[Barker, a fellow at Oxford University, completed the first known English translation of Xenophon's Cyropaedia in 1567. In the preface that follows, Barker dedicates the work to the Earls of Pembroke and Surrey, stressing the volume's educational value.]

A Preface to the Right Honorable William, Earl of Pembroke, Lord Harbert of Cardife, knight of the honorable order of the Garter, and President of the King's Highness Council in the marches of Wales, William Bercker wishes health and honor.

Those authors be chiefly to heard, which have not only by finess of wit and diligence of study attained to an excellency, but also have had the experience of manners of men, and diversity of places, and have with wisdom and eloquence joined those two together. For as general things and order of nature can not be perceived, but by them whose natural sharpness of wit is helped with earnest and continual pain, fullness of study so the private doings and dispositions of men only known by daily use and trial of them. And there be many skillful in the one, that be in the other kind very simple, and say much of generalities, but in particularities be utterly ignorant, and other again, who can talk well and wisely in singular points wherein they be experienced, but in the other kind they be in a manner without understanding. Or they who have been brought up in study, and know no more than they have attained unto by reading, be in general things, labored in by other, and found out by much debating of common reason skillfuller than the common sort, and therefore called better learned, and they who have whet the fine edge of their wit, and peered their doings and inclinations of other, with diligent making of the seen, and remembering the marked, be called witty and wise men, and have good praise of their sayings and doings in common life. And hereby happeneth that which is commonly said, the best learned men be not the wisest. Either for that they can not tell particular things, which be in daily and common use of life, or else for cause, although their reason be well furnished with reading and understanding what is best, yet their affections and moods be not hardened enough, nor strengthened with experience and trial of things, and therefore be in their doings many times unadvised and simple. And because each of these things require a whole man's life to grow to any perfectness therein, and it seldom chanceth and once in a man's age, that perfect study and perfect experience meet together in one man, and few painful wits be good, and fewer good wits be painful, therefore cometh it seldom to pass that there be many thoroughly wise men at one time and be more commonly talked of than seen and more looked for than found, and wished for rather than had. And this maketh that in all the course of learning and experience there be very few who satisfy goodly and well judging wits, and whom they would, that seek the price of fame, labor to follow in their writings, whole wits they marvel at in writing.

Some there be, who by diligence and nature have goodly understanding of praiseworthy things, and can find out well what is best to be done, and wittiest to be reasoned, but they lack the stream of eloquence, which floweth with delight to please the dainty ears and can roughly hew the matter to serve for good purpose, but yet lack the swift violence of sweet running talk, to carry away the indifferent mind to their intented purpose.

Other there be, whose wit melteth words sufficient to serve, and gusheth with abundance when they turn their cock, but it is muddy and troubled for lack of fined reason, and so serveth not the purpose well, although it be plentiful, but better unoccupied than spent in weighty causes. Thus Nature playeth well where she purposeth her show, and showeth what she liketh to open her diversity, and is fruitful to weeds if they lie untilled, and overgroweth her self with her own plenty, and by fruitfulness is unfruitful, except her fruitfulness be ordered, and wisom rules Nature, and pares away her excess wherewith she is overcharged, when she is unordered. The barren ground sometime with diligence is tilled, and bringeth forth such fruit, as such a ground can serve for, and what cunning can do where nature will not help, she showeth by her burden, and telleth us this lesson: That nature's want is helped where good husbandry is used, and if grounds well looked to, be of like value to the good grounds ill ordered and overgrown by sloth. Such hardness is it for good things well made to meet all in one man, and matchly to be copied, for nature and diligence to serve experience and study, all which things lightly fall not well together, except some godly grace from some diligent nature, which being well brought up and well disposed to, do furnish nature's beauty with the favor of good learning, and mark well in travail the common doings of men, and apply well together his learning and experience, and labor there unto join wisdom in talk by following of the wise and raising out his words of the nature of the matter, and driving to the end the order of his reason, and measuring by direction the affection of the hearer and draw him to the matter by cunning in conveyance, and not the matter unto him to serve his desire.

But Xenophon this Philosopher hath not only travailed in the general knowledge of true reason to have right understanding what is good and bad in life, and what is true and false in nature, but also travailed by experience to see the diversities of men's manners, and to acquaint himself with right order of civil government, and thereby hath attained to a great estimation of worthiness among the wise and learned, and judged a man most worthy, whose writings should be read with diligence, and travailed in for the fruits of wisdom. For he was Socrates' scholar, out of whose school came first the excellent philosophers, who were afterwards divided into certain sects, and filled all Greece with manifold knowledge, and being joined with the most notable men in schoolfellowship, got equal praise with the chieffest, and hath learnedly intricated the sum of well doings, in his book that he wrote of Socrates' worthy remembrances. For government and order of policy, he first travailed through not only Greece, but also remained with great estimation in the King of Persia's court, and understood not only the nature's of men, the usages of orders, the devices of council, the engines of war, but also the sports and pastimes most convenient for a leisureful life, and hath sorted with skill, that was engrossed by experience, and hath given rules of peace and war no learned man more, and furnisheth a gentleman with much goodly knowledge so much more to be commended than the other, that his rules be in practice for common life and not sought out of the depth of nature, whose perfectness as it is most commendable. So can it not best agree with the common use of life. But what is there that a wise man can with honesty desire, whereof not only the sparkles be scattered in him but also the great beams be largely set, that in such variety and plentifulness of good things, as it is not hard to choose the good, so is it very hard to choose the best. If knowledge of war be sought for, is there any that giveth truer and wiser rules, both for the captain to govern by and the soldier to be ruled after? Did not Scipio, as Tully citeth out of Polybius, think the books of Cyrus bringing up, so full of good instructions and warlike wisdom, that a good captain should never go without them? Was not Cyrus so well taught himself, that he learned not only obedience like a soldier, but government like a captain, and afterwards was fulfilled with all the noble virtues that may be wished with excellency in any ruler? And all those good lessons that either Cyrus learned, or Scipio praised, be contained in this treatise, and fit to be known at this time, not of that the kinds of war be not changed, but for cause those precepts which he gathered out of the everlasting and unchangable right of Nature's laws, do serve all men at all times, and come amiss to no country. The miseries and misfortunes of war, the shifts and escapes from the enemies, the forsight of dangers and avoiding of perils, be they anywhere more grievous or more manifold than in younger Cyrus going up against the King and in Xenophon's return again to Greece? If peace and quietness be looked for, can there be any better rules given for every man's private life, than the worthy remembrances of Socrates? which books contain a sum of manners and life, and what is to be followed as good, and avoided as well, and what honesty and philosophy doth look for, and what nature uncorrupted can naturally require, and which is the right and easy way to the true and reasonable happiness. If government and order of common wealth be sought, can we have a perfecter example of a good ruler, than the praise of Agesilaus is? Which hath prescribed all the worthy virtues that a man can praisably desire, to funish a ruler, which hath not hereon all the incommodities that longeth to governers, and plain demonstrations how in seeking for pleasures, they be furthest from pleasures, and last to attain that wherin they labor first. Be not these books like true glasses, that will show none other favor and beauty of conditions, than be the owners in deed? Nor will not by flattery make mean things great, and great vices small, but according to the true proportion of the qualities, show the visage of the fame? If hunting, riding, and other chosen pastimes be fit to learned of Gentlemen, and taught of skillful men, who did experience them more naturally, and write of them more cunningly than Xenophon hath done? The matters whereof be neither unpleasant to be known, nor unhandsome to be practiced. And yet the chief ground works of riding be so naturally said by him, that he is at this day counted the best horseman that keepeth his orders in riding best, and goeth nighest that true way, which he by wisdom hath of long time prescribed. All these things which severally be scattered and sparse in other, be almost all in one gathered together in this book of Cyrus bringing up and going forth under this title, is indeed a pathway to wisdom, and for matter most fit to be read and known of all Gentlemen, and for fineness of style, most pleasant and perfect in his own tongue. And although herein I have a goodly occasion to commend the writer, that in the most eloquent and excellent tongue hath written most purely, yet because it carrieth the matter whole into another tongue, and keepeth his own fineness still in his own tongue, and our gross tongue is a rude and a barren tongue, when it is compared with so flourishing and plentiful a tongue. I will pass over this praise, with touching only the remembrance of it, and leave so large a matter until a better time, lest in commending his writing I might dispraise mine own, or else in an unneedful matter spend too many words. But shortly to conclude of all books which philosophers have written with judgement, and other hath translated with labor, no book there is which containeth better matter for life, order for war lines, policy for courtliness, wisdom for government, temperance for subjects, obedience for all states. I seem to praise this book too much; to the ignorant I may do, who can not judge, and therefore I pardon him, and yet least worthy pardon to rule over that he knoweth not, and be most busy where he hath lest skill, but to the wise I cannot, who weighing the matter and judging the examples, and examining the rules, shall find as much as plentiful wisdom wittily framed in this short treatise, and in other great volumes, having as expressly every part of wisdom as well set together, as a little tablet containeth the lively face by cunning of workmanship, which the great table for want of cunning sometime doth miss. But because I thought it praiseworthy, I thought it labor worthy also and began my travail of this good opinion, supposing that which of reason contented me, might by the same reason content others too. And besides the honest contenting which must needs be in well minded men, if any man learn anything that he is the better for, I trust he will yield me some thanks, by whose means he hath met with a good councellor, and learned plainly that he might long else have sought for, and therefore thank me for my pains herein at the least, if he further require me not to go on with the like. Therefore in devising to whom I might offer this honest travail of mine, well I trust bestowed, although of every noble man well, yet of no man better than of your good Lordship, whose virtues be better know unto me, than you yourself are, and therefore thought it fit to offer written virtues, where lively virtues dwell, to be better accepted where they see report of their ancient fame, and honor much esteemed. And if the thing is welcomed not, yet another might: your children whom you love and bring them up in learning, and have chosen them of late a good schoolmaster, as I hear, whose diligence and discretion hath much always commended the good learning he hath, and other good qualities. The reading hereof to them may double profit them, both to learn the matter which is good and pleasant, and also to learn to turn Latin out of English, which way although it seem trifling to some, yet is it the readiest exercise that ever I could find, to make a child easily to attain to that profit, which else with labor they shall not (hit) at all. These things make me bold, although not much acquainted, to present to your Lordship the honor of my pains, most humbly desiring you to accept my boldness, moved yet with reason, and where the goodness of the matter, your Lordship's noble virtues, your children's bringing up, hath moved me here unto, you will for these causes accept well my good will, and I shall hereby think my self so bound to you, as other must to me, that hereby profiteth oughts, and desire the living LORD, whose rule goeth through all, to increase your Lordship's honor and nobleness always.

To the right honorable, my singular good lord, Philip, Earl of Surrey, son and heir to my lord and master the Duke of Norfolk's grace, William Bercker wishes furtherance in forwardance of learning with continuance of virtue and honor.

When Alexander the Great did pass by the place where Achilles was buried, he said these words: "O happy Achilles, that had such a trumpet as Homer, to sound thy glory to the world." Of this saying did grow a disputation: whether the valiant captain, that by courage and policy attained fame, or the skillful writer, that by learning and cunning makes report thereof, is more worthy of commendation. For as the doer of noble deeds gives matter to the writer of goodly books, so those deeds should soon die, if they did not live by writ. When Zopyrus, a noble man of Persia, had disfigured his body, and thereby won the city of Babylon, Darius, the king of that country, said: "I had rather have one such faithful subject as Zopyrus was, that ten such cities as Babylon is." Of which sentence rises this question: whether the mighty prince that commands what he will have done, or the worthy subject that executes the prince's pleasure, deserves greater praise. I will leave the matter in suspense, and suffer by silence to be given where it ought. And to your Lordship this I have to say: There is no gentleman alive has more occasion to be stirred by his ancestors' virtues, than you. For if I may remember unto you the noble acts that they have done, and singular services that they have showed, then must I say, that even from my Lords your great great grandfathers, to my Lord's grace your father, you have to receive examples of rare virtue, as well of warlike affairs done abroad, as of royal wisdom showed at home: whose steps to follow, you have two ways. The one is by learning, whereunto I rejoice to see you so well given. For by it, shall you receive such lessons in your youth, as the fame shall be instructions to your at more years. The other is experience, to the which I hope your will give yourself when time shall come. For as the one without the other hath a want, so both being joined together, makes a marvelous perfection. In the first you are yet to be trained with as good inducements as may be, and better can there none be than the reading of such authors as for the matter be most worthy, and for the manner be most skillful. Which being granted, I dare affirm, this Xenophon, whom I now present unto you, to be most fit for you. For he treateth of a prince that in his time exceeded all others, and in him he showeth a model of perfect and princely education. The handling of it is such, as for the excellency both in learning and experience can not be amended. For this Xenophon was scholar to Socrates, and proved so singular, as he was accompted concurrent with his schoolfellow Plato, who for his knowledge was surnamed Divine. This Xenophon was he, that after Cyrus the younger was slain in the expedition he made into Asia, brought home the Greeks that served in that voyage, amidst so many fierce enemies, over so many huge mountains, and through so many dangerous passages. And this was that Xenophon, whom Scipio the singular Roman, that overcame the valiant Hannibal of Carthage, had ever at his pillow, to receive instructions by night that he would practice by day. So as for both considerations, few or none have been found the like. Which although it be true, yet is there one thing that hath a while withdrawn me, from that I now am doing. And it is, that for your Lordship's further furtherance in learning, and for mine own poor estimation, I should rather have exhibited unto you something in Latin than in English, but as a forlorn scholar, not able to keep credit in learning, I do yet entertain myself studies not altogether devoid of learning, which I offer unto you. Indeed I must confess this translation to be done before I went into Italy, finding six books of the same enprinted when I did return, not by my desire, but only by the courtesy and good will of the printer, a furtherer of good learning. For these two later books I have often times been spoken to of diverse of my learned friends, whose requests at length I have satisfied. And because the only intent of the book is to show what a noble man by good education may prove unto, I have both by duty and skill made election of your Lordship, to be the last patron of it, as I made by very good Lord, the Earl of Penbroke, the first. To your Lordship the reading of such matter is convenient, to his Lordship, the judgement is to be referred. Your Lordship must talk of your book, his Lordship of his experience. For the which, joining him with you, as it were in commission, for the good will he hath born to my lord your grandfather, and for the friendship he beareth to my Lord your father, I dare say he will be both a father and a grandfather to you, if cause should require. I shall desire your Lordship, when you read, it to think the time will come, when you shall be called of your prince to take such journies as you shall see that Cyrus appointeth to such as you are, and to do such services as your most noble progenitors have done by the commandment of their princes, whose great glory shall ever so shine before your eyes, as you must needs forsee yourself to follow the same to the contentation of your prince, the benefit of your country, the joy of your parents, comfort of all your friends and servants: the which I among the rest do wish and trust to see. And so most humbly I take my leave of your Lordship. From my chamber at Howard house, the eighth day of this new year, 1567.