III. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
III
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The Elizabethan period presents translations in astonishing number and variety. As the spirit of the Renaissance began to inspire England, translators responded to its stimulus with an enthusiasm denied to later times. It was work that appealed to persons of varying ranks and of varying degrees of learning. In the early part of the century, according to Nash, "every private scholar, William Turner and who not, began to vaunt their smattering of Latin in English impressions."[250] Thomas Nicholls, the goldsmith, translated Thucydides; Queen Elizabeth translated Boethius. The mention of women in this connection suggests how widely the impulse was diffused. Richard Hyrde says of the translation of Erasmus's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer, made by Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More, "And as for the translation thereof, I dare be bold to say it, that whoso list and well can confer and examine the translation with the original, he shall not fail to find that she hath showed herself not only erudite and elegant in either tongue, but hath also used such wisdom, such discreet and substantial judgment, in expressing lively the Latin, as a man may peradventure miss in many things translated and turned by them that bear the name of right wise and very well learned men."[251] Nicholas Udall writes to Queen Katherine that there are a number of women in England who know Greek and Latin and are "in the holy scriptures and theology so ripe that they are able aptly, cunningly, and with much grace either to endite or translate into the vulgar tongue for the public instruction and edifying of the unlearned multitude."[252]
The greatness of the field was fitted to arouse and sustain the ardor of English translators. In contrast with the number of manuscripts at command in earlier days, the sixteenth century must have seemed endlessly rich in books. Printing was making the Greek and Latin classics newly accessible, and France and Italy, awake before England to the new life, were storing the vernacular with translations and with new creations. Translators might find their tasks difficult enough and they might flag by the way, as Hoby confesses to have done at the end of the third book of The Courtier, but plucking up courage, they went on to the end. Hoby declares, with a vigor that suggests Bunyan's Pilgrim, "I whetted my style and settled myself to take in hand the other three books";[253] Edward Hellowes, after the hesitation which he describes in the Dedication to the 1574 edition of Guevara's Familiar Epistles, "began to call to mind my God, my Prince, my country, and also your worship," and so adequately upheld, went on with his undertaking; Arthur Golding, with a breath of relief, sees his rendering of Ovid's Metamorphoses at last complete.
Through Ovid's work of turned shapes I have with painful pace
Passed on, until I had attained the end of all my race.
And now I have him made so well acquainted with our tongue,
As that he may in English verse as in his own be sung.[254]
Sometimes the toilsomeness of the journey was lightened by companionship. Now and then, especially in the case of religious works, there was collaboration. Luther's Commentary on Galatians was undertaken by "certain godly men," of whom "some began it according to such skill as they had. Others godly affected, not suffering so good a matter in handling to be marred, put to their helping hands for the better framing and furthering of so worthy a work."[255] From Thomas Norton's record of the conditions under which he translated Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion, it is not difficult to feel the atmosphere of sympathy and encouragement in which he worked. "Therefore in the very beginning of the Queen's Majesty's most blessed reign," he writes, "I translated it out of Latin into English, for the commodity of the Church of Christ, at the special request of my dear friends of worthy memory, Reginald Wolfe and Edward Whitchurch, the one Her Majesty's Printer for the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues, the other her Highness' Printer of the books of Common Prayer. I performed my work in the house of my said friend, Edward Whitchurch, a man well known of upright heart and dealing, an ancient zealous Gospeller, as plain and true a friend as ever I knew living, and as desirous to do anything to common good, specially to the advancement of true religion.... In the doing hereof I did not only trust mine own wit or ability, but examined my whole doing from sentence to sentence throughout the whole book with conference and overlooking of such learned men, as my translation being allowed by their judgment, I did both satisfy mine own conscience that I had done truly, and their approving of it might be a good warrant to the reader that nothing should herein be delivered him but sound, unmingled and uncorrupted doctrine, even in such sort as the author himself had first framed it. All that I wrote, the grave, learned, and virtuous man, M. David Whitehead (whom I name with honorable remembrance) did among others, compare with the Latin, examining every sentence throughout the whole book. Beside all this, I privately required many, and generally all men with whom I ever had any talk of this matter, that if they found anything either not truly translated or not plainly Englished, they would inform me thereof, promising either to satisfy them or to amend it."[256] Norton's next sentence, "Since which time I have not been advertised by any man of anything which they would require to be altered" probably expresses the fate of most of the many requests for criticism that accompany translations, but does not essentially modify the impression he conveys of unusually favorable conditions for such work. One remembers that Tyndale originally anticipated with some confidence a residence in the Bishop of London's house while he translated the Bible. Thomas Wilson, again, says of his translation of some of the orations of Demosthenes that "even in these my small travails both Cambridge and Oxford men have given me their learned advice and in some things have set to their helping hand,"[257] and Florio declares that it is owing to the help and encouragement of "two supporters of knowledge and friendship," Theodore Diodati and Dr. Gwinne, that "upheld and armed" he has "passed the pikes."[258]
The translator was also sustained by a conception of the importance of his work, a conception sometimes exaggerated, but becoming, as the century progressed, clearly and truly defined. Between the lines of the dedication which Henry Parker, Lord Morley, prefixes to his translation of Petrarch's Triumphs,[259] one reads a pathetic story of an appreciation which can hardly have equaled the hopes of the author. He writes of "one of late days that was groom of the chamber with that renowned and valiant prince of high memory, Francis the French king, whose name I have forgotten, that did translate these triumphs to that said king, which he took so thankfully that he gave to him for his pains an hundred crowns, to him and to his heirs of inheritance to enjoy to that value in land forever, and took such pleasure in it that wheresoever he went, among his precious jewels that book always carried with him for his pastime to look upon, and as much esteemed by him as the richest diamond he had." Moved by patriotic emulation, Lord Morley "translated the said book to that most worthy king, our late sovereign lord of perpetual memory, King Henry the Eighth, who as he was a prince above all others most excellent, so took he the work very thankfully, marvelling much that I could do it, and thinking verily I had not done it without help of some other, better knowing in the Italian tongue than I; but when he knew the very truth, that I had translated the work myself, he was more pleased therewith than he was before, and so what his highness did with it is to me unknown."