Практикум по истории языка (древнеанглийский период). Пятышина Т.Г - 54 стр.

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54
Text 3. "ALFRED: PREFACE TO GREGORY'S PASTORAL CARE"
King Arthur bids great bishop Waerferth with his words lovingly
and with friendship; and "I let it be known to thee that it has come
into my mind, what wise men there formerly were throughout England,
both of sacred and secular orders; and how happy times there were then
throughout England and how the kings who had power over the nation
in those days, obeyed God and his ministers; and they preserved peace,
morality, and order at home, at the same time enlarged their territory
abroad; and how they prospered both with war and with wisdom; and
also the sacred orders how zealous they were both in teaching and
learning, and in all the services they owed to God; and how foreigners
came to this land in search of wisdom and instruction, and how we
should now have to get them from abroad if we were to have them.
So general was its decay in England that they were very few on
this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English,
or translate a letter from Latin into English; and I believe that they
were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I
can not remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to
the throne. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any teachers
among us now. And therefore I command you to do, as I believe
thou art willing to disengage thyself from worldly matters as often as
thou canst, that thou mayest apply the wisdom which God has given
thee wherever thou canst. Consider, what punishments would come
upon us on account of this world, if we neither loved it ourselves nor
suffered other men to obtain it: we should love the name only of
Christian and very few of the virtues.
When I considered all this, I remembered also how I saw, before
it had been all ravaged and burnt (burned), how the churches
throughout the whole of England stood filled with treasures and books,
and there was also a great multitude, but they had very little knowledge
of the books, for they could not understand anything of them, because
they were not written in their own language. As if they had said:
"Our forefathers, who formerly held these places, loved wisdom, and
through it they obtained wealth and bequeathed it to us. In this we
can still see their tracks, but we cannot follow them, and therefore we
have lost both the wealth and the wisdom, because we would not
incline our hearts after their example".

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