Commonplace expressions, incident perhaps upon the use of the measure, are not unfrequent. Thus
Traces of this are also found in the extract; see beginning of last stanza.
In conclusion, it may be said that Hoffmann's version marks an advance in one way only, readableness; and in this it is hardly superior to Heyne's rendering, which has the advantage of scholarship.
[Footnote 1: See supra, p. 59.] [[Simrock]]
[Footnote 2: See supra, p. 68.] [[von Wolzogen]]
[Footnote 3: See supra, p. 63.] [[Heyne]]
[Footnote 4: See supra, p. 56.] [[Grein's Texts]]
Colophon: Here endeth the story of Beowulf done out of the old English tongue by William Morris and A. J. Wyatt, and printed by said William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, Uppermall, Hammersmith, in the county of Middlesex, and finished on the tenth day of January, 1895. Large 4to, pp. vi, 119.
Troy type. Edition limited to 300 copies on paper and eight on vellum.
Second edition. The Tale of Beowulf, Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats, translated by William Morris and A. J. Wyatt. London and New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1895. 8vo, pp. x, 191.
Ninth English Translation. Imitative Measures.
_Differences between the First and Second Editions._
In the second edition a title-page is added. The running commentary, printed in rubric on the margin of the first edition, is omitted.
The translation is, in general, conformed to Wyatt's text of 1894, departing from it in only a few unimportant details.
_Part Taken in the Work by Morris and Wyatt respectively._
The matter is fortunately made perfectly clear in Mackail's _Life of William Morris_, vol. ii. p. 284:--
'(Morris) was not an Anglo-Saxon scholar, and to help him in following the original, he used the aid of a prose translation made for him by Mr. A. J. Wyatt, of Christ's College, Cambridge, with whom he had also read through the original. The plan of their joint labours had been settled in the autumn of 1892. Mr. Wyatt began to supply Morris with his prose paraphrase in February, 1893, and he at once began to "rhyme up," as he said, "very eager to be at it, finding it the most delightful work." He was working at it all through the year, and used to read it to Burne-Jones regularly on Sunday mornings in summer.'