UC-NRLF B 4 D3T 4Sfi THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES E. M. SPEARING Fellow of Netonham College, Cambridge CAMBRIDGE : W. HEFPER & SONS LTD. 1912 Two Shillings net. ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES LONDON AGENTS: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., LTD. THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES E. M. SPEARING Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge $ - : CAMBRIDGE : W. HEFFER & SONS LTD. 1912 PRINTED BV W. HEFFER AND SONS LTD. 101 HILLS ROAD, CAMBRIDGE. lus 5 CONTENTS Introduction. I. Seneca's Tragedies and the Elizabethan Drama. II. Heywood's Troas, Thyestes, and Hercules ERRATA. p. 11, line 1, for wrotigh read wrought. p. 52, ,, 23, for vy read vp. p. 71, ,, 7, for fauours [? savours] read sauours. p. 73, ,, 30, for hoci read hoei. p. 75, ,, 3, for N.E. read il/.£. Hercules e Tragedies. VIII. Grammar. IX. Vocabulary. Bibliography. 255323 tus •5 CONTENTS Introduction. I. Seneca's Tragedies and the Elizabethan Drama. II. Heywood's Troas, Thyestes, and Hercules Furens. III. Neville's CEdipus. IV. Studley's Agamemnon, Medea, Hercules OEJtceus, and Hippolytus. V. Nuce's Octavia. VI. Newton's TJiebais, and the Tenne Tragedies. VII. Metre of the Translations. VIII. Grammar. IX. Vocabulary. Bibliography. 255323 INTRODUCTION So much attention has been directed of recent years to the influence of Seneca's tragedies on the Elizabethan drama by such works as Fischer's Kunst- entivicklung cler englischen Tragodie and Cunliffe's Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, that it is somewhat surprising that the Elizabethan trans- lations of Seneca have remained in comparative neglect. One of the reasons for this neglect has doubtless been the difficulty of access to the original editions and the la«k-i5f"'aiTy""^atisfactory modern reprint. The first editions of the separate translations are extremely rare, and in some cases only one copy — that in the British Museum — is known to exist. The 1581 edition of the collected plays is also scarce. At present only one modern edition exists, and that not an altogether trustworthy one, viz. the Spenser Society's reprint (1887) of the edition of 1581. This is now out of print, and can only be obtained with difficulty. Professor W. Ban& of Louvain, has, how- ever, announced that a reprint of the first editions of the translations by Jasper Heywood and John Studley will shortly appear in his series Materialmen zur Kunde des dlteren englischen Dramas, and this should do much to facilitate the study of these plays. This difficulty in consulting the original editions has rendered most of the work done on the subject very unsatisfactory. Thus the Spenser Society were content merely to reprint, as an introduction to J INTRODUCTION. their edition, Warton's account of the translations in his History of English, Poetry, now more than a hundred years old. The articles on the various translators in the Dictionary of National Biography contain much valuable information, but are not always reliable. Thus the article on Studley states that no copy of the original edition of his Medea is extant, whereas one is to be found in the British Museum, and that on Nuce gives 1561 as the date both of Studley's Agamemnon and Nuce's Octavia, though the former was certainly, and the latter probably, produced in 1566. In 1909 there appeared a German dissertation on the subject, Die englischen Seneca-TJebersetzer des 16. Jahrhunderts, by E. Jockers, Ph.D. Strassburg. It treats very fully the relation of the separate translations to their original, and contains a careful analysis of the peculiarities of style of the five translators, but its value is lessened by its failure to discriminate between the early editions and the Tenne Tragedies of 1581. This mistake is not of great importance in the case of Heywood, Studley, and Nuce, since the 1581 edition is practically a reprint of the earlier editions, though even in their case collation with the original text would have removed certain difficulties which confronted Dr. Jockers. 1 In the case of Neville's CEdipus, however, this mistake vitiates the whole of Dr. Jockers' treat- ment, as the text of 1581 differs in almost every line from that of 1563. Dr. Jockers' account of the lives of the translators and the dates of their work is also untrustworthy, l e.g. on pp. 84, 85, Jockers expends several lines in proposing the emendation Phebe for Thebe (Ag., Tenne Trag., f. 146, 1. 23), the reading which actually occurs in the edition of 1566. INTRODUCTION. and shows too much reliance on the authority of Warton, and of the Dictionary of National Bio- grapJiy. 1 Moreover, the value of his quotations from the Tenne Tragedies of 1581 is considerably lessened by the misprints which occur on almost every page. 2 The greater part of the material in this volume had been collected before Dr. Jockers' dissertation appeared, and after reading the latter I felt that there was still room for another treatise on the sub- ject which should pursue a somewhat different line of treatment, and should be based on a careful study, not of a reprint, but of the original editions. At the same time I wish to acknowledge gratefully the help which Dr. Jockers has afforded to all future students of the translations by his exhaustive treatment of their relation to the Latin originals. My best thanks are due to Professor P. G. Thomas, of Bedford College, London, to whose kindness I am greatly indebted, and to Miss M. Steele Smith, of Newnham College, Cambridge, who first brought the subject before my notice. I owe much to the unfail- ing kindness of Dr. W. W. Greg, of Trinity College, Cambridge, who generously lent me his copy of .the 1581 edition, and has given me valuable help and advice. I wish also to take this opportunity of thanking Dr. J. N. Keynes, Registrary of the Univer- sity of Cambridge ; Mr. Aldis Wright, Vice-Master of i e.g. on p. 77 he repeats the incorrect assertion of the D.N.B. that no copy is extant of the 1566 edition of Studley's Medea. Again on p. 76 he states : " John Studley wurde um das Jahr 1545 geboren. In der Schule von Westminster erzogen, trat er mit ungefiihr 16 Jahren in das Trinity College in Cambridge ein," though the Register of Cambridge University shows that Studley matriculated 12 May, 1563. 2 e.g. on pp. 93, 94, the following misprints occur in quotations from the Tenne Tragedies : — Glance for Glance (p. 93, 1. 5), te for the (1. 9), trancling for trancling (1. 27), did for stack (p. 94, 1. 8), spayse for paijse (1. 31), craning for cramming (1. 33). INTRODUCTION. Trinity College, Cambridge ; Dr. Henry Bradley, of Oxford, and others who have helped nie in my in- vestigations. My thanks are due also to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for permission to re- publish certain paragraphs of my article on this subject which appeared in the Modern Language Review for July 1909 ; and to Professor W. Bang, of Louvain, for permission to use material forming part of the introduction which I have prepared for the reprint of Studley's translations in his Materialmen. NOTE. The system of reference employed throughout this volume is a double one. When separate editions of the translations exist, reference is made both to the first edition and to the Tenne Tragedies, the source from which the exact words of the quotation are taken being mentioned first. All variants of any importance in the other text are inserted in square brackets. Owing to the lack of foliation or pagination in several of the separate editions, reference is made in their case to the signature. References to the Tenne Tragedies are to the folio and line. When no separate edition is extant, the reference to the Tenne Tragedies is preceded by the title of the play, unless this has already been made clear by the context. SENECA'S TRAGEDIES AND THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA. In the sixteenth century the popularity of Seneca's tragedies was immense. To English dramatists, struggling to impose form and order on the shapeless, though vigorous, native drama, Seneca seemed to offer an admirable model. His tragedies contained abundance of melodrama to suit the popular taste, whilst his sententious philosophy and moral maxims appealed to the more learned, and all was arranged" ' in a clear-cut form, of which the principle of construc- tion wasTeasy to grasp. The great Greek tragedians were little studied by the Elizabethans. Greek was still unfamiliar to a large number of students ; and it may be doubted whether in any case iEschylus or Sophocles would have been appreciated by the Eliza- bethan public. The Senecan drama, crjide. and melo- dramatic as it seems to us, appealed far more strongly to the robust Englishmen of the sixteenth century ^-^l ; whose animal instincts were as yet only half sub- > dued by civilization. The importance of the influence exercised by Senecan tragedy upon the development of the Eliza- bethan drama is now generally admitted. The extent THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS of this influence has been demonstrated by J. W. Cunliffe in his Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy, and by R. Fischer in Kunstentwicklung der englisclien Tragodie. It affected both the substance and the form of the drama. The division into_fiy_a_ acts, and the introduction of the Chorus, as in Gorbo- duc, The Misfortunes of Arthur, and Catiline, may be taken as examples of the influence of Seneca on the form of the Elizabethan drama, whilst in regard to matter and treatment Senecan influence was yet more important. It was seen in the treatment of the supernatural, in the selection of horrible and sensational themes, in the tendency to insert long rhetorical and descriptive passages, in the use of sticho- mythia, in the introduction of moralising common- places, and in the spirit of philosophic fatalism. Under these circumstances it was but natural that students who read Seneca's tragedies with delight, and had perhaps taken part in the perform- ances which were frequently given in the colleges of their own University, 1 should wish to make him known to their less learned fellow countrymen, and to win fame for themselves by translating into the best English verse at their command an author who seemed to them so well fitted both to please and to instruct. Thus one of the translators states that it was at the " ernest requeste " of " certaine familiar frendes " that he had " thus rashly attempted so great an enterprise," and continues : l Professor G. C. Moore Smith in his article Plays performed in Cambridge Colleges before 1585 in Fasciculus J. W. Clark dicatus, pp. 267 — 270, states that though the records of Cambridge Colleges are most imperfect during the early part of Elizabeth's reign, he has been able to ascertain that Troas was acted at Trinity College in 1551-2, and again in 1560-1, CEdipus in 1559-60, and Medea in 1560-1, and that Medea was also acted at Queens' in 1563. OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. They . . . willed me not to hyde and kepe to my selfe that small talent which god hath lente vnto me to serue my countrey withall, but rather to applye it to the vse of suche yonge Studentes as therby myght take some commoditie.i During the reign of Elizabeth all the ten tragedies then ascribed to Seneca were translated into English verse. Three of these — Troas, Thyestes, and Hercules Furens — were translated by Jasper Hey wood, younger son of John Heywood the epigrammatist, and fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford. Alexander Nevill^a Cambridge_ student an d a friend of George Gascoigne, translated (Edipus. John Studley, scholar and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was responsible for the versions of Agamemnon, Medea, Hercules (Etazus, 2 and Hippolytus. Thomas Nuce, fellow of Pembroke Hall, CanibxLd^e, translated Octavia; and the remaining play, or rather fragments of two plays, Thebais, or as it is sometimes called Phcenissa 7 , was rendered into English by Thomas Newton, who had been a student at both Oxford and Cambridge. To Heywood belongs the credit of being the pioneer in this work. His Troas was published in an octavo edition in 1559 ,, and his Thyestes, also in octavo, in 15ii0. His Hercules Furens appeared in octavo in 1561. Neville's (Edipus was written, so he tells us, in his sixteenth year, i.e. in 1560, but it was not published till 156^ when it appeared in octavo- Nuce's version of Octavia is ill quarto ; it is undated, but there is an entry which probably refers to it in the Stationers' Register for the year July 1566 — July 1567. Studley's Agamemnon appeared in octavo in 1566, i John Studley. Agamemnon. (1566.) Preface to the Reader [omitted in the Tenne Tragedies.'] See also the passage quoted infra, p. 27, from Neville's dedicatory epistle to Dr. Wotton. 2 The Bodleian Library contains a fragment of an unpublished translation of Hercules (Etceus which is attributed to Queen Elizabeth. THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS and his Medea, also in octavo, later in the same year. No separate editions are extant of his Hercules (Etceus and Hippolytus, but two entries in the Stationers' Register for the year 1566-7 make it probable that these two translations appeared in quick succession to Agamemnon and Medea. In 1581 Thomas Newton collected all these versions of sepa- rate plays, and published them, together with his own Thebais, added to make the edition complete in a quarto volume entitled " Seneca His Tenne Tragedies. Translated into Englysh." Contemporary references show us that the trans- lations were widely read and highly esteemed. Some lines by a certain T. B., prefixed to Studley's version of Agamemnon (published 1566) indicate t hat Hay - wood's Troas had enjoyed stri king success — a success which apparently exceeded its merits in T. B.'s estimation. 1 When Hehvood did in perfect verse, and dolfull tune set out, And by hys sniouth and fyled style declared had aboute, What roughe reproche the Troyans of the hardy Grekes receyued, When they of towne, of goods, and lyues togyther were depryued. How wel did then hys freindes requite his trauayle and hys paine, When vnto hym they haue [?gaue] as due ten thousand thankes agayne? What greater prayse might Virgill get? what more renoume then this, Could haue ben gyuen unto hym, for wrytyng verse of hys? Did Virgill ought request but thys, in labouryng to excell? i Some allowance must be made for the fact that Heywood was an Oxford man, whilst Studley and his friends belonged to Cambridge. OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Or what did fame gyue to him more, then prayse to beare the bell? May Heywood this [thus?] alone get prayse, and Phaer be cleane forgott. "Whose verse & style doth far surmount and gotten hath the lot ? Or may not Googe haue parte with hym, whose trauayle and whose payne, Whose verse also is full as good, or better of the twaine? A Neuyle also one there is, "in verse that gyues no place To Heiwood (though he be full good) in vsyng of his grace. Nor Goldinge can haue lesse renome, whych Ouid dyd translate : And by the thondryng of hys verse hath set in chayre of state. With him also (as semeth me) our Edwardes may compare, Who nothing gyuyng place to hym doth syt in egall chayre. A great sorte more I recken myght, with Heiwood to compare, And this our Aucthor one of them to compte I will not spare. Whose paynes is egall with the rest in thys he hath begun, And lesser prayse deserueth not then He i woods worke hath done. Ascham in his attack on riine in the Scholemaster (published 1570, hut written before 1568) includes the translators of " Ouide, Palingenius, and Seneca " together with " Chauser, Th. Norton of Bristow, my L. of Surrey, M. Wiat, Th. Phaer " as examples of writers who "have gonne as farre to their great praise as the copie they followed could cary them," and considers that " if soch good wittes and forward diligence had bene directed to follow the best examples, and not haue bene caryed by tynie and custome to content themselues with that barbarous and rude Ryming, emonges their other worthy THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS praises, which they haue iustly deserued, this had not bene the least, to be counted emonges men of learning and sM]^ more like vnto the Grecians than vnto the Gothians in handling of their verse." D) William AVebbe in his Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), mentions " the laudable Authors of Seneca in English," and Francis Meres in Palladis Tamia (1598) says "these versifiers for their learned translations are of good note among us, Phaer for Virgils illhieads, Golding for Ovid's Metamorphosis . . . . the translators of Senecaes Tragedies." Nash's well-known passage in his preface " To the Gentlemen Students of both Universities " prefixed to Greene's Menaphon (published 1589) is worth quoting in this connection : — It is a common practise now a daies amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through every arte and thrive by none, to leave the trade of Noverint, whereto they were borne, and busie themselves with the indevors of Art, that could scarcely latinize their necke-verse if they should have neede; yet English Seneca read by candle light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloud is a begger, and so foorth ; and, if you intreate him faire in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speaches. But O griefe ! tempits eclax rerum, what's that will last alwaies? The sea exhaled by droppes will in con- tinuance be drie, and Seneca let bloud line by line and page by page at length must needes die to our stage : which makes his famisht followers to imitate the Kidde in ^Esop, who, enamored with the Foxes newf angles, forsooke all hopes of life to leape into a new occupation, and these men, renowncing all possibilities of credit or estimation, to intermeddle with Italian translations. This passage from Nash seems to indicate that these translations of Seneca proved of great use to the popular playwrights, and especially to Kyd, at whom the satire was probably aimed. 2 The Spanish 1 Scholemaster, Bk. II, Sect. V. 2 See F. S. Boas, The Works of Thomas Kyd. In trod., pp. xx — xxiv. Professor Boas states as his opinion that "though Nash grossly exaggerates Kyd's debt to ' English Seneca,' it had a strong influence upon his dramatic work." (p. xxiv.) OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Tragedy contains paraphrases of passages from Seneca {e.g. Act III, Sc. i, 11. 1 — 11, an adaptation of Agam. 11. 57 — 73), h nt these do not show clearl y t he influence of the tr anslations, a nd the Latin quotations from Seneca which abound in Act ill, Sc. xiii of the same play indicate that Kyd may have gone straight to the original. As with Kyd, so with the other Elizabethan dramatists it is almost impossible to distinguish how much of the debt which they undoubtedly owe to Seneca is due to the plays in the original, and how much to the translations. As Cunliffe observes, the more learned dramatists would not need the help of translations, while the less learned who were glad of the aid afforded by Hey wood and his fellow-translators, would prefer to disguise their obligations by not quoting verbatim. Undoubtedly these translations must have jilone much to spr ead a general knowWIgja^ of Seneca, and to ..insp ire interest in his treatment of the drama, and in all probability their influence was much greater than any examination merely of parallel passages in them and in Elizabethan plays would lead us to suspect. 1 Though it is in this influence that their chief value lies, the plays have a certain interest of their own. Much of the verse is mere doggerel, but the style of the translators has a racy and vigorous character which often makes the reader forget its metrical i mper fections. In the sixth and seventh decades of the sixteenth century Englishmen had not yet found a fitting mode of expression for the i Cp. Camb. Hist, of Eng. Lit., Vol. V. p. 80. "In any case, their influence upon writers for the popular stage is beyond doubt." \ THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS new life surging within them. Yet the life was there, however grotesquely and clumsily it might show itself, and even its early manifestations are worthy of attention. Moreover these translations afford valuable testimony as to the grammar, metre, and vocabulary used by men of classical learning at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. Some of the words employed are very curious and interesting, and the various grammatical forms deserve careful study. At the same time it must be admitted that the intrinsic dramatic worth of the plays is small. The translators had before them an original which, highly as they esteemed it, was utterly lacking in true dramatic quality, and though they felt them- selves at liberty to alter and adapt it on occasions, their alterations show that they had no perception of the essentials of great drama. Seneca's plays are hardly drama at all in the true sense of the word. They show rhetoric, eloquence, and a facility for epigrams, but, in the main, have little action and less development of character. Seneca's utter inferiority to the Greek dramatists, when handling the same themes, te abundantly illustrated by the Medea. In certain other plays, e.g. in the Hippohjtus, Seneca has altered the story in such a way as completely to ruin its tragic beauty, but in the Medea he has followed Euripides almost exactly in the construc- tion of the plot, and yet has contri ved to vu lgarise and_ degrade the wh ole con ce ption. In the first scene Medea appears as almost a rnyinp ; mfljiin r, ca lling down vengeance on her husband, and her language is as wild~and extravagant at the beginning of the play as at the end. There is none OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. of the subtle development of character which we find in Euripides, who shows us Medea as a woman whose latent barbaric instincts gradually assert themselves under the injuries heaped on her, till at last the loving wife and mother becomes the furious savage. In Euripides' play, she is by no means wholly horrible; at first we sympathise with her against her foes, and though at last we shudder at her crime, we feel that the guilt is Jason's as much, nay perhaps more, than hers. But in Seneca's play she awakens no sympathy, for she is nothing but a savage from beginning to end, except per- haps in one interview with Jason. In t he very fir st scene she announces her intention of murder- ing her child ren, and th us the sens e of gradually g rowing horror with which Euripides leads up to that resolve, is entirely lost. The beautiful scene in which she suddenly bursts into tears before Jason over her children, is wanting in Seneca, and finally she _kills the chi]jj|, r^n nn fh^^i^aa before their father's eyes — a gratuitous piece of t heatricaF horror jcar elully avoided by Euripide s. It can hardly be said that the Elizabethan translators show any greater sense of dramatic fitness than does Seneca himself ^J.n fact, they often accentuate his faults and obscure his merits^/ Seneca's speeches, though not well adapted to the characters in whose mouths they are put, are generally effective from a rhetorical point of view, containing much eloquenc e an d many strik in g epigrams. Unfortunately Studley and his companions exaggerated Seneca's eloquence till it became mere rant, and elaborated and explained his epigrams till they lost all their point. Two examples will show the translators' tendency to exaggerate the violence of the original. THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS In the (Edipus, 11. 935, 936, 945—948, Seneca writes: Haec fatus aptat impiam capulo inanum ensemque ducit. 'itane?... ...Iterum vivere atque iterum rnori liceat, renasci semper ut totiens nova supplicia pendas — utere ingenio, miser.' The corresponding lines in Neville's revised translation are (Tenne Tragedies, f. 91b, 11. 27, 28, f. 92 a, 11. 7—14) : With that his bloudy fatall Blade, from out his sheath he drawes. And lowd he rores, with thundring voice. Thou beast why dost thou pawse? O that I might a thousand times, my wretched lyfe renewe. O that I might revyve and dye by course in order dewe. Ten hundred thousand times and more : than should I vengeance take Upon this wretched head. Than I perhaps in part should make A meete amends in deede, for this my fowle and lothsome Sin. Than should the proof e of payne reprove the life that I live in. The choyse is in thy hand thou wretch, than use thine owne dis- cretion. And finde a meanes, whereby thou maist come to extreame con- fusion. Again, Seneca puts into Medea's mouth the words pelle femineos metus et inhospitalem Caucasum mente indue quodcumque vidit Pontus aut Phasis nefas, videbit Isthmos. effera ignota horrida, tremenda caelo pariter ac terris mala mens intus agitat. This is rant enough surely, hut Studley is deter- mined to improve on his original. His version runs thus : Exile all foolysh Female feare, and pity from thy mynde, And as th' untamed Tygers use to rage and raue unkynde, That haunt the croking combrous Caves, and clumpred frosen cliues ; And craggy Rockes of Caucasus, whose bitter cold depryues The soyle of all Inhabitours, permit to lodge and rest, Such saluage brutish tyranny within thy brasen brest. 10 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. What euer hurly burly wrough doth Phasis understand, What mighty monstrous bloudy f eate I wrought by Sea or Land : The like in Corynth shal be seene in most outragious guise, Most hyddious, hatefull, horrible, to heare or see wyth eyes, Most divelish, desperate, dreadfull deede, yet neuer knowne before, Whose rage shall force heauen, earth, and hell to quake and tremble sore. (Tenne Tragedies, 120b, 9—20.) Two examples will illustrate how much some of Seneca's concise and pointed lines lose in the trans- lation. Seneca makes Creon say to Medea ' i, querere Colchis.' Studley translates this by Auaunt, and yell out thy complayntes at Colchis, get thee hence. (Tenne Trag., 124a, 12.) Ill Here. GEt. 641, % where the Latin has two short lines : quos felices Cynthia vidit, vidit miseros enata dies, the English has six long ones : Whom Moone at morne on top of Fortunes wheele High swayed hath seene, at fulnesse of renowne, The glading sunne hath seene his Scepter reele, And him from high fall topsy turuey downe. At morne full merry, blith, in happy plight, But whelmde in woes and brought to bale ere nyght. {Tenne Trag., 198a, 19—24.) It is unnecessary to linger over the dramatic weakness of the Tenne Tragedies. From one point of view their very faults are a merit. The imper- fections of Senecan tragedy did good service hy preventing unduly close imitation. Had the master- pieces of iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides become the models of Elizabethan playwrights, we might have lost our national drama, for the English genius is far removed from the Greek in character. As it 11 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS EROM SENECA. was, when the Elizabethans had learnt what they could from Seneca, they realised the dramatic weakness of his tragedies and struck out a new line for themselves. It is curious to remember that only thirty years elapsed between the publication of even the earliest of these translations and that of Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Faust us, and that within fifteen years of the appearance of the collected edition, Shakespeare had written Romeo and Juliet. 1 It throws a light on the extraordinarily rapid development of the English drama in those thirty or forty years. It seems a far cry from the broken-backed lines, bombastic rhetoric, and puppet figures of these Senecan translations to the perfect harmony of thought and expression, to the ageless and deathless creations of Shakespeare's plays; but great poets can never be isolated from their pre- decessors, and every one of the forces which had been at work in English literature had its part in the perfecting of the Elizabethan drama. Even Shakespeare might not have been quite himself as we know him, had it not been for the work of the obscure translators of Seneca. i It should be remembered that as late as the production of Hamlet, Shakespeare was in touch with the Senecan tradition. There is a close parallel between the Ghost in Hamlet and the Ghost of Thyestes in Seneca's Agamemnon , who vjsps a,t the beginning of the play to incifco hi e aon -iEgisthus to revenge the wrongs. inflicted on him by his brother Atreua. 12 II. HEYWOOD'S TROAS, THYESTES, AND HERCULES FURENS. Jasper Heywood, the first of the translators, came of a literary family. He was the younger son of John Heywood, the epigrammatist and writer of interludes, and through his mother he was connected with Sir Thomas More 1 , whilst his sister Elizabeth was the mother of John Donne. His life was more varied and adventurous than that of the other translators, and his plays show (more originality) and, on the whole, more poetic power, than do the other versions included in the Tenne Tragedies. He was born in 1535, and sent to Oxford in 1547, at the early age of twelve. In 1554 he was elected a probationer fellow of Merton College, but in 1558 he was obliged to resign his posi^-and late in the same year he was elected to a fellowship at All Souls'. It was while he was a fellow of All Souls' that his Senecan translations appeared — Troas in 1559, TJujcstes in 1560, and Hercules Fureiis in 1561. It must have been immediately after the pro- duction of the last-mentioned play that Heywood was obliged to resign his fellowship at All Souls'. on acco unt of th e changes in relig ion. The Heywood family was staunchly Catholic ; Jasper's elder i Jasper Heywood' s mother, Elizabeth Rastell, was the grand-daughter of Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas More. 13 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS brother Ellis had already retired from Oxford to Rome, and in Iftfifl „wp fin d Jasper himself in the Jesuit community at Rome . After teaching philosophy and theology there for two years he was sent to the Jesuit College of Dillingen in Bavaria. where he was appointed professor of moral theology — a post which he held for seventeen years.. In 1581 he returned to England as superior of the English Jesuit Mission. In 1583 he was recalled to ^ the Continent, hut a violent gale on the voyage drove him back to the English coast, where he was arrested and carried t o Lond on in 0^°^^" A few months later he was tried with five other priests, hut while they were condemned and executed, he was remanded to the Tower, and after a year 1 of strict imprisonment he was e xiled to Fran rp, on pain of death if he ever again set foot in England. He spent the remaining thirteen years of his life in Burgundy, Rome, and Naples, dying at the last mentioned on January 9, 159|.« Hey wood's three translations seem to have been very favourably received, and Uis Troas was the only one of the Tenne Tragedies which passed through two separate editions (1559 and 1563j) The other translators speak of his work with evident admiration. Studley goes so far as to say that "the other Tragedies which are set furthe by Jasper Heiwood and Alexander Neuyle, are so excellently well done that in reading of them it semeth to me no translation, but euen i The Diet, of Nat. Biog. states that he endured seventeen months of imprisonment in the Tower, but according to the dates given in the same article, he cannot have spent a full year in the Tower. 2 I regret that the edition of Heywood's translations, with an introduction by H. de Vocht, which Prof. Bang bas promised us in his Materialien, has not yet appeared, as it will doubtless throw fresh light on Heywood's adventurous career. 14 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Seneca hymselfe to speke in englysh." 1 The praises which T. B. in his introductory verses to Studley's Agamemnon (see above, p. 4) bestows on Hey wood's " perfect verse " and " smouth and fyled style" seem somewhat excessive, but it must be remembered that Troas appeared in the first year of Elizabeth's' reign, when English versification had not yet mastered the lessons which Wyatt and Surrey had tried to teach it, and when Sidney and Spenser were still in their infancy. There is much that is grotesque in ^Heywood's work, but he compares very favourably with his fellow translators, and in one play at least -the Troas — he shows real poetic feeling. Amid all the rant and fury of Hercules, (Edipus, Medea, and their companions, the scene between Andromache, her little son, and Ulysses in Act in of the Troas is conspicuous for its ten dernes s and p ath os ; and though this may be due in part to the fact that the play itself is one of Seneca's best, credit must be given to Heywood's judgment in selecting it for his first attempt. " I have," he says in his preface, "privately taken the part which pleased me best of so excellent an author, for better is tyme spent in the best then other." Heywood's style is much more free from words of a colloquial, dialectal, or archaic character than that of Studley, Nuce, or Newton. His English is on the whole that of the ordinary Elizabethan translator, though he has some striking Latinisms, such as ' freate,' 'frete' = 'sea' (Lat fretum), and ' roge ' = 'funeral pyre' (Lat. rogus), which in one passage of the 1581 edition (T. T. 99a, 27) has been misunder- stood by the printer and appears as ' rage.' i Studley. Agamemnon. Preface to the Reader. 15 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS It is interesting to note the change in Heywood's attitude towards his original in his successive transla- tions. <^u the Troas, the earliest of the three, he dealt ^ with it very freely, adding a chorus of sixty lines of his own invention at the end of Act I, a new scene •consisting of a speech of ninety-one lines by the 3 ghost of Achilles at the beginning of Act n, and three additional stanzas at the end of the chorus > which concludes Act II. He also substituted a chorus of his own for the Senecan chorus at the ) close of Act in. In his preface ' To the Reader (T. T., 95 b, 96 a), Hey wood speaks of these alter- ations in the following terms : — Now as concerninge sondrye places augmented and some altered in this niy translation. First forasmuch as this worke seemed unto mee in some places vnperflte, whether left so of the Author, or parte •of it loste, as tyine devoureth all things, I wot not, I haue (where I thought good) with addition of myne owne Penne supplied the wante ■of some thynges, as the firste Chorus, after the fyrste acte....Also in the seconde Acte I haue added the Speache of Achilles Spright, rysing from Hell to require the Sacrifyce of Polyxena....Agayne the three laste staues of the Chorus after the same Acte : and as for the thyrde Chorus which in Seneca beginneth thus, Que vocat S3des? For as much as nothing is therein but a heaped number of farre and straunge Countries, considerynge with my selfe, that the names of so manye vnknowen Countreyes, Mountaynes, Desertes. and Woodes, shoulde have no grace in the Englishe tounge, but bee a straunge and vnpleasant thinge to the Readers (excepte I should •expound the Historyes of each one, which would be farre to tedious), I haue in the place thereof made another beginninge in this manner. O love that leadst, etc. OVhich alteration may be borne withall, seynge that Chorus is nopart of the substaunce of the matter. In the rest I haue for my slender learninge endeuored to keepe touch with the Latten, not worde for worde or verse for verse, as to expounds it, but neglectynge the placinge of the wordes, •obserued their sence\ Iii the Tlnjestes Heywood has only added one •original speech, the soliloquy of Thyestes at the close of the play, in which the unhappy father invokes on himself all the torments of hell. 16 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. In the Hercules Furens, published in 1561, there is no addition of original matter, and it is clear from the character of the translation itself that Heywood no longer " endevored to keepe touch with the Latten, not worde for worde or verse for verse, but neg- lectynge the placinge of the wordes, observed their sence," but that his aim was to reproduce the Latin much more closely. On the title-page he states, first in- Latin, then in English, that the tragedy is "newly perused and of all faultes whereof it did before abound diligently corrected, and for the profit of young schollers so faithfully translated into English metre, that ye may se verse for verse tourned as farre as the phrase of the English permitteth." It may be doubted whether this change in Heywood's method of translation was really bene- ficial to his work. In striving to keep the Latin order of words, his English becomes clumsy and frequently obscure, e.g., Here. Fur., D 1, T. T., 5a, 9, 10 : Nor handes that well durst enterprise his noble travayles all The filthy labour made to shrynke of foule Augias hall, where ' labour ' is the nominative, and ' handes ' the accusative. Or Here. Fur., I 1, T. T., 13a, 31- 34 : As gret as when comes houre of longer night, And willyng quiet sleepes to bee extent, Holds equal Libra Phoebus Chariots light, A sorte the secrete Ceres doo frequent, where the meaning is difficult to grasp without the Latin : quanta, cum longae redit hora nocti crescere et somnos cupiens quietos Libra Phoebeos tenet aequa currus, turba secretam Cererem frequentat. The attempt to reproduce exactly Latin con- 17 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS structions is not always very happy, e.g., T. T., 5b,. 8—10, Here. Fur., D 3, 6: » and beaten with thy stroake The mount, now here, now there fell downe : and rampier rente of stay, The raging brooke of Thessaly did roon a newe found way, whore the last clause is an attempt to follow the Latin : , et rupto aggere nova cucurrit Thessalus torrens via ; and T. T., 7a, 16, 17, Here. Fur., e 3 : what should I the mothers speake Both suffring, and aduentring gyltes? which represents the Latin . . , . . quid matres loquar passas et ausas scelera? and T. T., 14a, 15, 16, Here. Fur., i3: Hee ouer Foordes of Tartare brought Beturnde appeased beeinge Hell, which represents : Transvectus vada Tartari pacatis redit inferis. This close attention to the construction of the original has influenced Heywood's metre, for the attempt to represent one Latin line by one English, whilst keeping the Latin order of words, has resulted in much enjambement, and in a consequent placing of the caesura earlier in the line than is its normal position. One passage from Megara's speech at the beginning of Act n (T. T., 4b, 3—10, Here. Fur., c 6) will illustrate this : l A mistake has been made in the binding of the 1561 edition, D 6 occupies the place of d 4. 18 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. To mee yet neuer day Hath careles shin'de: the ende of one affliction past away Beginning of an other is : an other ennemy Is forthwith founde, before that hee his joyfull family Retourne vnto: an other fyght hee taketh by behest: Nor any respite ginen is to him nor quiet rest : But whyle that he commaunded is : straight him pursueth shee The hatefull Iuno. The extent of the alteration produced in Heywood's rhythm may be gauged by the different proportion of lines with the main pause after the second or third foot to be found in the Hercules Furens as compared with the Troas. Metrically, the ear requires the caesura after the fourth foot, and there is usually a slight pause at that place, but the main pause (or, as it may be called, the logical caesura as distinct from the metrical) often occurs earlier in the line, and in the Troas the proportion of lines in which it is to be found after the second foot is under six per cent, of the total number of fourteeners, whilst in the Hercules Furens it is over twenty-two per cent. Again, in the Troas the number of lines with the logical caesura after the third foot is under two per cent., whilst in the Hercules Furens it is over six per cent. Thus in the latter play, the number of normal lines in which the logical and metrical caesuras coincide in falling after the fourth foot, has enormously decreased. 19 III. NEVILLE'S (EDIPUS. Alexander Neville, the translator of the (Edipus, was born in 1544. He was the son of Richard Neville, of South Leverton, Nottinghamshire, and his mother was the daughter of Sir Walter Mantell and sister of Margaret, the mother of Barnabe Googe. Alexander's younger brother, Thomas Neville, had a distinguished career, becoming Dean, first of Peterborough, then of Canterbury, and Master of Trinity College, Cam- bridge. Alexander seems to have entered at Cambridge at the early age of twelve, for we find that he graduated B.A. in 15£§. It was in 1560 that he translated the (Edipus according to his prefatory letter to Wotton, though it did not appear in print till 1563. 1 After leaving Cambridge he studied law in London, where he made the acquaintance of George Gascoigne. He was one of the "five sundry Gentlemen" who required Gascoigne " to write in verse somewhat worthye to bee remembred, before he entered into their fellow- shippe," and he proposed the Latin motto, Sat cito, i In 1563 Neville also contributed commendatory verses to the Eglogs of Barnabe Googe, who was his cousin, not his uncle, as the Diet, of Nat. Biog. erroneously states. 20 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. si sat bene, on which Gascoigne composed " seven Sonets in seq [u] ence." Neville became secretary to Archbishop Parker, and remained in the service of Parker's successors,. Grindal and Whitgift. In 1575 he published a Latin account of Rett's rebellion of 1549, to which he appended a description of Norwich and its anti- quities, and in 1587 there appeared Academics Canta- brigiensis lacrymce tumulo ... P. Sidney sacratce per A. Nev ilium. The Diet, of Nat. Biog. suggests that he may be identified with the Alexander Neville who sat in Parliament as M.P. for Christchurch, Hampshire, in 1585, and for Saltash in 1601. He died in 1614, and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, where Thomas Neville, then Dean of Canterbury, erected a monument to commemorate his brother and himself. The title page of the first edition of Neville's GUdipus runs thus: — " The Lamentable Tragedie of CEdipus the Sonne of Laius Kyng of Thebes out of Seneca. By Alexander Neuyle. Imprynted at London in seint Brydes Churchyarde : ouer-agaynst the North doore of the Churche : by Thomas Colwell. 1563. 28 Aprilis." Then follows a dedicatory epistle " To the ryght Honorable Maister Doctor Wotton : One of the Queues Maiesties priuye Counsayle," which occupies four pages. This is followed by " The Preface to the Reader," occupying seven pages, after which comes the list of dramatis persona. The translation occupies eighty-three pages, and is followed by a page containing a list of errata, and the colophon. i See Gascoigne. Posies. Flowers. Gascoigne' s Memories. 21 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS The volume 1 is a small octavo with the collation a 8 A — E 8 F 2 . Neville's translation of the (Edipus possesses particular interest for us, since it is the only one of the Tonic Tragedies of 1581 which had undergone a thorough revision since its first appearance. A care- ful comparison of the text of the first editions of Hey wood, Studley, and Nuce's versions with that of these plays as they appeared in the Tenne Tragedies shows that the 1581 edition was merely a reprint of the earlier text. With Neville's (Edipus the case is otherwise. It is true that no hint is given of the changes which have been made, and the title, which would lead the reader to imagine that he had here a faithful reproduction of Neville's early work, runs thus : — " (Edipus. The Fifth Tragedy of Seneca, Englished. The yeare of our. Lord M.D.L.X. By Alexander Nevyle," and is followed by the dedication to Wotton and the " Preface to the Reader," which had appeared in the edition of 1563. Yet there are changes even in the dedicatory "epistle to Wotton. It now opens with a reference, absent in the earlier edition, to " this sixtenth yeare of myne age " [i.e. 1560] . The translation itself has been practically re- written. Those critics who have consulted only the edition of 1581 have often praised the excellence of this translation of Oedipus when considered as the work of a youth of sixteen. Thus Warton says, "Notwithstanding the translator's youth, it is by far the most spirited and elegant version in the whole collection, and it is to be regretted that he did not i The copy here described is that in the British Museum. 34 . a . 9 (1). 22 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. undertake all the rest," and this verdict was repub- lished in the introduction to the Spenser Society's reprint of the Tenne Tragedies in 1887. It is echoed by E. Jockers in his Die englischen Seneca-Uebersetzer des 16. Jahrhunderts — "Nevyle ist ohne Zweifel der begabteste von samtlichen Uebersetzern. Seine Uebersetzung zeigt dichterischen Schwung unci jugendliche Lebendigkeit," 1 and in a foot-note Jockers quotes Warton's judgment, and opposes Collier's less favourable estimate of Neville. Neither Jockers nor the writer of the article on Neville in the Dictionary of National Biography shows any knowledge of the difference between the two editions of the CEdipus. Almost every line of the translation contains some alteration from the earlier version. In the edition of 15(33 Neville's versification had been ex- tremely irregular ; intermingled with the regular fourteeners which formed the staple metre of his translation were lines containing twelve or sixteen syllables, unrhyming fourteeners, or even short un- rhyming lines of four or six syllables. In the later edition the versification runs much more smoothly, and the greater number of the irregularities have been removed, though one or two examples remain. 2 Changes other than metrical are also abundant. Speeches are altered and assigned to different characters, 3 lines are inserted or omitted, 4 and 1 Die englischen Seneca-Uebersetzer. p. 43. 2 e.g. Tenne Trag. 79 b, 7, 82 b, 14, 92 b, 10. 3 e.g. Iocasta's speech in Act I, 1. 22 is given to (Edipus, and ' you ' is accordingly changed to ' I,' and ' that ' to ' this.' 4 Act I, 1. 4 is an insertion. 23 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS there are a large number of purely verbal altera- tions. 1 The extent of the alterations may be gauged by a comparison of some passages from Act I — 1563 Edition. 11. 1—5. The night is gon. & dredfull day begins at length to appeare And Lucifer beset wt Clowds, hymself aloft doth reare. And gliding forth with heavy hewe. A doleful blase doth beare (in Skyes). Now shal the houses voide be sene, with Plagues de- uoured quight : And slaughter yt the night hath made, shall daye brynge forth to lyght. 1581 Edition. 11. 1—6. The Night is gon : and dredfull day begins at length t'ap- peere : And Phoebus all bedim 'de with Clowdes, himselfe aloft doth reere. And glyding forth with deadly hue, a dolefull blase in Skies Doth beare dismay Eyes. Now shall the houses voyde bee seene, with Plague deuoured quight ? And slaughter that the night hath made, shall day bring forth to light. Great terror & to the beholders 11. 10—13. For as the mountaynes houge and hie, the blustryng windes withstand, And craggy Rocks, the belch- ing fluds do dash and beate fro land. Though that the seas in quiet are and nought at all do fome : So kingdoms great submytted lye, to Fortunes doulfull Dome. 11. 11—14. For as the Mountaynes huge and hie, the blustring windes withstand. And craggy Rocks, the belching fluds do dash, and driue fro land : Though that the Seas in quiet are, and calme on euery side : So kingdoms great all Windes andWauesof Fortune must abide. i e.g. ' remayne ' in Act I, 1. 62 for ' abyde,' ' woe ' in 1. 94 for 'grief.* 24 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. 1563 Edition. 11. 28—34. This feare and only this my [read, me] dryues from fathers kingdoms great. Not lyke a wanderyng Vaca- bounde the wayes un- knowen I beate, But all mystrustfull of my selfe thy lawes (O Nature) for to keape I sought the meanes. Yet feare I stil and fear into rny mynde doth creape Though cause of Dread not one I se yet feare and dread I all. And scante in credit with my- self, I seke my fatal fall (ByDomeof doulful Destinies.) For what shuld I suppose the cause ? A Plage that is so generall .... 1581 Edition. 11. 29—41. This feare, and onely this me causde my fathers king- dome great For to forsake. I fled not thence when fear the minde doth beat. The restlesse thought still dreds the thing, it knows can neuer chaunce. Such fansies now torment my heart, my safety to ad- uaunce, And eke thyne euer sacred lawes (O Nature) for to keepe A stately Scepter I forsooke, yet secret feare doth creepe Within my breast : and frets it still with doubt and discontent, And inward pangues which secretly my thoughts a sunder rent. So though no cause of dred I see, yet feare and dred I all, And scant in credit with my selfe, my thoughts my mind appall That I cannot perswaded be, though reason tell me no, But that the Web is weauing still of my decreed wo. For what should I suppose the cause '? a Plague that is so generall .... The reason for these changes is evident. In the eighteen years which had elapsed since the first publication of Neville's translation, English poetry had made marvellous progress. The standard of 25 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS versification had been raised, and the halting metre which had been tolerated 1 in 1563 would in 1581 no longer pass muster, even as the work of a youth of sixteen. It may be urged that the same reason ought to have produced revised versions of the work of Heywood and Studley, but the difference between their case and that of Neville must be borne in mind. When the Tenne Tragedies appeared, Heywood was a Jesuit priest, exiled from England, and Studley, who was no longer a Fellow of Trinity, may also have been absent from England. In both cases the translators had been forced to give up their university careers, and had devoted themselves to the promulga- tion of their religious opinions, widely different as these were from each other. Neither would have desired to spend time over the revision of what he would have deemed a trifling production of his less serious youth, even if, as seems unlikely, the editor of the 1581 volume consulted them in the matter. Neville, on the other hand, had remained a scholar and was now Secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was the author of various Latin works, and his brother was one of the most distin- guished Cambridge dignitaries. A drastic revision of the early translation was necessary, but even when this was complete Neville seems to have felt that the result was not altogether creditable to his mature scholarship, and he therefore sheltered himself IT. B. in his commendatory verses prefixed, to Studley 's Agamemnon (1566) says when enumerating the translators who can rival Jasper Heywood : "A Neuyle also one there is, in verse that gyues no place To Heiwood (though he be full good) in vsying of his grace." 26 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. behind the title and dedication which ascribed the work to his sixteenth year. 1 In both its original and its revised form the translation is decidedly free. In his dedicatory epistle to Dr. Wotton, Neville excuses this freedom on the plea that he had made the translation only for the use of a few friends, who apparently wished to act it. For I to none other ende rernoued him [i.e. Seneca] from his naturall and lofty style, to our corrupt and base, or as some men (but vntruly) [1563 al men] affyrme it, most barbarous Language : but onely to satisfy the instant requests of a few my familiar trends, who thought to haue put it to the very same use, that Seneca himself e in his Inuention pretended : Which was by the tragicall and Pompous showe vpon Stage, to admonish all men of their fickle Estates, to declare the vnconstant head of wauering Fortune, her sodayne interchaunged and soone altered Face : and lyuely to expresse the iust reuenge, and fearefull punishmets of horrible Crimes, wherewith the wretched worlde in these our myserable dayes pyteously swarmeth. This caused me not to be precise [1563 to precise] in following the Author, word for word : but sometymes by addition, somtimes by subtraction, to vse the aptest Phrases in geuing the Sense that I could inuent. Whereat a great numbre (I know) will be more offended than Reason or Wysedome woulde they should bee. It is in the choric portions that Neville has treated his original most freely. He has expanded ^ the chorus IrTthe first act from ninety-two lines to a hundred and seventeen, whilst he has entirely omitted the chorus of a hundred and six lines in praise of Bacchus at the close of Act II. He has replaced the chorus of fifty-five lines in Act h i by a. n e w plinrnc q£ - twentv-t wjo__lin£g_ _ d e al i n g w i tli— -a >•> d ifferen t subject; and similarly in Act IV he has substituted a short original chorus of fourteen lines l The edition of 15S1 insists strongly on the fact, scarcely mentioned in that of 1563, that the translation was made in 1560. In the list of plays and translators at the beginning of the Tenne Tragedies, the only play of which the date is mentioned is Neville's (Edipus, to which ' 1560 ' is added. 27 t? vvv 6< f 1 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS f ' for the Senecan one of thirty lines. The chorus in Act V is substantially the same as Seneca's, though Neville, who has a liking for moral maxims, adds four lines quite in the Senecan manner : And thou that subiect art to death. Regard thy latter day. Thinke no man blest before his ende. Aduise thee well and stay. Be sure his lyfe, and death, and all, be quight exempt from mysery . Ere thou do once presume to say : this man is blest and happy. (Tenne Tragedies. 92b, 30-33.) Iii the dramatic portions Neville follows his original much more closely, but he has a tendency to expand it by adding unnecessary reflections. Thus he enlarges the last speech of CEdipus from twenty lines to fifty-two by making such additions as the following : O OZdipus accursed wretch, lament thine own Calamity, Lament thy state, thy griefe lament, thou Caitife borne to misery. Where wilt thou now become (alas '?) thy Face where wilt thou hyde : O myserable Slaue, canst thou such shamefull tormentes byde ? (Tenne Tragedies. 94a, 7-10.) After the messenger's description, a little earlier in the same act, of the despair of CEdipus and his plucking out of his own eyes, Neville puts these moral lines into the messenger's mouth : Beware betimes, by him beware, I speake vnto you all. Learne Justice, truth, and feare of God by his vnhappy fall. {Tenne Tragedies. 92b, 11, 12.) A full account of Neville's divergences from the Latin in the revised edition of 1581 will be found in Jockers Die englischen Seneca-TJebersetzer,\)\).-i-i — 62. It will be seen from the extracts already given that Neville has all the Elizabethan readiness to point a moral, accentuated by his extreme youth when he first undertook the translation of the 28 OP SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. CEdipus. The 'Preface to the Reader' which appeared in the edition of 1563, and was reprinted verbatim in that of 1581, shows that he approached his task with the moral severity and censoriousness of sixteen years' experience of life. Moral in their aims as are the other translators of Seneca, they cannot equal Neville, who sees in the unfortunate CEdipus only " a dredfull Example of Gods horrible vengeance for sinne ", and a suitable warning for " our present Age, wherein Vice hath chiefest place, & Vertue put to flight, lies as an abiect, languishing in great extremity." 29 IV. STUDLEY'S AGAMEMNON, MEDEA, HER- CULES CETJEUS, AND HIPPOLYTUS. John Studley's career presents in some respects a curious parallel to that of Jasper Heywood. Both translators were University men, fellows of colleges, whose versions of Seneca were their first essays in literature. Though their religious opinions were widely different — Hey wood being a Roman Catholic and Studley a Puritan — they both lost their fellow- ships on account of those opinions, and in after life both abandoned classical scholarship for theological controversy. John Studley was one of the original scholars of Westminster School, 1 and the first to be elected to Cambridge. In the Cambridge University Register it is stated that he matriculated as a pensioner at Trinity College, 12 May, 1563, and proceeded B.A. 156f, and M.A. 1570. According to the books of Trinity College, he became a minor fellow, 8 Sept., 1567, and a major fellow, 7 April, 1570. At this time the Master of Trinity was the famous Dr. Whitgift, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, a High Churchman and strict dis- ciplinarian, who was chiefly responsible for certain new statutes of the University which were aimed i Alumni Westmonast., p. 45. See also Studley's Agamemnon (1566), dedicatory epistle to Sir W. Cecil. 30 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. against the Puritans. Trinity College also contained the leader of the Puritan faction, Thomas Cart- Avright, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, and party feeling must have been extremely bitter within the college. Strype's Life of Whitgift, which gives us a lively picture of the internal dissensions of the University at this time, tells us that there was " a great faction in Trinity College of such as were disaffected to the j>resent ecclesiastical settlement, which created the Master no small trouble and disquiet." It appears that in 1572 Whitgift thought of resigning his post on account of these dissensions. In Strype's words, " as he [Whitgift] was an impartial executor of the statutes of the college; so he had hereby raised the stomachs of some of the Fellows against him, who contended unkindly with him ; they had treated him with so much slander, and such reviling terms, as wholly discouraged him to tarry any longer among them."i It is clear that Studley belonged to this section among the Fellows. His name appears in a list of one hundred and sixty-four signatures appended to a declaration issued in 1562 in connection with the disturbances directed against the new statutes. 2 On 1 February, 157J, Studley and Booth, another fellow of Trinity, became sureties in the sum of £10, for John Browning, 3 also a fellow of the same 1 Strype, Life of Whitgift, p. 51. 2 Hey wood and Wright, Cambridge University Transactions, Vol. I, p. 61. 3 Baker MS., iii, p. 392 (Harl. 7030). "Febr: 1 Johes Brownyng M: A: Socius Col: Trin: — et Hugo Boothe et Jo: Studley M" A: et socii ejusdem Coll: veneruut coram Tho: Bynge vicecan: et recognoverunt se debere Dnae Reginae viz Jo: Br: centuru luarcae — et praed: Hugo et Jo: 40'it> solvend: — sub conditione sequenti ..." (Then follow the conditions which Browning was to observe.) 31 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS college, who had been committed to the Tolbooth for " uttering in St. Mary's certain doctrines tending to the heresy of Novatus," and for disobeying the consequent command of Whitgift and the heads of houses to abstain from preaching " till his further purgation." By 1573 Whitgift had been persuaded to remain at Trinity, and was determined to exercise strict discipline over the refractory Fellows. Those who would not submit were obliged to leave their posts. It appears from the college books that Studley ceased to be a Fellow at the end of 1573, for according to the Bursar's book for the year Michael- mas 1573-1574, he received his stipendium only for the quarter from Michaelmas to Christmas, 1573. No reason is there given for his withdrawal, but among the "extraordinary expenses" for the same year there is an item "to Mr. Studley at his departure v lb ," which seems to indicate that some compensation was made him for the determination of his Fellowship. 1 Little is known of Studley's after life.- In 1574 he produced a translation of Bale's " Acta Pontificum Romanorum," under the title of " The Pageant of Popes, Contayninge the lyues of all the Bishops of 1 For this information I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Aldis Wright, Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. 2 Richard Robinson, in his Rewardc of Wickednesse (1574), mentions Studley in such a way as to imply that the latter belonged to the Inns of Court. After seeing Helen of Troy, Medea, Pope Alexander the Sixth, and others in hell, and " Skelton and Lydgat, Wager, Hey wood, and Bamabe Googe " in the garden of the Muses on Helicon, Robinson is commanded by the Muses to write what Morpheus has shown him in a book. He excuses himself by saying : Your Honours haue in Th'innes of Court, a sort of Gentlemen, That fine would fit your whole intentes, with stately stile to Pen. Let Studley, Hake, or Fulwood take, that William hath to name, This piece of worke in hande, that bee more fitter for the same. 32 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Rome, from the begiiminge of them to the yeare of Grace 1555 .... Shewing manye straunge, notorious, outragious, and tragicall partes played by them the like whereof hath not els bin hearde : both pleasant and profitable for this age. Written in Latin by Maister Bale, and now Englished with sondrye additions by I. S." Chetwood states that Stndley was "killed in Flan ders at the Siege o f Bre da^haying a_c_ommand un der JPri nce Maurice, in 1587." l Not much reliance can be placed on this statement. The siege of Breda took place in 1590, and it is clear that Chetwood's information with regard to Studle} T was not very accurate, for the latter is described as having boon educated at Oxford, and only two of his translations are mentioned. Studley's translations of Seneca's Agamemnon and Medea both appeared in 1566, though it is clear that Agamemnon must have preceded Medea by some months. The introductory verses and dedica- tion prefixed to Agamemnon show that this was, as Studley terms it, "The fyrst frutes" of his "good will and trauaile." Thomas Nuce, Thomas Delapeend, W. R., H. C, and the other writers who contribute prefatory verses to the translation, all implore the reader's indulgence on account of Studley's youth and inexperience. Apparently Agamemnon was favourably received, for the introductory matter prefixed to Medea is much shorter, and in his " Preface to the Reader " Studley says " If I had not gentle Reader a better truste in thy gentlenesse, then affyaunce in myne own weakenesse, I had i The British Theatre. Containing the Lives of the English Dramatic Poets (1750), p. 7. 33 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS not assayed thys second attempte, to bewraye my rudenesse and ignoraunce unto thy skilfull iudge- mente." Both Agamemnoyi and Medea were entered to Thomas Colwell the printer in the Stationers' Register for the year July 1565— July 1566, but the mention of Medea occurs seventy entries after that of Agamemnon. The title of Agamemnon runs thus : — The Eyght Tragedie of Seneca. Entituled Agamemnon. Translated out of Latin in to English, by Iohn Studley, Student in Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge. Imprinted at London in Fletestreat, beneath the Conduit, at the signe of S. Iohn Euangelyst, by Thomas Colwell. Anno Domini, M. D. LXVI. The volume is a small octavo with the collation us, and his versions of these plays occupy the fourth and tenth places respectively in the Tenne Tragedies of 1581. No separate edition of either translation is extant, but it seems probable that such existed, as in the case of Agamemnon and Medea ; and there are entries in the Stationers' Register which lend colour to such a supposition. The second entry for the year July 1566 — July 1567 runs thus — " Recevycl of henry Denham for his lycence for the pryntinge of a boke intituled the IXth and Xth tragide of Lucious Anneus [Seneca] oute of the laten into englisshe by T W fellowe of Pembrek Hall in Chambryge." We know that "the IX th tragide," i.e. Octavia, was translated by T. N., and was published by Henry Denham in quarto. Copies of this quarto exist in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, but they are undated. This version was reprinted in the 1581 collected edition of the Tenne Tragedies, where it was ascribed to Thomas Nuce, at one time Fellow of 35 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. No other Elizabethan translation of the Oct a via is extant. It seems probable that T. W. in the Stationers' Register is a mistake for T. N., and that this entry refers to a contemplated issue of Octavia, and of Hercules Q^tceus — the latter being generally known as the tenth tragedy of Seneca. The title of Here. CEt. in the 1581 edition states that it was "translated out of Latin into Englishe by I. S."; and the list at the beginning of the volume ascribes it, together with Hippolytus, Medea, and Agamem)io)i, to John Studley. We know from Nuce's commendatory verses prefixed to Studley 's Again, that the two men were on friendly terms, and the translations may both have been entered as his by mistake. In 1570 "the iij parte of Hercules Oote " was entered in the Stationers' Register to Thomas Colwell, who had printed Agam. and Medea for Studley. Does this imply that Colwell had in some way interfered with the printing of Here. CEt. by Denham, and is the mention of the "third part" an indication that this was the third of Seneca's tragedies which Colwell published? 1 No separate edition of HippoJytus is extant. There is an entry in the Stationers' Register, July 1566-7, considerably later in the year than the entry of the " IX th and X th Tragedie," which runs : " Recevyd of henry Denham for his lycense for ye pyrntinge of the iiij th parte Seneca Workes." Hippolytus is de- scribed in the 1581 quarto as " The fourth and most ruthful tragedy of L. Annseus Seneca," and it seems probable that this entry refers to an early edition of the translation, especially as for Aug. 31, 1579 we find l For this suggestion I am indebted to Dr. W. W. Greg. 36 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. the following entry : " Ric. Jones. John Charlwood. Allowed unto them by the consent of henry Denham these copies folowing which they bought of him. The Arbor of Amytye. Turberville's songes and sonnettes. The fourthe Tragedie of Seneca." If these surmises are correct as to the identity of Here. CEt. and Hipp, with the works entered in the Stationers' Register, Studley's four translations must have been published within a short time of each other. This inference is strengthened by their similarities in style and diction, Avhilst it is inter- esting to observe the development in Studley's use of the fourteener. In the later plays there is an increasing number of lines in which the fourth foot ends in the middle of a word, so that it is impossible for the caesura to retain its normal place, e.g. Bryng in your scratting pawes a bur- i uyng brande of deadly fyre. {Medea (1566), Blv.) Agamemnon has 7 such lines out of a total of 1148 fourteeners, Medea 10 out of 1257, Hercules (Etcrus 36 out of 1688, and Hippohjtus 37 out of 1271. Studley's poetical style differs widely from that of Heywood. The diction of his four translations is extremely interesting ; there is a homely and popular character about it which is quite foreign to Hey- wood's, though we find it again in some measure in Newton's Thebais. His dramatic powers and sense of poetic fitness do not seem to have been of a high order. He often falls into bathos exactly in the i So printed in the 1566 edition, which always divides the four- teener into two lines of print, generally at the end of the fourth foot. When that foot ends in the middle of a word, in some cases as here the word is divided, in others the division takes place after the word. 37 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS passages where he wishes to be impressive ; in fact, his translations offer more examples of bathos than any of the others included in the Tenne Tragedies. It is difficult to make a selection where the choice is so wide, but the following lines may be quoted from Cassandra's vision of the murder of Agamem- non (T. T., 156a, 15—26. Ag., F 7 V -) : The King in gorgyous royall robes on chayre of State cloth sit, And pranckt with pryde of Pryams pomp of whom he conquerd it. Put of this hostile weede, to him (the Queene, his Wyfe gan say,) And of thy louing Lady wrought weare rather thys aray. This garment knit. It makes mee loth, that shiuering heere I stande. O shall a King be murthered, by a banisht wretches hande ? Out, shall Th' adulterer destroy the husbande of the Wyfe? The dreadfull destinies approcht, the foode that last in lyfe He tasted of before his death, theyr maysters bloud shall see, The gubs of bloude downe dropping on the wynde shall powrcd bee. By traytrous tricke of trapping weede his death is brought about, Which being put upon his heade his handes coulde not get out. After an interview with Jason, Medea is made to say: What is he slily slypt and gon? falles out the matter so? • Iason dost thou sneake away, not hauing minde of mee, Nor of those former great good turnes that I haue done for thee ? T. T., 131a, 24—26. Medea, E3v. Hercules when recalling his former prowess exclaims : 1 that returnde from dennes of death, and Stigian stream e defycd And ferryed ouer Lethes lake, and dragd up, chaind, and tyde The tryple headded mastiffe hownd, when Tytans teeme did start So at the ougly sight that he fel almost from his cart. Here. (EL, T. T., 206a, 7—10. It seems unkind to dwell on Studley's poetical fail- ings. He is certainly no great poet, but occasionally he has some fine lines. In the last scene of the Hippolytus the Chorus says {Hipp., T. T., 74 b, 27): O Theseus to thy plaint eternall tyme is graunted thee, 38 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. and there is pathos in Theseus' cry over the dead body of his son : Lo I enioy my fathers gift, O solitarinesse. Such lines however are rare, and the chief attrac- tions of Studley's verse seem to he its quaintness and its exuberance. Both these qualities have been exemplified in the quotations already given, but one quotation more may be adduced, from the description of Medea practising her magic arts : She mumbling coniures up by names of ills the rable rout, In hugger mugger cowched long, kept close, vnserched out : All pestlent plagues she calles upon, what euer Libie lande, In frothy boyling stream doth worke, or muddy belching sande What tearing torrents Taurus breedes, with snowes unthawed stii Where winter flawes, and hory frost knit hard the craggy hill, She layes her crossing hands upon each monstrous coniurde thing, And ouer it her magicke verse with charming doth she sing : A mowsie, rowsie, rusty route with cancred Scales Iclad From musty, fusty, dusty dens where lurked long they had Doe craull. . . . T. T., 133a, 9—19, Medea, E 7v , 8. With regard to Studley's treatment of his original, it may be noted that in no play has he made such extensive alterations as were effected by Heywood in the Troas, N*4iilst on the other hand he nowhere follows the Latin as closely as Heywood does in the Hercules Furen&ZS His chief additions of original /matter are in Medea (T. T., 121a, 1— 122a, 9), wheL / he substitutes a Chorus of his own for the SenecaA \~ \Chorus; in Agamemnon (T.T., 159b, 17— 160b, 20)\ where he adds a speech by Eurybates in which the death of Cassandra, the flight of Orestes, and the imprisonment of Electra are narrated ; and in Hippolytus (T. T., 73b, 15 — 31), where he introduces a curious passage in which Phaedra implores the spirit of Hippolytus to take her living body in exchange for his own mutilated corpse. 39 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. In general, Studley follows the meaning of the Latin fairly closely, but docs not try to reproduce the Latin order as Heywood does, and he frequently expands, and explains wherever he considers it necessary, e.g., where Seneca makes Medea say of Jason : merita contempsit mea qui scelere flammas viderat vinci et mare'? Studley has {T. T., 122a, 16—23, Medea, b 5-, 6) : hath he such a stony heart, that doth no more esteeme, The great good turnes, and benefits that I imployde on him ? Who knowes that I have lewdly used enchauntments for his sake, The rigour rough, and stormy rage, of swelling Seas to slake. The grunting firy foming Bulles, whose smoking guts were stuft, With smoltring fumes, that from theyr Iawes, and nosthrils out they puft. 1 stopt their gnashing mounching mouths, I quencht their burning breath, And vapors hot of stewing paunch, that els had wrought his death. In one or two cases it seems evident that Studley has mistranslated the Latin through haste or care- lessness, e.g., in T. T., 149a, 3, 4, Ag., d4, he translates Seneca's — tu pande vivat coniugis frater mei et pande teneat quas soror sedes mea Declare if that my brothers wyfe enioy the vytall ayre And tel me to what kind of Coast my sister doth repayre. In Here. (Et., T. T., 202a, 13— Nocens videri qui petit mortem cupit is represented by — He doth condemne himselfe to dye that needes will guylty seeme. 40 V. NUCE'S OCT AVI A. Thomas Nuce, or Newce, as his name is sometimes spelt, was educated at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He graduated B.A. in 1561, M.A. in 1565, B.D. in 1572.* The Diet, of Nat. Biog. states that in 1562 he was a Fellow of Pembroke, and that some time after 1563 he became* rector of Cley, Norfolk. In course of time he was appointed to several other livings, all of them in Norfolk and Suffolk, and from February 158f till his death he was a Prebend of Ely Cathedral. He died in 1617, and was buried in Gazeley Church. Nuce contributed fourteen Latin hexameters and a hundred and seventy-two lines of English verse in praise of Studley's version of the Agamemnon (1566). He himself published a translation of the Octavia, of which the title runs thus : The ninth Tragedie of Lucius Anneus Seneca, called Octauia, Translated out of Latine into English, by T. N. Student in Cam- bridge. Imprinted at London, by Henry Denham. The volume is a small quarto, with the collation A 4 (a 1 wanting), B — G 4 , one leaf unsigned ('? A 1). The translation is preceded by a dedicatory epistle "To the Right Honorable, the Lorde Robert Dudley, Earle of Lecester," which begins "After that I had waded, right honorable, in the translating of this Tragedy called Octauia, written first in Latine by that notable and sententious Poet Seneca" and describes the transla- tion as a "smal combrous trifle" and as the "rude and i For this information I am indebted to J. N. Keynes, D.Sc, Registrary of the University of Cambridge. 41 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS vnsauorie first fruits of my yong study/' This is followed by a short and modest preface " To the Reader," and by a rhymed "argument" of the play; and a list of dramatis persona?. The translation occupies 49 pages, and is followed by a list of errata. The colophon, like the title-page, gives no indication as to date. 1 The only evidence which we possess with regard to the date of this edition is an entry in the Stationers' Register for the year July 1566 — July 1567, which has already heen mentioned in the chapter on Studley's translations. It runs thus : Recevyd of henry Denham for his lycence for the pryntinge of a boke intituled the IXth and Xth tragide of Lucious Anneus [Seneca] onte of the laten into englisshe by T W fellowe of Pembrek Hall in Chambryge. The Octavia was always known as the ninth tragedy of Seneca, and T Wis probably a misprint for T. N., the initials which stand on the title-page of the Octavia, and which are explained in the 1581 edition as representing T. Nuce. An explanation of the " X th tragide " mentioned in the entry has already been suggested. Hence this translation may be assigned with some probability to 1566-7. I have been unable to find any foundation for the con- jectural date 1561 assigned to it in the article on Nuce in the Diet, of Nat. Biog.; and as in the same article the date of Studley's Agamemnon (1566) is wrongly given as 1561, it seems probable that in Nuce's case also 1561 is merely a slip for 1566, the year assigned to the Octavia by Warton, who is one of the authorities mentioned at the close of the article. i The copy here described is that in the British Museum, C. 34, e. 48. 42 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. The Octavia occupied the ninth place in the collected edition of 1581. The text is the same as that of the earlier edition. The Argument is retained, but the dedicatory epistle and the preface to the reader are omitted. It is a curious fact that the black-letter type used in the Octavia is larger and clearer than that of the other plays in the volume. The Octavia is an interesting play, both for its metre and language. Unlike the rest of the Tenne Tragedies, it doe s^ not employ the fourteener at_all._ Nuce apparently perceived that theTourteener was by no means an ideal metre for tragedy, and he had the courage to discard it, and to use in its place the fi ve-foot or decasyllabic line rhyming in couplets, occasionall^iiTtrlpl ets, and the o ctosyllable rhyming altejaiafely- In Nuce's hands, as in those 6T~6ther Elizabethans, the decasyllabic couplet produces a totally different effect from the ' heroic couplet ' of Dryden and Pope, though it is identically the same in structure, except that it has no regular pause at the close of the couplet. A passage from T. T., 162 b, 5 — 17, Oct., Bl v , 2 will illustrate Nuce's use of this metre : Lo see of late the great and mighty stocke, By lurking Fortunes sodayne forced knocke, Of Claudius quite subuert and cleane extinct : Tofore, who held the world in his precinct ; The Brittayne Ocean coast that long was free, He raid at wil, and made it to agree, Their Romaine Gallies great for to embrace. Lo, he that Tanais people first did chase, And Seas unknowen to any Romayne wight With lusty sheering shippes did overdight, And safe amid the savage freakes did fight, And ruffling surging seas hath nothing dread, By cruel spouses gilt doth lye all dead. 43 THE ELIZABETHAN TEANSLATIONS The following passage illustrates Nuce's use of the octosyllable (T. T., 171a, 1—8, Oct. Dl*) : The flasshing fiawes do flappe her face, And on her speaking mouth do beate, Anone shee shakes a certayne space, Depressed downe with surges great : Anone shee fleetes on weltring brim, And pattes them of with tender handes Through faynting feare then taught to swim Approaching death, and fates withstandes. Nuce's language, as will he seen from these extracts, differs somewhat both from Heywood's and from Studley's. It has fe wer Latinism s than Heywood's, and is slightly l ess colloqu ial and more archaic than Studley's. Nuce has a partiality for archaic words like ' freake,' and 'make' (meaning ' spouse '), which the other translators neglect, and he employs very largely the prefix y- before the past participle and sometimes before other parts of the verb. Nuce follows the Latin fairly closely, though he makes no attempt to reproduce the Latin order, as Heywood does in the Hercules Furens. He has no additions of original matter of any length, and he does not abridge or alter the choruses, as Neville does. The opening lines of the play may be taken as an example of his method of translation : Now that Aurore with glitteryng streames, The glading starres from skye doth chase, Syr Phoebus pert, with spouting beames, From dewy neast doth mount apace : And with his cheerefull lookes doth yeeld, Unto the world a gladsome day. T. T., 161b, 1—6, Oct., Bl. 44 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. The Latin is : lam vaga caelo sidera fulgens Aurora fugat, surgit Titan radiante coma mundoque diem reddit clarum. Occasionally, however, Nuce deals with his original much more freely, e.g., T. T., 174a, 21, 22, Oct., D 4v : Ner. If that I were a meacocke or a slouch Each stubborne, clubbish claw would make mee couch. Sen. And whom they hate, with force they overquell, which represents the Latin : Ner. Calcat iacentem vulgus. Sen. Iuvisum opprimit. 45 VI. NEWTON'S THEBAIS, AND THE TENNE TRAGEDIES. Thomas Newton, the editor of the 1581 edition of the Tenne Tragedies, and the translator of the Thebais, was born about 1542, and went to Trinity College, Oxford, which he left for a time to study at Queens' College, Cambridge, l though he afterwards returned to his old college at Oxford. About 1583 he became rector of Little Ilford, Essex. He wrote books on historical, medical, and theological subjects, and made several translations from Latin. He trans- lated the Thebais in order to make the 1581 volume complete. It is somewhat difficult to judge of his poetical powers from this play, since he undertook it from necessity and not from choice. It is no wonder that the other translators of Seneca had let it alone, for it is not a single complete play, but consists, apparently, of two fragments of plays on the CEdipus legend — the first fragment being an intolerably wearisome dialogue between CEdipus and Antigone, in which CEdipus expresses his determin- ation to die and Antigone dissuades him, whilst the second deals with the strife between the two sons of CEdipus, and Jocasta's efforts to reconcile them. i There is no entry in the University records to show that Newton took any degree at Cambridge. According to Anthony a Wood, he became so much renowned, whilst at Cambridge, for his Latin poetry, that " he was numbered by scholars of his time among the most noted poets in that language." 46 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. The dialogue between (Eclipus and Antigone occupies in Seneca about three hundred and twenty lines, which Newton expands into five hundred, all in the fourteener measure. The weary reader can only wish that CEdipus, who is continually announcing that he means to kill himself by some horrible death, would really put his intentions into practice instead of describing so minutely the tortures he wishes to inflict on himself, or dwelling with such insistence on the crimes he has unwittingly committed, which render him worthy of death in his own eyes. It was impossible for Newton to make much of such dramatically unpromising material without cutting it down mercilessly, but he does not seem to have felt that his original needed compression. On the contrary, he has a tendency to expand the Latin considerably, and to insert explanatory remarks which, though useful doubtless to the reader unlearned in classical story, scarcely add to the dramatic effect. He is not a slavish translator by any means ; his rendering is often very free, but unfortunately he never seems to have noticed that his original needed not expansion but compression. Two examples will illustrate this. Seneca makes CEdipus say : quantulum liac egi manu? non video noxae conscium nostrae diem, sed videor. Newton expands this to the following (T. T., 41a, 11— 1G) : Alas, what litle triffling tricke hath hitherto bene wrought By these my hands ? what f eate of worth or maistry have I sought '? Indeede, they have me helpt to pull myne eyes out of my head : So that ne Sunne, ne Moone I see, but life in darknesse lead. And though that I can nothing see, yet is my guilt and cryme Both seene and knowne, and poyncted at, (woe worth the cursed tyme). 47 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS Again Seneca lias (11. 40—43) : sequor, sequor, iani parce. sanguineum gerens insigne regni Laius rapti furit ; en ecce, inanes manibus infestis petit foditque vultus. nata, genitorem vides? which Newton expands thus (T. T., 41 b, 37— 42a, 6) : Father myne I come, I come, now father ceasse thy rage : 1 know (alas) how I abus'd my Fathers hoary age : Who had to name King Laius : how hee doth fret and frye To see such lewd disparagement : and none to blame but I. Wherby the Crowne usurped is, and he by murther slayne And Bastardly incestuous broode in Kingly throne remayne. And loe, dost thou not playnly see, how he my panting Ghost With raking pawes doth hale and pull, which grieves my conscience most '? Dost thou not see how he my face bescratcheth tyrant wyse? Tel mee (my Daughter) hast thou seene Ghostes in such griesly guyse ? Newton's language has considerable affinity with that used by Studley. It has a distinctly c olloquial character in many places, is less dignified than Heywood's, and prefers native words to Latinisms. A striking example of Newton's employment of colloquialisms may be found in Polynices' speech in Act IV (T. T., 53a, 25—38) : But tell mee whyther shall I go '? Assigne mee to some place : Bylike, you would that brother myne should still with shamelesse face Possesse my stately Pallaces, and reuell in his ruffe, And I thereat to holde my peace, and not a whit to snuffe, But like a Countrey Morue to dwell in some poore thatched Cot : Allow mee poore Exyle such one : I rest content, God wot. You know, such Noddyes as I am, are woont to make exchaung Of Kingdomes, for poore thatched Cots, beelike this is not straung. Yea more : I, matcht now to a Wyfe of noble ligne and race Shall like a seely Dottipoll live there in seruile case, At becke and checke of queenely Wyfe, and like a kitchen drudge Shall at Adrastus lordly heeles, (my Wyues owne Father) trudge. From Princely Port to tumble downe into poore seruile state, Is greatest griefe that may betyde by doome of frouncing fate. OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Newton speaks very modestly of his own transla- tion in the letter of dedication to Sir Thomas Henneage which he prefixed to the whole volume. After mentioning Henneage's generosity and love of learning, he goes on to say — And yet (all this notwithstandinge) well durst I not haue geuen the aduenture to approach your presence, vpon trust of any singularity, that in this Booke hath vnskilfully dropped out of myne owne penne, but that I hoped the perfection of others artiflciall workmaship, that haue trauayled herein aswell as my selfe should somewhat couer my nakednesse and purchase my pardon. And hard were the dealing, if in payment of a good rounde gubbe of Gold of full wayght and poyse, one poore peece somewhat clypped and lighter then his fellowes may not be foysted in among the rest, and passe in pay for currant coigne. Theirs I know to be deliuered with singuler dexterity : myne, I confesse to be an vnflidge nestling, vnhable to flye : an vnnatural abortion, and an vnperfect Embryon : neyther throughlye laboured at Aristophanes and Cleanthes candle, neither yet exactly waighed in Critolaus his precise ballauce. Yet this dare I saye, I haue deliuered myne Authors meaning with as much perspicuity, as so meane a Scholler, out of so meane a stoare, in so smal a time, and vpon so short a warning was well able to perform e. The Tenne Tragedies of Seneca appeared in 1581 under Newton's editorship. The title runs thus :— Seneca His Tenne Tragedies, Translated into Englysh. Mercu rij n a trices, horce. Imprinted at London in Fleetstreete neere vnto Saincte Dunstans church by Thomas Marsh. 1581. The volume is a quarto in eights with the colla- tion A--4B — Ee s Ff 3 . It opens with a dedicatory epistle by Newton to "the Right Worshipful, Sir Thomas Henneage Knight, Treasurer of Her Maiesties Chamber." This is followed by a list of the Tragedies and the names of their translators. The text occupies 438 pages, 1 and on the last page i The foliation begins with the text on Bl. Nos. 64, 6o occur twice in the foliation, so that there appear to be only 217 ff . instead of 219. 49 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. there is a motto from Ovid " Omne genus scripti gravitate Tragedia vincit," followed by the colophon. The plays are arranged in the traditional order, beginning with Hercules Furens, and ending with Hercules (Etccus. •50 VII. METRE. The metre of these Elizabethan translations is an interesting, but hardly an inspiring, subject. The period in which they were written was the quarter of a century between Surrey and Spenser, when poets were busy practising the lesson of order and regularity in metre, and were not as yet sufficiently masters of their craft to try experiments in it. The staple metre used by the translators is the fourteener, and most of them handle it with monotonous regularity. The caesura generally occurs after the fourth foot, and the break in the line is so marked that the printers of the octavo editions regularly make a division there, and print the fourteener in two parts, the first containing four feet and the latter three. 1 Any passage taken at random from Studley's translations shows clearly i When, as sometimes happens, the fourth foot ends in the middle of a word, the printers generally divide the word, as in the following example from Studley's Agamemnon — The ruthfull ruin of our na- tyue countrey we beheld. Ag., E5, T. T., 152a, 26. but occasionally the division takes place after the word, as in Now peepes she vp agayn, with drouping eyes sonke in her head. Ag., F4, T. T., 15b, 22. 51 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS the (lunger of flatness and monotony to which such verse was subject: With belowinges, & yellynges lowd, the shores do grunt and grone, The craggye clyues, & roryng rockes, do howle in hollow stone. The bublyng waters swelles vpreard before the wrastling winde, When suddenlye the lowryng lyght of moone is hid and blynde. The glymsyng starres do go to glade, the surgyng seas are tost Euen to the skyes, among the clowdes the lyght of heauen is lost. More nyghtes in one compacted are, wyth shadow dym and blacke, One shade vppon another doth ■ more darknes heape and packe, And euery sparke of lyght consumd the waues and skyes do mete, The ruflyng wynds range on the seas, through euerye coast they flytt. They heaue it vy wyth vyolence, ouerturnd from bottom low, The westerne wynde flat in the face of easterne wynd doth blow. Ag., D7, T. 7'., 150a. 4—15. Heyw 7 ood and Newton try to vary the extreme monotony of such verse by frequently making the main pause in the sense occur elsewhere, so that the logical and metrical caesuras may not coincide. This leads to frequent enjambement, as in the following passage by Newton : Apollo by his Oracle pronounced sentence dyre Upon mee being yet vnborne, that I unto my Syre Should beastly parricide commit : and thereupon was I Condemned straight by Fathers doome. My Feete were by and by Launcde through, & through with yron Pins : hangde was I by the Heeles Upon a Tree : my swelling plants the printe thereof yet feeles. Thrb., T. T., 45b, 39— 46a, 4. 52 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. The versification of Neville's CEdipus is more nearly akin to that of the period before Wyatt and Surrey, when the number of syllables and even of feet was of little account to the poet, and accent could be shifted at will. The metrical chaos of the first edition of CEdipus has already been illustrated in the extracts given in Chap. Ill, but even in the revised form in which the play appeared in 1581 such lines occur as — What colour it wants, or what it hath, to me is like vncertayne. Now is it black, now blue, now red, and euen now agayne Quight out it is. T. T., 84a, 5—7. or— Be sure his lyfe, and death, and all, be quight exempt from mysery : Ere thou do once presume to say : this man is blest and happy. T. 1\, 92b, 32, 33. Iii the latter example the unaccented syllables of ' mysery ' and ' happy ' are allowed to constitute a rime. ANALYSIS OF THE METRE OF THE TENNE TRAGEDIES. The metre used in the non-choric portions of the translations (with the exception of Nuce's Octavia) is the fourteen-syllable iambic line, or fourteener, sometimes called septenary. The only exceptions of any length are the following :— Scene between Hecuba and Chorus. Troas, T. T., 99a, 17— 100b, 20. Speech of Andromache to Astyauax. Troas, T. T., 111b, 12— 112a, 20. Soliloquy of Thyestes. Thy., T. T., 36a, 6— 36b, 26. Speech of Achilles. Troas, T. T., 101b, 19— 103 a, 21. Soliloquy of Iole. Here. (Et., T. T., 191a, 22— 192a, 10. Of these the first three passages are in decasyllabic lines riming alternately, the fourth is in rime royal, 53 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS and the fifth in the mixed fourteen ers and alex- andrines, sometimes known as poulter's measure. In Nuce's Octavia the decasyllabic couplet, and octosyllabics riming alternately are used instead of the fourteener throughout the non-choric portions. In the Choruses the following metres are used : 1. Fourteener. Hipp., T. T., 66a, 1— 67a, 27. Medea, T. T., 131b, 13— 132b, 26. Ag., T. T., 155a, 19— 155b, 40. Here. (Kt.. T. T., 211a, 15— 212a, 21. Throughout the Choruses of Neville's (Edipus. 2. Alexandrine. Ag., T. T., 142a, 10— 143a, 8. ibid., 147a, 16— 148b, 4. 3. Poulter's measure (alternate fourteeners and alexandrines). Here. (Et., T. T., 204a, 3— 205a, 20. 4. Decasyllabic iambic lines, arranged (a) with alternate rime. Throughout the Choruses of Hey wood's Thyestes, and Hercules Parens (except at the close of Act III.), and Studley's Medea (except the passage in fourteeners mentioned above). Also Hipp. T. T., 60 a, S— 61b, 22, 69 b, 16— 70 a, 23. Troas, T. T., 100b, 21— 101b, 18. Here. (Et., T. T., 189b, 29— 191a, 21. (i) in six-line stanzas, riming a babe c. Hipp., T. T., 72b. 1— 73a, 12. Here. (Et., T. T., 197a, 20— 199a, 36, 217a, 23— 217b, 5. i (c) in seven-line stanzas, riming ababbec (rime royal). Troas, T. T., 106b, 1— 107b, 16, 116a, 6— 117a, 10. 5. Octosyllabic iambic lines, riming alternately. Here. Fur., T. T., 14a, 1—20. Troas, T. T., 113b, 11—26. 2 Oct., T. T., 169a, 1— 171b, 26, 182a, 13— 182b, 13. Occasionally single short lines occur at the end of i These lines are preceded by a ten-line stanza in which the rimes are arranged ababbebedd. 2 Here it is printed in long lines of sixteen syllables. 54 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. a scene, e.g. Hipp., T. T., 57 a, 3, 75 a, 24; Thy., T. T., 36 b, 26. Neville's CEdipus, especially in the 1563 edition, offers numerous examples of short unriming lines in the middle of a scene, e.g. Act I, 1. 33. A few of these remain in the 1581 edition, e.g. T. T., 92b, 10; 94b, 3.. 55 VIII. GRAMMAR. The inflexions found in these translations of Seneca are, in the main, those common to other early Elizabethan works. Verbs. The verbal forms are the most interesting, and among them the following deserve special notice : — Pres. ind. 2nd pers. sing. The usual form is the normal one in -est, -st, but there are several examples of the Northern form in -s, e.g. Thou beares as big and boystrous brawnes as Hercules. Hipp., T. T., 67 a, 1. 1. O double dealing life, thou clokes deceiptful thoughtes in brest. Hipp., T. T., 69a, 1. Let not thy grief e be greater then the sorrow thou sustaynes. Here. (Et., T. T., 195b, 5. Thou God that sits in Seate on high, and all the world dost guide. (Ed., B 4v, T. T., S2b, 6. Thou, that in Lacidoemon dwelles, and honorst Castors grace. Theb., T. T., 43 b, 35. 3rd pers. sing. The forms in -s and -th are used indifferently, e.g. Euboea that doth rise, With hauty crest ringes euery where, and Caphar rocke likewyse Deuydeth Hellesponus sea and turnes that side to south. Here. (Et., T. T., 200b, 12—14. As chaunce allots, so falles it out : this dome abydeth free. Theb., T. T., 53b, 38. 56 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. 3rd pers. plar. In the majority of cases this has the usual uninflected form, e.g. The ruflyng wynds range on the seas, through euerye coast they flytt. They heaue it up with vyolence. Ag., D7, T. T., 150a, 13, 14. All the translators, however, have examples of the form in -s. In some cases this may be due to the necessities of rime, e.g. I do aduise you to beware, beware (I say) of kynges, (A kyndred in whose cancred hartes olde pryuy grudges spryngcs.) Ag. F2, T. T., 154 a, 7, 8. Hangde was I by ye Heeles Upon a Tree : my swelling plants the printe thereof yet feeles. Theb., T.T., 46a, 3, 4. See also Theb., T. T., 46b, 5, ib. 50a, 25, ib. 52a, 30; Here. (Et., T. T., 191a, 25. There are, however, a considerable number of examples for which no such reason can be given, e.g. What secrets daughter deare Unknowen, makes you to look so drouselye? Oct., F2v. T. T., 180b, 8, 9. And blustring winds and [T. T. of] daungers depe setts Death before theyr eyes. (Ed., D8 V - T. T., 91a, 4. In some cases the form in -s is used when the subject consists of two singular nouns united by 'and', e.g. Lo, both the fruites, that vice and virtue giues. Here. (Et., T. T., 217b, 5. And it and heat together makes, great straunge, and ruddy, bumps. ' (Ed., Blv, T. T., 81a, 27. There are a few examples in which ' is ' and ' was ' are used with plural subjects, e.g. Wherwyth my golden crispen lockes is wonted to be crounde. Medea, E4v, T. T., 131b, 6. Such plagues and vengeance is at hande. Medea, E 7, T. T., 132b, 2. . . . those Nimphes that wonted was to staye The shyppes. Medea, Dlv, T. T., 127a, 27. 57 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS All the translators also offer examples of the use of the form in -th in the 3rd pers. pi., e.g. Whose songes the woodes hath drawen. Troas, B3, T. T., 101a, 9. But loe two shynyng Sunnes at once in heauen appereth bryght. Ag., P2, T. T., 154a, 3'. What sharpe assaultes of cruell Cupydes flame Wyth gyddie liede thus tosseth to and froe, Thys bedlem wyght. Medea, F 8, T. T., 136a, 22—24, Nor hansome houses pleaseth him. Hipp., T. T., 59a, 11, Those wordes through all my lims, hath stifnesse spred. Oct., G2v, T. T., 184b, 6. And clottred lumps of flesh the place doth strow. (Ed., E4v, T. 1\, 92b, 9. The misteries whereof the hearers understandeth not. Theb., T. T., 43b, 30. In some passages forms both in -s and -th are used with a plural subject, e.g. Some from the highest mowntaynes top, aloofe beholdeth all Some scale the buyldings hallfe yburnte, and some the ruynous wall ; Ye [T. T., yea] some there werre (O mischief e loe) that for the more despyght, The tombe of Hector sitts upon, beholders of the sight. Troas, Pi, T. T., 117b, 8— 11. or — The roring seas doth drown their voyce and cares [T. T., caryes] their cries awaye. Ag., E lv. T. T., 151a, 8. The 3rd pers. pi. in -n is also found, though rarely, e.g. Except they shed her blood before they gone. Troas, A 6, T. T., 97b, 5. By al my Countrey Gods that bene in Temples closely kept [1563, close I kept] . T. T., 82b, 35, (Ed., B5v- . . . these Mates ben meetst of all For me. (Ed., F2, T. T., 94b, 14. 58 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. Pres. sitbj. 2nd per s. sing. In one passage 'arre' is used for ' be ' : Thou Gods (though tierce and valiant) perforce dost chase, and farre Dost ouermatch in length of limmes, though yet but young thou arre. Hipp., T. T., 66b, 39, 40. Pret. ind. Weak forms sometimes occur in the preterite of strong verbs, e.g. Feare shaMe of rest From me. Oct., F3v., T. T., 181b, 9, 10. He shyned biasing brim. Here. (Et., T. T., 199b, 17. A few archaic or dialectal forms occur, e.g. ' yode ' (O. E. eode) for 'went': Of mates with hir to sea that yode. Oct., Dlv, T. T., 171a, 14. 'mought' (M. E. mohte, a variant for mihte, mahte, formed perhaps on the analogy of dohte, another pret. present verb) for ' might ' : And for the nones my hawty hart, and Princely courage stout I did abate, that humbly thee with teares entreate I moiight. Hipp., T. T., 64d,i 31, 32. Other forms now obsolete are fiang = fiung (Hipp., T. T., 71b, 36), stacks stuck {Med., F4v, T. T., 135a, 1), molt = melted (Here. (Et., T. T., 199a, 20, 21). Past part. The archaic prefix y- (O. E. 'ge-) is used several times by Studley, only twice by Heywood, three times by Neville, once by Newton, and very fre- i In the foliation of the Tenne Trag., Nos. 64 and 65 appear twice. I have denoted the recto and verso of the latter pair by c and d respectively. 59 THE ELIZABETHAN TKAN'SLATIONS quently by Nuce, who, as has been noticed elsewhere, has a love for archaic forms. Two examples will suffice : Some scale the buylclings halfe yburnte. Troas, Fl, T. T., 117 b, 9. And griesly goast to graue with Torche yborne. Oct., ol f T. T., 166a, 6. This y- is sometimes erroneously used with other parts of the verb, e.g. And sterne Erinnis in with deadly steps, To Claudius Court, all desert left yleps. Oct., B4v. T. T., 165b, 23, 24. Whose roring sownd, and craking noise the lesser woods I charmes. (Ed., 03v, T. T., 85b, 18. Weak past participles often omit -ed, if the stem of the verb ends in t or d, e.g. Thy fall hath lift thee higher up. Troas, e 3v, T. T., 114 b, 8. You Aares haue yeld a clattryng noyse. Medea, F5v. T. T., 135a, 22. Danie Iuno hath transport the elves. Here. (Et., T. T., 189a, 27. There are a few examples in which -ed is omitted, though the stem does not end in t or d. In this case it will generally be found that the word following begins with t or d, e.g. . . . if that among you any are Constrayne to shed your streaming teares. Here. (Et., T. T., 216a, 14, 15. We sometimes find -n omitted in strong past part., e.g. This wayward agony hath take his perflt wits away. Here. (Et., T. T., 209b, 1. . . . nowe Lycus loe the grownde With groueling face hath smit. Here. Fur., I 3, T. T., 14b, 1, 2. Which Grekes haue writ in registers. Ag., C4, T. T., 145b, 3. 60 OF SENEGA'S TRAGEDIES. Pret. forms in past part. Occasionally preterite forms are used as past participles, e.g. Or hath the tamer of the worlde and greekes renowne lykewyse, Forsooke the silent howse. Here. Fur., Gl, 2, T. T., 10 b, 2, 8. I haue shooke the seas. Herb. (Ft., T. T., 195b, 15. The braseen buclers being shoke did gyue a clattrying sound. Ag. E 6, 152 b, 18. On thee that next olde Arcades in heauen thy seate hast tooke. Hipp., T. T., 66 b, 20. Nouns. There are very few plural forms of interest. Clives ( = cliffs.) Hipp., T. T., 59b, 1. Eyen ( = eyes.) Theb., T. T., 42 a, 10. Grieves ( = griefs.) Theb., T. T., 45 a, 16. Howsen (= houses.) Here. Fur., I 1, 13 b, 1. Mischieves ( = mischiefs.) Oct., B 2v. T. T., 163 a, 26. Clives, grieves, and mischieves show the frequent change of f to v in the plural. Eyen (O. E. eagan) retains the O. E. suffix -n, used to form the plural of weak nouns. Howsen is a new formation, found in other sixteenth-century writers, 1 and still existing dialectally, on the analogy of nouns like e} T en and oxen. The plural form in O. E. was hus, and in M. E. houses. Adjectives. The double comparative is sometimes found, e.g. 'worser' (Hipp., T. T., 58 b, 16), and the double super- lative, e.g. 'most extreamest ' (Ag., c2, T. T., 144b, 16). The form ' lenger ' ((Ed., A 2, T. T., 80b, 24) for ' longer' represents 0. E. lengra, showing i-umlaut. 2 i Cp. North. Guevara's Diall of Princes, 194, a/2. The housen wherin they dwel. 2 Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses furnishes an interesting contemporary parallel to these Senecan translations in grammar and vocabulary. Many of the forms instanced in this chapter are also to be found in Golding, e.g., 'mought,' Meta- morphoses vi., 471; 'flang,' viii., 551 ; 'molt,' xiv., 487; 'take' as past participle, v., 882 ; ' lenger,' vi., 63. 61 IX. VOCABULARY. The vocabulary used in these translations of Seneca is full of interest. It varies to a certain extent according to the idiosyncrasies of the dif- ferent translators, Heywood having a partiality for Latinisnis, Nuce for archaisms of English origin, Studley and Newton for colloquial words and phrases. On the whole, however, there is a general similarity in the language of the plays which make up the Tenne Tragedies, and it serves as an excellent example of the diction used between 1559 and 1567 by young men of literary tastes and good education. Certain words present considerable difficulty, and deserve special notice. Among these may be men- tioned the following : — ' Marble ' is used repeatedly by Studley as an epithet to be applied to the sea or sky, e.g. Hipp. T. T., 56a, 25, "Whereas the marble Sea doth neete", Here. CEt., T. T., 192a, 18, "... when marble skies no filthy fog doth dim." Readers of Milton^ will recall in this connection the ' pur e marble air' of Paradise Lost, in, 564. The Neiv Eng. Diet, explains ' marble ' in the line just quoted from Milton, and in a line from Phaer ' marble-facyd seas,' as meaning ' smooth as marble,' and takes no notice of the use of the word in the Tenne Tragedies. A study of the passages in which the word is used by Studley and 62 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. Heywood 1 leads, however, to a somewhat different conclusion. In Hipp., T. T., 71a, 19, we find "A boasting Bnll his marble necke advaimced hye that bare" as the rendering of the Latin "Caerulea taurus colla sublimis gerens," where ' marble ' represents the Latin ' caerulea.' In Hipp., T. T., 73a, 17, "the Monstrous hags of Marble Seas" represent the "monstra caerulei maris" of Seneca. Here. CEt., T. T., 193a, 8, has "The northern beare to Marble seas shall stoupe to quench his thyrst " as the rendering of "Ursa pontum sicca caerulum bibet." In Heywood's Here. Fur., c 3, T. T., 3a, 8, we find "With marble hors now drawn" representing Seneca's "iam caeruleis evectus equis." Apparently the translator associated the idea of blueness with marble, for in Hipp., T. T., (36b, 30, "lucebit Pario marmore clarius " is rendered by — The Marble blue in quarry pittes of Parius that doth lie, Beares not so brave a glimsyng glosse as pleasant seemes thy face. If marble be taken as the equivalent of ' caeruleus ' = ' azure,' ' dark blue,' the force of the epithet when applied to sea or sky becomes clear, and Studley's predilection for it (he uses it frequently when there is no corresponding Latin adjective at all) becomes easy to understand. ' Aleare.' O well was I, when as I lived a leare, Not in the barren balkes of fallow land. Here. (Et., T. T., 190 b, 1, 2. I spoylde thy father Hercules, this hand, this hand aleare Hath murdred him. Here. CEt., T. T., 208a, 37, 38. i It has been pointed out tome that Donne, who was Heywood's nephew, uses ' marble ' as an epithet for the air in his poem of The Storm. 1. 14 : " th'air's middle marble room." 63 THE ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS The only example of the word in the New Eng. Diet, is the latter one just quoted from Here. (Et. The New Eng. Diet, explains: "? Fated. ? chance- directed," and suggests as a derivation : " ? ad Lat. alearis, meaning ' belonging to dice '." This explana- tion does not hold good for the former passage, of which no notice is taken in the Neiv Eng. Diet. There is no corresponding Latin word in either passage — " felix incolui non steriles focos," " Hercu- lem eripuit tibi haec, haec peremit dextra." Both the meaning and the origin of the word are obscure. The Eng. Dialect Diet, gives 'aleare' as a provincial word used of waggons to mean ' empty, unladen.' ' Cloyne ' = ' steal.' . . . for feare least thou alone Should cloyne his Scepter from his hand. Here. (Et., T. T., 216b, 15, 16. ' Feltred ' = ' matted,' ' tangled.' And griesly Plutos filthie feltred denne. Oct., c 2v, T. T., 167 a, 33. 'Frounced' = 'wrinkled,' 'perverse.' And settest out a forhead fay re where frounced mynd doth rest. Hipp., T. T., 69a, 2. Thus startyng still with frounced mind she waiters to and froe. Medea, D 2, T. T., 127 b, 21. The New Eng. Diet, gives no example of the figurative use of 'frounced,' except a nineteenth- century one from Saintsbury in a different sense, though it mentions that 'frounce' is used to mean ' to look angry,' which is not quite the same sense as here. The transition, however, is easy, if such a passage is considered as Gawaine, 1. 2306, " frounces bothe lyppe and browe." 64 OF SENECA'S TRAGEDIES. ' Overheel ' = ' cover over.' . . . the fielde That all to spatterd lay with blond, and bones quight overheelde. (Ed., A 5* T. T., 79 b, 21, 22. The New Eng. Diet, gives no example of the use of the word as late as the sixteenth century except by Scotch writers. ' Plaunch.' Alas, each part of me with gnilt is plannch and overgrowne. Theb., T. T., 44 a, 34. The New Eng. Diet, gives no example of the use of 'plaunch' as an adjective. It explains the verb 'plaunch' as 'to cover with planks'. ' Royle.' As a verb, =' roam ' (cf. Golding, Metamorph., in, 18). Let them in solemne flockes goe royle. Here. Fur., I 2, T. T., 14 a, 5. As a noun, = 'monster' (?). That ngly Royle heere heates him selfe. Hipp., T. T., 71b, 4. These royles, that prease to worrey mee. Medea, Go, T. T., 138b, 18. The New Eng. Diet, gives two substantives under ' roil or royle,' the first meaning ' an inferior or spiritless horse, a draught-horse (of Flemish breed), or a clumsy or stoutly-built female,' and the second meaning 'agitation or stirring up (of water).' Neither of these suits the quotations here given, since that from Hippolytus refers to the sea-monster which a few lines before had been described as a bull, and the passage from Medea refers to the Furies. Among Heywood's Latinisms the following may be noticed : — 65 ELIZABETHAN TRANSLATIONS FROM SENECA. ' Frete ' or 'freate,' meaning 'sea' or 'flood' 1 (Lat. 1 fretum '), e.g. And freate that twyse with ebbe away dooth slyppe. And twyse upflowe. Here. Fur., D 4, T. T., 6a, 13, 14. And hardened top of frosen freat he troade, And sylent sea with banks full dumme about. Here. Fur., P5, T. T., 9a, 12, 13. Thou fearefull freate of fyre . O Phlegethon. Thy., T. T., 39b, 14, 1-5. ' Roge,' meaning ' funeral pile ' (Lat. ' rogus '), e.g. And roges for kings, that high on piles we reare. Troas, T. T., 100 a, 29. What bretherns double tents'? or what as many roages also? (Latin : quid totidem rogos '?) Here. Fur., E3, T. T., 7a, 19. 'Impery,' meaning 'dominion ' (Lat. ' imperium '), . . . the auncient note and sygne of impery. T. T., 24 b, 20. and also meaning a 'command,' e.g. " at ease he doothe myne imperies fulfyll" (Lat. "laetusimperia excipit") (Here. Fur., B 5, T. T., lb, 32). ' Stadie,' meaning ' a race-course,' ' stadium,' e.g. " Renowned stadies to my youth " (Lat. " celebrata inveni stadia") (T. T., 27b, 6). A fuller list of the more unusual words employed in the Tenne Tragedies will be found in the Appendix. i The New Eng. Diet, gives only ' strait ' as the meaning of 'frete', but its use here seems to be wider, and to correspond to the use of ' fretum ' in Latin poetry to mean not merely ' strait ' but ' sea ' . 66 BIBLIOGRAPHY. I. TEXT. LATIN. Senecae Tragoediae. Venetiis in iEdibus Aldi et Andreae Soceri. MDXVII. L. Annei Senecae Gordubensis Tragoediae. Basileae apud Henri- chum Petri. mdl. L. Annei Senecae Cordubensis Tragoediae. Apud Seb. Gryphium Lugduni, 1554. L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae. Recensuit et emendavit Fridericus Leo. Berolini, mdccclxviii. L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae. Recensuerunt Rudolphus Peiper et Gustavus Richter. Lipsiae. In aedibus B. G. Teubneri. MCMII. ENGLISH. HEYWOOD (Jasper). The sixt tragedie of the most grave and prudent author Lucius Anneus Seneca, entituled Troas, with diners and sundrye addicions to the same. Newly set forth in Englishe by Iasper Heywood, Student in Oxenforde. London, 1559. Heywood (Jasper). The seconde tragedie of Seneca, entituled Thyestes, faithfully Englished by I. Heywood. London, 1560. HEYWOOD (Jasper). L. A. Senecae Tragedia prima quae inscribitur Hercules Furens ... in anglicum metrum conuersa . . . per I. Heywoodum. London, 1561. 67 BIBLIOGKAPHY. NEVILLE (Alexander). The Lamentable Tragedie of CEdipus the Sonne of Lotus Kyng of Thebes out of Seneca. By Alexander Neuyle. London, 1563. Nuce (Thomas). The ninth Tragedie of Lucius Anneus Seneca, called Octauia. Translated out of Latine into English, by T. N. Student in Cambridge. London [undated]. STUDLEY (John). The Eyght Tragedie of Seneca. Entituled Agamemnon. Translated out of Latin into English, by Iohn Studley, Student in Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge. London, 1566, Studley (John). The seuenth Tragedie of Seneca, Entituled Medea. Translated out of Latin into English, by Iohn Studley, Student in Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge. London, 1566. Newton (Thomas) [editor]. Seneca. His Tenne Tragedies, trans- lated into Englysh. London, 1581, Spenser SOCIETY. Reprint of " Seneca. His Tenne Tragedies.'' 1 Manchester, 1887, II. CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL. Boas (F. S.) Works of Thomas Kyd. Oxford, 1901. Chetwcod. The British Theatre. Containing the Lives of the English Dramatic Poets. London, 1750. COOPER (C. H.) Annals of Cambridge. Cambridge, 1842-53. Cooper (C. H. and T. C.) Athenae Cantabrigienses. Cambridge, 1858. Cunliffe (J. W.) The Influence of Seneca on Elizabethan Tragedy. London, 1893. Fischer (Rudolph). Zur Kunstentwicklung der englischen Tragodie von ihren Anfangen bis zu Shakespeare. Strassburg, 1893. HEYWOOD (James) and Wright. Cambridge University Trans- actions. London, 1854. JOCKERS (Ernst). Die englischen Seneca — Vebersetzcr des 16. Jahrhunderts. Strassburg, 1909. 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Kaluza (M.) (Trans. A. C. Dunstan). Short History of English Versification. London, 1911. MILLER, (F. J.) The Tragedies of Seneca translated into English verse. Introduced by an Essay on the influence of the tragedies of Seneca upon Early English drama by John Matthews Manly. Chicago, 1907. SAINTSBURY (G.) A History of English Prosody. London, 1906. SCHELLING (F. E.) Elizabethan Drama. Boston and New York, 1908. Schipper (J.) Neuenglische MetriTc. Bonn, 1888. Smith (G. C. Moore). Plays performed in Cambridge Colleges before 1585. (Article in Fasciculus J. W. ClarJc dicatns.) Privately printed, Cambridge. Stephen (Leslie) and Lee (Sidney). Dictionary of National Bio- graphy. Articles on Heywood, Neville, Newton, Nuce, and Studley. London, 1885—1900. Strype (John). Life and Acts of 21. Parker. London, 1711. Life and Acts of J. Whitgift. London, 1718. SYMONDS (J. A.) Shakespeare'' s Predecessors in the English Drama. Revised edition. London, 1900. Ward (A. W.) History of English Dramatic Literature to the Death of Queen Anne. 2nd ed. London, 1899. Ward (A. W.) and Waller (A. R.) Cambridge History of Eng- lish Literature, Vols. V. and VI. Cambridge, 1910. WARTON (T.) History of English Poetry. London, 1774—81. Edited by Hazlitt (W. C.) London, 1871. WOOD (Anthony a). Athenae Oxonienses. Ed. P. Bliss. London, 1813—20. APPENDIX A list of the more unusual words to be found in the Tenne Tragedies of 1581. This list does not claim to furnish a complete glossary. The references are to the foliation of the 1581 edition. The derivations given are for the most part based on information found in the New English Dictionary as far as it lias appeared. aare (O. F. aire, L. ara), altar. 186 b. abandon (causative use of vb.), banish, cause to abandon. 58b. "Nor... Taurus mount whose hoary and frosty face With numming cold abandons all inhibitors the place." AGRISE (O. E. agrisan), terrify. 66 b, 189. alder (northern form of 'older'), former. 64b, 134b. aleare (see pp. 63, 64), etymology and meaning uncertain. According to N. E. D. not found elsewhere. 190b, 203. APPEACHE (represents an earlier *anpeche, prob. A. F. form of O. F. empecbier), accuse. 65 d. appose (var. of oppose), confront with hard questions. 43b. assoyle (pres. ind. and subj. of O. F. asoldre), solve. 79b. attach (O. F. atachier), accuse. 165 b. basnet (O. F. bassinet), steel head-piece. 51. battaylous (O. F. batailleus), warlike. 175. bear the bell, take the first place. 48 b, 65 c, 166 b. befrounced (be + frounce = wrinkle), ruffled. 214b. N. E. D. gives no other example of the word. beray (be + ray, aphetic form of array), disfigure. 181, 183. bestad (be + stad and O.N. staddr), beset. 10 b, 160. bethwact. N. E. D. gives only bethwack = pelt, thrash. 53 b. The meaning here seems to be ' covered.' " a soyle bethwact with vines." bleakish (bleak + ish), rather pale. 67. The only example in N. E. D. of this use of the word. blockam. Etymology and meaning uncertain. Not mentioned in N.E.D. " And some at least to blockam Feaste to bryng." 198. boalne (prob. from O. E. bolgen, past part, of bolgan), swollen. 196 b, 2C0. 70 APPENDIX. bobltng (onomat.), babbling. 156b. rood (incorrect use of hood, preb. of hide, in the infinitive), abide, 147. bough (onomat.), bark. 155b. brasell (prob. Spun, brasil), hard wood, 188b. bray (0. F. braire), give forth. N. E. D. adds ' with a cry,' which does not suit 64, 1. 29. "Or els among the baulmy flowres out braving fauours [? sauours] sweete." Cf. 56, 11. 12, 3. " where Zephyrus most milde Out brayes his baumy breath so sweete." brim (O. E. breme), bright, 180, 192, 199b. buffe (O. F. buffe), buffalo, wild ox. 56 b. bugge (prob. Weslh bwg), hobgoblin. 201b, 206b. bugle (O. F. bugle), buffalo, wild ox. 56b. bum (deriv. uncertain), strike. 64b, 183 b. buskle (freq. of busk), prepare, shake. 1S9, 192, 212. bylbowblades (from Bilbao iu Spain, famous for its swords), shaiqi swords. 143 b. CHOP (prob. rar. of chap=buy), exchange. 161. cleaze (plur. of clea, clee, which represents the O. E. nom. clen, cleo, as claw represents the oblique cases, clawe, etc.), claws, 74b, 188b, 206b. CLERESO.vie (O. F. cler + some), bright, 3. Not in X. E. D. clotter (freq. of clot), clot, 69, 92b. Clubbisu (club + ish), clownish. 174. CLYP (O. E. clyppan), embrace. 29b. coll (O. F. col), embrace. 29b, 51. con thanks (O. E. thane cunnan), offer thanks. 47b. CONQUEROUS (conquer + ous), victorious. 180. corsey' (syncopated form of coresive = corrosive) grievance. 193, 206. couxtermure (F. contremurer), fortify with an additional wall. 64b. COUXTERPAY'SE (O. F. contrepeser), counterbalance. 67 b. COYLE, subs, (deriv. uncertain), tumult, 43, 189b, 52b, 183b. Coyle, vb. (deriv. uncertain), beat. 156 b. ckake (var. of crack), boast, As subs. 141, 151; as vb. 166b. CRANKE (deriv. uncertain), vigorous. 201b. CRISPEN (var. of crisp, crisjied), curled. 62, 64 b, 131b, 204. This form of the word is not mentioned in X. E. D. dankesh, danky (deriv. of dank), somewhat dank. 167, 106 b. darraygne (O. F. deraisnier), contest, challenge. 46 b. 71 APPENDIX. DIMILAUNCE (F. demie lance), light horseman armed with short lance. 1 52. i>i\<;tiikyitk (ding + thrift), spendthrift. 198. DISPONSED (Lat. desponsare), betrothed. 152b. X. E. D. gives only d espoused, for which this may be a printer's error, though it appears in both editions of the text, or it may be a new for- mation from the Latin. DISBUMPE (Lat. dis-rumpere), break up. 177 b. distatn (O. F. desteindre), defile. 42 b. doeee (prob. O. N. dar), mockery. 85. dottipoll (dote + poll), blockhead. 53. dowse (prob. onomat. though it may be connected with douse = strike), plunge. 74. N. E. D. gives no example as early as this, and states that the word appears c. 1600. drake (O. E. draca), meteor. 66. drosel (deriv. uncertain), slut. 168b. ~N. E. D. gives the word only as subs., but on f. 145b it is used as an adjective. '• This drosel sluggish ringleader." eabxefully (adv. from earneful, var. of yearnful, from yearn), anxiously, sorrowfully. 191 b. easteeling (from easier [adj.] + ling, prob. after Dutch oosterling), native of the east. 188b, 211. eftsones, immediately, repeatedly. 31, 105. EMi'EACH (Fr. empecher), hinder. 43b. engeale (in + grave), entomb. 20. enmious (O. F. enemieux), hostile. 15b. ententiue (O. F. ententif), attentive. 194. enteeataxce (entreat + ance), entreaty. 64c. FADGE (deriv. uncertain), fit. 166b. feeee (O. E. gefera), companion, spouse. 43 b, etc. felteed (O. F. feltrer), matted. 167. fisk (prob. frequent of O. E. fysan), move briskly. 192b. FITTERS (deriv. uncertain), fragments. 73b. flawe (prob. O. E. *flagu, corresp. to Swed. flaga), squall. 69, 167. flimflam (prob. onomat.), idle. 137 b. flingbeayne (fliDg + brain), foolish. 47. Not as adj. in X. E. D. flush (prob. onomat.), flutter. 60 b. fondling (fond = foolish + ling), fool. 194, 198. foeloende (use of forlorn as trans, vb., meaning 'lament'). 141b. fobslow (O. E. for-slawian), delay. 214. feeake (O. E. freca), man. 162 b, etc. FBEMMD (O. E. fremede), stranger. 48b. 72 APPENDIX. frete (Lat, fretum), strait, sea, flood. 6, 9, 37 b, 391). frounced (O. F. froncier), wrinkled, perverse. (i9. frump (vb.), mock. 177 b. lgent (Lat. fulgentem), glittering. 27b, 66. fussten ftjmes (f ustian = coarse cloth, fig. inflated language), display of anger. 153 b. GAINER (compar. of O. N. gegn), straighter, more direct. 57. garbovt.e (O. F. garbouil), tumult. 47 b, 48. o a rg ell, gargle, adj. (O. F. gargouille), monstrous. 60b, 123b, 138b. gattex tree (O. E. gate treow), dogwood. 64b. gird (deriv. uncertain), thrust. 71b. glade (prob. Scand.), setting (of sun or stars). 66, 161b, 198. glede (O. E. glu>d), light, fire. 68 b, 71, etc. GLOWM, glown (deriv. uncertain), frown, lower, 192b, 210, 217. ^GLUMMY (glum + y), dark. 74, 188b, etc. GLT (deriv. uncertain), look asquint. 188 b. GNOFFE (cf. E. Fris. gnuffig = rough), churl. 198. GOAR (from gore [subs.] =• blood), cover with blood. 188b. gobbet (O. F. gobet), fragment, piece of flesh. 72, 75. greets (O. E. greotan), weep. 207 b. grutch (O. F. groucier), murmur at. 177 b. gub (O. F. gobe, goube), lump, clot, 72, 175 b, etc. gydon (O. F. guidon), flag. 49. happy, vb. (from happy, adj.), make happy. 115. hawsing (O. E. hals), embracing. 65 c. hayting (hait, a word of encouragement to horses), crying 'hait!' 167b. X. H. D. gives no example of its use as adj. hegge (var. of hag), evil spirit, 204b. iiellicke (O. E. hel-lic), infernal. 67b, 73. helly (hell + y), infernal. 5 b, 18. hent (O. E. hentan), seize. 43. hoy (prob. M. Dutch hoci), sloop. 190. hugger mugger (deriv. uncertain), secret. 58. HUGY (liuge + y), huge. 35, 64b, etc. imp (O. E. impa), child, scion. 64d, 209b, etc. impery, emperie (O. F. emperie, assimilated in the form impery to Lat, imperium), (1) domiinon, 2, 24b, 29 b; (2) command, behest, lb. This latter use is said to be rare by N. E. D. which gives no other example. • jaunce (deriv. uncertain), make prance. 199. jet (O. F. jeter), strut, swagger. 194 b, 198 b. 73 APPENDIX. jotting (prob. onomat.), jogging. 56b, 72. jumpb, adv. (from jump, vb.), exactly. 183. kakkaym:, adj. (var. of carrion, O. Norm. F. caroine), death-like, cor- rupt. 190, 211b. KAYSAR (Lut. Caesar), emperor. 201b. KEBEREYES (a var. not mentioned in N. E. D. of earerie, var. of career). 63 b. kill (var. of Kiln), funeral pyre. "and thus the forrest wyde Doth make the Kill [for Hercules' burning]." 213, 1. 8. "When up lie stept on Oeta mount and gazed on his Kill." ibid. 1. 13. JV. E. D. gives no example of this use, though the transition to it from the ordinary meaning ' furnace, oven ' is easy. knappe (onomat.), break in pieces. 19, 212 b. knariue (M. E. knarre), knotty. 64b, 202b, 213. label (O. F. label), fillet, ribbon. 64d, 66. LACTTJSE (var. of lettuce, Lat. lactuea), sea-weed. 71. laeme (F. larme), tear. 216. Not in N. E. D. launch (O. Norm. F. lancher), pierce. 168. lauxcixg (O. F. lancier), darting forward. 149. leame (O. E. leoma), flash, ray. 193b, etc. LEEFE, subs. (O. E. leof), love, husband. 167. li.mkke (O. F. liemier), leash-hound, blood-hound. 56b. LiNNK (O. E. linnan), cease. 44, 201, 210 b. litii (O. E. lithe), calm, still. 70b. lumpe (and lower), vb. (onomat.), look unpleasant. 150. lfskish (vb. lusk = skulk), sluggish. 57 b. mai'd (aphetic form of amayed = dismayed), dismayed. 103 b. MANKINDE, adj. masculine, virago-like. 156b. marble, adj. (see pp. 62, 63). 3. 56, 58b, 61, 61, 67b, 68b, 71, 71b, 73, 192, 193, 193b, 216, 200b. meacocke, meycocke (deriv. uncertain), coward. 45, 151, 174. mell (O. F. meller, mesler), interfere. 54b. mknv (O. F. mesnie), retinue. 155. MICHING, myche (prob. O. F. muchier), skulking. 69, 193 b. miser (Lat. miser), wretch [without idea of avarice]. 22, 28, etc. moary (var. of moory, from moor), marshy. 196b, 210. In 'hoary moary frost,' 133 b, it has probably no force of its own, and is used only for the jingle. 74 APPENDIX. home (deriv. uncertain), blockhead. 150b, 198. moysted (from moist), moistened. 3(5 h. mucky (X. E. muk), dirty. 190. nock, vb. (from nock, subs. = notch), provide bow or arrows with notch. 147 b, 213. note (ne + wot), know not. 25. nowne (from own, by mistaken division of myn own, thyn own, and used afterwards with her, your, etc.), own. 174 b. NOT, noiance (aphetic foiTtis of annoy, annoyance). 206b, 72 b. obit rytes (L. obitus), funeral rites. 74b, 149 b. OBTayne (in Lat. sense of occupy, possess). 64. oixerdight (over + dight), cover over. 162b. ouerheel (O. E. ofer-helian), cover over. 79b, 84b. X. E. D. gives none but Scotch examples after 1200. OUERQUEL (over + quell), perish, be overcome. 152. N. E. D. gives examples only of the transitive use of the verb. ouerthwart (over + O. X. thvert), across. 151. palt (var. of pelt) , strike with repeated blows. 191b. paebrake, perbrake (compound of brake = vomit), vomit. 69b, 159b. pash (onomat.), break in pieces. 50, 191 b, 206. patch (possibly from fool's patched coat, or perbaps from Ital. pazzo), fool. 174, 177. payse, subs. (O. F. peis), weight. 21b, 64. payse, vb. (O. F. peser), weigh, balance. 17 b, 162b. pipling (dimin. of pipe), whistle. 70b, 134 b. placket (L. placet), expression of assent or sanction. 189 b. plump (deriv. uncertain), troop, flock. 81. POYNT (aphetic form of appoint), appoint. 22b, 32b. prig (deriv. uncertain), steal. 64. princocks (deriv. uncertain), coxcomb. 165 b. pykes, pass the (F. passer les piques), run the gauntlet. 45. QUAIL (deriv. uncertain), impair, destroy. 44b, 45b. QUARELLE (O. F. quarel), arrow. 56 b. quarie (var. of quarelle), arrow. 190b. quaynt (O. F. cointier), acquaint. 64. QUEACHY (queach = thicket, + y), forming dense grove or thicket. 48, quell (O. E. cwellan), kill. 41b, 69. 75 APPENDIX. hack (var. of rase, raze), scratch. 72. rack (deriv. uncertain, prob. Scand.), muss of cloud. 60b, 196. rahatk (var. of rate), scold. 53 b. kami'irk (O. F. rampar; change of vowel in second syllable unexplained), rampart. 4 b, 64 b. ramptre, ramper (O. F. remparer), fortify. 172b. rascal, adj. (O. F. rascaille), inferior. 56, 211b. rat, subs. (prob. aphetic form of array, or perhaps direct from O. Norm. F. *rei,.0. F. roi), array. 48b, 71b. rat, vb., soil. 92 b. reaue (apparently due to confusion of reave = rob with rive), cleave. rector (Lat. rector), ruler, lib. recule (O. F. reculer), retire, drive back. 149b, 190. regall, subs. (F. regal), feast. 64. repriue (var. of reprove), reject. 163. retchles, reachlesse (O. E. recceleas), careless, heedless. 70, 74b. rexe (deriv. uncertain), merry-making. 156. RIG, ryg (deriv. uncertain), (1) ransack, rifle. 92 b. (2) romp. 57 b. ROGE (L. rogus), funeral pyre. 7, 99, 100. The only example in N. E. D. dates from the latter part of the seventeenth century. roore (M. Du. roer), disturbance. 212 b. N. E. D. gives the word only in the phrase in, on, or upon a roore. rotle, subs, (see p. 65), ? monster. 71b, 138b. BOYLE, vb. (deriv. uncertain), roam. 14. rotst (from roister, F. rustre), swagger. 63. ruffe (deriv. uncertain), fury. 59. rttndel (var. of roundel), circle. 175, 176. RTrENED (confusion of riven and rived), cloven. 170, 178. No mention of this form in N. E. D. safetinesse (safety + ness) , safety. " the daungerous quick Sand Shall promisse Ships with safetinesse upon the shold to land." 65. Not in N. E. D. sangue (F. sang), blood. " Descended of the royall Sangue." 46. N. E. D. gives only " sang royal," with no example of the inversion of the phrase. sheryng (O. E. scieran), cleaving [water]. 149 b, 162 b. shittel (M. E. schityl), rash, headlong. 58b, 62. shife (M. E. schive, schife), splinter. 64 b, 21. shog (var. of shock), shake, jog. 167 b, 189. 76 appendix. "•.•.•••.:..:: •••:*•.: slabbt (slab = mire, + y), wet, slimy. 71, 189. shot (verbal subs, from smite), stroke. 160b. spang (O. E. gespong), ornament. 198b. spell (? O. N. spolr), splinter. 72. splay (apbetic form of display), display. 102. spritish (sprite + isb), ghostly. 170 b. spyre (L. spirare), blow. 151. stadie (L. stadium), race-course. 27b. steaming (O. E. steman), glaring. 188 b, 201. stilting (? O. F. estiver), hasty. 148 b. stoulpe (Icel. stolpi), post. 68. swallowe, swolue (M. E. swolwe, gulf, whirlpool. 70b, 74. SWINCKE (O. E. swincan). The usual meaning of 'toil' is not apparent in this passage : " In olde Assaracks goblets gylt they swincke and swill the wyne." 156. tat (deriv. uncertain), let fall. No example of this use in A r . E. D. " The fainting horse for sodayne paine from back his burden tats." 80b. taw (O. E. tawian), flog. 68. thirl (O. E. thyrlian), pierce. 56 b, 208. tiiirl, thril, thurl (deriv. uncertain), hurl. 56b, 48b, 192. thratling (var. of throttle), choking. 152. TJGSOME, ougsome (O.N. uggr + some), frightful. 192b. ungrubbed (uii + grub = dig), not dug. 173 UNPATSED (un + payse = weigh), unbalanced. 191b. fnreky (un + reky = moist), unmoistened. 207 b. i'nwayned (un + wayn = bring), not advanced. 191b. L'ke (O. F. cure), operation, use. 123, 141 b. yer (O. F. ver, Lat. ver), spi'ing. 66. virago (Lat. virago), woman of great strength and courage [without de- preciatory force; here applied to Diana]. 56b. walme, wawme (O. E. wselm), wave, ripple. 145, 149, 195 b. Walter (freq. of wait = roll), roll, welter. 62b, 81, etc. wambling (lYI. E. wamleu), rumbling, heaving. 133, 190b. v_^wanny (wan + y), pale. 66 b, 194. / 77 APPENDIX. WArors (wave + ous), full of waves. 43 b. WATMENT (O. F. waimenter, guaimcnter), lament. 4Sb. waynde (O. N. vegna), brought. 50b, 142b. whist, whisht, whusht, vb. (whist, interject, onomat.), be silent, 30b, 7, 18 b. 78 14 PA* RETURN TO RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY University of California Richmond Field Station, Bldg. 400 1301 South 46th Street Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS mS Tmo,^ reCharge your librar y materials, you may contact NRLF 4 days prior to due date at (510) 642-6233 (0^28 200? 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