Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 The Search for a Lofty British Virgil: The Early Elizabethan Aeneids of Thomas Phaer, Thomas Twyne and Richard Stanyhurst
- 2 ‘Sound this Angry Message in Thine Eares’: Sympathy and the Translations of the Aeneid in Marlowe's Dido Queene of Carthage
- 3 Courteous Virgil: The Manuscript Translations of an Anonymous Poet, Sir John Harington and Sir William Mure of Rowallan
- 4 Virginian Virgil: The Single-Book Translations of Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Dudley Digges and George Sandys
- 5 Rome at War: The Military Virgils of John Vicars, Robert Stapylton and Robert Heath
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - ‘Sound this Angry Message in Thine Eares’: Sympathy and the Translations of the Aeneid in Marlowe's Dido Queene of Carthage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series Editors’ Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Introduction
- 1 The Search for a Lofty British Virgil: The Early Elizabethan Aeneids of Thomas Phaer, Thomas Twyne and Richard Stanyhurst
- 2 ‘Sound this Angry Message in Thine Eares’: Sympathy and the Translations of the Aeneid in Marlowe's Dido Queene of Carthage
- 3 Courteous Virgil: The Manuscript Translations of an Anonymous Poet, Sir John Harington and Sir William Mure of Rowallan
- 4 Virginian Virgil: The Single-Book Translations of Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Dudley Digges and George Sandys
- 5 Rome at War: The Military Virgils of John Vicars, Robert Stapylton and Robert Heath
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The following speech of Dido's, from the final scene of Marlowe's Dido Queene of Carthage, can illustrate the different layers of adaptation, imitation, translation and quotation of Virgil's Aeneid which run throughout the play:
DIDO. Now Dido, with these reliques burne thy selfe,
And make Aeneas famous through the world,
For perjurie and slaughter of a Queene:
Here lye the Sword that in the darksome Cave
He drew, and swore by to be true to me,
Thou shalt burne first, thy crime is worse then his;
Here lye the garment which I cloath'd him in,
When first he came on shoare, perish thou to:
These letters, lines, and perjurd papers all,
Shall burne to cinders in this pretious flame.
And now ye gods that guide the starrie frame,
And order all things at your high dispose,
Graunt, though the traytors land in Italy,
They may be still tormented with unrest,
And from mine ashes let a Conquerour rise,
That may revenge this treason to a Queene,
By plowing up his Countries with the Sword:
Betwixt this land and that be never league,
Littora littoribus contraria, fluctibus undas
Imprecor: arma armis: pugnent ipsique nepotes:
Live false Aeneas, truest Dido dyes,
Sic sic juvat ire sub umbras.
(5.1.292–313)We can find here instances of free invention: line 300, for example, has no parallel in Aeneid 4, where there is no mention of ‘papers’ from Aeneas. We can find here examples of imitation: Dido addressing the relics which Aeneas left behind as she is about to commit them to the flames (292–4) is an adaptation of her speech at Aeneid 4.651ff., but Marlowe's rendition is only a very loose re-creation. In lines 306–8, we can find a direct translation of lines 625–7 from Aeneid 4, where Dido pleads for an avenger to arise from her ashes. And in the Latin at the end of this passage, we can find exact quotations of the original lines 628–9 and 660 of Virgil's epic. As this speech of Dido's illustrates in nuce, Marlowe's play moves freely between different levels of engagement with the Aeneid. Although the majority of the play is free adaptation, which cannot be pinned down to any specific lines in Virgil's Latin, certain passages in Marlowe's drama are demonstrably translations from Virgil.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The English AeneidTranslations of Virgil 1555-1646, pp. 55 - 77Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015