It Was Originally Written By Orosius, A Spanish Christian, Who
Flourished In The End Of The Fourth And Beginning Of
The fifth century, and
who published a kind of History of the World, down to A. D. 416, which
remained
In good repute among the learned till about an hundred years ago,
but is now much neglected. Near a thousand years ago, the work of Orosius
was translated into Anglo-Saxon, by Alfred King of England, but, with great
freedom and much licence, often using his author merely as a foundation for
a paraphrase; omitting most of the introductory chapters to each book,
sometimes leaving out considerable passages, and often inserting new
matter. This is peculiarly the case with the first chapter of the first
book, containing the whole of the geography, and which is all that has any
reference to the nature of our work.
The Honourable Daines Barrington, who published the Anglo-Saxon version,
with an English translation, informs us that the original MS. is in the
Cotton Library, Tiberius I., and is supposed to have been written in
the ninth or tenth century; but that, in making his translation, he used a
transcript, made by Mr Elstob, occasionally collated with the Cotton MS.
and with some other transcripts. But, before publishing a work of such
curiosity and interest, he ought to have made sure of possessing a perfect
copy, by the most scrupulous comparison of his transcript with the original
MS.
In the following republication of the geographical chapter, much care has
been taken to correct errors, chiefly in regard to direction, as east,
west, north, and south, are often used interchangeably in the translation
by Mr Barrington. Most of the notes are from that edition, or from J.R.
Forster, who reprinted so much of this chapter as referred to northern
geography, and who appears to have studied that part of the subject with
great care.
As a specimen of the Anglo-Saxon, or the language of England near a
thousand years ago, we have given the first sentence of this geographical
chapter in the ordinary Roman letters, with a literal translation.
Our elders have divided all of
this middle-earth, quoth Orosius,
which Oceanus surrounds, which
men calleth garsecg into three
deals.
Geography of Alfred.
Sec. 1. According to Orosius, our ancestors divided the whole world which is
surrounded by the ocean, which we call garsecg[2], into three parts,
and they named these divisions Asia, Europe, and Africa; though some
authors only admit of two parts, Asia and Europe. Asia is bounded to the
southward, northward, and eastward by the ocean, and thus divides all our
part of this earth from that which is to the east. On the north, Europe and
Asia are separated by the Tanais or Don; and in the south, after passing
the Mediterranean[3] sea, Asia and Africa join to the westward of
Alexandria[4].
Sec.
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