The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare Part 15

Two years! immediately retorts the publisher of the other translation; we can do better than that: the author of the work that we publish is Mademoiselle Genevieve Chappelain, and what guarantees does she not offer! "She has the honour to have lived more than seven years at the court of the King of Great Britain, in the suite of the Countess of Salisbury, who esteemed her as no ordinary young girl, but as a very well-bred demoiselle who had been presented to her with good credentials, and who was descended from a race that has given us great men: verily, and women, too, that the muses have deigned to favour."

This is a little like the argument of Scudery, boasting, ten years later, of his n.o.ble birth in order to prove to poor Pierre Corneille that he is the better poet of the two, and that the "Cid" is worth nothing.

But something better still follows, and here the worthy publisher somewhat betrays himself: "If she has not been able to learn the language of the country in which she has lived for more than seven years, and nearly always with great ladies: how, I beg of you, could those who have only lived there two years, and among the common people, know the language? I do not wish to offend any one by this notice, which I thought it necessary to make only to defend a young lady _who is my near relation_."

Baudoin maintains his statement, and defies his rivals to translate Sidney's verse, and he enumerates the precautions he himself has taken, precautions which certainly ought to satisfy the reader as regards his accuracy. Not only did he live for two years in England, but, he says, "I secured the a.s.sistance of a French gentleman of merit and learning, who has been good enough to explain to me the whole of the first book. I have acted in such a way as to procure two different versions of it in order to produce one good one." And he has done even something more: "I have always had near me one of my friends to whom this tongue was as familiar as our own; he has taken the trouble to elucidate for me any doubts I may have had." In truth, he could hardly have surrounded himself with more light, but then, what an arduous task to translate from Englis.h.!.+

Baudoin's adversaries were in no way intimidated by this display; firstly, they had had the a.s.sistance of exactly the same gentleman; it appears that a second equally learned was not to be found; secondly, Mdlle. Chappelain also showed her translation to persons who knew both languages, and they found her work perfect; lastly, and what more can be required? she sends a challenge to Baudoin and his accomplices, and invites them to a decisive combat: "She is ready to show that she knows the English language better than they, and they would not dare to appear in order to speak it with her in the presence of persons capable of judging." Baudoin does not appear, indeed, to have accepted this challenge, but neither does it seem to have discouraged him. He closes the preface of his last volume with this poetical apostrophe to those who are envious of his reputation: "By the mouth of good wits--Apollo holds you in contempt,--Troop so ignorant and bold:--For you profane his beauteous gifts,--And cause thistles to spring up--In the midst of your Arcady."[239]

What astonishes us now, when we follow the vicissitudes of the long-forgotten dispute of these two writers is that so much pa.s.sion should have been expended over Sidney's romance, however great might be its merit; while the attention of no one in France was attracted by Shakespeare and the inimitable group of dramatists of his time. No Baudoin, no Genevieve Chappelain disputed the honour of translating "Hamlet," and a century was still to elapse before so much as Shakespeare's name should figure in a book printed in France.[240]

This double translation of the "Arcadia" did not, however, pa.s.s unnoticed, far from it; and from time to time we find the name of Sidney reappearing in French books, while the giants of English literature continued entirely unknown on the continent. When Charles Sorel satirized the long-winded romances of his time in his "Berger Extravagant," he did not forget Sidney, who figures among the authors alternately praised and criticized in the disputation between Clarimond and Philiris. The criticism is not very severe, and compared with the treatment inflicted on other authors, it would seem that Sorel wished to show courtesy to a foreigner who had been invited, so to say, as a visitor to France by his translators.[241] Copies of Sidney's original "Arcadia" crept into France, and are to be found in rather unexpected places. Thus a copy of the edition of 1605 is to be seen in the National Library in Paris, with the [Greek: Ph Ph] of surintendant Fouquet on the cover. The way in which the letters are interlaced shows that the book did not come from Fouquet's own library, but from the library of the Jesuits,[242] to whom he had given a yearly income of 6,000 livres, and who, in memory of their benefactor, stamped thus books purchased from this fund.

In France, too, as well as in England, the "Arcadia" was turned into a play. Antoine Mareschal, a contemporary of Corneille and the author of such dramas as "La genereuse Allemande ou le triomphe de l'amour," 1631, the "Railleur ou la satyre du temps," 1638, the "Mauzolee," 1642, derived a tragi-comedy, in five acts, and in verse from the "Arcadia."

The piece, which, if the author is to be believed, made a great sensation in Paris, was called the "Cour Bergere," and was dedicated to Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, amba.s.sador of England to France, and brother to Sir Philip. It appeared in 1640; it was thus later than the "Cid." None the less, it exhibits the phenomenon of several deaths on the stage; but the ridiculous manner in which these deaths are introduced could only strengthen Corneille in his scruples. The wicked Cecropia, standing on a terrace at the back of the stage, moves without seeing the edge, and falls head foremost on the boards, exclaiming:

"Ah! je tombe, et l'enfer a mon corps entraine ...

Je deteste le ciel! Ah! je meurs enragee!"

In the following century Sidney was still remembered in France. In his "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la Republique des lettres,"

Niceron mentions the "Arcadia" as "a romance full of intelligence and very well written in the author's language."[243] Florian knew him and held him in great honour; he names him with D'Urfe, Montemayor, and Cervantes, as being, as it were, one of his literary ancestors,[244] and the fact is not without importance; for Florian, continuing, as he did, Sidney's tradition, and trying in his turn to write poems in prose, stands as a link between the pastoral writers of the sixteenth century and the author who was the last to compose prose epics in our time: the author of "Les Martyrs" and of that American Arcadia called "Atala"--Chateaubriand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAGITTARIUS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INTERIOR VIEW OF A THEATRE IN THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE. THE SWAN THEATRE, 1596.]

FOOTNOTES:

[167] And which has been faithfully and touchingly described in Dr.

Jessopp's book: "Arcady: For better, for worse," recently published in London.

[168] Besides its fine collection of family portraits, one of which is reproduced in this volume, by the kind permission of Lord de l'Isle and Dudley, Penshurst is remarkable because it offers to this day a perfect example of a fourteenth-century hall with the fireplace in the middle.

[169] "Life of the renowned S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo.

[170] "The Correspondence of Sir Ph. Sidney and Hubert Languet," ed.

Pears London, 1845, 8vo, Appendix; A.D. 1579(?).

[171] "Vindictae contra tyrannos," Edinburgh, 1579, part iii.

[172] Padua, February 4, 1574, "Correspondence," p. 29.

[173] A.D. 1575, "Correspondence," p. 94.

[174] "Arcadia," bk. iii.

[175] "Captain c.o.x his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"

ed. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1871, 8vo, p. 53.

[176] "Correspondence," _ut supra_, March 1, 1578.

[177] "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... edited from the folio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo, sonnet 33.

Penelope's marriage with Lord Rich seems to have taken place in April, 1581.

[178] "Astrophel and Stella," _ut supra_, pp. 170 and 72 (sonnet 69).

[179]

"Goe little booke! thy selfe present As childe whose father is unkent To him that is the President Of n.o.blenesse and chevalree...."

Dedication of the "Shepheardes Calender." Sidney seems to have had a right and not over-enthusiastic appreciation of Spenser's eclogues; in his "Apologie for Poetrie" he is content to say that "the Sheapheardes Kalender hath much poetrie in his eglogues: indeede worthy the reading if I be not deceived" (Arber's reprint, p. 62).

[180] The elegies written on this occasion are counted by the hundred. A splendid series of engravings were published by T. Laut to perpetuate the memory of Sidney's funeral, London, 1587

[181] London, 1598, fol.

[182] Sidney left only one daughter who became Countess of Rutland. His wife remarried twice, first with the Earl of Ess.e.x, brother of Penelope, then with Lord Clanricarde.

[183] "Essayes," London, 1603, fol. Dedication of Book II. This "Epistle" is followed by two sonnets, one to each lady, again praising them for their connection with Sidney. The sonnet to Penelope begins thus:

"Madame, to write of you, and doe you right, What meane we, or what meanes to ayde meane might?

Since HE who admirably did endite, Ent.i.teling you perfections heire, joies light, Loves life, lifes gemme, vertues court, Heav'ns delight, Natures chiefe worke, fair'st booke, his muses spright, Heav'n on earth, peerlesse Phoenix, Phoebe bright, Yet said he was to seeke, of you to write" (p. 191).

This last line alludes to Astrophel's first sonnet to Stella (quoted below, p. 233).

[184] "What changes here," &c. "translated out of the 'Diana' of Montemayor in Spanish. Where Sireno a shepheard pulling out a little of his mistresse Diana's haire, wrapt about in greene silke, who now had utterly forsaken him, to the haire hee thus bewayled himselfe."--"The same Sireon ... holding his mistresse gla.s.se ... thus sung." "Certaine sonnets written by Sir Philip Sidney, never before printed."

[185] This masque was written in 1578; and was performed before the Queen when staying with the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead. Sidney wrote also for festivities of the same kind a "Dialogue betweene two shepheards, uttered in a pastorall shew at Wilton" (the seat of his sister the Countess of Pembroke). Both works are to be found in divers old editions of the "Arcadia" (_e.g._, the eighth, 1633, fol.), which in fact contain, very nearly, Sidney's complete works.

[186] The "Apologie" written about 1581, which circulated in MS. during Sidney's life-time, was published only after his death: "An Apologie for Poetrie, written by the right n.o.ble, vertuous and learned Sir Philip Sidney, Knight," London, 1595, reprinted by Arber, London, 1869.

[187] Arber's reprint, pp. 46, 55, 41, and 40.

[188] "The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney," ed. Grosart, London, 1877, 3 vol. 8vo; "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... edited from the folio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo.

[189] The "Arcadia" begun in 1580, appeared after Sidney's death: "The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by Sir Philippe Sidnei," London, 1590, 4to. Several of the numerous poems inserted in the "Arcadia" are written in cla.s.sical metres; for Sidney took part with several of his contemporaries in the futile effort made in England as in France to apply to modern languages the rules of ancient prosody. The pages referred to in the following notes are those of the edition of 1633, "now the eighth time published with some new additions."

[190] And compared as such to Octavia, sister of Augustus, by Meres in his "Paladis Tamia," 1598. She helped her brother in translating the Psalms of David and published various works, one of them being a translation of one of Garnier's neo-cla.s.sical tragedies: "The tragedie of Antonie," written in 1590, printed in 1595, which contains, conformably to Sidney's taste, messengers, monologues and choruses. It begins thus in the regular cla.s.sical style of that time:

"Since cruel Heav'ns against me obstinate, Since all mishappes of the round engin doo Conspire my harme: since men, since powers divine, Aire, earth, and sea are all injurious: And that my queene her selfe, in whom I liv'd The idoll of my harte, doth me pursue, It's meete I dye."

[191] The "Diana" was turned into English by B. Yong, London, 1598, fol.

Shakespeare derived from one of the stories in Montemayor's romance (the story of the shepherdess Felismena) a part of the plot of his "Two Gentlemen of Verona." See above p. 150.

[192] Now in the Louvre.

[193] The taste for these fancies had been handed down from the Middle Ages; ladies following as pages their own lovers, unknown to them, abound in the French mediaeval literature; one, _e.g._, is to be found in the "Tres chevaleureux Comte d'Artois," a very old tale, of which we have only a version of the fifteenth century, but which existed long before, and supplied Boccaccio with the groundwork of his story of Giletta of Narbonne. From Boccaccio, this tale was transferred by Paynter to his "Palace of Pleasure," and from this work, by Shakespeare, to the stage, under the name of "All's well." Sidney's model Montemayor gives the same part to play, as we have seen, to his pretended shepherdess Felismena, who follows as his page her lover Don Felix.

[194] See "Les projets de mariage de Jacques V.," by Edmond Bapst, Secretaire d'Amba.s.sade, Paris, 1889, 8vo, ch. xxiv. p. 289.