srAs-i: CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PA 6522.M2G61 Shakespeare's ..Oyid : 3 1924 026 559 777 *o,.i Cornell University Library '^J The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924026559777 Of this Edition of Shakespeare's Ovid 350 Copies were printed on Hand-made paper and 1 2 on Real Vellum : of which 300 on Hand-made Paper and 10 on Real Vellum are for sale in England. r> -» / No ZQl.... THE KING'S LIBRARY EDITED BY PROFESSOR GOLLANCZ THE DE LA MORE PRESS FOLIOS III. OVID'S METAMORPHOSES SHAKESPEARE'S OVID BEING ARTHUR GOLD- INGS TRANSLATION OF THE METAMOR- PHOSES EDITED BY W. H. D. ROUSE, LITT.D. LONDON AT THE DE LA MORE PRESS 1904 0) The. XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, entytuled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into Snglish meeter^ by aAr- thur Gelding Gentleman, / A worke very pleasaunt and deleSiable. With skill, heede, and judgement, this worke must be read. For else to the Reader it standes in small stead. Imprynted at London, by Willyam Seres, — •' As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the witty soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare." Francis Meres, isi^- " Ovidius Naso was the man ; and why indeed Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention." —Loves Labour^s Lost. CONTENTS PAGE The Epistle - - - - - i The Preface (too the Reader) - - - 15 ^The First Booke of Ovids Metamorphosis - -21 "T'he Seconde Booke - - - - 41 ^The Third Booke - - - - 63 /'"—The Fourth Booke - - - - 82 --The Fyft Booke - - - - -102 JThe Sixt Booke - - - - -119 ._The Seventh Booke - - - - 137 The Eight Booke - - - - 160 The Ninth Booke - - - - 182 The Tenth Booke - - - - 201 The Eleventh Booke - - - - 219 The Tv^elfth Booke - - - - 238 The Thirteenth Booke - - - - 252 The Fourteenth Booke - - - - 275 The Fifteenth Booke - - - - 295 INTRODUCTION : SHAKESPEARE AND OVID.—Amongst the direct sources of Shakes- peare's works, after North's Plutarch and Holinshed, probably the most important was Ovid. The Fastiy the Heroides, and the Metamorphoses were just such works as would be most likely to impress a young mind ; and Shakespeare's early ambition seems to have been to be the English Ovid, whilst accident made him a dramatist. Thus in his Lucrece and his Venus and Adonis he directly challenges comparison. His themes are of the same romantic and imaginative stuff; his method the same rich and picturesque description ; and the motto upon the title of the Venus and Adonis shows that he took the attempt seriously. In this respect he judged truly of his powers, although he enormously underestimated them. Other dramatists have pourtrayed the doings and the fate of men so as to move our souls ; but no other has taken us into fairy land, and made imps and fays live before us as Shakespeare has done. Ben Jonson and Middleton have done something for demons and witches ; Goethe has realized a devil ; but with Shakespeare alone the world of faery seems to be real and reasonable as flesh and blood. Professor T. S. Baynes has shown by a detailed examination, that Shakes- peare knew the grammar-school course.' In Holofernes, the poet represents the pedantic teaching which might have heard in been many a country schoolroom ; and shows his familiarity with the various methods of instruction then in vogue, the technical terms of rhetoric, and the favourite authors. There are besides many references and allusions in Shakespeare to the classical authors, which in part may, but need not be due to floating knowledge. In particular, it is clear that he knew Ovid in the original. On the title page of Venus and Adonis^ one of the three works which he published himself under his own name, he places the following motto taken from the Amores (I. XV. 35-6), which was not yet translated into English Vilia miretur vulgus : mihi flavus Apollo pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua. He makes two quotations from the Heroides, and one from the Metamorphoses.'' The selection of Titania as the name of his Fairy Queen seems to be due to the text of the Metamorphoses, where it frequently occurs as an epithet of various goddesses, such as Diana, Latona, Circe, Hecate.^ The name does not occur in Golding's translation, where it is always paraphrased ; and it happily sums up the magical and mystic associations of mythology. A large number of tales and episodes found in Ovid are referred to or used by Shakespeare, especially in his earlier plays. In Titus Andronicus, for instance, the treatment of Lavinia is borrowed from the "tragic tale of Philomel."* To enter now upon detailed examination of his allusions would be out of place. ' T. S. Baynes, Shakespeare Studies (Longman, Green & Co., 1896) 178 fF. His essay on What Shakespeare Learnt at School occupies a large part of the volume. The latest researches on the subject are summed up and supplemented by H. R. D. Anders, Shakespeare's Books: A Dissertation on Shakespeare's Reading and the Immediate sources of his Works (Berlin: Reimer, 1904), Schriften der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft Bd. I. ^ Her. i., 33-4 in Taming of the Shrevi iii., i. 28 ; Her. ii. 66 in 3; Hen. VI., i., 3. 48 ; Met. i. I JO in Tit Andr, VI., 3. 4; Anders, p. 21. 3 Baynes, p. 210. 4 Baynes, p. 216. For details of Shakespeare's debt to Ovid, and the classical writers generally, see Baynes 223 ff., and Anders 24 fF., who introduces one or two new points. piece of evidence THE BODLEIAN OVID.—There is however another of Ovid s which deserves to be mentioned. In the Bodleian library is a copy .._ giuen once Will. Shaksperes T.N. 1682.' John Hall, it will be remembered, married Shakespeare's daughter Susanna. The genuineness of the mscriptions suggest has of course been questioned, but there is nothing about them to have forgery. It has been pertinently remarked that a forger would hardly abbreviated the name. He would have been likely, we may add, to write information than the initials T.N. J. Hall instead of W. Hall, and to give more have been The vague allusiveness is in their favour ; and probably they would at once accepted, but that the find was felt to be too good to be true. The book has been used by more than one person for study. One has written in a fine minute hand meanings and paraphrases in Latin above the text throughout the earlier part of the volume. Many verses have been underlined, especially in the earlier books, and very few pages but show some marks of use. There are also marginal scribblings and caricatures, which are carelessly done, and do not appear to be so old as the rest. EARLY TRANSLATIONS OF OVID.—Ovid was a favourite with the early translators. Caxton prepared for the press, but did not print, a translation of the Metamorphoses; and Wynkyn de Worde printed in 151 3, selections from the Art of Love. After the middle of the sixteenth century there are (besides Golding) Turberville's Heroides (1567), Underdowne's Ihis (1569), and Church- yard's Tristia (1580). Later we have Marlowe's Elegies, the Amoves (1597), Browne's Remedie of Love (1599), and others in the early years of the seventeenth century. GOLDING'S OVID.—Besides these, two pamphlets deserve mention as forerunners of Golding. One is " The Pleasant Fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis," translated by Thomas Peend (1565). The tide of the second deserves quoting in full. " The Fable of Ovid treting of Narcissus, translated out of Latin into Englysh Mytre, with a moral therunto, very pleasante to rede. MDLX. God resysteth the proud in every place. But unto the humble he geveth grace Therefore trust not to riches, beauti nor strength All these be vayne and shall consume at length. Imprynted at London by Thomas Hacketh, and are to be sold at hys shop in Cannynge Strete, over agaynste the thre Cranes. contents of this The pamphlet, which is not paged, are these : The Prenter to the Booke (i The Argument of the (i p.) ; Fable p.) ; Ovid's Fable (4 pp. in couplets, lines of 12 syllables and 14 syllables alternately); The Moralization of the Fable in Ovid of Narcissus (z6 in pp. seven-line stanza). Imprint : on reverse Woodcut of Hunters with bows and dogs. The tide suggests Golding's own, so 'pleasant and delectable,' with its doggrell couplet. The publication of the pamphlet may have suggested the work to young Golding perhaps ; he may even have owed something to the metre, which differs from Golding's own by a pause in place of a foot in the first P°^"^^ °"^ '° ™5 by Mr. Madan) by F. A. Leo in 'i^^f" ""5J5 ('^'^'i^y Jahrbuch der Shakes- peare-Gesellschaft XVI., 367 fF. The name does not appear to me to be Shakstare, as Leo writes it The two s's, though defective seem to be there, but the r is slurred. ii. line of each couplet. The long line had however already been used for a similar purpose by Thomas Phaer in his Seven first Bookes of the Eneides ofVirgill 1558, continued in 1562. But if Golding owed a suggestion to his predecessor, he owed little else, as a brief extract will show. This man the fearefull hartes, inforcynge to hys nettes The caulyng nimphe one daye, beheld that nether ever lettes To talke to those that speake, nor yet hathe power of speeche Before by Ecco this I mene, the dobbeler of skreeche.