Chapter 11

Thomas Wilson, who dedicated his translation of Demosthenes to Sir William Cecil in 1570, links himself with the earlier group of translators by his detailed references to Cheke. Like Norton he is very conscious of the difficulty of translation. "I never found in my life," he writes of this piece of work, "anything so hard for me to do." "Such a hard thing it is," he adds later, "to bring matter out of any one language into another." A vigorous advocate of translation, however, he does not despise his own tongue. "The cunning is no less," he declares, "and the praise as great in my judgment, to translate anything excellently into English, as into any other language," and he hopes that, if his own attempt proves unsuccessful, others will make the trial, "that such an orator as this is might be so framed to speak our tongue as none were able to amend him, and that he might be found to be most like himself." Wilson comes to his task with all the equipment that the period could afford; his preface gives evidence of a critical acquaintance with numerous Latin renderings of his author. From Cheke, however, he has gained something more valuable, the power to feel the vital, permanent quality in the work of Demosthenes. Cheke, he says, "was moved greatly to like Demosthenes above all others, for that he saw him so familiarly applying himself to the sense and understanding of the common people, that he sticked not to say that none ever was more fit to make an Englishman tell his tale praiseworthily in any open hearing either in parliament or in pulpit or otherwise, than this only orator was." Wilson shares this opinion and, representative of the changing standards of Elizabethan scholarship, prefers Demosthenes to Cicero. "Demosthenes used a plain, familiar manner of writing and speaking in all his actions," he says in his _Preface to the Reader_, "applying himself to the people's nature and to their understanding without using of proheme to win credit or devising conclusion to move affections and to purchase favor after he had done his matters.... And were it not better and more wisdom to speak plainly and nakedly after the common sort of men in few words, than to overflow with unnecessary and superfluous eloquence as Cicero is thought sometimes to do." "Never did glass so truly represent man's face," he writes later, "as Demosthenes doth show the world to us, and as it was then, so is it now, and will be so still, till the consummation and end of all things shall be." From Cheke Wilson has received also training in methods of translation and especially in the handling of the vernacular. "Master Cheke's judgment was great," he recalls, "in translating out of one tongue into another, and better skill he had in our English speech to judge of the phrases and properties of words and to divide sentences than any one else that I have known. And often he would English his matters out of the Latin or Greek upon the sudden, by looking of the book only, without reading or construing anything at all, an usage right worthy and very profitable for all men, as well for the understanding of the book, as also for the aptness of framing the author's meaning, and bettering thereby their judgment, and therewithal perfecting their tongue and utterance of speech." In speaking of his own methods, however, Wilson's emphasis is on his faithfulness to the original. "But perhaps," he writes, "whereas I have been somewhat curious to follow Demosthenes' natural phrase, it may be thought that I do speak over bare English. Well I had rather follow his vein, the which was to speak simply and plainly to the common people's understanding, than to overflourish with superfluous speech, although I might thereby be counted equal with the best that ever wrote English."

Though now and then the comment of these men is slightly vague or inconsistent, in general they describe their methods clearly and fully. Other translators, expressing themselves with less sureness and adequacy, leave the impression that they have adopted similar standards. Translations, for example, of Calvin's _Commentary on Acts_[351] and Luther's _Commentary on Galatians_[352] are described on their title pages as "faithfully translated" from the Latin. B. R.'s preface to his translation of Herodotus, though its meaning is somewhat obscured by rhetoric, suggests a suitable regard for the original. "Neither of these," he writes of the two books which he has completed, "are braved out in their colors as the use is nowadays, and yet so seemly as either you will love them because they are modest, or not mislike them because they are not impudent, since in refusing idle pearls to make them seem gaudy, they reject not modest apparel to cause them to go comely. The truth is (Gentlemen) in making the new attire, I was fain to go by their old array, cutting out my cloth by another man's measure, being great difference whether we invent a fashion of our own, or imitate a pattern set down by another. Which I speak not to this end, for that myself could have done more eloquently than our author hath in Greek, but that the course of his writing being most sweet in Greek, converted into English loseth a great part of his grace."[353] Outside of the field of theology or of classical prose there were translators who strove for accuracy. Hoby, profiting doubtless by his association with Cheke, endeavored in translating _The Courtier_ "to follow the very meaning and words of the author, without being misled by fantasy, or leaving out any parcel one or other."[354] Robert Peterson claims that his version of Della Casa's _Galateo_ is "not cunningly but faithfully translated."[355] The printer of Carew's translation of Tasso explains: "In that which is done, I have caused the Italian to be printed together with the English, for the delight and benefit of those gentlemen that love that most lively language. And thereby the learned reader shall see how strict a course the translator hath tied himself in the whole work, usurping as little liberty as any whatsoever as ever wrote with any commendations."[356] Even translators who do not profess to be overfaithful display a consciousness of the existence of definite standards of accuracy. Thomas Chaloner, another of the friends of Cheke, translating Erasmus's _Praise of Folly_ for "mean men of baser wits and condition," chooses "to be counted a scant true interpreter." "I have not pained myself," he says, "to render word for word, nor proverb for proverb ... which may be thought by some cunning translators a deadly sin."[357] To the author of the _Menechmi_ the word "translation" has a distinct connotation. The printer of the work has found him "very loath and unwilling to hazard this to the curious view of envious detraction, being (as he tells me) neither so exactly written as it may carry any name of translation, nor such liberty therein used as that he would notoriously differ from the poet's own order."[358] Richard Knolles, whose translation of Bodin's _Six Books of a Commonweal_ was published in 1606, employed both the French and the Latin versions of the treatise, and describes himself as on this account "seeking therein the true sense and meaning of the author, rather than precisely following the strict rules of a nice translator, in observing the very words of the author."[359] The translators of this later time, however, seldom put into words theories so scholarly as those formulated earlier in the period, when, even though the demand for accuracy might sometimes be exaggerated, it was nevertheless the result of thoughtful discrimination. There was some reason why a man like Gabriel Harvey, living towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, should look back with regret to the time when England produced men like Cheke and his contemporaries.[360]

One must frequently remind oneself, however, that the absence of expressed theory need not involve the absence of standards. Among translators as among original writers a fondness for analyzing and describing processes did not necessarily accompany literary skill. Much more activity of mind and respect for originals may have existed among verse translators than is evident from their scanty comment. The most famous prose translators have little to say about their methods. Golding, who produced so much both in verse and prose, and who usually wrote prefaces to his translations, scarcely ever discusses technicalities. Now and then, however, he lets fall an incidental remark which suggests very definite ideals. In translating Caesar, for example, though at first he planned merely to complete Brend's translation, he ended by taking the whole work into his own hands, because, as he says, "I was desirous to have the body of the whole story compacted uniform and of one style throughout,"[361] a comment worthy of a much more modern critic. Philemon Holland, again, contributes almost nothing to theory, though his vigorous defense of his art and his appreciation of the stylistic qualities of his originals bear witness to true scholarly enthusiasm. On the whole, however, though the distinctive contribution of the period is the plea of the renaissance scholars that a reasonable faithfulness should be displayed, the comment of the mass of translators shows little grasp of the new principles. When one considers, in addition to their very inadequate expression of theory, the prevailing characteristics of their practice, the balance turns unmistakably in favor of a careless freedom in translation.

Some of the deficiencies in sixteenth-century theory are supplied by Chapman, who applies himself with considerable zest to laying down the principles which in his opinion should govern poetical translations. Producing his versions of Homer in the last years of the sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century, he forms a link between the two periods. In some respects he anticipates later critics. He attacks both the overstrict and the overloose methods of translation:

the brake That those translators stick in, that affect Their word for word traductions (where they lose The free grace of their natural dialect, And shame their authors with a forced gloss) I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor More license from the words than may express Their 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 err In these translations; all so much apply Their pains and cunnings word for word to render Their patient authors, when they may as well Make 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 consent In sense and elocution; and aspire, As well to reach the spirit that was spent In his example, as with art to pierce His 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 critics who 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, in _Paraphrase of Erasmus on the New Testament_, London, 1548.

[253] _Dedication_, 1588.

[254] _To the Reader_, in _Shakespeare's Ovid_, ed. W. H. D. Rouse, 1904.

[255] Bishop of London's preface _To the Reader_, in _A Commentary of Dr. Martin Luther upon the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians_, London, 1577.

[256] Preface to _The Institution of the Christian Religion_, London, 1578.

[257] Preface to _The Three Orations of Demosthenes_, London, 1570.

[258] Dedication of _Montaigne's Essays_, London, 1603.

[259] Reprinted, Roxburghe Club, 1887.

[260] Preface to _The Book of Metals_, in Arber, _The First Three English Books on America_, 1885.

[261] Dedication of _Marcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties_, 1558.

[262] _A Brief Apology for Poetry_, in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 219.

[263] Preface to _The Natural History of C. Plinius Secundus_, London, 1601.

[264] _Letter to John Florio_, in _Florio's Montaigne_, Tudor Translations.

[265] _To the Reader_, in _The Forest_, London, 1576.

[266] Dedication to Edward VI, in _Paraphrase of Erasmus_.

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

[268] _Epistle_ prefixed 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, of _The History of Philip de Comines_, London, 1601.

[275] _Dedication_ of _Achilles' Shield_ in Gregory Smith, vol. 2, p. 300.

[276] _Preface_ in 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 to _Seven 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 to _Civile Conversation of Stephen Guazzo_, 1586.

[285] Dedication of _The 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 to _The Governor_, ed. Croft.

[291] _Ad Maecenatem Prologus to Order of the Garter_, in _Works_, 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's _Essays_.

[296] _Address to Queen Katherine_, prefixed to Luke.

[297] _To the Reader_ in _Civile 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_, in _Palmerin 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_, in _Diana of George of Montemayor_, London, 1598.

[314] _To the Reader_, in _Honor's Academy_, London, 1610.

[315] _The Familiar Epistles of Sir Anthony of Guevara_, London, 1574, _To the Reader_.

[316] _Prologue_ and _Argument_ of Guevara, translated in North, _Dial of Princes_, 1619.

[317] In North, _The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans_, 1579.

[318] _Dedication_ in edition of 1568.

[319] _Prologue_ to 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_, in _The 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, _Dedication_ of Fifth.

[326] _To the Reader._

[327] _Agamemnon and Medea_ from edition of 1556, ed. Spearing, 1913, _Preface_ of _Medea_.

[328] _To the Readers_, prefixed to _Troas_, 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] _Preface_ to the Earl of Oxford, in _The 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 Dedicatory_ to _A Compendious Form of Living_, quoted in Introduction to _News out of Powles Churchyard_, reprinted London, 1872, p. xxx.

[333] _The Bucolics of Virgil together with his Georgics_, London, 1589, _The Argument_.

[334] _Preface_ in Gregory Smith, vol. 1, p. 137.

[335] _The Schoolmaster_, in _Works_, London, 1864, vol. 3, p. 226.

[336] _To the Reader_, prefixed to translation of _Eclogues_ of Mantuan, 1567.

[337] _To the Reader_, in _The Elizabethan Translations of Seneca's Tragedies_.

[338] Stanyhurst's _Aeneid_, in _Arber's Scholar's Library_, p. 5.

[339] _Ibid._, _Introduction_, p. xix, quoted from _The Art of English Poesy_.

[340] Preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 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 in _The Courtier_, Tudor Translations, London, 1900.

[345] See _Epistle_ prefixed to translation.

[346] Quoted in _Life_ prefixed to _The Governor_, ed. Croft.

[347] _Address to Queen Katherine_ prefixed to _Paraphrase_.

[348] _Address to Katharine_ prefixed to Luke.

[349] _To the Reader_, in edition of 1564, literally reprinted Boston, Lincolnshire, 1877.

[350] _To the Reader_, in _Marcus Tullius Cicero's Three Books of Duties_, 1558.

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

[352] London, 1577.

[353] _To the Gentlemen Readers_, in _Herodotus_, translated by B. R., London, 1584.

[354] _Op. cit._

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

[356] _Preface_, in _Godfrey 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 in _Shakespeare's Library_, 1875.

[359] _To the Reader._

[360] See _Works_, ed. Grosart, II, 50.

[361] _Dedication_, London, 1590.

[362] _To the Reader_, in _The Iliads of Homer_, Charles Scribner's Sons, p. xvi.

[363] P. xxv.

[364] P. xv.

IV. FROM COWLEY TO POPE

IV

FROM COWLEY TO POPE

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' _Ovid_ is 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 the _Aeneis_, 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 Seventh Aeneid 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.