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A History of Confusion

The Two Earliest English Translations of Oscar Wilde's Salome

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Introducing the Issues Salomt is now one ofOscar Wilde's most highly regarded plays - no longer only in continental Europe, but also in English-speaking countries. As is well known, it was originally written in French and published in 1893: Oscar Wilde, Salomi.· Dram' en un Act" Paris: Librairie de I'Art Independant; London: Elkin Mathews &John Lane, 1893. - Stuart Mason, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde, London: Bodley Head & T. Werner Laurie, 1914 (new ed., Lon- don: Bertrarn Rota, 1967), no.348. '

1. This is an extremely rare book. As most readers will have great difficulty locating a copy, I cite Wtlde's French from Robert Ross's first collected edition of the Work, London: Methuen, 1908, reproduced under the title Tht First Colltcttd Edition oftht Works 0fOJcar Wj/dt, 1908-1922. in 15 vols, London: Dawsons of Pall Mall, 1969. Salomiis part ofvo1.l3 (though ofvo1.2 in the 1908 version). I use the form Salomt instead of the French Salomi wherever the texts cited allow me to

BSANZ Bulletin vo1.26 no.3 & 4, 2002, 131-172 132 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

It is also common knowledge that an unsatisfactory translation of the play into English by Wilde's beloved 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas, appeared in 1894: Salome - A Tragedy in One Act: Translated from the French ofOscar Wilde: Pic- tured by Aubrey Beardsley, London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane; Boston: Copeland and Day, 1894 - Mason The 1894 text does not bear Douglas's name, but does include an acknowledge- ment: 'To my friend Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas the translator of my play'. What until now has not been realised, however, is that this translation has been persistently confused with a later, drastically overhauled version - virtually a new translation - first published in 1906 and almost prepared by Robert Ross, Wilde's life-long friend, and his literary executor after his death in 1900.' This later version has been repeatedly mistaken for Douglas's original transla- tion. Thus many - indeed most - judgements formed about what is held to be Douglas's translation are in fact based on Ross's amended version, which has often been re-printed by later publishers, and presented to an unknowing public, as though it was Douglas's. Vice versa, those who concern themselves with Douglas's version are unaware ofthe existence of Ross's. This confusion has major implications, prompting a number of important questions. How could it be that Ross's amended version has been mistaken for Douglas's? Or, why have people thought that there was only one early transla- tion of Sa/ome when in fact there are two? Just what did Ross do? Which of the two versions is the more authoritative? These and other matters will here be ad- dressed in what, because of the many as yet unresolved intricacies surrounding these matters, is a somewhat provisional report. Since my concern is with the two translated versions in relation to each other and to Wilde's French original, many significant matters concerning Sa-

do so, and also when I refer to the play in general terms. In English the second syllable normally receives the stress, in French it is always the last. 2. This, again, is a very rare book. The illustrations in this article are from a copy in the Baillieu Library, University ofMelbourne. 3. Salome: A Tragedy in One At! Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1906. Mason (no.352) points out that this book was reprinted in the form he describes in 1908 and 1911. An upgraded version of the 1906 publication (Mason no.355) had meanwhile appeared, dated 1907 but published in September 1906: Salome:A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde, with Sixteen Drawings by Aubrry Beardsley, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York.: John Lane Co., 1907. The text of the play remained unaltered from the 1906 publication, though some significant material was added. Either the 1906 or the 1907 volume provided the basis for all subsequent reprints of Ross's 1906 version, which will from here on be referred to as '1906-7'. Page references are to the 1907 volume. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 133

/ome will reluctantly be omitted from this account.' However, by way of intro- duction to the subject ofour investigation, we must first face two questions: how Wilde came to write his text in French, and how it came about that Douglas did translate it, but with the strange resll1t that his name was not published on the title page, though his role as translator''ras acknowledged in a dedication. As to why Wilde wrote the play in French, I am persuaded by Powell's ar- gument' that Wilde, despite his own protestations to the contrary, did write the play (substantially in 1891) in the hope that the renowned French actress Sarah Bemhardt would act the part of Salome for her London season and, yet more importantly, in an effort to make the play acceptable to toe Censor, who would normally forbid the performance of a play in English if it dramatised Scripture, but not one written in French. Disappointingly to Wilde, and while Bemhardt and others were rehearsing the French Sa/omt in June 1892, the Censor prohib- ited the play regardless. Although this meant that the play could not be per- formed in England, Wilde was not prevented from publishing it, and hence the French version appeared simultaneously in Paris and London in 1893. For the preparation ofan English version, Wilde commissioned Douglas as ttanslator. Everyone agrees that Wilde was disappointed with what Douglas originally produced. There is disagreement, however, as to what happened subsequently. Some recent commentators have veered towards the view that the English ver- sion that was published in 1894 may be considered fairly close to what Wilde had hoped to see all along. Thus we find Joseph Donohue writing with obvious approval: 'Peter Raby concludes that Wilde. revised Douglas's draft "to the point tll 6 where it became his own once more • Isobel Murray, the editor ofa recent sub- stantial anthology of Wilde's major works, shows herself well aware of disap- proval of Douglas's translation, though she does not realise that many have mis- taken Ross's amended version for Douglas's. She says: 'It is a measure of what has been judged the unsatisfactoriness of the following text [she prints that of

4. For accounts of the development ofthe play, its date ofcomposition and events prior to publica- tion, see Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987, and Kerry Powell, Oscar Wilde and the Theatre ofthe 1890s, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. For morc recent work on Sa/omt generally, see William T ydeman and Steven Price, Wilde: 'Sa/ome', Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, and Peter Raby, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, especially Chapter 8, ]oseph Donohue's 'Distance, Death and Desire in Sa/ome'. Informative accounts ofWilde scholarship are presented by Ian Small, in Oscar Wild( Revalued· N(w Materials and Methods ofResearch, Greenboro, NC: ELT Press, 1993, and Oscar Wi/de: Reunt Research, Greenboro, NC: ELT Press, 2000. 5. Oscar Wi/de andth( Theatre ofthe 1890s, Chapter 3. 6. See Donohue, p.122, quoting Peter Raby, Oscar Wilde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p.102. 134 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia [5 New Zealand Bulletin

1894], originally Lord Alfred Douglas's translation of Salome from Wilde's French, that Wilde's son, Vyvyan Holland, his biographer, Richard Ellmann, and critic Rodney Shewan [she overlooks R.A. Walker's translation of Ross's version'] have each found it necessary to re-translate the play.' Despite Murray's acknowledgement of the negative,iews of others, one nevertheless gains the distinct impression here, from some of the phrasing ('what has been judged' ... 'have each found it necessary') that she does not find Douglas's translation par- ticularly bad. This impression is reinforced when she refers to 'the evidence of a number of Wilde's letters that he found the translation unsatisfactory but ac- cepted it with $6me (probably extensive) alterations,.8 I see nothing to justify any optimis- tic feeling that Wilde's revision may have been sufficiently extensive to make ! it lhis own once more', to use Raby's , phrase. To quote an observation made by Donohue, there is no doubt about Wilde's 'introducing some changes into , Douglas's version, the exact nature and \ ,I :' • ;I \\ \\/, ! extent of which are unknown but which were evidently sufficient to. preclude crediting Douglas in more than an in- I formal way." As nothing is known about the exact nature and extent of Wilde's 11 -. - changes, we must be wary of claiming, on the basis of very little (and inevitably indirect) evidence, that they were major, L leave alone that Wilde was happy with the text as published. The fact that

7. Oscar Wilde, Sa/omt, translated and introduced by R.A. Walker, London: Heinemann, 1957. 8. Isobel Murray, Oscar WiIde: The Major Works, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989; rev. ed. 2000, p.614. 9. Donohue, p.122. Douglas was credited informally: his name did not appear on the title page, but only in an acknowledgement. See note 2. Douglas himself was not at all happy with the fact that Wilde changed his text, and in The Autobiography ofLord Alfred Douglas, London: Martin Seeker, 1929, claims that he advised Wilde that if the latter altered his translation 'it would no longer be my translation, and that in that case it would not be advisable for my name to appear as translator' (p.160). He asserts that Wilde made only 'a few alterations'; even so, he apparently judged these sufficiently substantial to conclude: 'I do not regard the present translation, which is usually attributed to me, and which is dedicated to me as the translator, as mine at all', Ross clearly believed that the translation published in 1894 was by Douglas: see below, note 15. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 135

Douglas's name was made a matter of acknowledgement rather than that it ap- peared on the title page probably indicates that a compromise was reached - in effect acknowledging that Douglas was the translator, but an imperfect one - rather than that it guarantees anything very substantial about the extent of Wilde's interference. \ As Ellmann points out, Wilde was inclined to send back Douglas's manu- script to him because it was so inadequate: But when the danger oflosing Wilde became real, Douglas wilted [i.e. decided to avoid a complete termination of the relationship]. He asked someone, al- most certainly Robbie Ross, to intercede, and Ross pointeq out to Wilde that to return the manuscript like a schoolboy's exercises would scar Douglas's life. Douglas did not know much French, and Wilde should not have expected so much from him. He also assured Wilde that, whatever Douglas said or did, he was utterly devoted to his lover. Wilde had no desire to be the frrst to check or discourage Douglas's beginnings in literature, as he said long afterwards, and had the less right to do so since he encouraged them. 'So I took the translation and you back. ,10 Surely a correct interpretation of 'So I took the translation and you back' must be: 'So, reluctantly, rather than insisting that your deficient translation could only be published after I had sufficiently revised it, I decided that I was not ready to lose you, and would rather accept both your defects and those of your translation'. In other words, the probability is that Wilde knowingly published a translation that he knew to be very inadequate. A further reason for believing that Wilde was not content with the pub- lished translation is that an examination of the internal evidence -acomparison of his own French text as published in 1893 and rhat of the 1894 translation - leads us to the conclusion that under normal circumstances he would not have wanted to publish Douglas's work. The lengthy Appendix at the end of this study, and my analysis of many textual examples in the body of my essay, will, I hope, support this contention. And a final reason for rejecting the optimism of those who think that the 1894 translation was one that Wilde had in any significant sense made 'his own' is to be found in the attitude Ross displayed towards it. Ross's revised translation of 1906 was altogether different from the 1894 original. There mayor may not be some connection between the appearance of Ross's text and the fact that in May 1905 the play was performed in England for the first time, by the New State Club in the Bijou Theatre, Archer Street, London; this production was

10. Ellmann, pp.379-80, referring to, and quoting from, Tht Ltfters of Gstar Wildt, ed. Rupert Hart-Davies, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962, pp.432-3. 136 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin followed by another on 20 June 1906 by the Literary Theatre Society at the Na- tional Sporting Club (also in London). But, in any case, the 1906 translation, published several years after Wilde's death, offered a pervasively altered text, and the evidence shows that it was in1ended to be more accurate. It appears that Ross revised Douglas's 1894 text Because he knew Wilde had been unhappy with it and would have approved of his literary executor's effort to publish a text that did greater justice to the French original of 1893. Ross improved the trans- lation yet further in a later version, published in 1912."

How Ross Proceeded to Present his Version I shall discuss the textual revisions later, but first I want to say something about the general way in which Ross presented the amended version of 1906. In offer- ing a new translation to the public he acted as a literary executor who felt strongly involved in his role as the guardian ofWilde's literary heritage. He held Salome in particularly high esteem, writing in the preface to his 1912 version: 'Salomi is more characteristic and typical of Wilde's imperfect genius, with the possible exception of The Importance ofBeing Earnest, than anything else he ever wrote' (p.xiii). There is no absolute certainty, of course, that Ross revised the translation himself, but it is very likely that he did. The passage I quoted above from Ell- mann's Oscar Wilde includes Ross's opinion that Douglas did not know much French. Elsewhere, we read: "'Douglas's translation omits a great deal of the text," Ross told Frank Harris, "and is actually wrong as a rendering of the text in many places.»>" Wilde himself had admonished Douglas about 'the schoolboy faults of your attempted translation of Salome '." All this, in addition to Ross's love of the play, his deep loyalty to Wilde, and his memory of the troubles Douglas had caused, as a commissioned translator, lead one to conclude that Ross felt that he himself could and should, acting as Wilde's life-long friend and literary executor, produce a better, more accurate translation than the one pub- lished in 1894. We must remember, too, that Ross was very much a 'hands-on' editor. It is well known that he published De Profundis (London: Methuen,

11. Salom(; A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French o[OJtar Wilde, London: John Lane, Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Co., 1912. The many new readings in this text will be dis- cussed in a later paper. 12. H. Montgomerey Hyde, ed., Oscar Wilde: Plays, Prose and Poems, London: Black Cat, 1989, p.260. I have not been able to verify the accuracy ofthe quotation, but see no reason to question it. 13. Reported by H. Montgomerey Hyde, Lord Alfred Douglas: A Biography, London: Methuen, 1984, p.4S. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 137

1905) in a heavily expurgated form, and Ian Small, the General Editor for the Oxford English Texts edition of Wilde, has informed me that in his view the changes which I have discovered in the 1906-7·text (which he had been unaware of) have parallels with other works, particularly some of the changes made by Ross to The Importance orBeing Assuming, then, that Ross acted both as literary executor and reviser in publishing his new version in 1906, we must ask why he published that edition without any announcement that the translation was different from the 1894 ver- sion. The reasons can only be speculated upon, but it seems to me that the an- swer may be found in Ross's assessment of Douglas's character, and likely ac- tions, if the latter found out that the 1894 translation had been altered without his knowledge. That 1894 translation, which was here and there revised by Wilde, did not, by itself, meet with Douglas's approval; in fact, he was reluctant to acknowledge the translation as his (see above, note 9). Further changes might well have incensed him. Moreover, Ross had in 1905 published De Profundis, and had reason to fear Douglas's feelings about that. It is unlikely that copyright considerations played a part, as Douglas does not appear to have 'owned' the 1894 translation, and the 1908 publication of Sa/ome in Wilde's French contains a brief introductory note by Ross which includes the comment: The right of English translation is the property ofMr. John Lane'. Anyhow, Ross evidently did not want to draw attention to the revisions in the 'Englished' versions published from 1906 on. But this does not mean that he did not try to cover his tracks in case someone did discover the alterations. And he used subtle methods to do so. In the 1894 text, Douglas's name did not ap- pear on the title page, but·in a dedication: To my friend Lord Alfred Brnce Douglas the translator of my play'. This dedication was simply omitted from the 1906 publication, which has the title page 'Salome: A Tragedy in One Act Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde', and does not mention Douglas anywhere. This omission had the advantage that, whatever readers thought of the translation offered, noone could claim that Douglas was its translator, or for that matter that anyone else was. It in effect made the translation seem anony- mous. However, it is reasonable to assume, and seems to be borne out by subse- quent developments, that in general those who saw this translation believed it to be Douglas's, as they were offered no evidence to the contrary. Thus was initiated, in 1906, a process whereby a new translation was of- fered in such a way that noone could know that it was new - or that it was not

. 14. Personal message via e-mail. Small also believes that Ross may have been the author of the 1906-7 changes. 138 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia (5New Zealand Bulletin

by Douglas - even though the 1894 dedication in which Douglas was men- tioned as the translator had disappeared. The volumes that appeared in 1907 and 1912, too, likewise omitted the 1894 dedication without indicating that here was a new translation. However, the 1907 and 1912 publications contained pref- aces, signed by Ross, which did refe,to Douglas as a translator. But Ross chose his words very carefully. In 1907 he wrote When "Salome" was translated into English by Lord Alfred Douglas ... ' (p.xv), leaving open both the possibility that the present (1907) translation was still by that person, or that it was not. This latter scenario - that Douglas was not the translator at this point - perhaps loomed as a yet more distinct possibility in the note to pre 1912 publication, for which the translation had been revised even more extensively. This time, Ross said: 'In 1894 Messrs. Mathews and Lane issued an English translation of Salami by Lord Alfred Douglas' (p.xvi). Even this wording, though, did not rule out the possibility that the 1912 trans-. lation was identical to that published in 1894." All in all, Ross's presentation of what I assume to be his own work as a translator seems designed to provide some hints (to those prepared to see them) that Douglas's version was no longer used, but he made it possible for people to believe that it was - and so they did. In one curious instance in 1910, Ross seems to have encouraged the belief that Douglas's translation was still being offered. In volume vi - Salome, A Florentine Tragedy, Vera - of the 'Authorised Edition', published in Boston by John Luce & Co., which Mason (no.457) calls the 'Ross edi- tion', Salome is included with the half-title 'Salami: translated from the French of Oscar Wilde by Lord Alfred Douglas'. One suspects that this phrase may have influenced later publishers who used similar expressions to designate that the translation which they printed was Douglas's while what they were publish- ing was, in fact, Ross's revised version.

15. Ross does not say that the 1894 publication was dedicated to Douglas as translator, but that '0 translation' (hinting that by now there was no longer just one) was done by him. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 139

Discovering the Confusion As a result of the actions I have just described, Ross created a strange situation. He succeeded in keeping his role as a revising translator unknown, but he was more successful than he probably intended ultimately to be: future generations continued to think that his amended\ersion was Douglas's translation, unre- vised. It is difficult to believe that Ross foresaw that other publishers would re- publish his revised translation as though it was Douglas's original one of 1894. Yet this is precisely what has happened. I also think that Ross probably did not imagine that in a number of instances people would con!irue to use the 1894 text without awareness of the fact that a later, more accurate, one existed. Yet this, too, is precisely what has happened. An undeniably positive consequence of Ross's steps was that, certainly, a very large number ofpeople did come to know his amended version of 1906, even though they assumed it to be Douglas's work. Ironically, Ross's 1912 version - which offered the best of the early translations associated directly with Wilde's existence - has sunk into virtual oblivion. The key facts are that there are two (or actually three) early versions, of which only the first is Douglas's, and that Douglas has been credited not only with the 1894 translation which was indeed his, but also with Ross's radically different 1906 version. Publishers have, even explicitly, published the 1906 ver- sion as though it was Douglas's 1894 translation, and have thus created all kinds ofconfusion. As the 1906 version was anonymous and nothing was said about revision, it is understandable enough that publishers and others assumed that it (and the 1907 publication which contained the identical text) was Douglas's work. Since, moreover, publishers like Penguin and Collins have printed the 1906-7 text ex- plicitly as though it were Douglas's translation, it is not surprising if for long those of us who came to know the play through such editions have in good faith assumed that we were confronted (as readers or spectators) with Douglas's text. It was by pure chance that I discovered late in 2000, whilst teaching the play as part of a new course, that the Penguin text, which I had taken to offer Douglas's translation, in fact presented Ross's. The 1954 Penguin Plays" boasts

16. The Penguin text from which I quote throughout is (unless otherwise noted) Oscar WLlde, Plays, Harmondsworth. 1954. Salomi (the form preferred by Penguin), together with A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband, had previously been published by Penguin in one volume in 1948. The 1954 Plays was reprinted in 1986, in exactly the same form, under the title The Impor- tance ofBeing Earnest and Other Plays, and as such is still in print. Meanwhile, in 2000 a new Pen- guin volume has appeared, edited by Richard Alien Cave, with the same title, but with the addi- tion of A Flortntine Tragedy and extensive editorial material. The version of Salomi included in Cave's edition, a subject to which I shall return later, is virtually identical to that printed before, 140 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin inside the front cover: 'Salomi, which was written in French, is here reprinted in the English translation made by Lord Alfred Douglas.' That sounds unequivo- cal. Furthermore, on p.315 the play is announced as 'Salomi - IN THE TRANSLATION OF LORD ALFRED DOUGLAS'. This, again, would seem to leave no room for doubt a""{o just which text the Penguin anthology includes. Indeed, p.s tells us that the English translation of Salome, 'made by Lord Alfred Douglas', appeared in 1894. However, I began to feel doubt - or at least a sense of disquiet - when I turned from the Penguin Plays to the volume published by Dover in 1967. It interested me to study the famous Beardsley that Penguin does not offer but which are a strong feature of the Dover text. I noticed that pA of the Dover edition informs us that it is 'AN UNABRIDGED REPUBLICATION OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE WORK ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1894 BY ELKIN MATHEWS &JOHN LANE'. The text of the play in this Dover edition, therefore, could be expected to be identical to that published by Penguin, and indeed seemed if anything likely to be more au- thoritative, as it is reproduced from a copy of the 1894 text. However, I was struck by the fact that the very first stage direction in the Dover reprint says 'The moon is shining very brightly' - a curious sentence that I did not remember from the Penguin edition. Turning back to the Penguin text, I found that indeed that sentence appears there as a simple 'Moonlight' (p.319). My flfSt inclination was to think that this might be a rather cosmetic though oddly unauthoritative change on the part of the Penguin people. My disquiet grew as I discovered that the second speech in the Penguin text, by the Page of Herodias, included 'You would fancy she was looking for dead things', while the Dover text starts this sentence with 'One might fancy .. .' And, to select just one more example, at the end of p.319 the Penguin text has 'The Tetrarch has a sombre look', while the Dover text has 'aspect' instead of'look'. As I noticed more and more changes, I began to see that they could not be the result of intervention by in-house Penguin editors, but had been done by someone with true intelligence and literary ability. I formed the impression that the reviser perhaps had good reasons for interfering, and that the way to settle the question which of the two texts had greater authority was to compare both of them with Wilde's own 1893 version in French. This process revealed that

though the text has been re-set and the pagination is different. I have chosen the 1954 Plays as a point of reference, in preference to Cave's edition, because at present far more readers will have access to the 1954 Plays, and because it is that edition which has played a vital part, for about half a century, in disseminating Sa/omt in translation. The Two Earliest English Translations o[Oscar Wilde's Salome 141 the changes printed in the Penguin text were highly authoritative, in the sense that it was, I found, much closer to Wilde's French than the 1894 text repro- duced by Dover. Given this fact, there seemed to be a good possibility that the Penguin version was one established .by Robert Ross, as a reviser of Douglas's text. Ross was, I reasoned, the logic"J, person to feel authorised to improve Douglas's translation. I knew that no revision of Douglas's text had appeared before Wilde's death. The assumption that the text had been revised by Ross of course meant re- jecting Penguin's claim that its version of the text was Douglas's 1894 transla- tion, but it soon became obvious that this claim did, inJact, have to be dis- carded. For, with the help of Stuart Mason's Bibliography ofOscar Wilde I was able to find out not only what I needed to about the existence of the earliest English versions of Salome, but also that Mason - uniquely, as it turned out - had observed in 1914 that both the 1907 and 1912 versions contained revi- sions." Commenting on the 1907 English Salome, Mason says, 'The English translation is founded on the text of the edition of 1894 with revisions' (no.355), and about the 1912 text he notes: 'The text of the play is founded on Lord Al- fred Douglas's translation, first published in 1894, but shows considerable revi- sion throughout' (no.527). It would have been even more correct to say that the 1906 text 'shows considerable revision', and the 1912 volume 'yet more considerable revision', but the fact remains that Mason has been, until now, the last person to have shown himself aware of the fact that the text in these three instances was not identical. It is interesting, too, that he does not appear to regard the revisions as Douglas's own work. Once I had identified the 1906-7 text"asthe one from which Penguin's de- rives, and had observed that it might be Ross's and in any case was much supe- rior to and vastly different from Douglas's, it became both possible and necessary to write this article, primarily to lay bare how the 1894 and 1906 texts have been totally confused, and to describe the major differences between them in order to create clarity, but also to point out how these texts may be more effectively and accurately used in the future.

17. Mason does not appear to have noticed that the 1906 text already contained the revisions which he noticed in the 1907 printing. However, I have found Mason's guidance far superior to that of his successors; E.H. Mikhail's Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography ofCriticism, London: Macmillan, 1978, for

The Nature and Extent of the Confusion The Penguin edition ofWilde's Plays has been hugely influential- many people know Wilde's major plays primarily from reading this Penguin anthology. These readers at present are offered not Douglas's 1894 translation of Salome, as the Penguin edition claims they are, butRoss's very different revision of 1906. The recent publication of an updated, edited version of this volume offers an intriguing instance of further confusion of Douglas's and Ross's versions. Published in 2000, under the title which had been used since 1986, viz. The Im- portance ofBeing Earnest and Other Plays, the new vers\Q/l of the anthology has been edited by Richard Alien Cave. One of the most Interesting matters to in- spect has been Cave's handling of the text of Salome. My curiosity was aroused by a statement on p.xxvii: 'The original Penguin text of Salomt has been collated with and corrected against the first of r=---- Lane in 1894'. Let il us suppose, as this statement encourages us to do, that the original Penguin text, which IS based directly or indirectly on Ross's 1906-7 text, has indeed been collated with i Douglas's 1894 '! text, on the assumption that the 1894 text had to be followed. That process of collation would result in massive revision of Cave's I new Penguin text. However, III Cave is mistaken.

He has, in fact, ___ P ,. not corrected his text in the light of collation with the 1894 translation, but has instead consulted some version or other - it is impossible to determine which - ofRoss's 1906-7 text, and the text in the new Penguin anthology is almost the same as in the old." My point here is not so much that Cave has misled us (though that is certainly an effect of his procedure) but that, like so many people before him, he has himself been misled into thinking that when he saw Ross's work he saw

18, At times Cave even preserves the mistakes of the older Penguin, Thus 00 p,77 he has 'the beatings of the wiogs ofthe angel of death', The earlier Penguin also printed 'beatings' (p.327), but Ross's 1906-7 form - and for that matter that ofthe 1894 translation - is 'beating' (singular), The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 143

Douglas's. The result is that, unknowingly, he presents (continuing Penguin's practice of some 50 years) Ross's work as though it is Douglas's. If he actually had consulted the 1894 text he no doubt would not have made this mistake: he might have offered either Ross's text?r Douglas's, but he would have known which one he was choosing. It is very eaW to keep the two texts apart ifone has seen them, as substantive differences are ipparent from the very beginning. But the Penguin anthology, in its various guises, is not the only edition to contain a reprint of Ross's English version which is mistakenly described as Douglas's. The more 'official' edition, so to speak, which many scholars have used when referring to Salome in English (partly because B.oss's Collected Works offers only Wilde's French version) has been the Collins Complete Works, the cover of the most recent edition of which informs us: 'Continuously in print since 1948, the Colfins Complete Works ofOscar Wilde has long been established as the most comprehensive and authoritative single-volume collection ofWilde's works available', adding that it contains the plays and other works 'in their most authoritative texts'.]9 On the face of such a statement, one would expect the Collins volume to include Douglas's 1894 translation of Salome, rather than any later text. Indeed, the 1948 edition presents the play as 'Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde by Lord Alfred Douglas', and we are still told the same in the current Centenary Edition. Given this fact, it is not surprising that countless readers have assumed that the Collins text of Salome offers them Douglas's translation. However, as in the case of till: Penguin anthology, it is not Douglas's text which we are given, but Ross's 1906-7 version. I have extensively and thoroughly compared the Collins text both with Ross's 1906-7 version and the Penguin text, and have observed that the Collins version follows its original yet more literally than does Penguin. However, the fact remains that the English version which appears in the Collins Salome is not Douglas's but Ross's. It is interesting to consider how the Collins text, in rela- tion to the question of translation, is handled by one recent scholar, and a very good one at that: Kerry Powell, in his Oscar Wilde and the Theatre ofthe 1890s. Powell (pA7) quotes the following passage from Wilde's original French version of Salome:

19. Centenary Edition, Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1999. The Collins WorRS first appeared as The Worh ofOscar Wilde, edited by G.F. Maine, London; Glasgow: Collins, 1948. A new edition, The Complete Works ofOscar Wilde, was introduced by Vyvyan Holland (\rVilde's son) in 1966; and an- other in 1994 by Merlin Holland (\Nilde's grandson). 144 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

Hirode: Ah! regardez la lune! Elle est devenue rouge. Elle est devenue rouge cemme du sang. Ah! le prophete I'a bien predit. 11 a ptedit que la lune devi- endrait rouge comme du sang. N'est-ce pas qu'il predit cela? Vous l'avez tous entendu. La lune est devenue rouge comme du sang. Ne le voyez-vous pas? Hirodias: Je le vois bien, et les etoi1es tombent comme des figues vertes, n'es-ce pas? Et le soleil devient noir sac de poil ... Powell then (note 71, p.170) offers his reasons for quoting the French text, from Ross's Collected Works. He mentions that Wilde himself conceived of Salome as his "French" play', and that 'it is not clear how much of the English translation belongs to Lord Alfred Douglas and how much to Wil

20. Wilde, French version, pp.64-5; cf. Penguin ]954, pp.340-1. The Two Earliest English Translations o[Oscar Wilde's Salome 145 certainly have become aware if he had compared Ross's version with Douglas's, which, unusually, does not contain the wrongheaded translation. Douglas had originally produced the following: Herod: Ah! look at the moon! She has become red. She has become red as blood. Ah' the prophet prophesied trul5\ He prophesied that the moon would become as blood. Did he not prophesy it? All ofye heard him prophesying it. And now the moon has become as blood. Do ye not see it? Herodias: Oh yes, I see it well, and the stars are falling like unripe figs, are they not? and the sun is becoming black like sackcloth ofhair ... (Douglas, p.53) What is truly surprising here is that, unusually and crucially,:Ross mistranslates 'commes des figues vertes', while Douglas hadpreviously translated that correctly. Readers confronted with Ross's 1906-7 text, as readers of Powell are, here hit a significant error. Anyone who looks at Wilde's French and then at the Ross version is bound to feel that vertes should not be translated as ripe. Of course, a reader who thinks that ripe is part of the 1894 text and who does not know that there are two versions to be considered might simply dismiss the mistake as a Douglas blunder. But ifwe know both texts we can see that it is not Douglas who is wrong here. Why is Douglas right, in offer- ing us the phrase like unripe figs? It is not just a matter of vertes more readily suggesting unripe than ripe, as obvi- ously it does. We can, in fact, virtually prove that Wilde's vertes is unlikely to mean ripe by considering his source. Two recent editors of the play, Isobel Murray and Peter Raby," both dem- onstrate their awareness that Douglas's 1894 translation is greatly influenced by the Bible, although they do not seem to realise that Douglas's English is far

21. Murray, Olcar Wilde: The Major Works; Raby, cd., Oscar Wilde: The Important( ofBeing Earmst and Othl!T Plays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995; repr. 1998. 146 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

more Biblical than Wilde's French and Ross's English in the 1906-7 text - which they do not appear to have consulted. Murray says that Salome is 'of course heavily indebted to the Bible ... but only the most striking echoes are here drawn attention to' (p.614). To Murray's credit, she does refer us to the relevant place, Revelation 6:12-13'i"and 15-16, which she claims 'Iokanaan quotes'. Raby, less satisfyingly, says about the phrase like unripe figs: Wilde imi- tates apocalyptic language - as, for instance, that of the Revelation of St John the Divine 6:13' (p.330). I have no doubt that, although it is rather exaggerated to say that 'Iokanaan quotes' the passage from Revelation, both Wilde and Douglas are quite specifically borrowing from it, not le.ast.in the case of like un- ripe figs. I quote verses 12 and 13 from the Authorised Version (the so-called 'King-James Bible') ofI611, which Wilde and Douglas used: 12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, 10, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon be- came as blood; 13 And the stars ofheaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her un- timely figs, when she is shaken ofa mighty wind. I have no doubt that Douglas, who seems to have known the Authorised Ver- sion very well, was aware that Wilde was working from it in writing these speeches by Herod and Herodias in French; and I think I can show that Doug- las consulted Wilde's source (i.e. the passage in Revelation as found in the Authorised Version) direcdy for himself. We can observe specific resemblances between the Authorised Version and Douglas'S text which can hardly be accidental, such as the Biblical 'the sun be- came black as sackcloth of hair' and Douglas'S 'the sun is becoming black like sackcloth of hair': but, yet more tellingly, it is only in the Bible and in Douglas'S version that we find the idea that the moon becomes as blood: Ross's red as blood is not Biblical, but a translation ofWilde's rouge comme du sang. Wilde and Ross use the same phrase three times. Douglas uses 'red as blood' once, and then twice adopts the Biblical 'as blood'. In other words, Douglas is working direcdy from the Authorised Version, and here his 'as blood' is derived from it, as a di- rect echo - not from Wilde's French (which by contrast Ross translates literally). My contention is not only that Douglas worked direcdy from the Bible in some of his phrasing here, but also that he could infer from the Bible that what Wilde meant, when calling the figs vertes, was that they were unripe (in the Bi- ble the figs are 'untimely' because shaken offprematurely). Thus, in my view, the case for Douglas's unripe, as a better translation ofvertes than Rass's npe, is quite clinching. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 147

If Powell had actually seen Douglas's translation rather than Ross's, which he quotes, he would have been forced to conclude that there was a specific choice to be made, between ripe and unripe, and that the reader who knows about both English versions is in a position to arrive at a judgement about it than someone who relies only on version, which in this exceptional case is mistaken, as a translation ofWilde's French. At the same time, ifPowell had known both versions and had been aware that in general Ross's translation is more accurate than Douglas's, he would undoubtedly have commented on that fact. He would also have come to realise that someone quoting Ross's version, as he does, need hardly be concerned about the question how much ofthat 'belongs to Lord Alfred Douglas and how much to Wilde', as that question is relevant to Douglas's version but hardly to Ross's, which on the whole translates Wilde's French quite accurately. Despite the fact that, very occasionally, Ross makes an error, we are much wiser to rely on his English text than on Douglas's. Those who show themselves ignorant of Ross's text and use Douglas's version instead are, when they read the latter, often far removed from Wilde's French. Thus they are at a disadvantage when commenting on points in Douglas's translation as if it were a dependable rendering of Wilde's original. This problem becomes even more acute ifeditors - like Murray and Raby, who both base their English text of Salome on Doug- las's - offer us Douglas's version as though that is the best early translation avail- able and there is no sound alternative. On the face of it, what these two editors do seems reasonable. They know of Douglas as Wilde's earliest translator so, unaware of Ross's version, they turn to the 1894 text and place their face in that as the earliest printing of Douglas's rendering. If Murray and Raby had studied other early editions of Salome in English, they would have come across Ross's 1906-7 text, and would either have decided to offer us that text as superior, or, if they had still opted for Douglas's, would have introduced that to us in very different terms. As matters stand, these recent editors of the play appear to have no knowl- edge of the fact that there are two quite different early versions of Salome in English. They make available to us the less accurate translation of the two, and comment on points in that as though it is the only early translation in existence. There is no evidence, anywhere in their editions, that they have compared the 1894 text with Wilde's French in order to determine for themselves just how accurate or inaccurate Douglas's version is. This, it seems to me, is a serious fail- ing by itself, but if they had known that there are two early translations they would perforce have realised that both need to be compared with Wilde's French original if we are to decide which of the two texts provides the more authorita- 148 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin tive version. Furthermore, they do not realise that for many years numerous peo- ple have been confronted with, and have based judgements on, a text which they thought was Douglas's but which in fact was Ross's. All these problems, for editors acting as though the 1894 text is the only early translation to consider, could

Comparing the Douglas and Ross Versions with Wilde's French Original One of the striking features of Douglas's translation ofWilde's French version is that he attempts to make his English more Biblical than Wilde's French. Thus we see, in Douglas's English, frequent use of 'thou' where Wilde has 'vous' (as distinct from 'tu'), and of Biblical expressions (taken from the Authorised Ver- sion) that are not sanctioned by Wilde's original. In many cases Ross corrects Douglas's error, but in other instances he does not. One instance of a Biblical phrase which is not justified is 'Get thee behind me', which Douglas introduces

22. Few appear to have commented on Ross's 1912 version. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 149

(p.21) and Ross retains; this is spoken by Jokanaan in his second speech on p.327 of the Penguin text," and is of course a direct echo of Christ's words to Peter in Matthew 16:23, 'Get thee behind me ... ' Wilde himself, however, makes Iokanaan say 'Arriere! Arriere!' (p.27), which simply means 'Back! Back!' (as Iokanaan does not want Salome to q,me any closer). Indeed, a little earlier Iokanaan had already said, in Wilde's French, 'Arriere! Fille de Babylone! N'approchez pas de l'elu du Seigneur' (p.26), which Douglas (p.20) and Ross (p.326,JOKANAAN (3)) both translate correctly as 'Back! daughter ofBabylon! Come not near the chosen ofthe Lord'. An illegitimate Biblical statement which Ross does correct is Douglas's 'I am well pleased with my daughter. She has done well' (p.66), which contains an adaptation of the Biblical 'Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I ain well pleased' (Luke 3:22), as Raby notes (p.331). Wilde himself, however, has ']'approuve ce que ma fille a fait' (p.80), which does not necessarily allude to Luke at all, and which Ross quite rightly translates with 'I approve of what my daughter has done' (p.347, HERODIAS). In an instance like this, I feel that an editor like Raby should indicate that the 1, Biblical phrase used by Douglas is not to be thought of as in any sense Wilde's. There are many cases of such 'phoney' Biblical phrasing in Doug- las's translation. Wilde presents the statement 'Dieu est terrible' (p.44), which Douglas cannot refrain from translating as 'Verily, God is terrible' (p.35). Obviously 'Verily' is unjusti- fied, though certainly very Biblical, and Ross is right to omit it (p.333, FIRST JEW (2)). The editors Isobel Murray and Peter Raby, who both

23. References of this nature will henceforth be indicated as follows: 'p.327, JOKANAAN (2)'. A speech straddling two pages is for this purpose treated as though each incomplete part were a sepa- rate speech on each page. Rass's version, as presented in the Penguin 1954 edition, will be our central point of reference. It would become very awkward to use such a reference system for the other two torts (VVude's and Douglas's) as well. However, in my comparative analysis, here, of examples from all three torts, ] have provided page references to all three. Almost all of the in- stances quoted are also listed in the Appendix. 150 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin base their comments on Douglas's text, do not show themselves aware that in many cases Douglas's Biblical English is not to be found in Wilde's French, nor do they demonstrate awareness of Ross's more correct translation. Thus Murray says that 'only the more striking echoes [from the Authorised Version] are here drawn attention to: there are many ""ore' (p.614). But we should note that even the 'striking instances' which Murray does mention need to be treated with cau- tion. One ofthe phrases which she lists as Biblical is 'like the rose', which occurs in Douglas's translation of the very first speech by Jokanaan (p.6). This phrase is, indeed, Biblical. But does Douglas derive it from Wilde? Douglas is re-shaping Isaiah 35:1, 'The wilderness··and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose'. Douglas's text has: When he cometh the solitary places shall be glad. They shall blossom like the rose' (p.6). Murray might have noted that Douglas's 'solitary places', too, is clearly a Biblical echo. But these phrases are not authentically Wildean. Wilde has: 'Qyand il viendra la terre deserte se rejouira. Elle fleurira comme le lis' (p.10). Here 'la terre deserte se rejouira' clearly does echo the pas- sage from Isaiah, but not in the way thatDouglas suggests, for Wilde is translat- ing 'the desert shall rejoice' - not 'the solitary place shall be glad'. Even more interestingly, Wilde does not speak of the desert as blossoming 'like the rose', but deliberately introduces the French equivalent of 'like the lily', the English phrase which we find translated in Ross's text, though Ross does preserve Doug- las's 'solitary places' (see p.321, THE VOICE OFJOKANAAN (1)). Here, then, we have a clear instance ofa Biblical phrase which Wild", alters into something quite different, and which Douglas changes back again to a Bib- lical phrase in his English translation; after which Ross, no less emphatically, translates Wilde's French correctly. Editors who are not aware ofthese permuta- tions and who solely focus on Douglas's English do not really help us much by pointing out that 'like the rose' is Biblical when that is not, after all, a phrase which Douglas should have used. Technically, Douglas's phrase is an error: it does have the authority of the Bible, but not that of Oscar Wilde, whose work he is supposedly translating. Several of Douglas's Biblical- or at least archaic - phrases are not so much incorrect as stylistically inappropriate, in that they provide a far more stilted and artificial effect than does Wilde's French (deliberately contrived though that is, too). Douglas's oft-repeated use of 'Suffer me' (as on p.22) for Wilde's 'Laisse- moi' (p.28) is a conspicuous case in point, and Ross rightly prefers 'Let me' The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 151

(p.27, SALOME (3»." Ross equally correctly translates Wilde's 'demain' (p. 21) as 'to-morrow' (p.325, SALOME (2», but Douglas cannot resist using the ar- chaic 'on the morrow' (p. 16), which once again unnecessarily and unjustifiably pulls Wilde's work into the Biblical sphere (cf. e.g. Joshua 5:12: 'And the manna ceased on the morrow .. .'). But most frequently - and this phenomenon is abundantly pervasive, as the Appendix shows - Douglas's Biblical flavour is achieved by using 'thou' or 'thee' where Wilde has 'vous'. It is in- structive to compare the just- mentioned speech by Salome as an example, in all thsee versions:

VOllS ferez ce1a pour mai, , VOllS Narroboth. savez ..... I VOllS r_." bien que ferez ce1a . !.... 1/ pour mai. Et demain quand je passerai dans ma litiere sur le pont des acheteurs d'idoles je VOllS regarderai atravers les voiles de mousseline, je VOllS regarderai, Narraboth, je vous sourirai, peut-etre. Re- gardez-moi, Narraboth. Regardez-moi. Ab! VOllS savez bien que vous allez faire ce que je VOllS demande. VOllS le savez bien, n'est-ce pas? .. , Mai, je sais bien. (Wilde, pp.21-2) Thou wilt do this thing for me, Narraboth. Thou knowest that thou wilt do this thing for me. And on the morrow when I shall pass in my litter by the bridge of the idol-buyers, I will look at thee through the muslin veils, I will look at thee, Narraboth, it may be I will smile at thee. Look at me, Narraboth, look at me. Ah! thou knowest that thou wilt do what I ask of thee. Thou' knowest it.... I know that thou wilt do this thing. (Douglas, p.16) You will do this thing for me, Narraboth. You know that you will do this thing for me. And to-morrow when I pass in my litter by the bridge of the idol- buyers, I will look at you through the muslin veils, I will look at you, Nar- raboth, it may be I will smile at you. Look at me, Narraboth, look at me. Ah!

24. The use of the verb 'suffer' in the sense of'let', 'tolerate', 'permit' is very frequent in the Bible, as in Matthew 3:15, 'Suffer it to be so now .. .' 152 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

you know that you will do what I ask of you. You know it well.... I know that you will do this thing. (Ross, p.325) . In a case like this, and many similar ones, the purpose ofRoss's revision is not to correct errors of meaning, but a general shortcoming in style: to remove the to- tally unjustified archaism with Douglas had cluttered the passage. There is nothing in Wilde's use of'vous' which should prompt one to believe that he has 'thou' in mind as an appropriate English equivalent. . Admittedly, Ross's practice as a translator is open to question too: as a rule, he "translates Wilde's 'vous' as 'you', and his 'tu' as 'thou', as in the long speech which, at the end of the play, Salome addresses to Jokar.;;an's decapitated head. I am inclined to think that Wilde, correcdy enough, uses 'tu' here (and elsewhere when Salome speaks to Jokanaan) to suggest that she feels on intimate, personal terms with him, as well as his social superior, but in English, even about a cen- tuty ago, 'thou' could no longer really carry such connotations, and the word as used by Ross must instead have seemed Biblical and solemn to contemporary readers and spectators." Perhaps it would have been wiser for Ross, as a transla- tor, at all times to use 'you' and to ignore a distinction which Wilde, in his French, could make but which had disappeared from English, where in fact 'thou' had become the more formal pronoun. Even so, Ross is at least aiming to be consistent and precise in his practice as a translator, and, given also that Wilde uses 'vous' far more often than 'tu', we should prefer Ross's habitual and correct use of'you' for 'vous' (as distinct from the less welcome 'thou' for 'tu') to Douglas's abundant, unwarranted and indiscriminate use of'thou'. The archaic element in Douglas's translation, it should be noted, is not confined to his adoption ofphrases and linguistic features which either are from the Authorised Version or fit in with its idiom. It is a more general phenome- non. As the Authorised Version was published in 1611, its language, for all its distinctiveness, is that ofthe English Renaissance, and at times Douglas imitates other Renaissance writings. Thus we have a 'Shakespearean' touch in his use of 'my lord' (p.38) for Wilde's 'Seigneur' (p.46; used to address Herod); Ross ap- propriately translates this as 'Sire' (p.334, FIRST NAZARENE (2». Douglas also goes to amazing lengths to use, as part of his 'archaic' tone, circumlocutory or prolix expressions. For example, where Ross quite simply offers They are like fifty moons' (p.344, HEROD (2» for Wilde's 'On dirait cinquante lunes' (p.73), Douglas insists on writing They are even as half a hundred moons' (p.60). Simi- larly, Ross has 'he who carries them in his hand can make women sterile' (p.345,

25. See thou (pronoun and verb) in the Oxford English Dictionary for an indication of the basic differences between thou and you as they have historically developed. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 153

HEROD (1)) where Wilde writes 'quand on les porte dans la main on peut ren- dre less femmes steriles' (p.75), but Douglas, instead of 'can make women ster- ile', presents 'can turn the fruitful woman into a woman that is barren' (p.61). There is a virtuoso element in such artifice, and an interesting emotional effect, but Douglas produces something quite either than what Wilde wrote. Not surprisingly, Douglas's preference for verbosity is often accompanied by, or perhaps leads to, error. The well in which Jokanaan spends his time at- tracts the comment 'It must be very unhealthy' in Ross's accurate translation (p.321, THE CAPPADOCIAN (8)) of Wilde's 'cela doi! etre tres malsain' (p.12). Douglas turns this into 'That must be a poisonous place in which to dwell' (p.8). This conveys the general idea, but is ultimately fanciful and incor- rect. Needless, unsupported and thus inaccurate additions are a very frequent feature of Douglas's text, and Ross scrupulously removes them, as when he translates Wilde's 'il s'est tue lui-meme' (p.37) as 'he killed himself (p.330, SECOND SOLDIER (3)) instead of preserving Douglas's 'with his own hand he slew himself (p.29); or when Wilde's 'Mais je ne le ferai plus' (p.70), refer- ring to Herod's gazing at Salome, leads Douglas to present 'Nay, but I will look at thee no more. One should not look at anything' (p.58), for which Ross appro- priately substitutes 'But I will look at you no more' (p.343, HEROD (1)). An- other example of Douglas's prolixity combined with inaccuracy occurs when he translates Wilde's 'je paie bien les danseuses, moi. Toi, je te paierai bien' (p.66) with 'I pay a royal price to those who dance for my pleasure. I will pay thee roy- ally' (pp.54-5), whereas Ross offers the more straightforward 'I pay the dancers well. I will pay thee royally' (p.341, HEROD (2)). Here Douglas's 'who dance for my pleasure' is nowhere to be found in the original, and although Ross un- necessarily keeps the idea of 'royal' payment, his translation is at least closer to Wilde's text. Douglas also has a tendency to e:nbellish his translation by offering para- phrases which are not so much incorrect or wordy as too interpretative, e.g. when instead of Ross's correct 'I have never been hard to you' (p.342, HEROD (5)) for Wilde's 'Je n'ai jamais ete dur envers vous' (p.69) Douglas produces 'I have ever been kind toward thee' (p.57), or when Wilde's 'Ah! l'epouse inces- tueuse qui parle' (p.80) is turned by Douglas into 'Ah! There speaks my brother's wife' (p. 66) instead of Ross's 'Ah! There speaks the incestuous wife' (p.347, HEROD (2)). In fact, in this second instance one could argue that Douglas is less than accurate. QIite often he is markedly inaccurate. In considering examples under pre- vious headings, we have already come across several instances where this is so, but I should now like to concentrate on some examples where the errors perhaps 154 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin exist in their own right rather than as a by-product ofother tendencies which we have examined. To start at the beginning of the play, it is not easy to see why in the first stage direction Wilde's 'Clair de lune' (p.5; correctly translated by Ross, p.319, as 'Moonlight') becomes, in Qouglas's rendering, 'The moon is shining very brightly' (p.1). Certainly the moon is''l.mportant in the play, but when in the next speech the Page of Herodias draws attention to the moon there is nothing to indicate that its light is particularly intense. It is unlikely that Douglas did not know the meaning of'Clair de lune'; more likely he is being perverse, for reasons which we cannot in this instance retrieve. It is just possible that Wilde sanc- tioned (or even chose) the phrase as a result of the reh"';;;a!s during 1892, but it is surely safer to regard his own French version as authoritative: hence 'Moonlight' must be consid- ered the more accurate reading. Many of Douglas's errors seem to be the product of drastic distor- tion rather than anything else. Thus when Salome first appears and speaks in the Penguin text (p.322) she wonders (in Ross's words) why the Tetrarch looks at her all the while, saying 'I know not what it means', and then adds: 'In truth, yes, I know it'. This last sentence translates Wilde's 'Au fait, si, je le sais' (p.14). In both of these ver- sions, the effect is wonderfully sub- tle and suggestive. Douglas, how- ever, makes up something like his own scenario with 'Ofa truth I know it too well' (p.10). At times it is difficult to know whether Douglas is deliberately distorting Wilde's sense or really does not understand that. Thus Wilde's 'Ta voix m'enivre' (pol6) is translated by Ross, correctly enough, as 'Thy voice is wine to me' (p.326 (SALOME (6)); enivrer= 'intoxicate'). Oddly, Douglas has 'Thy voice is as music to mine ear' (polO). In- terestingly, though, there is one statement by Salome, elsewhere, which Douglas may have felt justified his less than literal choice. In her lengthy speech to the head of ]okanaan, Salome says, in Wilde's original: 'quand je te regardais j'entendais une musique ';trange' (p.79), which Douglas accurately translates as 'when I looked on thee I heard a strange music' (p.65), a rendering preserved by The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 155

Ross (p.347, SALOME (1). So Douglas, in his wayward but not ungifted fash- ion, may have felt that it was appropriate to anticipate this later statement. Even so, the result remains that he deprives the play of a statement which Wilde him- self makes, here, about the nature ofJ9kanaan's voice (as distinct from his ap- pearance). \. Whatever the reasons, actual inaccuracies are not at all infrequent in Doug- las's version; thus we may compare, for example, early on: 'il semble que' (Wilde, p.9) - 'I am afraid that' (Douglas, p.5) - 'it seems' (Ross, p.320, THE NUBIAN (1)); or 'cet immonde palais' (Wilde, p.27) - 'this palace' (Douglas, p.21) - 'this foul palace' (Ross; p.327, JOKANAAN (3». This last error "results from omis- sion on Douglas's part and, although he is often wordy and adds words to Wilde's text in his translation, he at other times just as markedly omits words, phrases, or sentences that he should include. Thus we find: 1e ne veW< pas te regardez. Je ne te regarderai pas' (Wilde, p.33) - 'I will not look at thee' (Doug- las, p.26) - 'I do not wish to look at thee. I will not look at thee' (Ross; p.329, JOKANAAN (4». Possibly Douglas felt, here, that Wilde's two sentences con- veyed the same sense, so that in his translation one sentence would do; but Ross shows that Wilde's sentences are certainly not identical in meaning. The most telling omission in Douglas's translation - really absolutely vital, and very dam- aging to the play - occurs at the end of Salome's long speech to the dead Jo- kanaan just before Herod says that she is monstrous:

Si tu m'avais regardee, tu m'aurais aimee.]e sais bien que tu m'aurais aimee, et le mystere de l'amour est plus grand que le mystere de la mort. Il ne faut re- garder que l'amour. (Wilde, p.SO) If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery ofLove is greater than the mystery of Death. (Douglas, pp.65-6) If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery oflove is greater than the mystery of death. Love only should one consider. (Ross, p.347) Ross follows Douglas's translation, but significantly - and in a memorable turn of phrase - he turns into remarkable English that ftnal sentence which he found in Wilde and which Douglas inexplicably omits. Even this one difference alone would almost make one prefer Ross's text. But surely it is obvious by now that Ross's text is as a rule greatly superior to . Douglas's in the many places where the two diverge. In the 1912 version, which I will deal with extensively in another paper, Ross takes his process of revision 156 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin yet further, and with yet greater success." But even the 1906-7 text, unknow- ingly adopted by Collins and Penguin, is preferable to Douglas's, which is used in the recent Oxford editions by Murray and Raby. Which must prompt us to consider what steps should now be taken. .\ What Should Happen Next? The most urgent need is for clarity and essential information. It is one thing to offer, as Murray and Raby do, a text based on Douglas's 1894 translation, but another thing altogether to make no mention of the faet.. that there is another text, first printed in 1906, that presents a translation closer to Wilde's original. As that text contains revisions made by - or at the vety least sanctioned by - Wilde's literary executor, who had been a highly appreciated, loyal friend for many years and was vety familiar with Wilde's literaty work, readers must.be informed about its existence, even ifthey are not offered it. All in all, I would go a good deal further than this; and contend that, if an editor presents only one !- translation closely associated with [==j Wilde, l.e. one I ! which In any , , sense has his imprimatur, that text should be Rass's, preferably as he left it In 1912. Short of that final verSIOn, which IS In need of extensive dis- CUSSlOn in a later paper, Ross's 1906-7 text would \ at least provide a more accurate translation than Douglas's. That is to say that publishers such as Collins and Penguin have done us a good service by not printing Douglas's text,

26. In the Appendix, I list 1912 readings only when the Douglas 1894 and Ross 1906-7 texts di- verge, and when, as well, the 1912 text differs from the 1906-7 version (sometimes returning to what Douglas had initially, sometimes taking the process of revision yet further than before). These examples will give an idea of the quality of the 1912 text, but a very limited one: very often, Ross had agreed with (or at least preserved) Douglas's words in his 1906-7 text, but in 1912 pro- duced new and better variants which there is no space to discuss in this article. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 157 despite their belief that that is exacdy what they were doing. Those who are in- terested in what Wilde says in his French version but cannot read that and want to consult an English translation which Wilde might have found at least tolera- bly acceptable would find the 1912 text ..the best, but will find Ross's 1906-7 ver- sion (the one presented by Collins and'fenguin) much better than Douglas's 1894 translation." Short of printing the 1912 text, as ideally they should, pub- lishers at present offering the 1906-7 text might consider adopting, in a future reprint, one or two of 1912's superior readings. For example, on p.326 of the Penguin text JOKANAAN (1) includes: 'Though she will never repent, but will stick fast in her abominations; bid her come, for the fan of The Lord is in His hand'. The punctuation used here ruins the syntax of the sentence, and is not in keeping with Wilde's French; but the 1912 text does bring out Wilde's sense, by re-punctuating: 'Though she will never repent, but will stick fast in her abomi- nations, bid her come; for the fan ofthe Lord is in His hand'. There are good reasons for using an early translation, associated closely with Wilde, rather than a later one which is not. Both Douglas's text and Ross's two versions are authentic documents of their period, although Douglas's lan- guage is unnecessarily and misleadingly archaic. Both men were at various times intensely involved with Wilde and his artistic and intellectual world, but we must be acutely conscious of Wilde's extreme disappointment with Douglas's translation when he first saw it, and should not assume that he revised it exten- sively and to his satisfaction. On the contrary, all the evidence - and most prominendy a comparison between Wilde's French and Douglas's English - suggests that the text as printed in 1894 cannot have been one with which Wilde was happy. It is true, of course, that Douglas's 1894 text must, here and there, contain some English words which are Wilde's. But it is quite possible that Ross, who was very much part of the scene when the wrangling concerning Douglas's poor translation occurred, was aware of the revisions made by Wilde, and retained those when he came to do his own job as a reviser of Douglas's

27. Obviously the best way to get to know the 1906 and 1907 texts is to consult them directly. They are, however, extremely rare, and - as they should be - are zealously protected by libraries that own them. Photocopying is potentially injurious to the books. Readers relying on the Collins and Penguin editions will find the Collins text highly accurate. Although, like the Penguin anthol- ogy, it introduces several cosmetic changes in accidentals (e.g. less intensive use ofcapitals in stage directions, etc.), its substantives are as far as my collation shows correct. The Penguin edition is also of a high standard, as a version of Ross's 1906-7 text, but includes the following substantive errors: p.327, JOKANAAN (2), 'beatings' for 1907's 'beating'; p.333, A THIRD JEW: 'He is what is good' for 1907's 'He is in what is good'; p.335, FIRST NAZARENE: 'Yes, sire' for 1907's "Yea, sire'; p.341, HEROD (3): 'bring you' for 1907's 'bring thee'. Cave's 2000 edition corrects only the last of these errors. 158 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin work. Indeed, it is significant that Ross revised, and thus partly preserved, Doug- las's translation rather than rejected it and started anew. Therefore, an argument to the effect that Douglas's translation should be preferred because it is sure to contain authentically Wildean loses its force when we consider that the same may just as well be true of Moreover, we know that Douglas was reluctant to change his translation so as to bring it more into line with Wilde's wishes,28 while clearly that is not true of Ross, who in his role as a silent reviser must have been inspired by a desire to do justice to Wilde's intentions. In practice, it looks as though Ross saw himself as implementing what he thought his deceased friend would want him to do: to. present a much-improved version of Douglas's text, in effect just such an amended version as Wilde might have produced if Douglas had not forced him either to publish a very imperfect translation or to terminate the relation- ship by publishing a much-amended version which Douglas would not ac- cept. Wilde found the relationship more important than the improved translation, and Ross was left to try and produce such a translation on his own: not a new translation, but an improved version which, while retaining features of the original, became a very different work ofart. All in all, then, we should have faith in Ross's work, and act on that faith. Even so, the ideal modern edition would contain both Douglas's 1894 text, and those produced by Ross in 1906 and 1912. It would, moreover, print Wilde's original French version as

28. Douglas's unwillingness to be faithful to Wilde's text (in part discussed in note 9 above) is only obvious from his translation, and is well documented otherwise. In a letter to the publisher, John Lane, quoted by Ellmann (p.380), he complains, with reference to Wtlde's desire for a more accu- rate rendering: '1 cannot consent to have my work altered and edited, and thus to become a mere mathine for doing the rough work o[translation' (my italics). To him, apparently, a translation was more meritorious if it was something like an independent creation, and thus did not do justice to what the author had written. As he saw the outcome, to have his name mentioned in a dedication was a tribute to his originality, while its appearance on the title page would have meant that he had not been creative (Ellmann, pp.380-1); all ofwhich goes to show that Wilde, no doubt reluctantly, consented to the publication of an inaccurate translation. The Two Earliest English Translations o[Oscar Wildes Salome 159

well; and it would provide full and accurate information on all four texts and their interrelationship. In a more prosaic world, it is to be hoped that the next impression ofCave's Penguin text will declare that the text has not been based on Douglas's 1894 transiation, but on the revision that in 1906. A similar correction is necessary in the case of the Collim Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, and any publisher of Salome in an English translation should from here on state accu- rately just what translation the public is being offered. All editions should do so, even those which provide virtually no other annotation. If th.ere is any room for comment, however, it should be made plain that the edition chosen has certain basic characteristics - for example that the Ross translation of 1906 is more ac- curate than Douglas's of1894, even though neither is perfect. And it surely is not unrealistic to hope for the appearance, within the near future, ofan edition based on Ross's 1912 text, with notes pointing out where it deviates from Wilde's original, and what the correct translation should be in- stead. I do not think that many such notes would be necessary, and this proce- dure would at last offer us a text which is both of high quality as a translation and produced by someone well acquainted with Wilde and his work: the person whom Wilde himselffor such reasons chose as his literary executor.

Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge help received, in response to queries, from Angie Kingston (who is preparing a PhD on Wilde at the University ofAdelaide), !an Small (General Editor of the Oxford English Texts edition of Wilde), and Elizabeth Close (Senior Lecturer in French at Flinders University). Although I have learned from these scholars, I alone am responsible for whatever the failings ofthis paper may turn out to be. 160 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

APPENDIX Different Readings in Douglas and Ross with their countef/arts in Wilde's French " Rationale and General Procedure

The following list aims to record all substantive variations between Douglas's text and that of Ross's 1906-7 version, though I am not confident that it is necessarily complete. To enable the reader to compare these differences not only wlth'each other, but also with the original which Douglas and Ross translate, I have in each case provided Wilde's original version of the instance in question. Thus it will be possible for readers of this paper to gain a comprehensive view of the most important body of evidence on which much ofmy comment rests. As it is difficult to access - at any rate away from libraries - copies of the 1894, 1906, and 1907 publications, I have compromised by quoting from the Penguin Plays (1954; afier 1986 called The Importance ofBeing Earnest and Other Plays) for Ross's text. This is partly just a matter of convenience: readers who wish to proceed otherwise can of course independently check the original publications. However, a further important con- sideration on my part was that it is interesting to see how a perfectly common modern text, the Penguin, differs - because it is a reprint of Ross's text - from the 1894 text on which the publishers claim their text is based. Judged as a reprint of Ross's 1907 text, the Penguin Plays contains only very few substantive errors (see note 27). Ross's 1912 text is in essence extraneous to my consideration of the nature of the differences between his 1906-7 version and Douglas's of 1894. However, wherever those two versions diverge, and wherever the 1912 text then differs from that of1906-7, I have quoted all substantive readings, including those from 1912. It should, nevertheless, be clearly understood that many other 1912 readings are not presented here, as they are not central to this paper and would take up a great deal ofspace. The nature ofthe 1912 vari- ants, in general, will be comprehensively discussed in a later article. My procedure is, in principle, to offer Wilde's French first, then Douglas's transla- tion, and then Ross's. As a point of immediate comact, I refer the reader initially to the page in the Penguin edition where the speech occurs ofwhich the instance under consid- eration forms part; only afier this initial reference are the three versions offered in the order just mentioned. This should enable a reader to locate the speech in question (which, where necessary, is indicated as e.g. number 3 by that character on the page men- tioned), and then to study the different versions ofit. I have found it impractical to list a page number for each and every reading from all of the texts, and unfortunately none of them offers line numbers. The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Saloffie 161

Key Symbols used . W Wilde's originiu French (quoted from the 1908 Worh, see note 1) D Douglas's English, c R Ross's 1906-7 English version (note 3), quoted from the 1954 Penguin Ploy, (notes 16 and 23) 1907 Ross's 1906-7 English version (note 3), quoted from the 1907 version 1912 Ross's text as it appeared in 1912 (note 11)

Detailedpoints ofprocedure 1. Page numbers in bold are those ofR, with those ofW following in brackets. 2. Speakers are referred to as they occur in R. Thus, for example, 'THE PAGE OF HERODIAS (1)' refers to the first speech by that character on the R page men- tioned. A speech straddling two pages in R is for this purpose treated as though each incomplete part were a separate speech on each page. 3. The use ofa dash (- )in citations from R (or occasionally from 1912) indicates that the omitted material (i.e. the material not quoted again) is the same as that already quoted just before (usually from Douglas's text).

l 4. Differences in 'accidentals - e.g. punctuation marks - have only been recorded when they indicate differences in sense (i.e. are in that sense 'substantive'). 162 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

P. 319 (p. 5), SCENE [stage direction]: Clair de lune W; The moon is shining very brightly D; Moonlight R#THE PAGE OF HERODIAS (1): On dirait qu'elle W; One might fancy she D; You would -R#THE YOUNG SYRIAN (2): On dirait W; Onemight fancy D; You would -R#FIRST SOLDIER (4) l'air sombre W; a sombre aspect D; - lookR# .

P. 320 (p. 7), SECOND SOLDIER (1): l'air sombre W; a sombre aspect D; - look R # THE CAPPADOCIAN (1): semee W; sewed D; sewn R#SECOND SOLDIER (5): jaune comme W; as yellow as D; yellow like R#SECOND SOLDIER (6): rouge comme W; as red as D; red like R#THE NUBIAN (1): il semble que W; I am afraid that D; it seems R#FIRST SOLDIER (5): un Dieu qu'on 'N.; a God that one D; - that you R#FIRST SOLDIER (6): qu'on ne peut pas W; that cannot D; that you - R# P. 321 (p. 10), THE VOICE OFJOKANAAN (1): comme le lis W; like the rose D; - the lily R#Le nouveau-ne W; The sucking cbild D; The new-born -R#:FIRST SOLDIER (5): des choses epouvantables W; things that affright one D; terrible things R # THE CAPPADOCIAN (8): cela doit erre rres malsain W; That must be a poisonous place in which to dwell D; It must be very unhealthy R#

P. 322 (p. 14), THE YOUNG SYRIAN (1): se leve W; is getting up D; rises R# SALOME (1): Au fait, si, je le sais W; Of a truth I know it too well D; In truth, yes, I know it R#THE YOUNG SYRIAN (3): Vous venez de quitter le festin W; You have left feast D; - just left -R#SALOME (2): l'air est W; is the air D; the air is R# ayec ... leurs cheveux frises en spirales, et des Egyptiens. silencieux, subtils Wj with ... frizzled hair curled in colums, and Egyptians silent and subtle D; - hair curled in twisted coils, and silent, subtle Egyptians R#THE PAGE OF HERODIAS (2): Pour- quoi lui parler? Pourquoi la regarder? ... Oh! il va arriver un malheur Wj VVhy do you speak to her? Oh! something terrible will happen. Why do you look at her? D; Order of last two sentences reversed (c! W) R #

P. 323 (p. 15), SALOME (1): Elle res semble aune petite piece de monnaie. On dirait une toute petite fleur d'argent W; She is like a little piece of money, a little silver flower D; She - money, you would think she was a little -R#Elle est froide et chaste, la lune W; She is cold and chaste D; The moon is -R#la beaute d'une vierge W; the beauty of a virgin D; a virgin's beauty R#THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (1): 11 est venu, le Signeur W; Behold! the Lord hath come D; The Lord -R#11 est venu, le flls de l'Homme W; The Son ofMan'is at hand Dj - hath come R#les sirenes on quitte W; the nymphs have left D; the sirens -R#dans les forets W; in the forests D; ofthe for- est R [in the forests 1912] # SALOME (6): Je n'y retournerai pas W; I will not return D; - go back R#THE YOUNG SYRIAN (2): si vous n'y retourniez pas W; ifyou return not D; if you do not return R#FIRST SOLDIER (I): un tout jeune homme W; quite young D; quite a young man R#SECOND SOLDIER (3): on W; One D; You R# SECOND SOLDIER (4): Un tres ancien prophete de ce pays W; A prophet of this The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 163 country in bygone days D; A very ancient prophet ofthis country R # THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (2): Ne te rejouis point, terre de Palestine W; Rejoice not, °land ofPal- estine D; Rejoice not thou, land of -R#

P. 324 (p. 18), THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (1): il sortira W; shall come D; shall come forth R # FIRST SOLDIER (1): ce impossible W; it may not be D; it is im- possible R # ne veut pas W; does not suffer D; does not wish R # SALOME (5): un trou W; a hole D; a pit R # Je veux le voir W; I would look on him D; I wish to see him R # SECOND SOLDIER (1): Je vous prie, princesse, de ne pas nous demander cela W; Princess, I beg you, do not require this ofus D; - beg you do not [without comma] - R # SALOME (6): Vous me faites attendre W; You are making me waj.t upon your pleas- ure D; You keep me waiting R # THE PAGE OF HERODIAS (1): Je suis sur qu'iI va arriver un malheur W; I am sure that something terrible will happen D; - some misfor- tune -R# SALOME (8): Vous ferez cela pour moi, n'est-ce pas W; Thou wilt do this thing for me, wilt thou not D; You will - ,will you not R # Vous ferez W; Thou wilt do D; You will do R # J'ai toujours ete douce pour vous W; I have ever been kind towards thee D; - always - you R # N'est-ce pas que VOllS ferez cela pour moi W; Thou wilt do it for me D; You will - R # Je veuz seulement le regarder, cet etrange prophete W; I would but look at him, this strange prophet D; - look at this strange - R # Je pense qu'iI a peur de lui, le tetrarque W; I think he is afraid ofhim, the Tetrarch D; I think the Tetrarch is afraid ofhim R # Est-ce que VOllS aussi, Narraboth, est-ce que VOllS aussi VOllS en avez peur W; Art thou, even thou, also afraid of him, Narraboth D; Are you, even you, also -R# SALOME (9): Vous ferez W; Thou wilt do D; You will do R # P. 325 (p. 21), SALOME (1): pour vous W; for thee D; for you R # SALOME (2): VOllS ferez W; Thou wilt do D; You will do R# VOllS savez bien que VOllS feIez W; Thou knowest that thou wilt do this thing for me D; You know that you will - # demain W; on the morrow D; to-morrow R # je passerai W; I shall.pass D; I pass R # je vous re- garderai W; I will look at thee D; - at you R # je vous regarderai W; I will look at thee D; - at you # je vous sourirai, peut- etre W; it may be I will smile at thee D; - at you R # VOllS savez bien que VOllS allez faire cc que je VOllS demande. VOllS le savez bien, n'est-ce pas? ... Moi, je sais bien W; thou knowest that thou wilt do what I ask of thee. Thou knowest it ... I know that thou wilt do this thing D; you know that you will - of you. You know it well... I know that you will - R # THE PAGE OF HERODlAS (1): On dirait la main W; Like the hand D; You would think it was the hand R# THE YOUNG SYRIAN (2): rair tres etrange W; a strange aspect D; - look R # THE YOUNG SYRIAN (4): On ne sait jarnais W; No one can tell D; You can never tell R # JOKANAAN (2): Ou est celle qui ayant vu des hommes peints sur la muraille, des im- ages de Chaldeens tracees avec des couleurs J s'es! laissee emporter ala concupiscence de ses yeux, et a envoye des ambassadeurs en Chaldee W; Where is she who saw the images ofmen painted on the walls, even the images ofthe Chaldaeans painted with colours, and gave herself up unto the lust of her eyes, and sent ambassadors into the land ofChaldaea D; - who having seen the images of men painted on the walls, the images ofthe Chal- 164' Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin daeans limned in colours, gave - into Chaldaea R # SALOME (4): qu'il parle W; that he is speaking D; - he speaks R # SALOME (5): Si, c'est de ma mere W; Yes: it is of my mother that he is speaking D; Yes; - that he speaks R # JOKANAAN (3): et sur la rete des tiares de differentes couleursW; and crowns of many different colours on their heads D; and tiaras ofdivers colours ":-"'sR # P. 326 (p. 24), JOKANAAN (1): d'Egypte.' W; of the Egyptians D; of Egypt R#verus ... d'hyacinthe W; clothed in ... hyacinth D; clothed in ... purple R # Dites-lui W; Go, bid her D; Bid her R#elle ne se repentira jamais W; she will not repent D; - will never -R# ses abominations, clites-lui de venir W; her abominations, go bid her come, D; her abominations; bid her come, R [her abominations, bid her.rome; 1912]; # SALOME (1): Mais il W; Ah, but he D; But he R#SALOME (2): une i;pisserie de Tyr W; a tap- estry of Tyre D; a Tyrian tapestry R#On dirait des cavernes noires OU demeurent des dragons, des cavernes noires d'Egypte W; They are like the black caverns where the drag- ons live, the black caverns of Egypt D; They are like black caverns where dragons dwell. They are like the black caverns of Egypt R # SALOME (3): tres fraide, comme de l'ivoire W; very cold, cold as ivory D; cool like ivory R#JOKANAAN (2): Je ne veux pas le savoir W; I do not desire to know who she is D; - wish to - R # JOKANAAN (3): le cri de ses peches est arrive aux oreilles de Dieu W; the cry ofher sinning hath come up even to the ears of God D; - sins hath - up to the -R# SALOME (6): Ta voix m'enivre W; Thy voice is as music to mine ear D; - is wine to me R # P. 327 (p. 27), JOKANAAN (2): le battement W; the beating D; the beatings R [the beating 1907 and 1912] # JOKANAAN (3): cet immonde palais W; this palace D; this foul palace R # SALOME (3): Iokanaan! Je suis amoreuse de ton corps W; I am amoraus ofthy body, Iokanaan D; Jokanaan, I am amoraus of thy body R # comme les neiges qui couchent sur les montagnes W; omitted D; like the snows that lie on the mountains R # Ni Ies rases du jardin W; Neither the rases ofthe garden D; - in the garden R # [Not in W]; the garden of spices of the Qyeen of Arabia D; the perfumed garden of spices of - R [absent from 1912] # Laisse-moi toucher W; Suffer me to touch D; Let me touch R# SALOME (4): un sepulcre blanchi W; a whited sepulchre D; a whitened - R#qui veulent se cacher pendant la journee W; who would hide them by day D; - hide them- selves -R# ne sont pas aussi noires W; are not so black as thy hair D; are not so black R#

P. 328 (p. 29), SALOME (1): Il n'y a rien au monde d'aussi noir que tes cheveux W; There is nothing in the world that is so black as thy hair D; - the world so black -R# Laisse-moi W; Suffer me to D; Let me R # SALOME (2): une couranne d'epines qu'on a placee sur ton front W; like a crown of thorns placed on thy head D; - thorns which they have placed on thy forehead R # un noeud de serpents noir qui se tortillent autour de ton cou W; a knot of serpents coiled round thy neck Dj a knot ofblack serpents writhing round thy neck R # une pomme de grenade coupee par W; a pomegranate cut in tWain with D; - cut with R#Elle est plus rouge W; It is redder D; Thy mouth is -R#qui demeurenr clans W; who inhabit D; who haunt R # laisse-moi baiser W; Suffer me to The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 165

kiss D; Let me kiss W # THE YOUNG SYRIAN (1): Je ne peux pas les souffrir W; I cannot endure it D; I cannot suffer them R # Princesse, princesse W; Princess D; Prin- cess, Princess R # P. 329 (p. 31), THE PAGE OF HEROD!J\S (1): n'a-t-i1 pas ptedit W; did he not say D; - not foretell R # Je l'ai predit il est arrive W; I, too, said it, and it has come to pass D; I, too, foretold it, and it has happened R # FIRST SOLDIER (1): vient de se tuer W; has just slain himselfD; - just killed - R; SALOME (1): Laisse-moi W; Suffer me to D; Let me R # JOKANAAN (1): le battement W; the beating D; the beat- ings R [the beating 1912] # SALOME (2): Laisse-moi W; Suffer me to D; Let me R # SALOME (3): Laisse-moi W; Suffer me to D; Let me R # JOKANAA.N (4): Je ne veux pas te regarder. Je ne te regarderai pas W; I will not look at thee D; I do not wish to look at thee. I will not look at thee R # THE PAGE OF HEROD!J\S (2): nous nous promenions W; we were wont to walk D; we used to walk R # et parmi and among D; among R # iI me racontait W; he used to tell me D; he would tell me R # un joueur de flute W; one who playeth upon the flute D; a flute player R # iI aimait beaucoup W;he had much joy D; he much loved R # P. 330 (p. 35), HEROD!J\S (2): Vous n'avez rien W; We have nothing D; You have - R # HEROD (3): delicieux W; sweet D; delicious R # HEROD (4): delicieux W; very sweet D; delicious R # treS mauvais W; very ill D; very evil R # FIRST SOLDIER (2): c>.pitaine W; captain ofthe guard D; captain R # iI yatrois jours seulement W; but three days gone D; only three days ago R # HEROD (5): Je n'ai donne aucun ordre W; I is- sued no order D; I gave -R# SECOND SOLDIER (2): tue W; slew D; killed R # HEROD (6): capitaine W; captain of my guard D; captain R # SECOND SOLDIER (3): iI sest tue lui-meme W; with his own hand he slew himselfD; he killed himself R # HEROD (7): pensais W; had thought D; thought R # qui! n'y avait que W; it was but D; it was only R # P. 331 (p. 37), HEROD (1): tuaient W; slew D; killed R # tuent W; slay D; kill R # TIGELLINUS (1): Il y en a qui se tuent W; There be some who slay themselves D; There are some who kill - R # des gens tres grossiers W; people of no cultivation D; coarse people R # HEROD (2): se W; one's-self D; oneself R # HEROD (3): tue W; slain; D; killed R # JeJe regrette W; I am sorry he has slain himself D; - has killed -R # Je me rappelle que je I'ai vu regardant W; I remember that I saw that he looked D; - that I saw he looked R # HEROD!J\S (1): qui la regardent trap W; who look too much at her D; who look at her too much R # HEROD (4): Je I'ai chasse W; I drave him D; I drove him R # Et de sa mere qui etait reine vous avez fait une esclavc, Herodias W; And of his mother, who was a queen, you made a slave, Herodias D # And you made a slave of his mother, who was a queen, Heroruas R # 11 faut l'emporter ailleurs W; It must be taken to some other place D; omitted R [Take it away! 1912] # HEROD (6): C'etait le vent sans doute W; It was the blowing of the wind D; - of the wind, no doubt R # un battement d'aiIes W; a beating ofwings D; the beating -R# HEROD (7): C'est votre 166 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin fille qui est malade. Elle a rair tres malade, votre fille W; It is your daughter who is sick to death D; It is your daughter who is sick. She has the mien ofa sick person R # P.332 (p. 40), HEROD (2): du fruit avec moi W; fruits with me D; fruit - R # et en- suite je mangerai W; that I may eat Dc and then I will eat R # HERODIAS (2): Aussi, c'crait un voleur W; he was a thief an&a robber to boot D; He was also .3 robber R# HERODIAS (4): ce qu'elle pense de vous W; in what regard she holds you D; what she thinks of you R # THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (1): Voici le temps W; Behold the time is come D; Lo! the time -R# dit le Seigneur Dieu W; omitted D; saith the Lord God R # Voici le jour dont j'avais parle W; The day that I spake of is at hand D; Lo! the day ofwhich I spoke R [ofwhich I spake 1912] # HERODIASJ5): vomit toujours W; is for ever hurling D; is for ever vomiting R # HERODIAS (6): Aussi, il W; Also he D; Moreover, he R #

P. 333 (p. 43), A JEW (1): qui a vu Dieu W; who saw God face to face D; Who saw God R # Il se cache W; God hideth D; He hideth R # A THIRD JEW (1): et dans toute chose W; and in all places D; and in everything R # dans le bien W; in what is good D; in omitted R [but present in 1907 and 1912] # A FOURTH JEW (1): Il ne faut pas dire cela W; Thou shouldst not say that D; That must not be said R # des ecoles d'Alexandrie W; from Alexandria D; from the schools at Alexandria R # A FIFTH JEW (1): .On ne peut pas W; No man can D; No one can R # tres mysterieuses W; very dark D; very mysterious R # Le necessaire c'est de se soumettre atout W # We can but bow our heads to his will D; We must needs submit to everything R # FIRSTJEW (?2): Dieu est terrible W; Verily, God is terrible D; God is - R#Il brise les faibles et les forts comme on brise le ble dan un mortier W; He breaketh in pieces the strong and the weak as men break corn in a mortar D; He breaketh the strong - as a man brays corn -R# Mais cet homme n'a jamais vu Dieu Wj But as for this man, he hath never seen God D; But this man hath - D # HEROD (1): qu'Iokanaan lui-meme est W; that Iokanaan is in very truth D; that Jokanaan himself is # HEROD (2): le prophete Elie W; Elias the prophet D; the prophet Elias R#ANAZARENE (1): le prophete Elie W; Elias the prophet D; the propher Elias R # THE JEW (?3): le prophete Elie W; Elias the prophet D; the prophet Elias R # THE VOICE OFJOKANAAN (1): Le jour est venu W; Be- hold the day is at hand D; So [?in error for Lo] the day is come R # HEROD (3): du monde? W; the world? D; the world. R [the world? 1912] # TIGELLINUS (1): que prend Caesar W; that Caesar adopts D; that Caesar takes R#

P. 334 (p. 46), TIGELLINUS (1): J'explique seulement le titre W; I was but explaining the title D; but omitted R # HEROD (1): sil veut W; if such be his pleasure D; if he wishes R # je ne pense pas qu'il vienne W; I think he will not come D; I do not think he will come R # HEROD (2): Pas de Cesar' W; How? - it was not concerning Caesar? D; Not of Caesar? R # FIRST NAZARENE (2): Non, Seigneur W; No, my lord D; No, sire R # FIRST NAZARENE (3): qui est venu W; who hath come D; - has -R# SECOND NAZARENE (1): c'etaient deux aveugles W; it was two blind men D; two The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 167

omittd R # HERODIAS (2): Ils sont betes. Ils sont tout afait betes W; They are ridicu- lous! They are altogether ridiculous D; Second sentence omitted R # P. 335 (p. 48), TIRST NAZARENE (2): Il W; This man D; He R # HEROD (2): Il ressuscite les morts W; How! He raises people from the dead D; He raises the dead R # HEROD (3): permets W; suffer D; allow R''II. HEROD (4): il faut ... lui dire de ma part que je ne lui permets pas de ressusciter Ies morts W; let them ... tell Him, thus saith Herod the King, 'I will not suffer Thee to raise the dead' D; iet them ... tell Him from me, I will not allow Him ro raise the dead R # une bonne action W; a kindly deed D; a good deed R#je ne permets pas qu'il ressuscite W; no man shall raise D; I allow no man to raise R # THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (2): les capitaines de guerre W; the cap- tains ofthe hosts Dj the war captains R # .

P. 336 (p. 51), HERODIAS (2): Vous le laissez insulter votre epouse? W; You suffer him to revile her who is your wife! D; You allow him to revile your wife? R # HERODIAS (4): Cest vous qui m'avez arrachee de ses bras W; It was thou didst snatch me from his arms D; It was you who tore me - R # HEROD (3): En effet, j'etais le plus fort W; Of a truth I was stronger than he was D; Of a truth I was stronger R [- the stronger 1912] # Remplissez de vin W; Ho! fill with wine D; Fill - R # THE VOICE OF JOKANAAN (2): du ciel W; of the heaven D; of the heavens R#les figues vertes W; unripe figs D; ripe figs R # HERODIAS (7): des figues vertes W; unripe figs D; ripe figs R#

P. 337 (p. 54), TIGELLINUS (1): Seigneur W; my lord D; sire R#HEROD (5): On dit, n'est-ce pas, que le voile W; They say that the veil D; that omitted R # HERODIAS (4): atort et atravers W; at random and without wit D; at random R#HERODIAS (6): Laissez la tranquille W; Peace. Let her alone D; Let her alone R # HEROD (10): Cesar, qui ... ciu monde, qui W; Caesar, who ... ofthe world, Caesar, who Dj Caesar, who ... of the world, who R # qu'il veut W; that he has a mind to do D; that he wishes R#Ainsi, vous voyez, j'ai le droit W; Therefore I do well D; Thus you see I have a right R#

P. 338 (p. 56), HEROD (1): [Not in W); I am very happy, never have I been so happy D; Indeed, I am happy. I have never been -R[absent from 1912; cfW) # HERODIAS (2): Cest ridicule de dire cela W; You speak as a fool D; It is absurd to say that R# ffieffie cl'une de vas esclaves W; on ooe ofyour slaves D; even from one -R# HEROD (2): un marriage incesrueux W; a marriage of incest D; an incestuous marriage R # le moment W; the hour D; the moment R#de ces choses W; ofthese things D; ofsuch _ R # SECOND SOLDIER (1): Comme il a rair sombre, le tetrarque W; The Tetrarch has a sombre look D; What a sombre look the Tetrarch wears R#TIRST SOLDIER: a W; has D; wears R # HEROD (3): d'un mauvais presage W; an ill omen D; an evil omen R#et j'ai entendu, je suis stir que j'ai entendu W; also I heard D; and I heard, I am sure I heard R # ce que cela veut dire W; what that may mean D; what they mean R [what it means 1912] # je vous supplie W; I beseech thee D; - you # 168 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

Pp. 338-9 (p. 59) [HEROD (3) contd.; HEROD (1)]: Si vous dansez pour moi vous pourrez me demander tout ce que VOllS voudrez et je vous le donnerai. Oui, dansez pour mai, Salome, et je vouS donnerai tout ce que VOllS me demanderez, rut-cc la moitie de mon royaume W; Ifthou dancest for me thou mayest ask ofme what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. Yes, dance for me, whatsoever thou shalt ask ofme I will give it thee, even unto the half of my kingdom"0; Ifyou dance for me you may ask of me what you will, and I will give it you, even unto the half of my kingdom R [After give it you 1912 ({ollowing W) has a fUll stop and then Yes, dance for me, Salome, and I will give you all that you ask of me, even -] # [po 339] SALOME (1): je demanderai W; I shall ask of you D; I shall ask R#HEROD (2): Tout, nit-ce la moitie de mon royaume W; Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, even unto the half of my D; Everything, even the half -R[to the half - 1912] # HEROD (4): Tout ce que vous voudrez je vous le donnerai ... si VOllS dansez pour moi W; Whatsoever thou shalt desire I will give thee ... ·if thou wilt but dance for me D; - you desire I will give you ... ifyou will - # SALOME (4): jure W; sworn an oath D; sworn R#HEROD (5): jure W; sworn an oath D; sworn R#SALOME (5): Tout ce que je vous demanderai, rut-ce la moitie de votre royaume; omitted D; AIl that I ask, even the half ofyour kingdom R [- even to the half - 1912] # HEROD (6): on dirait qu'il yaun oiseau, un grand oiseau noir W; one might fancy a huge black bird D; - fancy a bird, a huge black bird R [- fancy it was a bird, a- 1912] # 11 ne faut pas trouver des symboles dans chaque chose qu'on voit. Cela rend la vie impossible W; It is not wise to fmd symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full ofterrors Dj You must not find symbols in everything you see. It makes life impossi- ble R#N'est-ce pas que vous allez W; Wilt thou not D; Will you not R#Vous avez W; Thou hast D; You have R. P. 340 (p. 62), HEROD (1): Vouz avez bien raison W; Thou doest well D; You do well R # vous aurez ... vous voudrez W; thou hast ... thou hast a mind to ask D; you have ... you wish R # Tout ce que vous voudrez je vous le donnerai W; Whatsoever thou shalt desire I will give it thee D; - you wish I- you R#HEROD (2): ment toujours W; had ever a lying tongue D; alwaya lies R#Je suis sur W; I know D; I am sure R#Sinon W; And ifhe crucifY him not D; And if not R#SALOME (3): J'allends W; I am wait- ing D; I am awaiting R#m'ctent mes sandales W; take from off my feet my sandals D; take off my sandals R#HEROD (3): vous allez danser pieds nus W; thou art to dance with naked feet D; you are going to -R#Vos ... pieds W; Thy ... feet D; Your ... feet R # HERODIAS (2): cela vous fait W; is it to thee D; - to you R#dedans W; in it D; therein R#HEROD (4): que la lune deviendrait rouge comme du sang W; that the moon would become as blood D; - become red as blood R # Vous l'avez tous entendu W; AIl of ye heard him prophesying it D; AIl of you heard him R#rouge comme du sang W; as blood D; red as blood R#HERODIAS (3): comme des figues vertes W; like unripe figs D; like ripe figs R#

P. 341 (p. 65), HERODIAS (1): Pour une fois dan sa vie le prophete a eu raison. Les rois de la terre ont peur W; The prophet is justified of his words in that at least, for truly The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 169 the kings of the earth are afraid D; The prophet, for once in his life, was right, the kings -R#HEROD (2): je puisse vous donner votre salaire W; I may give thee thy fee D; - give you your reward R [- thee thy reward 1912] # je paie bien les danseuses, moi. Toi, je te paierai bien W; I pay a royal price to those who dance for my pleasure. I will pay thee royally D; I pay the dancers well. I will. pay thee royally R#HEROD (3): vous voulez ... VOllS qui etes W; thou wouldst have ";.. thou that art D; you would have ... you who are R # Qy'est-ce que vous voulez qu'on VOllS appone W; What wouldst thou have them bring thee D; What would you have them bring you R#on vous le donnera W; thou shalt receive it D; they shall give it you R#Qyest-ce que c'est, Salome? W; What is it that thou wouldst have, Salome? Dj What is it, Salome.? R # P. 342 (p. 67), HEROD (1): Vous ne me demandez pas cela W; It is not that thou de- sires! D; YDU do not ask me that R # votre mere W; thy mother's voice D; your mother's voice R#Elle vous donne toujours R; She is ever giving thee D; - you R#SALOME (1): Je n'ecoute pas ma mere W; It is not my mother's voice that I heed D; I do not heed my mother R#jure W; sworn an oath D; sworn R# HEROD (2): vous ... vous ... vous; thee ... thee ... thy lips D; you ... you ... you R#HEROD (3): Non, non, je ne veW< pas W; No, no, I will not give it thee D; No, no, I do not wish it R#SALOME (3): jure W; sworn an oath D; sworn R#HERODIAS (1): jure W; sworn an oath D; sworn R# HEROD (4): Taisez-vous W; Peace, woman D; Be silent R#HERODIAS (2): des chases monstrueuses W; unspeakable things D; monstrous things R # jure ... jure W; sworn an oath ... sworn an oath D; sworn ... sworn R#HEROD (5): Taisez-vous W; Peace D; Be silent R # Voyons, Salome, if faut etre raisonnable, n'est-ce pas W; Salome, I pray thee be not stubborn D; Come, Salome, be reasonable R#Je n'ai jamais ete dur envers VOllS W; I have ever been kind toward thee D; I have never been hard to you R # [Next two sentences:] vous ... vous W; thee ... thee D; you ... you R#Qyel plaisir cela pourrait-il VOllS donner? W; What pleasure couldst tholl have in it. D; What pleasure could you have in it? R#Aucun W; There is no pleasure that thou couldst have in it D; None R # VOllS ne voulez pas cela W; it is not that thou desirest D; it is not what you desire R # une grande emeraude ronde que le favori de Cesar m'a envoyee W; a great em- erald and round, that the minion of Caesar has sent unto me D; a great round emerald, which Caesar's minion sent me R # Si vous regardiez atravers cette emeraude vous ·pour- riez voir des choses qui se passent a une distance immense W; When thou lookest through this emerald thou canst see that which passeth afar offD; Ifyou look - you can see things which happen at a great distance R#la mienne est plus grande W; my emerald is the larger D; the absent from R# [Not in W); I know well that it is the larger D; the absent from R [Sentence absent from 1912; if. W] # N'est-ce pas que vous voulez cela? De- mandez-moi ceIa et je vous le donnerai W; Thou wilt take that, wilt thou not? Ask it of me and I will give it thee D; You would like that, would you not? - it you R#HEROD (6): Vous ... vous W; Thou ... Thou D; You ... You R# P. 343 (p. 70), HEROD (1): vous ne voulez pas cela W; thou wouldst not have that D; you would - R; VOllS me dites cela seulement pour me faire de la peine, parce que je 170 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

VOtiS ai regardee pendant toute la soiree W; Thou sayest that but to trouble me, because that I have looked at thee and ceased not this night D; You say that to trouble me, be- cause I have looked at you all this evening R#Je vous ai regardee pendant toute la soiree W; I have looked at thee and ceased not this night D; - at you all this evening R; Votre beaute m'a trouble W; Thy beauty ha., troubled me D; Your beauty troubled me R# Votre ._, et je VOllS ai trap regardee w;"1ny ... and I have looked at thee overmuch D; Your ... and I have looked at you too much R#Mais je ne le ferai plus W; Nay, but I will look at thee no more. One should not look at anything D; But I will look at you no more R # 11 ne faut regarder que clans Ies miroirs W; Only in mirrors is it well to look D; - mirrors should one look R#Enfin, voyez W; Bethink thee)?; Come now R#je m'en souviens W; I remember it Dj I remember R # VOllS ne m'entendiez pas W; thou wilt not hear my words D; you will not hear me R # vous connaissez W; thou knowes! D; you know R#sont dores aussi W; are smeared with gold D; are gilded with gold also R#et autour de I'etang W; and round the pools ofwater D; and round the lake R#11 n'y a au- cun rai du monde qui possede des oiseaux aussi merveilleux W; absent from Dj There is no king in all the world who possesses such wonderful birds R#Je suis sur W; I know D; I am sure R # je vous donnerai ... Ils VOllS suivront partout ... VOllS serez comme la lune ... Je vous les donnerai tous W; I will give thee ... They will follow thee whithersoever thou goest ... thou wilt be like unto the moon ... I will give them to thee, all D; I will give you ... They will follow you whithersoever you go ... you will be like the moon ... I will give them all to you R#mais je vous les donnerai tous W; But I will give them all to thee D; - to you R # Seulement, il faut me delier de ma parole et ne pas me demander ce que vous m'avez demande W; Only thou must loose me from my oath, and must not ask of me that which thy lips have asked of me D; - you must loose - that which you have asked ofme R # HEROD (2): Taisez-vous. Vous criez toujours W; Peace! you are always crying out D; Be silent! you cry out always R#11 ne faut pas crier comme cela W; You must not cry in such fashion Dj You must not R # Taisez-vous, je vous dis W; Peace, I tell you D; Be silent, I say R#ace que vous faites W; on what thou art doing D; ofwhat you are - R#Cet homme vient peut-etre de Dieu W; It may be that this man comes from God D; This man comes perchance from God R# P. 344 (p. 72), HEROD (1): Dieu est toujours avec lui W; God is ever with him D·, - is always -R#Au moins, c'est possible W; It may be that He is, at least D; At least it is possible R # On ne sait pas, mais il est possible que Dieu soit pour lui et avec lui W; One cannot tell, but it is possible that God is with him and for him D; One does not know. It is possible that God is for him and with him R [- know, but it is - 1912] # Aussi peut-etre que s'il mourrait, il m'arriverait un malheur. Enfin, il a dit que le jour OU il mourrait it arriverait un malheur a quelqu'un. Ce ne peut etre qu'a moi W; Ifhe die also, peradventure some evil may befall me. Verily, he has said that evil will befall some one on the day whereon he dies. On whom should it fall if it fall not on'me? D; Furthermore, if he died some misfortune might happen to me. In any case, he said that the day he dies a misfortune will happen to someone. That could only be to me R [Furthermore, ifhe were to die - 1912] # quand je suis entre ici W; when I came hither D; when I entered R# The Two Earliest English Translations ofOscar Wilde's Salome 171

Aussi j'ai entendu un battement d'ailes dan rair, un battement d'ailes gigantesques. Ce sont de tres mauvais presages. Et i1 y en avail d'autres. Je suis sUr qu'il y en avait d'autres, quoique je ne Ies aie pas W5. Eh hien! Salome, VOllS ne voulez pas qu'un maIheur m'arrive? VOllS ne voulez pas cela. Enfin, ecoutez-moi W; Also did I not hear a beating ofwings in the air, a beating of vast wings?'These are ill omens. And there were other things. I am sure that there were other things,though I saw them not. Thou wouldst not that some evil should befall me, Salome? Listen to me again D; Also, I heard a beating of wings in the air, a beating of mighty wings. These are very evil omens, and there were others. I am sure there were others though I did not see them. Well, Salome, you do not wish a misfortune to happen to me? You do not wish that. Listen to me, then R# HEROD (2): Vous voyez, vous ne m'ecoutez pas. Mais soyez calm•.· Moi, je suistres calme. Je suis tout afait calme W; Ah! thou art not listening to me. Be calm. As for me, am I not calm? I am altogether calm D; Ah! you are not listening to me. Be calm. I- I am calm. I am quite calm R # votre mere W; thy mother D; your - R # des bijoux tout a fait extraordinaires W; jewels that are marvellous to look at D; jewels that are marvellous R # On dirait cinquante lunes W; They are even as half a hundred moons D; They are like fifty moons R # Uoe reine l'a porte sur l'ivoire des ses seins W; On the ivory breast of a queen they have rested D; On the ivory of her breast a queen has worn it R # quand tu le porteras W; when thou wearest them Dj - it R#qu'on a colore avec de l'eau W; that one has coloured with water D; which has been -R# avec une flamme qui est tres froide W; with a flame that is cold as ice D; with an icelike flame R # qui ... ont peur des tenebres W; that ... are afraid ofthe shadows D; - are fearful - R#je vous le donnerai tous, mais tous W; I will give them all unto thee, all D; - all to you, all R [all to thee, all 1912] #

P. 345 (p. 75), HEROD (1): quand on les porte dans la main on peut rendre les femmes steriles # he who carries them in his hand can turn the fruitful woman into a woman that is barren Dj he - hand can make women sterile R # Ce sont des tresors de grande valeur. Ce sont des tresors sans prix W; These are great treasures. They are treasures above all price D; These are great treasures above all price. They are treasures without ptice R [These are treasures ofgreat value. They - 1912] # des pommes d'or W; apples ofpure gold D; apples ofgold R # des pommes d'argent W; apples of silver D; an apple ofsilver R [apples' of - 1912] # sauf une chose W; save one thing only D; save one thing R # sauf une vie W; save only the life ofone man D; save one life R # HEROD (2): Les rois ne doivent jamais donner leur parole. S'ils ne la gardent pas, c'est terrible. S'ils la gar- dent, cest terrible aussi W; Hereafter let no king swear an oath. If he keep it not, it is terrible, and ifhe keep it, it is terrible also D; Kings ought never to pledge their word. If they -, and ifthey - R # SALOME (2): C'etait l'epee du bourteau ... Il a laisse tomber son epee W; It was the sword ofthe executioner ... He has dropped his sword D; It is the sword of the headsman ... He has let his sword fall R # Il n'ose pas W; He dares not D; He dare not R # n'est-ce pas W; wert thou not Dj is it not so R # 172 Bibliographical Society ofAustralia & New Zealand Bulletin

P. 346 (p. 77), SALOME (1): [Stage dimtion:] [L