43 What the
Elizabethans
thought of Ovid
is not, so far as classical scholarship is concerned, a matter of
very great moment.
is not, so far as classical scholarship is concerned, a matter of
very great moment.
Ovid - Some Elizabethan Opinions of the Poetry and Character of OVid
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? 4 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
literary history. 19 Mr. Alfred Dorrinck, in the conclusion of his
dissertation, Die lateinischen Zitafe in den Dramen der wichtigsten
Vorganger Shakespeares, p. 75, gives the following table of cita-
tions: Catullus 1, Cicero 11, Claudian 1, Gellius 1, Horace 16,
Juvenal 3, Lucan 1, Martial 1, Ovid 54, Plautus 11, Pliny i, Pub-
lilius Syrus 1, Seneca 7, Statius i, Terence 14, Virgil 12. Herein
he sees, "Die grosse Vorliebe der Elisabethaner fur Ovid. " This
judgment is further supported by the investigations of Mr. Karl
Frey. 20 In his essay, Ovid and Shakespeare's Sonnets, Sidney Lee .
has sketched the vogue of Ovid from 1200 to 1700, maintaining
that the poet appealed to readers of all classes and was an educational
manual in all schools and colleges of the Sixteenth Century. 21
Here, as well as in his Life of Shakespeare,22 he points out the
latter's indebtedness to Ovid, a view thoroughly confirmed by Mr.
R. K. Root. 23 In the same way Mr. R. Bayley regards "ultra-classi-
cism" as a characteristic of the Elizabethan drama, even of the
plays destined solely for the popular stage. "To the plebeian
crowd," he thinks, "fully one-half of the Elizabethan drama must
have been caviare utterly beyond their reach. " 24
Mr. McKerrow, however, in his edition of Nashe, reaches the
conclusion that Roman authors were not the favorite reading of
the average literary man of the period. 25 Hence, "the ultimate debt
of Elizabethan literature to the classics is hardly at all a debt at
"P first hand. " The reason given for this latter view is that there were
numerous collections of scraps of Latin, from which Nashe and
others might have drawn. Numbers of illustrations and proverbs
in Latin were current. Such books as Lilly's Latin Grammar, Eras-
mus's Parabolae, or the Sententiae Pueriles would serve as sources
M Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit. , IV, p. 22.
? Die klassische Cotter- und Heldensage in den Dramen von Marlowe,
Lyly, Kyd, Greene und Peele. Karlsruhe, 1909.
"Quarterly Review, No. 210.
"Ed. of 1909, p. 262.
"Classical Mythology in Shakespeare, pp. 3-10.
Cf. H. R. D. Anders: Shakespeare's Books, pp. 21-30.
24 The Shakespeare Symphony, Ch. 10.
"VoLV, p. 133 ff.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 5
for large numbers of the quotations of the time. "Interlarding
one's work with quotations was a favorite practice. " In the case
,\ of Nashe, his reading "seems to have been limited to Ovid, a play
of Plautus, the Epistles of Horace, and perhaps some plays of
Terence. " ( Nashe has one hundred quotations from Ovid, twenty
from Homer, and twelve from Virgil. 28 But so many of these
are vague in character or had appeared in Lilly, that Nashe "need
never have opened a volume of Ovid in his life. "2v
-. The importance of the foregoing will escape no one. In any
problem of classical influence in the Sixteenth Century it will not
suffice merely to exhibit an array of quotations or allusions. An
effort must be made to discover whether the author is depending >
on current collections of sayings or_Qn_his own reading of the
classics. 28 Particularly does this condition apply to the work of j
so eminently quotable an author as Ovid. For citations from him
appear in the school grammars of both Linacre and Lilly. 29 In the
school curricula he has a prominent place. Thus Wolsey's plan of
r studies for Ipswich School. ? 1528) directed: "The party in the
seventh Form should regularly have in hand either Horace's Epistles
or Ovid's Metamorphoses or Fasti. "30 Bishop Pilkington's Statutes
of Rivington Grammar School (1566) recommended, among other
"Latin texts, Epistolae Ovidii. 31 Brinsley translated Tristia and
Metamorphoses according to his own special plan of instruction,
and recommended versification on Ovidian models. 32 Hoole recom-
mended that De Tristibus be learned memoriter, "to impart a lively
pattern of hexameters and pentameters. "33
To the Elizabethan reader, as to all others, a chief source of \
attraction in Ovid lay in his superb gift as a story-teller. And
"See Vol. V, p. 313, for Index of Allusions.
"lb. , p. 134.
"Cf. M. B. Ogle: Classical Literary Tradition in Early German and
Romance Literature. Mod. Lang. Notes, Dec, 1912.
"Watson, F. : The English Grammar Schools to 1660, p. 245.
"lb. , p. 472.
uIb. , p. 472.
"lb. , p. 357-
MIb. , p. 371.
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? 6 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
although in him as in Spenser, "the narrative may be said to fall
below the highest order in that the independence of the character is
merged in description and sequence of events",34 he remains one of
the favorite narrative poets of the world. By common consent, he is
master of the art of transition and_ skillfulI variation of material.
With unerring instinct he seizes upon the essentials of his narrative,
jtrjoarejQtly with no thought of any lesson to teach or moral to impart.
Of the Metamorphoses Mackail justly observes: "One might almost
say that it is without moral quality. Ovid narrates the treachery of
Scylla or the incestuous passion of Myrrha with the same light and
secure touch as he applies to the charming idyl of Baucis and Phil-
emon or the love-tale of Pyramus and Thisbe; his interest is in what
happened, in the story for the story's sake. " S5 The Elizabethan
poet and his audience were almost as insistent upon story. 36
Moreover, Ovid was a master of verse-form. As a result of his
extraordinary mastery of the elegiac couplet: "The usage was stereo-
typed by his example; all through the Empire and the Middle Ages,
and even down to the present day, the Ovidian metre has been the
single dominant type: and though no one ever managed it with such
ingenuity again, he taught enough of the secret to make its use
possible for almost every kind of subject. "37 "For the metre of
the Metamorphoses Ovid chose the heroic hexameter, but he used
it in a strikingly new and original way Ovid's hexameter
is a thing of his own. It becomes with him almost a new metre--
light, brilliant, and rapid, but with some monotony of cadence, and
without the deep swell that it had, not in Virgil only, but in his
**W. P. Ker: Epic and Romance, p. 33.
"Latin Literature, p. 141.
* Specific obligations of the dramatists to Ovid are presented in:
Dorrinck, A. : Die lateinischen Zitate in den Dramen der wichtigsten
Vorganger Shakespeares. Strassburg, 1907.
Frey, K. : Die klassische Cotter- und Heldensage in den Dramen von
Marlowe, Lyly, Kyd, Greene und Peele. Karlsruhe, 1909.
Kettler, F. : Lateinische Zitate in den Dramen der namhaften Zeitge-
nossen Shakespeares. Strassburg, 1909.
Rupf, P. : Die Zauberkomodie vor Shakespeare.
Root, R. K. : Classical Mythology in Shakespeare.
"Mackail: Latin Literature, p. 138.
\
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 7
predecessors. The swift, equable movement is admirably adapted
to the matter of the poem. " 38
Ovid's gift of penetrating insight into human character, especially .
so far as its foibles and weaknesses are concerned, also must have \y{
appealed to an age that delighted in the satirist and the character
writer. He furnished some of the keenest shafts in Ben Jonson's
Epicoene. TM -*
Professedly devoted to the ideas and fashions of his own times,
Ovid is one of the nearest to us of the poets of the ancient world.
He expresses his own attitude thus:
Prisca iuvent alios, ego me nunc denique natum
Gratulor: haec aetas moribus apta meis.
And this might have served as a motto for the Elizabethan.
Moreover, the poetry of Ovid has the charm of romantic atmos-
phere and suggestiveness, which has often been compared to the
Arabian Nights. The world of the Metamorphoses is not the actual
world; it is pervaded by the fabulous and the superhuman. Simcox
calls the poem "the most romantic work in Latin literature. "40
Perhaps the strongest single reason for the popularity of Ovid''
lies in what Mr. Ronald Bayne calls "the intensely sensuous nature
of the Elizabethan";41 and Professor Saintsbury, "the peculiar
Renaissance note, the union of sensual and intellectual rapture. " 42
The greatest value of Ovid as a source lies in the fact that his
works are a storehouse of classic myths. Not only did he present
the great stories of Greece and Rome with freshness, charm and
permanent power of appeal; but he transmitted a rich fund of
mythological lore the sources of which are frequently obscured or
lost beyond recovery. It was largely or entirely through the poems
of Ovid that many writers became acquainted with the riches of
classical mythology. Nowhere else was such a wealth of legend
to be found in so attractive a form.
"lb. , p. 141.
"P. Chasles: Thiatre anglais, p. 135.
40 History of Latin Literature, I, p. 354.
? Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit. , VI, p. 370.
"Hist, of Eng. Lit. , p. 268.
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? 8 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
\
In the following pages an attempt is made to assemble the
more typical expressions of opinion with regard to the poetry and
character of Ovid. The one aim has been to try to see the poet as
the Elizabethans saw him. To the possible objection that there
was ho "Elizabethan^ attitude on this matter, that the citations
represent only partial, scattered, and individual views, it may be
replied that this must be true of almost any other similar study.
In dealing with matters of this kind, one must not lose sight of the
fact that one has to do with varying expressions of personal feeling
and judgment, and must not obscure the situation with any general
term. At the same time Hennequin has shown the value of noting
the groups of admirers and critics of a widely influential writer in
order to form thereby some conception of the literary and moral
ideals of a given epoch.
43 What the Elizabethans thought of Ovid
is not, so far as classical scholarship is concerned, a matter of
very great moment. As a side-light on their ideas and tastes, what
they thought of the poet has its interest, as indeed must everything
have that relates to this fascinating period. Moreover, the attitude
of the times under consideration toward Ovid was, in the main,
but part of a larger and far more vital question--the right of
poetry to exist.
As for the expressions of concern for poetry and for some at
least of the more or less labored and pedantic defenses that figure
in the ensuing pages, the reader may perhaps feel--
Non tali auxilio nee defensoribus istis
tempus eget.
But such was by no means the position of those whose utterances
are to be here considered. Those who really believed that much of
the poetry regarded as classic offended the moral or religious sensi-
bilities, demanded an answer to charges which they preferred in-
sistently and in language that could not be mistaken. These charges
were not infrequently occasions for embarrassment and for resort
to what may sometimes appear to us mere tricks of desperation.
It remained for Sir Philip Sidney to make the one great apology
of his time by transcending in a serene and noble way the turmoil
and logomachy which is here passed in review.
"La Critique Scientifique. Paris, 1888.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 9
Widely scattered and radically differing expressions of opin-
ion with regard to the personality and works of Ovid appear in
England from Sir Thomas Elyot's The Governour (1531) to Dry-
den's Preface to the Fables (1700). With very general agreement ^
that the poems often give occasion for offense to the moral sense, ^f
and in some instances with extremely plain speaking upon this
matter, writers commonly see one of two possibilities. Some would
condemn the poems to what they regarded as well-merited oblivion,
while others would have recourse to what they considered a sort
of Higher Criticism. They would separate the good from the evil
in the poems, and ignoring or forgetting the latter, make the utmost
profit out of the good. On their favorite analogy of the bee, which
extracts honey from even the most poisonous plants, . they would,
moreover, find some profit in the evil itself. The latter very natu-
rally, therefore, attach peculiar importance to the manner of read-
ing or interpretation. Moralization, based on the assumed under-
lying allegory, or in some cases very numerous allegories, is the
alchemy with which they would transmute the baser metal. What
appears to the hasty reader or to the untrained mind as a "filthy
fable" must in this view be "moralized in its kind"; whereupon
it yields matter "both pleasant and profitable," thereby justifying
the oft-quoted Horatian maxim.
This method of interpretation goes back, of course, to the
"moralized Ovids" of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance,
and is typified by the Metamorphosis Ozndiana moraliter a Magistro
Thoma Walleys Anglico de professione Praedicatorum sub sanctis-
simo patre Dominico explanata. This work was first printed at
Paris in 1509; and again in 1510, with the text of Ovid, at Lyons.
J. B. Haureau 44 has shown that Thomas of Wales really had
nothing to do with this work, which is to be ascribed to Pierre
Bersuire, (d. 1362). Mr. F. G. Stokes, in his edition of Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum,45 gives an illuminating specimen of the four-
fold method of interpretation in the work of Bersuire. It may be
taken as typical of its kind. Applying this method to the fable of
Saturn, we have the following meanings:
"Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome XXX, pp. 44-55.
* P. 74, note.
*
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? IO SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
#
(Literaliter) "Saturn is said to devour his own sons, because
a person born under the 'constellation' of Saturn rarely lives. "
(Naturaliter) "Saturn devours his own sons, because he signifies
Time, and whatsoever is born of Time is by Time wasted and
consumed. "
(Historialiter) "Saturn was King of Crete, of whom his brother
Titan predicted that one of his sons would drive him from the
throne. Whereupon he determined to devour his sons and avert
the evil fate. "
. ' (Allegorice) "An avaricious man, armed with rapine as with a
scythe, devours his children, in the sense that by his extortions he
impoverishes them and consumes their substance. "
The method of interpretation illustrated by the foregoing ex-
tract has played a tremendous role in the history of human thought.
First seen in the fragments of Aristobulus, the method culminated
in the work of Philo Judaeus, On the Allegories of the Sacred
Laws. 4" It developed in an attempt to reconcile Greek philosophy
with Jewish legislation,47 and followed lines that had already been
applied to the study of Homer. 48 Founded on the sincerest of
motives, and dedicated to the most pious purposes, it came to be
regarded during the Middle Ages as a very pillar of the faith. It
gave pith and point to religious instruction and furnished ideals for
human conduct. The leading exponent of the allegorical method
of scriptural interpretation was Origen. 49 Clement of Alexandria
declared that all scripture must be allegorically understood. 50 Al-
though there were protests against the views of Origen, and against
"Farrar, F. W. : History of Interpretation, p. 127.
For a summary of Philo's rules, see pp. 139-157.
Seeberg, R. : Lehrbuch der . Dogmengeschichte, I, 52 ff.
Cf. Hatch: The Hibbert Lectures, 1888, pp. 59-65; 66-79.
Bigg: The Christian Platonists, pp. 56-58; 92; 134.
Davidson, S. : Sacred Hermeneutics, Ch. IV.
"Farrar, op. cit. , p. 131.
? lb. , p. 125.
? lb. , p. 177.
M lb. , p. 183.
Cf. Ebert, A. : Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im
Abendlande, Vol. I, pp. 139; 147; 150; 215; 245; 378; 516; 550; 596.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID II
what appeared to be hazardous extensions of the idea,51 the ad-
herents of the allegorical method ultimately carried the day. 52 It
became the recognized method of scholastic exegesis, as is exempli-
fied notably in the works of Aquinas. 53 Despite the sincerity of
the motives, there is small room for doubt that the persistent
tendency to seek for veiled meanings in even the most literal state-
ments exercised a dangerous fascination over certain types of mind,
and led directly or indirectly to excess, exaggeration, and puer-
ilities of all sorts. Brunetiere remarks in this connection: "Un-
fortunately, if the intentions were excellent, the method was false;
--for the idea did not become clearer in proportion as recourse was
had more and more to allegory;--and the writers got further
away from truth and nature in the same proportion. This is
what Petrarch meant when he made the authors of the Roman de
la Rose the reproach that their 'Muse' was asleep;--and when he
contrasted with their coldness the passionate ardour breathed by
the verses 'of those divine singers of love', Virgil, Catullus, Pro-
pertius, and Ovid. "" Before the dawn of critical yr. bnlarshin such
intellectual exercises were doomed to lead to wild inconsistencies
when they concerned themselves with the classics. To what lengths
they actually did go in this direction Comparetti has given ample
illustration in his famous account of Virgil in the Middle Ages. 85
If Virgil became to the popular imagination a wizard and a pro-
phet of Christ, we need feel no surprise when, in 1467, a monk
of Paris copies the Ars Amandi "ad laudem et gloriam Virginis
Mariae. " 56 Horace, as Stemplinger has shown, met with the same
general treatment. 67 A curiously belated example of the method
is to be found in two poems by Laurence le Brun (1607-1663):
a Farrar, pp. 206-222.
"lb. , p. 239.
See also the summary in Taylor, H. O. : The Classical Heritage of the
Middle Ages, pp. 97-103.
M Farrar, p. 271.
Cf. Haureau, B. : Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, Vol. I, Chap. III.
M Manual of (he History of French Literature, trans, by R. Derechef, p. 27.
- K English trans, by Benecke. London, 1888.
"Monnier: Le Quattrocento, Vol. I, p. 113.
m Das Fortleben der Horazischen Lyrik seit der Renaissance, p. 26.
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? 12 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
k
Virgilius Christianus and Ovidius Christianus. In the second of
these the Metamorphoses undergo transformation into stories of
converted penitents. 68 The spirit of Pierre Bersuire lived on in
Webbe, Harington, Golding, Sandys, Garth, and many others; it
colored the whole Elizabethan attitude toward Ovid and toward
the general interpretation of poetry.
Occasionally, to be sure, a voice was raised in protest. Thus
in his Obedience of a Christian Man, Tyndale found cause for
indignation at the methods of the schoolmen in the fact that, "some
will prove a point of the Faith as well out of a fable of Ovid or any
other poet, as out of St. John's Gospel or Paul's Epistles. "*8 An/
allegory in itself, he thinks, "proveth nothing, neither can do. For
it is not the scripture, but an ensample or a similitude borrowed
of the scripture, to declare a text or a conclusion of the scripture
more expressly and to root it and grave it in the heart If
I could not prove with an open text that which the allegory doth
express, then were the allegory a thing to be jested at, and of no
greater value than a tale of Robin Hood. "60 Although he admits
the utility of allegory under proper conditions, Tyndale warns
expressly against its dangers: "Finally, beware of allegories; for
there is not a more handsome or apt thing to beguile withal than
an allegory. And contrariwise; there is not a better, vehementer,
or mightier thing to make a man quickwitted and print wisdom in
him, and make it to abide, when bare words go but in at the one
ear, and out at the other. "61 Whitgift is equally plain in his
warning as to the dangers attendant upon the method: "All men
know how uncertain a reason it is that is grounded upon figures and
types, except the application thereof may be found in the scriptures.
For a man may apply them as it pleaseth him, even as he may do
in allegories. "62 Whitaker argues to the same purpose: "We
affirm that there is but one true, proper and genuine sense of scrip-
tures, arising from the words rightly understood, which we call
"Dictionnaire Universelle, X, p. 291.
"Tyndale's Works, Parked Society, I, p. 306.
M lb. , p. 428.
<<Ib.
"Works, Parker Society, II, p. 92.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 13
the literal: and we contend that allegories, tropologies and ana-
gogues are not various senses, but various collections from one
sense, or various applications and accommodations of that one
meaning The sense of scripture, therefore, is but one. "83
Expressions such as the foregoing were, however, restricted
to the field of theological controversy and appear to have exerted
little influence on the current application of allegorical interpretation
to works of literature. Apparently not even the keenest satire
availed at once to wean the minds of readers and commentators
from their delight in subtleties and far-fetched interpretations.
Letter number 28 of the Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum, as trans-
lated by Mr. Stokes, reads, in part, as follows:
"I already know by rote all the fables of Ovid in his Meta-
morphoses, and these I can expound quadruply--to wit, naturally,
literally, historically, and spiritually--and this is more than the
secular poets can do
"You will hence understand that nowadays these Poets do but
study their art literally, and do not comprehend allegorizing and
spiritual expositions: as saith the Apostle, 'The natural man re-
ceiveth not the things of the spirit of God. '
"Now you may ask where I have obtained this subtle skill. I
reply that I lately bought a book composed by a certain English
Doctor of our Order, Thomas of Wales by name; and the book is
all writ concerning Ovid's Metamorphoses, explaining each story
allegorically and spiritually, and its profoundity in Theology pas-
seth belief.
"Most assuredly hath the Holy Spirit inspired this man with so
great learning, for in his book he setteth forth the harmonies be-
tween the Holy Scriptures and the fables of the Poet, and of these
you may judge from the instances subjoined.
"Of the Python that Apollo slew, the Psalmist saith, 'This
dragon which thou hast formed to play therein! ' And, again,
'Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk. '
"A Disputation on Holy Scripture, Parker Society, p. 404.
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? 4 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
literary history. 19 Mr. Alfred Dorrinck, in the conclusion of his
dissertation, Die lateinischen Zitafe in den Dramen der wichtigsten
Vorganger Shakespeares, p. 75, gives the following table of cita-
tions: Catullus 1, Cicero 11, Claudian 1, Gellius 1, Horace 16,
Juvenal 3, Lucan 1, Martial 1, Ovid 54, Plautus 11, Pliny i, Pub-
lilius Syrus 1, Seneca 7, Statius i, Terence 14, Virgil 12. Herein
he sees, "Die grosse Vorliebe der Elisabethaner fur Ovid. " This
judgment is further supported by the investigations of Mr. Karl
Frey. 20 In his essay, Ovid and Shakespeare's Sonnets, Sidney Lee .
has sketched the vogue of Ovid from 1200 to 1700, maintaining
that the poet appealed to readers of all classes and was an educational
manual in all schools and colleges of the Sixteenth Century. 21
Here, as well as in his Life of Shakespeare,22 he points out the
latter's indebtedness to Ovid, a view thoroughly confirmed by Mr.
R. K. Root. 23 In the same way Mr. R. Bayley regards "ultra-classi-
cism" as a characteristic of the Elizabethan drama, even of the
plays destined solely for the popular stage. "To the plebeian
crowd," he thinks, "fully one-half of the Elizabethan drama must
have been caviare utterly beyond their reach. " 24
Mr. McKerrow, however, in his edition of Nashe, reaches the
conclusion that Roman authors were not the favorite reading of
the average literary man of the period. 25 Hence, "the ultimate debt
of Elizabethan literature to the classics is hardly at all a debt at
"P first hand. " The reason given for this latter view is that there were
numerous collections of scraps of Latin, from which Nashe and
others might have drawn. Numbers of illustrations and proverbs
in Latin were current. Such books as Lilly's Latin Grammar, Eras-
mus's Parabolae, or the Sententiae Pueriles would serve as sources
M Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit. , IV, p. 22.
? Die klassische Cotter- und Heldensage in den Dramen von Marlowe,
Lyly, Kyd, Greene und Peele. Karlsruhe, 1909.
"Quarterly Review, No. 210.
"Ed. of 1909, p. 262.
"Classical Mythology in Shakespeare, pp. 3-10.
Cf. H. R. D. Anders: Shakespeare's Books, pp. 21-30.
24 The Shakespeare Symphony, Ch. 10.
"VoLV, p. 133 ff.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 5
for large numbers of the quotations of the time. "Interlarding
one's work with quotations was a favorite practice. " In the case
,\ of Nashe, his reading "seems to have been limited to Ovid, a play
of Plautus, the Epistles of Horace, and perhaps some plays of
Terence. " ( Nashe has one hundred quotations from Ovid, twenty
from Homer, and twelve from Virgil. 28 But so many of these
are vague in character or had appeared in Lilly, that Nashe "need
never have opened a volume of Ovid in his life. "2v
-. The importance of the foregoing will escape no one. In any
problem of classical influence in the Sixteenth Century it will not
suffice merely to exhibit an array of quotations or allusions. An
effort must be made to discover whether the author is depending >
on current collections of sayings or_Qn_his own reading of the
classics. 28 Particularly does this condition apply to the work of j
so eminently quotable an author as Ovid. For citations from him
appear in the school grammars of both Linacre and Lilly. 29 In the
school curricula he has a prominent place. Thus Wolsey's plan of
r studies for Ipswich School. ? 1528) directed: "The party in the
seventh Form should regularly have in hand either Horace's Epistles
or Ovid's Metamorphoses or Fasti. "30 Bishop Pilkington's Statutes
of Rivington Grammar School (1566) recommended, among other
"Latin texts, Epistolae Ovidii. 31 Brinsley translated Tristia and
Metamorphoses according to his own special plan of instruction,
and recommended versification on Ovidian models. 32 Hoole recom-
mended that De Tristibus be learned memoriter, "to impart a lively
pattern of hexameters and pentameters. "33
To the Elizabethan reader, as to all others, a chief source of \
attraction in Ovid lay in his superb gift as a story-teller. And
"See Vol. V, p. 313, for Index of Allusions.
"lb. , p. 134.
"Cf. M. B. Ogle: Classical Literary Tradition in Early German and
Romance Literature. Mod. Lang. Notes, Dec, 1912.
"Watson, F. : The English Grammar Schools to 1660, p. 245.
"lb. , p. 472.
uIb. , p. 472.
"lb. , p. 357-
MIb. , p. 371.
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? 6 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
although in him as in Spenser, "the narrative may be said to fall
below the highest order in that the independence of the character is
merged in description and sequence of events",34 he remains one of
the favorite narrative poets of the world. By common consent, he is
master of the art of transition and_ skillfulI variation of material.
With unerring instinct he seizes upon the essentials of his narrative,
jtrjoarejQtly with no thought of any lesson to teach or moral to impart.
Of the Metamorphoses Mackail justly observes: "One might almost
say that it is without moral quality. Ovid narrates the treachery of
Scylla or the incestuous passion of Myrrha with the same light and
secure touch as he applies to the charming idyl of Baucis and Phil-
emon or the love-tale of Pyramus and Thisbe; his interest is in what
happened, in the story for the story's sake. " S5 The Elizabethan
poet and his audience were almost as insistent upon story. 36
Moreover, Ovid was a master of verse-form. As a result of his
extraordinary mastery of the elegiac couplet: "The usage was stereo-
typed by his example; all through the Empire and the Middle Ages,
and even down to the present day, the Ovidian metre has been the
single dominant type: and though no one ever managed it with such
ingenuity again, he taught enough of the secret to make its use
possible for almost every kind of subject. "37 "For the metre of
the Metamorphoses Ovid chose the heroic hexameter, but he used
it in a strikingly new and original way Ovid's hexameter
is a thing of his own. It becomes with him almost a new metre--
light, brilliant, and rapid, but with some monotony of cadence, and
without the deep swell that it had, not in Virgil only, but in his
**W. P. Ker: Epic and Romance, p. 33.
"Latin Literature, p. 141.
* Specific obligations of the dramatists to Ovid are presented in:
Dorrinck, A. : Die lateinischen Zitate in den Dramen der wichtigsten
Vorganger Shakespeares. Strassburg, 1907.
Frey, K. : Die klassische Cotter- und Heldensage in den Dramen von
Marlowe, Lyly, Kyd, Greene und Peele. Karlsruhe, 1909.
Kettler, F. : Lateinische Zitate in den Dramen der namhaften Zeitge-
nossen Shakespeares. Strassburg, 1909.
Rupf, P. : Die Zauberkomodie vor Shakespeare.
Root, R. K. : Classical Mythology in Shakespeare.
"Mackail: Latin Literature, p. 138.
\
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 7
predecessors. The swift, equable movement is admirably adapted
to the matter of the poem. " 38
Ovid's gift of penetrating insight into human character, especially .
so far as its foibles and weaknesses are concerned, also must have \y{
appealed to an age that delighted in the satirist and the character
writer. He furnished some of the keenest shafts in Ben Jonson's
Epicoene. TM -*
Professedly devoted to the ideas and fashions of his own times,
Ovid is one of the nearest to us of the poets of the ancient world.
He expresses his own attitude thus:
Prisca iuvent alios, ego me nunc denique natum
Gratulor: haec aetas moribus apta meis.
And this might have served as a motto for the Elizabethan.
Moreover, the poetry of Ovid has the charm of romantic atmos-
phere and suggestiveness, which has often been compared to the
Arabian Nights. The world of the Metamorphoses is not the actual
world; it is pervaded by the fabulous and the superhuman. Simcox
calls the poem "the most romantic work in Latin literature. "40
Perhaps the strongest single reason for the popularity of Ovid''
lies in what Mr. Ronald Bayne calls "the intensely sensuous nature
of the Elizabethan";41 and Professor Saintsbury, "the peculiar
Renaissance note, the union of sensual and intellectual rapture. " 42
The greatest value of Ovid as a source lies in the fact that his
works are a storehouse of classic myths. Not only did he present
the great stories of Greece and Rome with freshness, charm and
permanent power of appeal; but he transmitted a rich fund of
mythological lore the sources of which are frequently obscured or
lost beyond recovery. It was largely or entirely through the poems
of Ovid that many writers became acquainted with the riches of
classical mythology. Nowhere else was such a wealth of legend
to be found in so attractive a form.
"lb. , p. 141.
"P. Chasles: Thiatre anglais, p. 135.
40 History of Latin Literature, I, p. 354.
? Cambridge Hist, of Eng. Lit. , VI, p. 370.
"Hist, of Eng. Lit. , p. 268.
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? 8 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
\
In the following pages an attempt is made to assemble the
more typical expressions of opinion with regard to the poetry and
character of Ovid. The one aim has been to try to see the poet as
the Elizabethans saw him. To the possible objection that there
was ho "Elizabethan^ attitude on this matter, that the citations
represent only partial, scattered, and individual views, it may be
replied that this must be true of almost any other similar study.
In dealing with matters of this kind, one must not lose sight of the
fact that one has to do with varying expressions of personal feeling
and judgment, and must not obscure the situation with any general
term. At the same time Hennequin has shown the value of noting
the groups of admirers and critics of a widely influential writer in
order to form thereby some conception of the literary and moral
ideals of a given epoch.
43 What the Elizabethans thought of Ovid
is not, so far as classical scholarship is concerned, a matter of
very great moment. As a side-light on their ideas and tastes, what
they thought of the poet has its interest, as indeed must everything
have that relates to this fascinating period. Moreover, the attitude
of the times under consideration toward Ovid was, in the main,
but part of a larger and far more vital question--the right of
poetry to exist.
As for the expressions of concern for poetry and for some at
least of the more or less labored and pedantic defenses that figure
in the ensuing pages, the reader may perhaps feel--
Non tali auxilio nee defensoribus istis
tempus eget.
But such was by no means the position of those whose utterances
are to be here considered. Those who really believed that much of
the poetry regarded as classic offended the moral or religious sensi-
bilities, demanded an answer to charges which they preferred in-
sistently and in language that could not be mistaken. These charges
were not infrequently occasions for embarrassment and for resort
to what may sometimes appear to us mere tricks of desperation.
It remained for Sir Philip Sidney to make the one great apology
of his time by transcending in a serene and noble way the turmoil
and logomachy which is here passed in review.
"La Critique Scientifique. Paris, 1888.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 9
Widely scattered and radically differing expressions of opin-
ion with regard to the personality and works of Ovid appear in
England from Sir Thomas Elyot's The Governour (1531) to Dry-
den's Preface to the Fables (1700). With very general agreement ^
that the poems often give occasion for offense to the moral sense, ^f
and in some instances with extremely plain speaking upon this
matter, writers commonly see one of two possibilities. Some would
condemn the poems to what they regarded as well-merited oblivion,
while others would have recourse to what they considered a sort
of Higher Criticism. They would separate the good from the evil
in the poems, and ignoring or forgetting the latter, make the utmost
profit out of the good. On their favorite analogy of the bee, which
extracts honey from even the most poisonous plants, . they would,
moreover, find some profit in the evil itself. The latter very natu-
rally, therefore, attach peculiar importance to the manner of read-
ing or interpretation. Moralization, based on the assumed under-
lying allegory, or in some cases very numerous allegories, is the
alchemy with which they would transmute the baser metal. What
appears to the hasty reader or to the untrained mind as a "filthy
fable" must in this view be "moralized in its kind"; whereupon
it yields matter "both pleasant and profitable," thereby justifying
the oft-quoted Horatian maxim.
This method of interpretation goes back, of course, to the
"moralized Ovids" of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance,
and is typified by the Metamorphosis Ozndiana moraliter a Magistro
Thoma Walleys Anglico de professione Praedicatorum sub sanctis-
simo patre Dominico explanata. This work was first printed at
Paris in 1509; and again in 1510, with the text of Ovid, at Lyons.
J. B. Haureau 44 has shown that Thomas of Wales really had
nothing to do with this work, which is to be ascribed to Pierre
Bersuire, (d. 1362). Mr. F. G. Stokes, in his edition of Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum,45 gives an illuminating specimen of the four-
fold method of interpretation in the work of Bersuire. It may be
taken as typical of its kind. Applying this method to the fable of
Saturn, we have the following meanings:
"Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome XXX, pp. 44-55.
* P. 74, note.
*
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? IO SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
#
(Literaliter) "Saturn is said to devour his own sons, because
a person born under the 'constellation' of Saturn rarely lives. "
(Naturaliter) "Saturn devours his own sons, because he signifies
Time, and whatsoever is born of Time is by Time wasted and
consumed. "
(Historialiter) "Saturn was King of Crete, of whom his brother
Titan predicted that one of his sons would drive him from the
throne. Whereupon he determined to devour his sons and avert
the evil fate. "
. ' (Allegorice) "An avaricious man, armed with rapine as with a
scythe, devours his children, in the sense that by his extortions he
impoverishes them and consumes their substance. "
The method of interpretation illustrated by the foregoing ex-
tract has played a tremendous role in the history of human thought.
First seen in the fragments of Aristobulus, the method culminated
in the work of Philo Judaeus, On the Allegories of the Sacred
Laws. 4" It developed in an attempt to reconcile Greek philosophy
with Jewish legislation,47 and followed lines that had already been
applied to the study of Homer. 48 Founded on the sincerest of
motives, and dedicated to the most pious purposes, it came to be
regarded during the Middle Ages as a very pillar of the faith. It
gave pith and point to religious instruction and furnished ideals for
human conduct. The leading exponent of the allegorical method
of scriptural interpretation was Origen. 49 Clement of Alexandria
declared that all scripture must be allegorically understood. 50 Al-
though there were protests against the views of Origen, and against
"Farrar, F. W. : History of Interpretation, p. 127.
For a summary of Philo's rules, see pp. 139-157.
Seeberg, R. : Lehrbuch der . Dogmengeschichte, I, 52 ff.
Cf. Hatch: The Hibbert Lectures, 1888, pp. 59-65; 66-79.
Bigg: The Christian Platonists, pp. 56-58; 92; 134.
Davidson, S. : Sacred Hermeneutics, Ch. IV.
"Farrar, op. cit. , p. 131.
? lb. , p. 125.
? lb. , p. 177.
M lb. , p. 183.
Cf. Ebert, A. : Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im
Abendlande, Vol. I, pp. 139; 147; 150; 215; 245; 378; 516; 550; 596.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID II
what appeared to be hazardous extensions of the idea,51 the ad-
herents of the allegorical method ultimately carried the day. 52 It
became the recognized method of scholastic exegesis, as is exempli-
fied notably in the works of Aquinas. 53 Despite the sincerity of
the motives, there is small room for doubt that the persistent
tendency to seek for veiled meanings in even the most literal state-
ments exercised a dangerous fascination over certain types of mind,
and led directly or indirectly to excess, exaggeration, and puer-
ilities of all sorts. Brunetiere remarks in this connection: "Un-
fortunately, if the intentions were excellent, the method was false;
--for the idea did not become clearer in proportion as recourse was
had more and more to allegory;--and the writers got further
away from truth and nature in the same proportion. This is
what Petrarch meant when he made the authors of the Roman de
la Rose the reproach that their 'Muse' was asleep;--and when he
contrasted with their coldness the passionate ardour breathed by
the verses 'of those divine singers of love', Virgil, Catullus, Pro-
pertius, and Ovid. "" Before the dawn of critical yr. bnlarshin such
intellectual exercises were doomed to lead to wild inconsistencies
when they concerned themselves with the classics. To what lengths
they actually did go in this direction Comparetti has given ample
illustration in his famous account of Virgil in the Middle Ages. 85
If Virgil became to the popular imagination a wizard and a pro-
phet of Christ, we need feel no surprise when, in 1467, a monk
of Paris copies the Ars Amandi "ad laudem et gloriam Virginis
Mariae. " 56 Horace, as Stemplinger has shown, met with the same
general treatment. 67 A curiously belated example of the method
is to be found in two poems by Laurence le Brun (1607-1663):
a Farrar, pp. 206-222.
"lb. , p. 239.
See also the summary in Taylor, H. O. : The Classical Heritage of the
Middle Ages, pp. 97-103.
M Farrar, p. 271.
Cf. Haureau, B. : Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, Vol. I, Chap. III.
M Manual of (he History of French Literature, trans, by R. Derechef, p. 27.
- K English trans, by Benecke. London, 1888.
"Monnier: Le Quattrocento, Vol. I, p. 113.
m Das Fortleben der Horazischen Lyrik seit der Renaissance, p. 26.
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? 12 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
k
Virgilius Christianus and Ovidius Christianus. In the second of
these the Metamorphoses undergo transformation into stories of
converted penitents. 68 The spirit of Pierre Bersuire lived on in
Webbe, Harington, Golding, Sandys, Garth, and many others; it
colored the whole Elizabethan attitude toward Ovid and toward
the general interpretation of poetry.
Occasionally, to be sure, a voice was raised in protest. Thus
in his Obedience of a Christian Man, Tyndale found cause for
indignation at the methods of the schoolmen in the fact that, "some
will prove a point of the Faith as well out of a fable of Ovid or any
other poet, as out of St. John's Gospel or Paul's Epistles. "*8 An/
allegory in itself, he thinks, "proveth nothing, neither can do. For
it is not the scripture, but an ensample or a similitude borrowed
of the scripture, to declare a text or a conclusion of the scripture
more expressly and to root it and grave it in the heart If
I could not prove with an open text that which the allegory doth
express, then were the allegory a thing to be jested at, and of no
greater value than a tale of Robin Hood. "60 Although he admits
the utility of allegory under proper conditions, Tyndale warns
expressly against its dangers: "Finally, beware of allegories; for
there is not a more handsome or apt thing to beguile withal than
an allegory. And contrariwise; there is not a better, vehementer,
or mightier thing to make a man quickwitted and print wisdom in
him, and make it to abide, when bare words go but in at the one
ear, and out at the other. "61 Whitgift is equally plain in his
warning as to the dangers attendant upon the method: "All men
know how uncertain a reason it is that is grounded upon figures and
types, except the application thereof may be found in the scriptures.
For a man may apply them as it pleaseth him, even as he may do
in allegories. "62 Whitaker argues to the same purpose: "We
affirm that there is but one true, proper and genuine sense of scrip-
tures, arising from the words rightly understood, which we call
"Dictionnaire Universelle, X, p. 291.
"Tyndale's Works, Parked Society, I, p. 306.
M lb. , p. 428.
<<Ib.
"Works, Parker Society, II, p. 92.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 13
the literal: and we contend that allegories, tropologies and ana-
gogues are not various senses, but various collections from one
sense, or various applications and accommodations of that one
meaning The sense of scripture, therefore, is but one. "83
Expressions such as the foregoing were, however, restricted
to the field of theological controversy and appear to have exerted
little influence on the current application of allegorical interpretation
to works of literature. Apparently not even the keenest satire
availed at once to wean the minds of readers and commentators
from their delight in subtleties and far-fetched interpretations.
Letter number 28 of the Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum, as trans-
lated by Mr. Stokes, reads, in part, as follows:
"I already know by rote all the fables of Ovid in his Meta-
morphoses, and these I can expound quadruply--to wit, naturally,
literally, historically, and spiritually--and this is more than the
secular poets can do
"You will hence understand that nowadays these Poets do but
study their art literally, and do not comprehend allegorizing and
spiritual expositions: as saith the Apostle, 'The natural man re-
ceiveth not the things of the spirit of God. '
"Now you may ask where I have obtained this subtle skill. I
reply that I lately bought a book composed by a certain English
Doctor of our Order, Thomas of Wales by name; and the book is
all writ concerning Ovid's Metamorphoses, explaining each story
allegorically and spiritually, and its profoundity in Theology pas-
seth belief.
"Most assuredly hath the Holy Spirit inspired this man with so
great learning, for in his book he setteth forth the harmonies be-
tween the Holy Scriptures and the fables of the Poet, and of these
you may judge from the instances subjoined.
"Of the Python that Apollo slew, the Psalmist saith, 'This
dragon which thou hast formed to play therein! ' And, again,
'Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk. '
"A Disputation on Holy Scripture, Parker Society, p. 404.
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