Finding Something to Blame: Apologetic Prologues to Sixteenth-Century Translations into English
Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Dolet, “La maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre, 1540,” 78. Unless stated otherwise, translations of French quotations in this article are mine. 2. Morini, Tudor Translation in Theory and Practice, vii. 3. Ibid. 4. Rhodes, “Status Anxiety and English Renaissance Translation,” 107. 5. Ibid., 107–8. 6. Ibid., 108. 7. Ibid., 110. 8. F. O. Matthiessen (Translation: An Elizabethan Art) is one of the scholars that more vehemently stresses the patriotic element in Renaissance translation. 9. Macrons above vowels indicate an omitted nasal consonant (either an <n> or an <m>) that follows the vocalic sound. 10. Berners, Sir Iohan Froyssart, A3v. 11. Peletier du Mans, “Prefaces to Horace's Ars Poetica, 1545,” 115. 12. Fulwood, The Castel of Memorie, A6r. 13. Wilson, The Three Orations of Demosthenes, 2r. 14. Harington, Orlando Furioso, Mm2r. 15. Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetrie, C4v. Webbe begins by mentioning Master D. Phaer, translator of Virgil's Aeneidos into English, and for Webbe “without doubt the best” (C4r). Then, he proceeds to extensively praise Master Arthur Golding, translator of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of whom he states to have proved through his translations that “the English tongue lacketh neyther variety nor currantnesse of phrase for any matter,” and that “by his continuall laboure” Golding strived “to profit this nation and speeche in all kind of good learning” (C4r). Webbe does not forget Master Barnabe Googe either, who was the translator into English of Heresbachius's Four Books of Husbandry (1577) and of a good part of Virgil's Georgickes. For all this, Webbe believes that England “hath for many respects greatly to gyue God thankes” (C4r). George Puttenham also enumerates in The Arte of English Poesie (1589) some of the most renowned literary translators of England, mentioning both Phaer and Golding too. Afterward in king Edward the sixths time came to be in reputation for the same facultie Thomas Sternehold, who first translated into English certaine Psalmes of Dauid […]. In Queenes Maries time florished aboue any other Doctour Phaer one that was well learned & excellently well translated into English verse Heroicall certaine bookes of Virgils Aeneidos. Since him followed Maister Arthure Golding, who with no lesse commendation turned into English meetre the Metamorphosis of Ouide, and that other Doctour, who made the supplement to those bookes of Virgils Aeneidos, which Maister Phaer left vndone. […] Chaucer as the most renowmed of them all, for the much learning appeareth to be in him aboue any of the rest. And though many of his bookes be but bare translations out of the Latin & French, yet are they wel handled, as his bookes of Troilus/ and Cresseid, and the Romant of the Rose, whereof he translated but one halfe, the deuice was Iohn de Mehunes a French Poet, […] Lydgat a translatour onely and no deuiser of that which he wrate, but one that wrate in good verse. (60–62) 16. Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, 253. 17. Ibid., 61. 18. Du Bellay, La deffence, 85. 19. Peletier, “Art poétique,” 262–63. 20. Ibid., 263. 21. Harington, Orlando Furioso, ¶ 8r. 22. Ibid., A1v. 23. Ibid. 24. Sébillet, “Art poétique français,” 146. 25. Ibid., 146. 26. MacIlmaine, The Logike of the Moste Excellent Philosopher, A8r. 27. Ibid., A8r–B1v. Indeed, Horace himself was far from opposing the creation of new words when writing or the addition of new meanings to already extant words. In fact, as he explained in his Ars poetica, Horace regarded the Greek language as a source of new terms: In verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum reddiderit iunctura novum. si forte necesse est indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis contingent, dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter: et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si Graeco fonte cadent parce detorta. quid autem Caecilio Plautoque dabit Romanus ademptum Vergilio Varioque? ego cur, adquirere pauca si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum nomina protulerit? licuit semperque licebit signatum praesente nota producere nomen. (Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, 454) [Moreover, with a nice taste and care in weaving words together, you will express yourself most happily, if a skilful setting makes a familiar word new. If haply one must betoken abstruse things by novel terms, you will have a chance to fashion words never heard of by the kilted Cethegi, and licence will be granted, if used with modesty; while words, though new and of recent make, will win acceptance, if they spring from a Greek fount and are drawn therefrom but sparingly. Why indeed shall Romans grant this licence to Caecilius and Plautus, and refuse it to Virgil and Varius? And why should I be grudged the right of adding, if I can, my little fund, when the tongue of Cato and of Ennius has enriched our mother-speech and brought to light new terms for things? It has ever been, and ever will be, permitted to issue words stamped with the mint-mark of the day] (Satires, Epistles and Ars Poetica, 455, lines 46–59). 28. Blank, “The Babel of Renaissance English,” 222. 29. Ibid., 212. 30. For more on the different types of terms introduced in the English lexicon between 1500 and 1650, see Baugh and Cable, A History of the English Language, 223–32. 31. Blank, “The Babel of Renaissance English,” 224. 32. Betham, The Preceptes of Warre, A6r. 33. Dolet, “La maniere de bien traduire d'une langue en aultre, 1540,” 82. 34. Gebert, An Anthology of Elizabethan Dedications and Prefaces, 11. 35. Ibid., 12. 36. Ibid., 13. 37. Hawes, The Historie of Graunde Amoure, *4r. 38. Cheke, The Forrest of Fancy, B1v–B1r, 39. Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetrie, A2r. 40. Lydgate, The Boke of Iohan Bochas, A3r–A4v. 41. Berners, Sir Iohan Froyssart, A3v, 42. Munday, The Defence of Contraries, O2r. 43. James I, The Essayes of a Prentise, C3r. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid., C3r–C4v. 46. Ibid., C4v. 47. Ibid., C4r. 48. Webbe, A Discourse of English Poetrie, I1r. 49. Bowes, The French Academie, A2r. 50. Harington, Orlando Furioso, ¶2r. 51. Carew, The Examination of Mens Wits, A2r. 52. Pyott, The Orator, A3r–A4v. 53. Elyot, The Boke, Named the Gouernour, E7v. 54. Ibid., G1v–G1r. 55. Blundeville, A Very Briefe and Profitable Treatise, A2r–A3v. This, of course, implies that in order to write his own book, which Blundeville describes as a version rather than as a translation, he did not make use of the Spanish original but of its translation into Italian. 56. García Galiano, Teoría de la Imitación poética en el Renacimiento, 404. 57. Du Bellay, La deffence, 87–88. 58. Ibid., 88. 59. Peterson, Galateo of Maister Iohn Della Casa, K3r. 60. Eliot, Ortho-Epia Gallica, F1r. 61. Ibid., G4r–H1v. 62. Worth-Stylianou, “Translatio and Translation in the Renaissance,” 131. 63. Du Bellay, La Deffence, 130. 64. Aneau, “Le quintil horacien,” 199.
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