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.
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's _Essay
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
the _Aeneid_ were 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 the _Aeneid_, the other with Sir Richard Fanshaw's
rendering of _Il Pastor Fido_. In the later eighteenth century
voluminous comment accompanied Hoole's _Ariosto_ and Mickle's _Camoens_.
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 1632 _The 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 and grammatical tyros,"[376] but later writers seldom repeat
this appeal to the learner. The next year John Brinsley issued _Virgil'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 his _Homer_, "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
standards by 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 the _Aeneid_ he 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 language as 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 of _The 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 the
_Judith_. 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