Four Tragedies and Octavia Read Online Free PDF Page A

did not, in general, set anexample for the theatre – fortunately. The form was more suitable for ballad and narrative verse (and so has some success in the narrative speeches of the plays). The length of line is the outcome of the difficulty of translating Latin sentences into as few English words, but its use, together with the rhyme and the preference for a monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, tended towards expansion of the already verbose original – verbose, that is, in content, though structurally concise.
    The translators were: Jasper Heywood (
Troas, Thyestes, Hercules Furens
), Alexander Neville (
Oedipus
), John Studley (
Agamemnon, Medea, Hercules Oetaeus, Hippolytus
), Thomas Nuce (
Octavia
– in ten-syllable rhymed couplets). Their versions appeared between 1559 and 1567, and in 1581 they were published (with some revisions) in a collected edition by Thomas Newton, who added his version of
Thebais
. 1 None of these translators was a professional dramatist; they were scholars, college fellows, divines. It would probably not occur to them to study the theatrical technique of their originals or of their translations – although they would have been familiar with scholastic performances of classical plays. Carried away by the exuberance of their own ‘fourteener’ verses, they were tempted to enlarge and embroider descriptive passages, to introduce additional speeches or omit what seemed superfluous. Here is Heywood’s apology:
    Now as concerninge sondrye places augmented and some altered in this my translation. First forasmuch as this worke seemed untomee in some places unperfite, whether left so of the Author, or parte of it loste, as tyme devoureth all thinges, I wot not, I have (where I thought good) with addition of myne owne penne supplied the wante of some thynges, as the firste Chorus, after the first acte begynninge thus, O ye to whom etc. Also in the seconde Arte I have added the speache of Achilles Spright, rysing from Hell to require the Sacrifice of Polyxena, begynning in this wyse, Forsaking now etc. Agayne the three laste staves of the Chorus after the same Acte: and as for the thyrde Chorus which in Seneca beginneth thus,
Quae vocat sedes
? for as much as nothing is herein but a heaped number of farre and straunge Countries, considerynge with my selfe, that the names of so manye unknowen Countreyes, Mountaynes, Desertes, and Woodes, shoulde have no grace in the Englishe tounge, but bee a straunge and unpleasant thinge to the Readers (except I should expound the Historyes of each one, which would be farre to tedious), I have in the place thereof made another, beginninge in this manner, O Jove that leadst etc. Which alteration may be borne withall, seynge that Chorus is not part of the substance of the matter.
    Heywood may easily be forgiven for boggling at the geographical chorus of
Troades
814, but he omits to mention that his substitute is partly a translation of a chorus in
Phaedra
. 1 His introduction of the ghost of Achilles is typical of a tendency which was to persist in the professional theatre; Seneca, it is sometimes said, was responsible for the Elizabethan dramatists’ addiction to ghosts; in fact, there are only two ghosts in his
dramatis personae
– Tantalus in
Thyestes
, and Thyestes in
Agamemnon
; or three, if we count Agrippina in
Octavia
. Other apparitions, as those of Achilles and Hector in
Troades
, and Laius in
Oedipus
, play an important part in the story, but remain off-stage. The Elizabethans used their ghosts more freely, but often more subtly, as (apart from the obvious examples in Shakespeare) in Kyd’s
The Spanish Tragedy
. This begins with the arrivalof a ghost from Hades, but his role is not merely to create an atmosphere of awe and menace; he is on the contrary an amiable and rather puzzled ghost, brought by Revenge to witness the punishment of his murderers, having as yet no clear idea of the depth of the conspiracy against him,