Because of our moving house with its difficulty of finding space and time for new writing I am using spare moments to continue my translation of Dame Julians book. Being someone else’s finished work it is no more than translation into modern English from the early text as edited by Georgia Ronan Crampton, Rochester University.

I thought it might be interesting to show my working, so beginning in chapter 53 I have set out Julian’s writing, breaking it into separate lines at each punctuation and clause. At full stops I usually make a double line break so the text appears versified. Then, as I work through, I copy each ‘verse’ into two identical ones and first do a straight translation of words that differ from Modern English. I then make other changes to fit our present day way of reading and, where suitable adjust the wording to make as poetical flow as possible while keeping the meaning. This leaves the Middle English version and the Modern English together as a comparison.