Produced by David McClamrock
by St. Thomas More
with modifications to obsolete language by Monica Stevens
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This edition of the Dialogue of Comfort has been transcribed fromthe 1557 version as it appears in Everyman's Library. The Everymanedition is heartily recommended to readers who would like to tastethe dialogue in its original form.
The first plan was to change only the spelling. It soon becameevident that the punctuation would have to be changed to followpresent usage. The longest sentences were then broken up into twoor three, and certain others were rearranged into a word ordermore like that of today. Nothing was omitted, however, and nothingwas added except relative pronouns, parts of "to be," and othersuch neutral connectives. Finally, obsolete words were changed tomore familiar equivalents except when they were entirely clear andtoo good to lose. Thus "wot" became "know" but "gigglot" and "galpup the ghost" were retained. Words that have come to have a quitedifferent meaning for us, such as "fond" and "lust" were replacedby less ambiguous ones—wherever possible, by ones that Morehimself used elsewhere.
The text has not been cut or expanded, re-interpreted or edited.Any transcription seems to involve some interpretation, consciousor otherwise, but an effort has been made to keep it to a minimum.Passages that seemed to make no sense have therefore been leftunaltered. If other readers find solutions for them theirsuggestions will be welcomed.
This is not in any sense a scholarly piece of work. That wouldrequire a very different method, as well as a far more thoroughknowledge of sixteenth-century English. It would be a mostcommendable undertaking, but it might result in an edition for thelearned. This one is for everyone who has the two essentials,faith and intelligence, presupposed by Anthony in Chapter II.
Middlebury, Vermont.
Feast of St. Benedict, 1950.
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VINCENT: Who would have thought, O my good uncle, a few yearspast, that those in this country who would visit their friendslying in disease and sickness would come, as I do now, to seek andfetch comfort of them? Or who would have thought that in givingcomfort to them they would use the way that I may well use to you?For albeit that the priests and friars be wont to call upon sickmen to remember death, yet we worldly friends, for fear ofdiscomforting them, have ever had a way here in Hungary of liftingup their hearts and putting them in good hope of life.
But now, my good uncle, the world is here waxed such, and so greatperils appear here to fall at hand, that methinketh the greatestcomfort a man can have is when he can see that he shall soon begone. And we who are likely long to live here in wretchedness haveneed of some comforting counsel against tribulation to be given usby such as you, good uncle. For you have so long lived virtuously,and are so learned in the law of God that very few are better inthis country. And you have had yourself good experience and assayof such things as we do now fear, as one who hath been takenprisoner in Turkey two times in your days, and is now like