Caxton's Mirrour of the World
Translated by William Caxton
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The opening
Hier begynneth the book callid the myrrour of the worlde, And treateth first of the power and puissaunce of God. capitulo primo.
Y e ought to knowe that whan Our Lord God made the world and that he had made alle thinges of nought, he had no nede of it; ffor as moche had he bifore as he had afterward. Certainly God was to fore, and shal be incessantly after, without ende and withoute begynnyng.
Thenne he shal nothyng amende ne be better, ffor hym fay lied neuer ony thynge. He seeth all, hereth all, knoweth alle, and holdeth alle thynge in his honde; he had neuer hunger, ne thurste, ne tyme, ne daye, ne hour, but abydeth contynuelly in alle good: ffor to hym ne apperteyneth soone ne late; and of alle them that euer were, that ben and shal be, haue alway ben and shal be to fore his eyen as wel the ferre as the nyghe, and the euyll as the good. He sawe as wel the world er it was made and fourmed as he doth now at this daye.
And yf he had neuer made the worlde, as moche had he ben thenne worth, and of as grete vale we, as he euer myght haue be; ffor other wise he myght not be God yf he knewe not, sawe and herde alle that myght be; and yf he were not soo, he shold be lackyng and not myghty of euery thynge; and of so moche he was and shold be a mortal man.
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About this edition
- The words
- William Caxton's English translation, copied word for word.
- Left out
- Page numbers and running heads from the printed pages, in 9 places
- Google's notice on the digitized book (3 blocks)
- The label of the frontispiece woodcut (“Fig. 37 .”); the pictures are not in the text edition
- The title page and opening pages before chapter 1, in 3 places
- Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers, in 3 places
- The label of a reproduced woodcut (“Fig. 3.”): the pictures are not in the text edition (16 blocks)
- A speck or stray mark the OCR read as a character, standing alone (14 blocks)
- A blank page (one speck) and Google's mark (3 blocks)
- A preface, foreword or afterword