as part of the current gossip, I give no credence. Not only the evil that men do lives after them, but much that they never even thought of doing. Catiline had the misfortune to have two prejudiced biographers, and has suffered unjustly in consequence. However, as I re

marked before, we cannot blame Jonson for accepting the authorities he found, because his was an uncritical age. But it is a cruel paradox that this tragedy, on which such vast pains were spent for absolute accuracy, should be, after all, so largely mistaken.

6. Jonson as a Translator

'Drummond was right when he wrote, "Above all things he (Jonson) excelleth in a Translation." As his two tragedies show... the thing he could do supremely well was to turn the lifelessness of the classics into terms of contemporary vitality. In the best sense of the word, no better translator ever lived: he never forgot that faithfulness to his original is only half the task of the translator, who adds only to the dead weight of printed matter if he fail to bear to living men, in living language, tidings that without him were to them unmeaning' (Barrett Wendell, in Library of World's Best Literature, vol. 14).

With this criticism I heartily agree. So, also, in the main, does Miss Wright in her unpublished thesis which I have several times mentioned. Indeed, Miss Wright's criticism of Jonson's translations is so lucid and so capable that it would be supererogatory for me to add to it; so I shall reproduce the main portion of it here.

'Let us turn now to a particular consideration of the method employed by Jonson in rendering Sallust and Cicero into Elizabethan English, and the success with which he accomplished his task. Let us take two speeches, one from Sallust and one from Cicero, on which to base our study, in which we must have in mind the

two points of view from which every translation should be judged. We must observe, first, in what way and how successfully the translation preserves the diction and sense of the original,-whether diction is sacrificed to sense, or sense to diction, or whether both or neither have been effectively kept. In the second place, the translation must be judged, with no regard to its origin, as a piece of English composition.

'In comparing Jonson's version of Catiline's address to the conspirators with that speech as found in Sallust's Catiline 20, the first point to be noticed is the number and nature of his original insertions, which are not introduced for the sake of adding any new thought, but for the sake of developing and emphasizing the thought already expressed in Sallust. The best example of such an insertion for emphasis is the one introduced between I. 394 and 405, where Jonson seems inspired by Catiline's indignation at the arrogance and extravagance of the Roman potentates to break away from his model, and to pile up accusation after accusation against the offenders, concluding with one of the most forcible and striking figures of the play:

We, all this while, like calme, benum'd Spectators,

Sit, till our seates doe cracke; and doe not heare
The thundring ruines.

Another example of a passage inserted for the sake of making the point more emphatic is found in the translation of Sallust's “vulgus fuimus," which Jonson renders :

Are hearded with the vulgar; and so kept,
As we were onley bred, to consume corne;
Or weare out wooll; to drinke the cities water.

Many of Jonson's original lines were brought in to make clear the transition of thought between two sentences, the connection between which would not have been

Lines

sufficiently brought out by a literal translation. 345-346 are a good example of this kind of insertion.

In lines 352-353,

The riches of the world flowes to their coffers

And not to Romes,

what has been said in the preceding five lines is summarized, and the main idea emphasized, in a manner which gives the necessary clearness and completeness to the thought.

'Besides taking such pains to bring out clearly the point of thought, Jonson also strives, by the addition of metaphors and figurative language, to make it forcible and poetic. His most successful attempt thus to beautify some prosaic statement is in his translation of Sallust's, "his obnoxii quibus, si respublica valeret, formidini essemus," which he translates,

Trembling beneath their rods: to whom, (if all

Were well in Rome) we should come forth bright axes.

Other figurative translations are:

'potentium"-the giants of the state. (348)

quis mortalium tollere potest"—It doth strike my soule. (374) divitias superare"- Swell with treasure. (377)

divitiae, decus, gloria in oculis sita sunt"

Behold, renowne, riches and glory court you (411), etc.

'But Jonson's method of translation in general can be best shown by a word-for-word comparison of some connected passage in Catiline with the passage corresponding to it in Sallust. Let us take, for example, the first ten lines of the speech. The first sentence of this in Sallust is as follows:

Ni virtus fidesque vestra spectata mihi forent, nequidquam opportuna res cecidisset; spes magna, dominatio, in manibus frustra fuissent; neque ego per ignaviam, aut vana ingenia, incerta pro certis captarem.

The first clause, "Ni virtus fidesque vestra spectata mihi forent," is translated by Jonson :

Noblest Romanes,

If you were lesse, or that your faith, and vertue
Did not hold good that title with your bloud.

This is certainly the freest sort of translation. The sense of the clause is kept, but only two words, “virtus fidesque," are translated literally. The address, Noblest Romanes, and the ingenious play on the word noble are original, and the latter adds new suggestion to the original idea, though it must be admitted that the expression is a bit obscure.

'The next two clauses, "nequidquam opportuna res cecidisset; spes magna, dominatio, in manibus frustra fuissent," are rendered by Jonson so freely that the result can be called translation only in the broadest sense of the word. He has gathered up the meaning of the clauses, and expressed it in a very general way, when he says,

I should not, now, vnprofitably spend
Myselfe in words,

in which the word unprofitably carries the whole point of Sallust's meaning.

'The last clause of the sentence follows Sallust more closely, but is still quite free. Sallust had said, “neque ego per ignaviam aut vana ingenia, incerta pro certis captarem" and Jonson translates this:

Or catch at empty hopes

By ayrie ways, for solide certainties;

in which sentence, catch at translates "captarem;" by ayrie ways, "per ignaviam aut vana ingenia;” empty hopes, "incerta"; and for solide certainties, "pro certis." In these five lines, surely, Jonson has effectually dis

proved Professor Herford's statement1 that Jonson's translations were characterized by 'rigid fidelity.'

'It is, however, true that most of Jonson's work is not so notably free as the passage given above. The next five lines, which follow the original a little more closely, and yet with no slavish subservience to the form in which the Latin expresses itself, are more typical of Jonson's average work. The first clause of the sentence is characteristic of Jonson's style of translation where he follows Sallust more closely: "Sed quia multis et magnis tempestatibus, vos cognovi fortes fidesque—”

But since in many, and the greatest dangers

I still haue knowne you no lesse true, then valianta faithful translation, but expressed in such easy and rhythmical English that the adjective "rigid" could certainly not be applied to it. The rest of the passage:

eo animus ausus maximum atque pulcherimum facinus incipere; simul, quia vobis eadem, quae mihi, bona malaque intellexi; nam idem velle atque nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est

is translated:

And that I tast, in you, the same affections

To will or nill, to thinke things good, or bad,
Alike with me: (which argues your firme friendship)
I dare the boldlier, with you, set on foot,

Or leade, vnto this great, and goodliest action.

Here Jonson has cleverly changed the order, and woven together the more or less disconnected clauses of the original into a compact whole, while he has rendered the Latin into flowing and forceful English in a manner which gives an accurate rendering of the thought and feeling of the original, and yet does not allow itself to be trammeled by a too conscientious fidelity.

1 See Dict. Nat. Biog.