FOOTNOTES:

the brakeThat those translators stick in, that affectTheir word for word traductions (where they loseThe free grace of their natural dialect,And shame their authors with a forced gloss)I laugh to see; and yet as much abhorMore license from the words than may expressTheir full compression, and make clear the author.[362]

It is literalism, however, which bears the brunt of his attack. He is always conscious, "how pedantical and absurd an affectation it is in the interpretation of any author (much more of Homer) to turn him word for word, when (according to Horace and other best lawgivers to translators) it is the part of every knowing and judicial interpreter, not to follow the number and order of words, but the material things themselves, and sentences to weigh diligently, and to clothe and adorn them with words, and such a style and form of oration, as are most apt for the language in which they are converted."[363]Strangely enough, he thinks this literalism the prevailing fault of translators. He hardly dares present his work

To reading judgments, since so gen'rally,Custom hath made ev'n th'ablest agents errIn these translations; all so much applyTheir pains and cunnings word for word to renderTheir patient authors, when they may as wellMake fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender,Or their tongues' speech in other mouths compell.[364]

Chapman, however, believes that it is possible to overcome the difficulties of translation. Although the "sense and elegancy" of Greek and English are of "distinguished natures," he holds that it requires

Only a judgment to make both consentIn sense and elocution; and aspire,As well to reach the spirit that was spentIn his example, as with art to pierceHis grammar, and etymology of words.

This same theory was taken up by numerous seventeenth and eighteenth century translators. Avoiding as it does the two extremes, it easily commended itself to the reason. Unfortunately it was frequently appropriated by criticswho were not inclined to labor strenuously with the problems of translation. One misses in much of the later comment the vigorous thinking of the early Renaissance translators. The theory of translation was not yet regarded as "a common work of building" to which each might contribute, and much that was valuable in sixteenth-century comment was lost by forgetfulness and neglect.

FOOTNOTES:[250]Gregory Smith,Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. I, p. 313.[251]Introduction, in Foster Watson,Vives and the Renaissance Education of Women, 1912.[252]Letter prefixed to John, inParaphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament, London, 1548.[253]Dedication, 1588.[254]To the Reader, inShakespeare's Ovid, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, 1904.[255]Bishop of London's prefaceTo the Reader, inA Commentary of Dr. Martin Luther upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, London, 1577.[256]Preface toThe Institution of the Christian Religion, London, 1578.[257]Preface toThe Three Orations of Demosthenes, London, 1570.[258]Dedication ofMontaigne's Essays, London, 1603.[259]Reprinted, Roxburghe Club, 1887.[260]Preface toThe Book of Metals, in Arber,The First Three English Books on America, 1885.[261]Dedication ofMarcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 1558.[262]A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 219.[263]Preface toThe Natural History of C. Plinius Secundus, London, 1601.[264]Letter to John Florio, inFlorio's Montaigne, Tudor Translations.[265]To the Reader, inThe Forest, London, 1576.[266]Dedication to Edward VI, inParaphrase of Erasmus.[267]Prologue to Proverbs or Adagies with new additions gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus by Richard Taverner, London, 1539.[268]Epistleprefixed to translation, 1568.[269]Published, Tottell, 1561.[270]Reprinted, London, 1915.[271]Dedication, in edition of 1588.[272]Op. cit.[273]Dedication,op. cit.[274]Dedication, dated 1596, ofThe History of Philip de Comines, London, 1601.[275]DedicationofAchilles' Shieldin Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 300.[276]Prefacein Arber,op. cit.[277]Preface, dated 1584, to translation published 1590.[278]Title page, 1574.[279]To the Reader,op. cit.[280]London, 1570.[281]Preface toSeven Books of the Iliad of Homer, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 293.[282]Op. cit.[283]Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 262.[284]Preface toCivile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586.[285]Dedication ofThe End of Nero and Beginning of Galba, 1598.[286]Op. cit.[287]Address to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke.[288]Preface.[289]Translated in Strype,Life of Grindal, Oxford, 1821, p. 22.[290]Preface toThe Governor, ed. Croft.[291]Ad Maecenatem Prologus to Order of the Garter, inWorks, ed. Dyce, p. 584.[292]Quoted in J. L. Moore,Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language.[293]In Gregory Smith,Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. 2, p. 171.[294]Quoted in Moore,op. cit.[295]To the Reader, in 1603 edition of Montaigne'sEssays.[296]Address to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke.[297]To the ReaderinCivile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586.[298]Preface, 1587.[299]Master Phaer's Conclusion to his Interpretation of the Aeneidos of Virgil, in edition of 1573.[300]A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, pp. 217-18.[301]Ed. T. H. Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1874.[302]Reprinted, Spenser Society, 1885.[303]The Argument.[304]Reprinted, London, 1814,Prologue.[305]Ed. E. V. Utterson, London, 1812,Preface.[306]The Golden Book, London, 1538,Conclusion.[307]Title page, in Turbervile,Tragical Tales, Edinburgh, 1837.[308]To the Reader, inPalmerin d'Oliva, London, 1637.[309]See Painter,Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, 1890.[310]The Petit Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, ed. Gollancz, 1908.[311]Dedication.[312]Palmerin of England, ed. Southey, London, 1807.[313]Preface to divers learned gentlemen, inDiana of George of Montemayor, London, 1598.[314]To the Reader, inHonor's Academy, London, 1610.[315]The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthony of Guevara, London, 1574,To the Reader.[316]PrologueandArgumentof Guevara, translated in North,Dial of Princes, 1619.[317]In North,The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, 1579.[318]Dedicationin edition of 1568.[319]Prologueto Book I,Aeneid, reprinted Bannatyne Club.[320]Foster Watson,The English Grammar Schools to 1660, Cambridge, 1908, pp. 405-6.[321]Dedication, in Spearing,The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies, Cambridge, 1912.[322]To the Reader, inThe Georgics translated by A. F., London, 1589.[323]Preface, reprinted in Plessow,Fabeldichtung in England, Berlin, 1906.[324]Conclusion, edition of 1573.[325]Seneca His Ten Tragedies, 1581,Dedicationof Fifth.[326]To the Reader.[327]Agamemnon and Medeafrom edition of 1556, ed. Spearing, 1913,PrefaceofMedea.[328]To the Readers, prefixed toTroas, in Spearing,The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies.[329]A Medicinable Moral, that is, the two books of Horace his satires Englished acccording to the prescription of St. Hierome, London, 1566,To the Reader.[330]Prefaceto the Earl of Oxford, inThe Abridgment of the Histories of Trogus Pompeius collected and written in the Latin tongue by Justin, London, 1563.[331]To the Gentle Reader, in Phaer's Virgil, 1583.[332]Epistle DedicatorytoA Compendious Form of Living, quoted in Introduction toNews out of Powles Churchyard, reprinted London, 1872, p. xxx.[333]The Bucolics of Virgil together with his Georgics, London, 1589,The Argument.[334]Prefacein Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 137.[335]The Schoolmaster, inWorks, London, 1864, vol. 3, p. 226.[336]To the Reader, prefixed to translation ofEcloguesof Mantuan, 1567.[337]To the Reader, inThe Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies.[338]Stanyhurst'sAeneid, inArber's Scholar's Library, p. 5.[339]Ibid.,Introduction, p. xix, quoted fromThe Art of English Poesy.[340]Preface to Greene'sMenaphon, in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 315.[341]Dedication, dated 1573, in edition of 1584.[342]Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 313.[343]Dedicated to Cheke.[344]See Cheke's Letter inThe Courtier, Tudor Translations, London, 1900.[345]SeeEpistleprefixed to translation.[346]Quoted inLifeprefixed toThe Governor, ed. Croft.[347]Address to Queen Katherineprefixed toParaphrase.[348]Address to Katharineprefixed to Luke.[349]To the Reader, in edition of 1564, literally reprinted Boston, Lincolnshire, 1877.[350]To the Reader, inMarcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 1558.[351]Translated by Christopher Featherstone, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1844.[352]London, 1577.[353]To the Gentlemen Readers, inHerodotus, translated by B. R., London, 1584.[354]Op. cit.[355]Dedication, in edition of 1576, reprinted, ed. Spingarn, Boston, 1914.[356]Preface, inGodfrey of Bulloigne, London, 1594, reprinted in Grosart,Occasional Issues, 1881.[357]To the Reader, in edition of 1549.[358]The Printer to the Reader, reprinted inShakespeare's Library, 1875.[359]To the Reader.[360]SeeWorks, ed. Grosart, II, 50.[361]Dedication, London, 1590.[362]To the Reader, inThe Iliads of Homer, Charles Scribner's Sons, p. xvi.[363]P. xxv.[364]P. xv.

[250]Gregory Smith,Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. I, p. 313.

[251]Introduction, in Foster Watson,Vives and the Renaissance Education of Women, 1912.

[252]Letter prefixed to John, inParaphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament, London, 1548.

[253]Dedication, 1588.

[254]To the Reader, inShakespeare's Ovid, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, 1904.

[255]Bishop of London's prefaceTo the Reader, inA Commentary of Dr. Martin Luther upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, London, 1577.

[256]Preface toThe Institution of the Christian Religion, London, 1578.

[257]Preface toThe Three Orations of Demosthenes, London, 1570.

[258]Dedication ofMontaigne's Essays, London, 1603.

[259]Reprinted, Roxburghe Club, 1887.

[260]Preface toThe Book of Metals, in Arber,The First Three English Books on America, 1885.

[261]Dedication ofMarcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 1558.

[262]A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 219.

[263]Preface toThe Natural History of C. Plinius Secundus, London, 1601.

[264]Letter to John Florio, inFlorio's Montaigne, Tudor Translations.

[265]To the Reader, inThe Forest, London, 1576.

[266]Dedication to Edward VI, inParaphrase of Erasmus.

[267]Prologue to Proverbs or Adagies with new additions gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus by Richard Taverner, London, 1539.

[268]Epistleprefixed to translation, 1568.

[269]Published, Tottell, 1561.

[270]Reprinted, London, 1915.

[271]Dedication, in edition of 1588.

[272]Op. cit.

[273]Dedication,op. cit.

[274]Dedication, dated 1596, ofThe History of Philip de Comines, London, 1601.

[275]DedicationofAchilles' Shieldin Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 300.

[276]Prefacein Arber,op. cit.

[277]Preface, dated 1584, to translation published 1590.

[278]Title page, 1574.

[279]To the Reader,op. cit.

[280]London, 1570.

[281]Preface toSeven Books of the Iliad of Homer, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 293.

[282]Op. cit.

[283]Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 262.

[284]Preface toCivile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586.

[285]Dedication ofThe End of Nero and Beginning of Galba, 1598.

[286]Op. cit.

[287]Address to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke.

[288]Preface.

[289]Translated in Strype,Life of Grindal, Oxford, 1821, p. 22.

[290]Preface toThe Governor, ed. Croft.

[291]Ad Maecenatem Prologus to Order of the Garter, inWorks, ed. Dyce, p. 584.

[292]Quoted in J. L. Moore,Tudor-Stuart Views on the Growth, Status, and Destiny of the English Language.

[293]In Gregory Smith,Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. 2, p. 171.

[294]Quoted in Moore,op. cit.

[295]To the Reader, in 1603 edition of Montaigne'sEssays.

[296]Address to Queen Katherine, prefixed to Luke.

[297]To the ReaderinCivile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo, 1586.

[298]Preface, 1587.

[299]Master Phaer's Conclusion to his Interpretation of the Aeneidos of Virgil, in edition of 1573.

[300]A Brief Apology for Poetry, in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, pp. 217-18.

[301]Ed. T. H. Jamieson, Edinburgh, 1874.

[302]Reprinted, Spenser Society, 1885.

[303]The Argument.

[304]Reprinted, London, 1814,Prologue.

[305]Ed. E. V. Utterson, London, 1812,Preface.

[306]The Golden Book, London, 1538,Conclusion.

[307]Title page, in Turbervile,Tragical Tales, Edinburgh, 1837.

[308]To the Reader, inPalmerin d'Oliva, London, 1637.

[309]See Painter,Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, 1890.

[310]The Petit Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, ed. Gollancz, 1908.

[311]Dedication.

[312]Palmerin of England, ed. Southey, London, 1807.

[313]Preface to divers learned gentlemen, inDiana of George of Montemayor, London, 1598.

[314]To the Reader, inHonor's Academy, London, 1610.

[315]The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthony of Guevara, London, 1574,To the Reader.

[316]PrologueandArgumentof Guevara, translated in North,Dial of Princes, 1619.

[317]In North,The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, 1579.

[318]Dedicationin edition of 1568.

[319]Prologueto Book I,Aeneid, reprinted Bannatyne Club.

[320]Foster Watson,The English Grammar Schools to 1660, Cambridge, 1908, pp. 405-6.

[321]Dedication, in Spearing,The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies, Cambridge, 1912.

[322]To the Reader, inThe Georgics translated by A. F., London, 1589.

[323]Preface, reprinted in Plessow,Fabeldichtung in England, Berlin, 1906.

[324]Conclusion, edition of 1573.

[325]Seneca His Ten Tragedies, 1581,Dedicationof Fifth.

[326]To the Reader.

[327]Agamemnon and Medeafrom edition of 1556, ed. Spearing, 1913,PrefaceofMedea.

[328]To the Readers, prefixed toTroas, in Spearing,The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies.

[329]A Medicinable Moral, that is, the two books of Horace his satires Englished acccording to the prescription of St. Hierome, London, 1566,To the Reader.

[330]Prefaceto the Earl of Oxford, inThe Abridgment of the Histories of Trogus Pompeius collected and written in the Latin tongue by Justin, London, 1563.

[331]To the Gentle Reader, in Phaer's Virgil, 1583.

[332]Epistle DedicatorytoA Compendious Form of Living, quoted in Introduction toNews out of Powles Churchyard, reprinted London, 1872, p. xxx.

[333]The Bucolics of Virgil together with his Georgics, London, 1589,The Argument.

[334]Prefacein Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 137.

[335]The Schoolmaster, inWorks, London, 1864, vol. 3, p. 226.

[336]To the Reader, prefixed to translation ofEcloguesof Mantuan, 1567.

[337]To the Reader, inThe Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies.

[338]Stanyhurst'sAeneid, inArber's Scholar's Library, p. 5.

[339]Ibid.,Introduction, p. xix, quoted fromThe Art of English Poesy.

[340]Preface to Greene'sMenaphon, in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 315.

[341]Dedication, dated 1573, in edition of 1584.

[342]Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 313.

[343]Dedicated to Cheke.

[344]See Cheke's Letter inThe Courtier, Tudor Translations, London, 1900.

[345]SeeEpistleprefixed to translation.

[346]Quoted inLifeprefixed toThe Governor, ed. Croft.

[347]Address to Queen Katherineprefixed toParaphrase.

[348]Address to Katharineprefixed to Luke.

[349]To the Reader, in edition of 1564, literally reprinted Boston, Lincolnshire, 1877.

[350]To the Reader, inMarcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties, 1558.

[351]Translated by Christopher Featherstone, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1844.

[352]London, 1577.

[353]To the Gentlemen Readers, inHerodotus, translated by B. R., London, 1584.

[354]Op. cit.

[355]Dedication, in edition of 1576, reprinted, ed. Spingarn, Boston, 1914.

[356]Preface, inGodfrey of Bulloigne, London, 1594, reprinted in Grosart,Occasional Issues, 1881.

[357]To the Reader, in edition of 1549.

[358]The Printer to the Reader, reprinted inShakespeare's Library, 1875.

[359]To the Reader.

[360]SeeWorks, ed. Grosart, II, 50.

[361]Dedication, London, 1590.

[362]To the Reader, inThe Iliads of Homer, Charles Scribner's Sons, p. xvi.

[363]P. xxv.

[364]P. xv.

Although the ardor of the Elizabethan translator as he approached the vast, almost unbroken field of foreign literature may well awaken the envy of his modern successor, in many respects the period of Dryden and Pope has more claim to be regarded as the Golden Age of the English translator. Patriotic enthusiasm had, it is true, lost something of its earlier fire, but national conditions were in general not unfavorable to translation. Though the seventeenth century, torn by civil discords, was very unlike the period which Holland had lovingly described as "this long time of peace and tranquillity, wherein ... all good literature hath had free course and flourished,"[365]yet, despite the rise and fall of governments, the stream of translation flowed on almost uninterruptedly. Sandys'Ovidis presented by its author, after his visit to America, as "bred in the New World, of the rudeness whereof it cannot but participate; especially having wars and tumults to bring it to light instead of the Muses,"[366]but the more ordinary translation, bred at home in England during the seventeenth century, apparently suffered little from the political strife which surrounded it, while the eighteenth century afforded a "peace and tranquillity" even greater than that which had prevailed under Elizabeth.

Throughout the period translation was regarded as an important labor, deserving of every encouragement. As in the sixteenth century, friends and patrons united to offer advice and aid to the author who engaged in this work. Henry Brome, dedicating a translation of Horace to Sir William Backhouse, writes of his own share of the volume, "to the translation whereof my pleasant retirement and conveniencies at your delightsome habitation have liberally contributed."[367]Doctor Barten Holiday includes in his preface to a version of Juvenal and Persius an interesting list of "worthy friends" who have assisted him. "My honored friend, Mr. John Selden (of such eminency in the studies of antiquities and languages) and Mr. Farnaby ... procured me a fair copy from the famous library of St. James's, and a manuscript copy from our herald of learning, Mr. Camden. My dear friend, the patriarch of our poets, Ben Jonson, sent in an ancient manuscript partly written in the Saxon character." Then follow names of less note, Casaubon, Anyan, Price.[368]Dryden tells the same story. He has been permitted to consult the Earl of Lauderdale's manuscript translation of Virgil. "Besides this help, which was not inconsiderable," he writes, "Mr. Congreve has done me the favor to review theAeneis, and compare my version with the original."[369]Later comes his recognition of indebtedness of a more material character. "Being invited by that worthy gentleman, Sir William Bowyer, to Denham Court, I translated the First Georgic at his house, and the greatest part of the last Aeneid. A more friendly entertainment no man ever found.... The SeventhAeneid was made English at Burleigh, the magnificent abode of the Earl of Exeter."[370]

While private individuals thus rallied to the help of the translator, the world in general regarded his work with increasing respect. The great Dryden thought it not unworthy of his powers to engage in putting classical verse into English garb. His successor Pope early turned to the same pleasant and profitable task. Johnson, the literary dictator of the next age, described Rowe's version of Lucan as "one of the greatest productions of English poetry."[371]The comprehensive editions of the works of British poets which began to appear towards the end of the eighteenth century regularly included English renderings, generally contemporaneous, of the great poetry of other countries.

The growing dignity of this department of literature and the Augustan fondness for literary criticism combined to produce a large body of comment on methods of translation. The more ambitious translations of the eighteenth century, for example, were accompanied by long prefaces, containing, in addition to the elaborate paraphernalia of contemporary scholarship, detailed discussion of the best rules for putting a foreign classic into English. Almost every possible phase of the art had been broached in one place and another before the century ended. In its last decade there appeared the first attempt in English at a complete and detailed treatment of the theory of translation as such, Tytler'sEssay on the Principles of Translation.

From the sixteenth-century theory of translation, so much of which is incidental and uncertain in expression, it is a pleasure to come to the deliberate, reasoned statements, unmistakable in their purpose and meaning, of the earlier critics of our period, men like Denham, Cowley, and Dryden.In contrast to the mass of unrelated individual opinions attached to the translations of Elizabeth's time, the criticism of the seventeenth century emanates, for the most part, from a small group of men, who supply standards for lesser commentators and who, if they do not invariably agree with one another, are yet thoroughly familiar with one another's views. The field of discussion also has narrowed considerably, and theory has gained by becoming less scattering. Translation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries showed certain new developments, the most marked of which was the tendency among translators who aspired to the highest rank to confine their efforts to verse renderings of the Greek and Latin classics. A favorite remark was that it is the greatest poet who suffers most in being turned from one language into another. In spite of this, or perhaps for this reason, the common ambition was to undertake Virgil, who was generally regarded as the greatest of epic poets, and attempts to translate at least a part of theAeneidwere astonishingly frequent. As early as 1658 the Fourth Book is described as "translated ... in our day at least ten times into English."[372]Horace came next in popularity; by the beginning of the eighteenth century, according to one translator, he had been "translated, paraphrased, or criticized on by persons of all conditions and both sexes."[373]As the century progressed, Homer usurped the place formerly occupied by Virgil as the object of the most ambitious effort and the center of discussion. But there were other translations of the classics. Cooke, dedicating his translation of Hesiod to the Duke of Argyll, says to his patron: "You, my lord, know how the works of genius lift up the head of a nation above her neighbors, and give as much honor as success in arms;among these we must reckon our translations of the classics; by which when we have naturalized all Greece and Rome, we shall be so much richer than they by so many original productions as we have of our own."[374]Seemingly there was an attempt to naturalize "all Greece and Rome." Anacreon, Pindar, Apollonius Rhodius, Lucretius, Tibullus, Statius, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, Lucan, are names taken almost at random from the list of seventeenth and eighteenth-century translations. Criticism, however, was ready to concern itself with the translation of any classic, ancient or modern. Denham's two famous pronouncements are connected, the one with his own translation of the Second Book of theAeneid, the other with Sir Richard Fanshaw's rendering ofIl Pastor Fido. In the later eighteenth century voluminous comment accompanied Hoole'sAriostoand Mickle'sCamoens.

At present, however, we are concerned not with the number and variety of these translations, but with their homogeneity. As translators showed themselves less inclined to wander over the whole field of literature, the theory of translation assumed much more manageable proportions. A further limitation of the area of discussion was made by Denham, who expressly excluded from his consideration "them who deal in matters of fact or matters of faith,"[375]thus disposing of the theological treatises which had formerly divided attention with the classics.

The aims of the translator were also clarified by definition of his audience. John Vicars, publishing in 1632The XII. Aeneids of Virgil translated into English decasyllables, adduces as one of his motives "the common good and public utility which I hoped might accrue to young students andgrammatical tyros,"[376]but later writers seldom repeat this appeal to the learner. The next year John Brinsley issuedVirgil's Eclogues, with his book De Apibus, translated grammatically, and also according to the propriety of our English tongue so far as Grammar and the verse will permit. A significant comment in the "Directions" runs: "As for the fear of making truants by these translations, a conceit which arose merely upon the abuse of other translations, never intended for this end, I hope that happy experience of this kind will in time drive it and all like to it utterly out of schools and out of the minds of all." Apparently the schoolmaster's ban upon the unauthorized use of translations was establishing the distinction between the English version which might claim to be ranked as literature and that which Johnson later designated as "the clandestine refuge of schoolboys."[377]

Another limitation of the audience was, however, less admirable. For the widely democratic appeal of the Elizabethan translator was substituted an appeal to a class, distinguished, if one may believe the philosopher Hobbes, as much by social position as by intellect. In discussing the vocabulary to be employed by the translator, Hobbes professes opinions not unlike those of the sixteenth-century critics. Like Puttenham, he makes a distinction between words as suited or unsuited for the epic style. "The names of instruments and tools of artificers, and words of art," he says in the preface to hisHomer, "though of use in the schools, are far from being fit to be spoken by a hero. He may delight in the arts themselves, and have skill in some of them, but his glory lies not in that, but in courage, nobility, and other virtues of nature, or in the command he has over other men." In Hobbes' objection to the use of unfamiliar words, also, there is nothing new; but in the standardsby which he tries such terms there is something amusingly characteristic of his time. In the choice of words, "the first indiscretion is in the use of such words as to the readers of poesy (which are commonly Persons of the best Quality)"—it is only fair to reproduce Hobbes' capitalization—"are not sufficiently known. For the work of an heroic poem is to raise admiration (principally) for three virtues, valor, beauty, and love; to the reading whereof women no less than men have a just pretence though their skill in language be not so universal. And therefore foreign words, till by long use they become vulgar, are unintelligible to them." Dryden is similarly restrained by the thought of his readers. He does not try to reproduce the "Doric dialect" of Theocritus, "for Theocritus writ to Sicilians, who spoke that dialect; and I direct this part of my translations to our ladies, who neither understand, nor will take pleasure in such homely expressions."[378]In translating theAeneidhe follows what he conceives to have been Virgil's practice. "I will not give the reasons," he declares, "why I writ not always in the proper terms of navigation, land-service, or in the cant of any profession. I will only say that Virgil has avoided those properties, because he writ not to mariners, soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, peasants, etc., but to all in general, and in particular to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be too nicely knowing in such things."[379]

Another element in theory which displays the strength and weakness of the time is the treatment of the work of other countries and other periods. A changed attitude towards the achievements of foreign translators becomes evident early in the seventeenth century. In the prefaces to an edition of the works of Du Bartas in English there are signs of a growing satisfaction with the English languageas a medium and an increasing conviction that England can surpass the rest of Europe in the work of translation. Thomas Hudson, in an address to James VI of Scotland, attached to his translation ofThe History of Judith, quotes an interesting conversation which he held on one occasion with that pedantic monarch. "It pleased your Highness," he recalls, "not only to esteem the peerless style of the Greek Homer and the Latin Virgil to be inimitable to us (whose tongue is barbarous and corrupted), but also to allege (partly through delight your majesty took in the haughty style of those most famous writers, and partly to sound the opinion of others) that also the lofty phrases, the grave inditement, the facund terms of the French Salust (for the like resemblance) could not be followed nor sufficiently expressed in our rough and unpolished English language."[380]It was to prove that he could reproduce the French poet "succinctly and sensibly in our vulgar speech" that Hudson undertook theJudith. According to the complimentary verses addressed to the famous Sylvester on his translations from the same author, the English tongue has responded nobly to the demands put upon it. Sylvester has shown

Back to Index Next