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Surrey's Debt to Gawin Douglas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Florence H. Ridley
Florence H. Ridley*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles 24
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Extract

The importance of Gawin Douglas' Eneados, the first English translation of the Aeneid, has been acknowledged since the sixteenth century. In 1530 David Lindsay wrote of Douglas' “worthy workis . . . And, speciallye, the trew Translatioun / Off Uirgill,” and forty years later Barnabie Googe ranked the Scots poet's translation above that of his English successor, Surrey,

      The Noble H. Hawarde once,
      That raught eternall fame, With mighty style did bring a pece
      Of Virgil's worke in frame, And Grimaold gave the lyke attempt,
      And Douglas wan the Ball, Whose famous wyt in Scottysh ryme
      Had made an ende of all.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 25 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

1 “The Testament of the Papyngo,” The Works of Sir David Lindsay, Douglas Hamer, ed. (Edinburgh, 1931), I, 57, 27–34.

2 “Epytaphe of Maister Thomas Phayre,” Eglogs Epy-taphes and Sonetles (London, 1563), recto C.iii. For listing and discussion of other early references to the Eneados, see William Geddie, A Bibliography of Middle Scots Poets (Edinburgh, 1912), pp. 231–245; Lauchlan MacLean Watt, Douglas's Mneid (Cambridge, 1920), pp. 3–24; J. A. W. Bennett, “The Early Fame of Gawin Douglas's Eneados,” MLN, LXI (1946), 83–88.

3 “The XIII. Bukes of Eneados,” The Poetical Works of Gavin Douglas, John Small, ed. (Edinburgh, 1874), iv, 231, 11. 2–4.

4 The form of Surrey's work apparently derived from that of the Italian translations of the Aeneid. For the influence of Hippolito de Medici's translation (1539), see Rudolf Dittes, “Zu Surrey's Aeneisiibertragung,” Beitrdge zur Neu-eren Philologie (July 1902), pp. 189–205 and Otto Fest, “Uber Surrey's Virgiliibersetzung, nebst Neuausgabe des vierten Buches, nach Tottel's Originaldruck und der bisher ungedruckten Hargrave 205,” Palaestra, xxxiv (1905), 5161; that of Bartolameo Carli Picholomini's (1544), Rudolph Imelmann, Zu den Anfangen des Blankverses: Surreys Aeneis IV in ursprilnglicher Gestalt (Weimar, 1905), pp. 114–118; that of Nicolo Liburnio's (1534), Henry Burrows Lathrop, Translations from the Classics into English from Caxton to Chapman 1477–1620, Univ. of Wisconsin Studies in Lang, and Lit., xxxv (Madison, 1933), 98–99. The demonstrable dependence upon the Italians for form cannot, of course, negate Surrey's dependence upon Douglas for content. Nor can similarity between the two British translations be due to a mutual use of the Italian, as they were not made until well after Douglas' death.

5 The Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, George Frederick Nott, ed. (London, 1815), i, pp. 226*-228*.

6 For a detailed description of these three versions see Gladys D. Willcock, “A Hitherto Uncollated Version of Surrey's Translation of the Fourth Book of the AEneid,' ” MLR, xiv (1919), 164–170, and Frederick Morgan Padelford, ed., The Poems of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, rev. ed., Univ. of Washington Pubs, in Lang, and Lit., v (Seattle, 1928), pp. 238–239.

7 MLR, xvii (1922), 135. Willcock's study was published in three installments in MLR: xiv (1919), 163–172; xv (1920), 113–123; xvn (1922), 131–149.

8 3 October 1936, p. 791; 24 October 1936, p. 863.

9 These examples can be most readily seen by referring to Gavin Douglas, Virgil's Aeneid Translated into Scottish Verse, ed. David F. C. Coldwell, Scottish Text Society, Ser. 3, Vol. xxv (Edinburgh and London, 1957) ii, 173, 1. 142; 186, 1. 4; 192, 1. 102; and to Padelford's edition of Surrey's Book rv, wherein Η and Τ are reprinted on facing pages, p. 165,1. 455; p. 164,1. 457; p. 181,1. 778; p. 180,1. 782; p. 189, 1.922; p. 188,1.927.

Edith Bannister makes no reference to the variation in D, H, and T, and gives no source for the passages which she reprints. Apparently for Surrey's Book iv she used T, for of the four examples from that book, two are the same in both Τ and Η (“tallowed” and “vnwroken,” see Padelford, p. 168,1. 525; p. 169,1. 522; p. 186, 1. 879; p. 187, 1. 874), and two are clearly from Τ (“spiritelesse,” as contrasted to H's “spriteles,” and “flecked,” as contrasted to H's “fleked,” see Padelford, p. 186,1. 896; p. 187,1. 891; p. 184, 1. 862; p. 185, 1. 857).

10 Early Tudor Poetry (New York, 1920), pp. 535–536.

11 See Willcock, MLR, xvii (1922), 135–136, and Imel-mann, p. 98.

12 Surrey's Fourth Boke of Virgill (London and New York, 1933), pp. xvi-xxi.

13 P. 83. Bennett states that at least ten manuscript copies of Douglas' translation were made within forty years of its composition, basing his belief upon the unusually large number of manuscripts of the Eneados still extant, which were compiled before the earliest printed edition, plus the evidence that they and the 1553 edition offer of intermediate texts. For a description of the best known MSS of the Eneados, see Small i, clxxii-clxxvii.

14 Small, i, xxix.

15 Small, i, xxxv.

16 “The Testament of the Papyngo,” 11. 33–36.

17 Edmond Bapst, Deux Gentilshommes-Poètes de la Cour de Henry VIII (Paris, 1891), pp. 164–166.

18 To determine Surrey's original wording in Book iv, I have referred to microfilm of the Hargrave MS. 205 (for H), Hartman's facsimile edition of Day (for D) and microfilm of Certain bokes of Virgiles Aeneis turned into English meter by . . . Henry earle of Surrey, Apud Ricardum Tottel, London, 1557.

19 The Virgilian excerpts are taken from Vergili Maronis, Opera, Frederic Arthur Hirtzel, ed. (Oxford, 1900); those from Servius, from Servii Grammatici, In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, George Thilo and Hermann Hagen, eds. (Lip-sig, 1881).

20 Other instances of minor resemblances taking on significance because of their context: Surrey, Book iv, 1. 204 (in context of 11. 202–207), cf. Douglas, Book iv, p. 163, 11. 5666; Surrey, rv, 594, 595 (in context of 592–598), cf. Douglas, iv, 179, 83–95; Surrey, iv, 765 (in context of 763–769), cf. Douglas, iv, 185, 93–97; Surrey, ii, 679 (in context of 677681), cf. Douglas, ii, 91, 32 to p. 92, 35.

21 The complete list of similar wordings is on file in the Archives of the Library, Univ. of California, Los Angeles. In compiling the data I have used microfilm of Tottel's edition of Surrey and microfilm of Gale's MS. 0 3 12. The latter, used by permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, is a reproduction of the most authoritative manuscript of the Eneaios still extant, being signed by Douglas' chaplain, Matho Geddes, and annotated in what may be Douglas' own hand (Small, i, clxxiii). In studying the first thirty-six lines of Surrey's Book ii, it was necessary to use Padelford's edition, because the microfilm copy of Tottel, the only form in which the text was available to me, lacks that opening passage. For ease of reference, as the manuscripts' lines are unnumbered, I have followed the numbering of Padelford's edition of Surrey and of David F. C. Coldwell's edition of the Eneados.