The current article looks into the process involved in the translation of Latin into Old English poetry: expansion. The author argues that varying standards of Latin literacy in the Anglo-Saxon period, relative scarcity of texts, and cultural distance obscure the precise relationship between Old English and Latin. A number of works are examined in order to illustrate how translation and commentary blend and advance on a spreading course which seeks its own level, first in the response of the poet alone to his source, and then the response of the reader or audience of the poem.