yow not plesyng It be,
Yit that ful Excused ye wolde haven Me
Of my necligence and unkonning.[100]

_The Romance of Partenay_ is turned into English by a writer who
presents himself very modestly:

I not acqueynted of birth naturall
With frenshe his very trew parfightnesse,
Nor enpreyntyd is in mind cordiall;
O word For other myght take by lachesse,
Or peradventure by unconnyngesse.[101]

He intends, however, to be a careful translator:

As nighe as metre will conclude sentence,
Folew I wil my president,
Ryght as the frenshe wil yiff me evidence,
Cereatly after myn entent,[102]

and he ends by declaring that in spite of the impossibility of giving an
exact rendering of the French in English metre, he has kept very closely
to the original. Sometimes, owing to the shortness of the French
"staffes," he has reproduced in one line two lines of the French, but,
except for this, comparison will show that the two versions are exactly
alike.[103]

The translator of _Partonope of Blois_ does not profess such slavish
faithfulness, though he does profess great admiration for his source,

The olde booke full well I-wryted,
In ffrensh also, and fayre endyted,[104]

and declares himself bound to follow it closely:

Thus seith myn auctour after whome I write.
Blame not me: I moste endite
As nye after hym as ever I may,
Be it sothe or less I can not say.[105]

However, in the midst of his protestations of faithfulness, he confesses
to divergence:

There-fore y do alle my myghthhe
To saue my autor ynne sucche wyse
As he that mater luste devyse,
Where he makyth grete compleynte
In french so fayre thatt yt to paynte
In Englysche tunngge y saye for me
My wyttys alle to dullet bee.
He telleth hys tale of sentament
I vnderstonde noghth hys entent,
Ne wolle ne besy me to lere.[106]

He owns to the abbreviation of descriptive passages, which so many
English translators had perpetrated in silence:

Her bewte dyscry fayne wolde I
Affter the sentence off myne auctowre,
Butte I pray yowe of thys grette labowre
I mote at thys tyme excused be;[107]

Butte who so luste to here of hur a-raye,
Lette him go to the ffrensshe bocke,
That Idell mater I forsoke
To telle hyt in prose or els in ryme,
For me thoghte hyt taryed grette tyme.
And ys a mater full nedless.[108]

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