With a similar view of restoring the proper measure to the verses, various editions of single plays of Plautus have, within these few years, been printed in Germany. Of this sort is the edition of the Trinummus, by Hermann (Leipsic, 1800), and of the Miles (Weimar, 1804), by Danz, who has made some very bold alterations on the text of his author.
Italy having been the country in which learning first revived,—in which the MSS. of the Classics were first discovered, and the first editions of them printed,—it was naturally to be expected, that, of all the modern tongues of Europe, the classics should have been earliest translated into the Italian language. Accordingly we find, that the most celebrated and popular of them appeared in the Lingua Volgare, previous to the year 1500[585].
With regard to Plautus, Maffei mentions, as the first translation of the Amphitryon, a work in ottava rima, printed without a date. This work was long believed to be a production of Boccaccio[586], but it was in fact written by Ghigo Brunelleschi, an author of equal or superior antiquity, and whose initials were mistaken for those of Giovanni Boccaccio. Though spoken of by Maffei as a dramatic version, it is in fact a tale or novel founded on the comedy of Plautus, and was called Geta e Birria[587]. Pandolfo Collenuccio was the first who translated the Amphitryon in its proper dramatic form, and terza rima. He was in the service of Hercules, first Duke of Ferrara, who made this version be represented, in January, 1487, in the splendid theatre which he had recently built, and on occasion of the nuptials of his daughter Lucretia. The Menechmi, partly translated in ottava and partly in terza rima, was the first piece ever acted on that theatre. The Este family were great promoters of these versions; which, though not printed till the sixteenth century, were for the most part made and represented before the close of the fifteenth. The dramatic taste of Duke Hercules descended to his son Alphonso, by whose command Celio Calcagnino translated the Miles Gloriosus. Paitoni enumerates four different translations of the Asinaria, in the course of the sixteenth century, one of which was acted in the monastery of St Stephen’s, at Venice.
There were also a few versions of particular plays in the course of the eighteenth century; but Paitoni, whose work was printed in 1767, mentions no complete Italian translation of Plautus, nor any version whatever of the Truculentus, or Trinummus. The first version of all the comedies was that of Nic. Eug. Argelio, which was accompanied by the Latin text, and was printed at Naples, 1783, in 10 volumes 8vo.
The subject of translation was early attended to in France. In the year 1540, a work containing rules for it was published by Steph. Dolet, which was soon followed by similar productions; and, in the ensuing century, its principles became a great topic of controversy among critics and scholars. Plautus, however, was not one of the classics earliest rendered. Though Terence had been repeatedly translated while the language was almost in a state of barbarism, Plautus did not appear in a French garb, till clothed in it by the Abbé Marolles, at the solicitation of Furetiere, in 1658. The Abbé, being more anxious to write many than good books, completed his task in a few months, and wrote as the sheets were throwing off. His translation is dedicated to the King, Louis XIV., and is accompanied by the Latin text. We shall find, as we proceed, that almost all the Latin authors of this [pg A-27]period were translated into French by the indefatigable Abbé de Marolles. He was unfortunately possessed of the opulence and leisure which Providence had denied to Plautus, Terence, and Catullus; and the leisure he enjoyed was chiefly devoted to translation. “Translation,” says D’Israeli, “was the mania of the Abbé de Marolles; sometimes two or three classical victims in a season were dragged into his slaughter-house. The notion he entertained of his translations was their closeness; he was not aware of his own spiritless style and he imagined that poetry only consisted in the thoughts, and not in the grace and harmony of verse[588].”
De Coste’s translation of the Captivi, in prose, 1716, has been already mentioned. This author was not in the same hurry as Marolles, for he kept his version ten years before he printed it. He has prefixed a Dissertation, in which he maintains, that Plautus, in this comedy, has rigidly observed the dramatic unities of time and place.
Mad. Dacier has translated the Amphitryon, Rudens, and Epidicus. Her version, which is accompanied by the Latin text, and is dedicated to Colbert, was first printed 1683. An examination of the defects and beauties of these comedies, particularly in respect of the dramatic unities, is prefixed, and remarks by no means deficient in learning are subjoined. Some changes from the printed Latin editions are made in the arrangement of the scenes. In her dissertation on the Epidicus, which was a favourite play of Plautus himself, Mad. Dacier attempts to justify this preference of the poet, and wishes indeed to persuade us, that it is a faultless production. Goujet remarks that one is not very forcibly struck with all the various beauties which she enumerates in perusing the original, and still less sensible of them in reading her translation.
M. de Limiers, who published a version of the whole plays of Plautus in 1719, has not rendered anew those which had been translated by Mad. Dacier and by De Coste, but has inserted their versions in his work. These are greatly better than the others, which are translated by Limiers himself. All of them are in prose, except the Stichus and Trinummus, which the author has turned into verse, in order to give a specimen of his poetic talents. In the versifications, he has placed himself under the needless restraint of rendering each Latin line by only one in French, so that there should not be a verse more in the translation than the original; the consequence of which is, that the whole is constrained and obscure. Examinations and analyses of each piece, expositions of the plots, with notices of Plautus’ imitations of the ancient writers, and those of the moderns after him, are inserted in this work.
In the same year in which Limiers published his version, Gueudeville brought out a translation of Plautus. It is a very free one; and Goujet says, it is “Plaute travesti, plutot que traduit.” He attempts to make his original more burlesque by exaggerations; and by singular hyperbolical expressions; the obscœna are a good deal enhanced; and he has at the end formed a sort of table, or index, of the obscene passages, referring to their proper page, which may thus be found without perusing any other part of the drama. The professed object of the table is, that the reader may pass them over if he choose.
A contemporary journal, comparing the two translations, observes,—“Il semble que M. Limiers s’attache davantage à son original, et qu’il en fait mieux sentir le véritable caractère; et que le Sieur Gueudeville est plus badin, plus vif, plus bouffon[589].” Fabricius passes on them nearly the same judgment[590].