THE POETRY AND
CHARACTER
OF OVID 31
This was great Augustus doome
For (quoth he) Poets quils
Ought not for to teach men ils.
This was great Augustus doome
For (quoth he) Poets quils
Ought not for to teach men ils.
Ovid - Some Elizabethan Opinions of the Poetry and Character of OVid
If the Learned and
Judicious like it, let the Throng bray Two things are com-
monly blamed in Poetry: nay, you take away That if Them, and
these are Lyes and Flattery. But I have told them in the worst
words: For 'tis only to the shallow insight that they appear thus.
Truth may dwell more clearly in Allegory, or a moral 'd Fable,
than in a bare Narration The greatest danger that I find
in it is that it wantons the Blood, and Imagination; as carrying a
man in too high a Delight. " John Davies of Hereford was moved
to declare in Humours Heauen on Earth:96 "Poets, whiche all men
w The Posies, ed. Cunliffe, p. 466.
"Ed. McKerrow, I, p. 89.
"G. G. Smith, I, p. 365.
"Arber: English Garner, VII, p. 253.
"Ed. of 1696, p. 96.
"His note to stanza 148.
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? 24 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
taxe for lying, doe least lie of any, the morall of their fictions
considered. " No ordinary ridicule sufficed to strike out of the hand
of the defender of poetry his trusted weapon of allegory. With
that he felt ready to meet any attack.
The most enthusiastic appreciation of the poetry of Ovid occurs
in the introduction of Arthur Golding to his famous and widely
influential translation of the Metamorphoses. In the Dedication of
the first four books to Leicester, "at Cecil House, the 23rd day of
I December, 1564," Golding says:
"If this woorke was fully performed with like eloquence and
connying of endyting by me in Englishe, as it was written by Thauc-
thor thereof in his moother' tonge, it might perchaunce delight your
honor for the nomber of excellent devices and fine inven-
tions conteined in the same, purporting outwardly moste pleasant
tales and delectable histories, and fraughted inwardlye with moste
pithie instructions and wholesome examples, and conteynyng bothe
wayes moste exquisite connynge and deepe knowledge. "
In the dedicatory epistle of 1567 to his noble patron, Golding
undertakes to show by elaborate analysis what he regards as the
great significance of the poem. Ovid has brought the entire philoso-
phy of "turned shapes" into "one whole masse. " The poet shows
that nothing persists without change, and that in these changes
nothing is lost; that the soul is immortal; and that the Pythagor-
ean view of the transmigration of the soul applies to the spirit of
animal life, not to the rational soul.
"and in all are pitthie apt and pleyne
Instructions which import the prayse of vertues, and the shame
Of vices, with the due rewardes of eyther of the same. "
Hence the translator sees in the Daphne story "a myrror of
virginitee. " In the story of the fall of Phaethon he reads the
miserable end of youthful ambition.
"This fable also dooth advyse all parents and all such
As bring up youth, too take good heede of cockering them too
much.
It further dooth commend the meane: and willeth too beware
Of rash and hasty promises which most pernicious are,
And not to bee performed: and in fine it playnly showes
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 25
What sorrow too the parents and too all the kinred growes
By disobedience of the chyld: and in the chyld is ment
The disobedient subject that ageinst his prince is bent. "
The metamorphoses of the crow and of the raven warn against
the consequence of ill report; the mishaps of Ocyroee show the
perils of undue curiosity; and the tale of Battus is to be taken as
"a very good example" for the covetous. Those who delight in
hawking and hunting, in wantonness and gluttony
"Upon the piteous story of Actaeon ought to think.
For theis and theyre adherents used excessive are in deede ?
The dogs that dayly doo devour theyre followers on with speede. "*
Thus to Golding every myth is an exemplum, and from that point of^
view he thus sums up his account:
"Theis fables out of every booke I have interpreted,
Too shew how they and all the rest may stand a man in sted. "
The next object of the translator's concern is to remind his
patron that the ancients in their ignorance attributed to many gods
what is actually the will of "the true eternall God. "
"For Gods, and fate, and fortune are the terms of heathenesse,
If men usurp them in the sense that Paynims doe expresse. "
These terms Golding proceeds to interpret, admitting the while
that their most satisfactory explanation is to be found in Scripture.
Nevertheless, he insists that the legends that employ the terms
are really of value in promoting virtue and godliness, especially
since in the opinion of many pious and learned men the legends
originated in Scripture.
"What man is he but would suppose the author of this booke
The first foundation of his woorke from Moyses wryghtings
tooke?
Not only in effect he dooth with Genesis agree,
But also in the order of creation, save that hee
Makes no distinction of the dayes. "
Not only does Golding square to his own satisfaction Ovid's
account with that of Moses, but he further argues that the order of
creation is in agreement. According to this position Prometheus
appears to be "theternall woord of God. " The Golden Age finds
its counterpart in Eden; the four ages have biblical parallels; and
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? 26 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
even the account of the flood is satisfactory, save that Ovid was
misled as to the date because in his account he followed "the boast-
ful, shameless Greeks. "
In conclusion:
"The readers therefore earnestly admonisht are too bee
Too seeke a further meaning then the letter gives too see,
The travell tane in that behalf although it have sum payne
Yet makes it double recompence with pleasure and with gayne. "
No one is more insistent than Golding that the reader is not to
take offense at what may appear to him wanton word or lewd
matter:
"For sure theis fables are not put in wryghting to thentent
Too further or allure too vyce: but rather this is ment,
That men beholding what they bee when vyce dooth reign in stead
Of vertue, should not let their lewd affections have the head. "
In his Preface to the Reader Golding makes an earnest attempt
to guard against offense "the simpler sort" when confronted with
the many names of pagan deities. He sadly admits that:
"The trewe and ever living God the Paynims did not knowe:
Which caused them the names of Goddes on creatures too
bestowe. "
For human nature, he explains, corrupted by Adam's fall, lost
the original sparks of divine grace and descended into superstitions
of all sorts. Satan directing, stars, spirits, animals, and even human
passions became objects of worship among the pagans. Myth-
makers had, therefore, an ulterior purpose in bestowing the various
names of the deities. Hence the names Jove and Juno signify
princes; Ops and Saturn, old people; Phoebus signifies the young;
Mars, men of war; Pallas, the learned, and so on. Moreover, the
proper names stand for various other things which the translator
leaves to the interpretation of his readers:
"Now when thou readst of God or man, in stone, in beast, or tree
It is a mirror of thyself thyne owne estate too see.
For under feyned names of Goddes it was the poets guyse
The vice and faults of all estates too taunt in convert wyse
And likewyse too extoll with prayse such things as doo deserve. "
The various metamorphoses, are therefore to be interpreted in a
spiritual sense, and are related both for pleasure and for profit.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 2. "]
K
"Pleasant terms and art" are employed by the poet in order to hold
the attention to the moral lessons in the legends. And if these lessons
are presented in veiled or dark language, it is in order to make their
discovery all the more attractive to the reader. On his part certainly
good judgment is essential; for in Golding's view the poems are **
flowers, from which bees will extract honey and spiders poison. ,
Those who cannot brook "the lively setting forth" of the work
should recognize their classification as readers and for the time
being at least leave the work alone. Thus Golding brings his in-
troduction to a close, not hoping to have equalled "the pleasant
style" of his original, "who in that all other doth surmount. " He
takes satisfaction in having presented to English readers a "sea of
goodes and Jewelles," for no other work of Ovid, he believes, has
more mysteries, sage counsels, good examples, fine inventions,
strange variety, and wealth of information.
Despite the familiar sound of much of this, it is clear that the
translator himself believed that he had rendered a real service. His
attitude may be defensive and his method of interpretation still
resolutely allegorical; but he has a fine and infectious enthusiasm for
his original. Twenty years later Webbe recognised the service of
Golding to the nation in making accessible "all kind of good learn-
ing,"97 and 10 narrative poets and dramatists the translation became
a treasury of classic myth and legend.
It remains to note some of the chief obiter dicta relating to Ovid
during the Elizabethan period. They serve to illustrate the views
expressed in the preceding discussion. That the statements here
presented are not more numerous or more extensive is due in part
to the fact that they antedate historical criticism in England and in
part to the fact that where an influence is so widely and persistently
felt as was that of Ovid, there is less occasion for specific acknowl-
edgements.
As might be expected, there is expression of the view that Ovid
was a corrupting influence. From this point of view the Ars Amandi
is censured. In several instances the poem is held to be the real
"A Discourse of English Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 34.
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? 28 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
cause for the poet's banishment from Rome. George Whetstone,
in his Rocke of Regarde, makes Bianca Maria sum up her evil life
thus:
"The Arte of Love for exercise I redde,
And thus my life in Venus court I ledde. "98
A naive expression of the same view appears in Tom Tel-
Trot hes Message:
"Whilome by nature men and women loued,
And prone enough they were to loue thereby;
But when they Ouids ars amendi proued,
Both men and women fell to lecherie. "99
The suggestive quality of the poem is recognised by John Day in
his lie of Guls (produced in 1605) when he makes the gentleman
in the prologue call for scenes "that will make a man's spirits stand
on their tip toes, and dye his blood in a deep scarlet like your Ovid's
Ars Amandi. "100
John Davies of Hereford regards the poem as the antithesis of
his own ideals:
"Whist, Muse, be mute, wilt thou like Naso proue,
And interlace thy Lynes with levity?
Wilt thou add Precepts to the Arte of Loue,
And show thy vertue in such vanity?
So to pollute thy purer Poesy ? "101
He makes the as yet unsullied sheet of paper thus exclaim:
"Another (ah, Lorde helpe) mee vilifies
With Art of Loue, and how to subtilize. "102
Nicholas Breton reflects the same attitude when he declares:
"I will give over Artem Amandi and I will with thee to some more
worthy study. "103 Two conditions imposed upon Maurice Byrchen-
shaw when he was granted laureation at Oxford were that he
"Ed. J. P. Collier, pp. 20-22.
"New Sh. Soc, Series VI, p. 113.
100 Ed. Bullen, Prologue, pp. 5-6.
m Ed. Grosart, I, p. 67.
1MVol. II, p. 75, Papers Complaint.
m The Wil of Wit, etc, ed. Grosart, II, p. 12.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 20.
should write the required number of verses and promise not to read
Ovid's Art of Love to his pupils. 104
Although even now the precise reason for the banishment of
Ovid is unknown, Elizabethan writers often ascribe the punish-
ment to the displeasure of Augustus at the character of the Ars
Amandi. Such is the belief, of Thomas Becon: "Was not the poet,
Ovidius banished of Augustus Caesar for the books which he made
De Arte Amandi (he might more justly have termed them
De Arte Meretricandi), because that through the reading of them he
corrupteth the minds of the youth. "106 The views of Robert Greene
are similar: "Such fantastike poets who with Ouid
seeke to nourish vice in Rome by setting down Artem Amandi, and
giuing dishonest precepts of lust and leacherie, corrupting youth
with the expence of time, vpon such friuolous fables; and therefore
deserue by Augustus to be banished from so ciuill a countrie as Italie,
amongst the barbarous Getes to Hue in exile. "108 In Greenes
Mourning Garment this opinion is reiterated: "Ouid, after he was
banished for his wanton papers written de Arte Amandi, and his
amorous Elegies between him and Corrina, being amongst the
barbarous Getes, and though a Pagan, yet toucht with a repenting
passion of the follies of his youth, hee sent his Remedium Amoris
and part of his Tristibus to Caesar, not that Augustus was forward
in those fancies, or that hee sought to reclaim the Emperor from such
faults; but as a gathering by infallible coniectures, that hee which
seuerely punished such lasciuious liuers, would be glad to hear of
their repentant labours. "107 The legend is repeated in the curious
poem entitled Greenes Vision. 108
"Quaint was Ouid in his rime,
Chiefest poet of his time.
What he could in wordes rehearse,
Ended in a pleasing verse,
Apollo, with his ay-greene baies,
Crowned his head to shew his praise:
And all the Muses did agree,
m Austin and Ralph: The Lives of the Poets Laureate, p. 5.
1W Sermons, Parker Soc, p. 383.
""Ed. Grosart, IX, p. 294. Cf. pp. 9; 120; 221; 250.
im lb. , p. 120.
"? lb. , XII, pp. 199-200.
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? 30 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
He should be theirs, and none but he.
This Poet chaunted all of loue,
Of Cupids wings and Venus doue:
Of faire Corrina and her hew,
Of white and red, and vaines blew.
How they loued and how they greed,
And how in fancy they did speed.
His Elegies were wanton all,
Telling of loues pleasing thrall.
And cause he would the Poet seeme,
That best of Venus laws could deeme,
"'Strange precepts he did impart,
And writ three bookes of loues art.
There he taught how to woe,
What in loue men should doe,
How they might soonest winne
Honest women unto sinne:
Thus to tellen all the truth,
He infected Romes youth:
And with his bookes and verses brought
That men in Rome naught els saught,
But how to tangle maid or wife,
With honors breach through wanton life:
The foolish sort did for his skill .
Praise the deepnesse of his quill:
And like to him said there was none,
Since died old Anacreon.
But Romes Augustus worlds wonder,
Brookt not of this foolish blonder:
Nor likt he of this wanton verse,
That loves lawes did rehearse
For well he saw and did espie,
Youth was sore impaird thereby:
And by experience he finds,
Wanton bookes infect the minds,
Which made him straight for reward,
Though the censure seemed hard,
To banish Ouid quite from Rome,
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?
THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 31
This was great Augustus doome
For (quoth he) Poets quils
Ought not for to teach men ils. ''^/
In recognition of the moral significance of Ovidian fable, when
read with due reservations and in the light of allegorical interpre-
tation, very little appears between the enthusiastic praise of Golding
in 1564 and the dedication in 1628 of George Sandys' Ovids Meta-
morphoses Englished, Mythologis'd, and Represented in Figure. In
his reliance upon the allegorical interpretation of concealed lessons
and truths, Sandys was as thoroughgoing as Golding had been; but
during the interval far less enthusiasm is expressed. William Webbe
regarded the Metamorphoses as the most profitable of Ovid's
works;109 and he praised Golding "for his labour in Englyshing
Ouids Metamorphosis to profit this nation in all kind of
good learning. "110 In like manner Richard Stanyhurst observes in
his preface to his translation of the yEneid (1582): "And certes
this prehemirrency of writing [the interlacing of pleasure with pro-
fit] is chieflye too bee affurded too Virgil in this wurck
and too Ouid in his Metamorphosis. As for Ennius, Horace,
Iuvenal, Persius, and the rabblement of such cheate Poets, theyre
dooinges are, for fauore of antiquitye, rather to bee pacientlye allowed
then highlye regarded. "111 It is not improbable that one reason for
Stanyhurst's summary dismissal of the "cheate poets" was that they
did not appear to him to yield the familiar moralizations. John
Taylor found moral lessons in Ovid. Though admitting that he
knew no language save his own, he declares that he had read Virgil
and Ovid;112 and in his Verses Presented to the Kings own Hand'.
expresses the following opinion:
"In Ouids Metamorphosis I finde
Transformed Formes, and strange misshapen Shapes
Of humane transmutations from their kind
To Wolves, to Beares, to Doggs, to Pyes, to Apes;
Yet these were but Poeticall escapes,
(Or Morallizing of unnat'rall deeds)
mA Discourse of English Poetrie, ed. Arber, p; 29.
U0Ib. ,p. 34.
m G. G. Smith: Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, p. 136.
mWorkes, Spenser Soc, Part II, p. 385.
. -
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? 32 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
To shew that Treasons, Murders, Incests, Rapes,
From Bestiall minds, (in human forms) proceeds. "118
The author of The Fable of Ouid treting of Narcissus recognizes
"Ouids meaning straunge
That wysdome hydeth with some pleasaunt chaunge. "
He furthermore asserts
"That Ouid by this tale no folly ment. "114
Humfrey Gifford is aware that
"The bookes of Ouids changed shapes
A story strange doe tell,
How Orpheus to fetch his wife
Made voyage unto hell. "116
Of opposing opinions in this connection perhaps no one is more
clearly stated than that; which appears in No Whippinge, nor Trip-
pinge, etc. (1601):
"Let Ouid, with Narcissus idle tale,
Weare out his wits with figurative fables.
Old idle Histories grow to be so stale,
That clowns almost haue bard them from their tables,
And Phoebus, with his horses and his stables,
Leaue them to babies: make a better choise
Of sweeter matter for the soules reoice. "118
In Loves Martyr (1601), Robert Chester appears to support this
idea:
"Away fond riming Ouid, lest thou write
Of Prognes murther, or Lucretias rape. "117
Nicholas Breton writes in like manner:
"In Ouids Metamorphosis
I read there of a spring,
Whereby Narcissus caught his bane,
"? Spenser Soc, Vol. XXI, p. 8.
"* Pr. by Thomas Hackette, 1560.
"* Posie of GUloAowers, Grosart's Occasional Issues, I, p. 50.
"* Ed. C. Edwards, London, 1895.
m Ed. Grosart, New Shakespeare Soc, Series VIII, 2, p. 38.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 33
\
(And) only with looking
If this be false, blame Ouid then
That such a tale would write. "118
Although the consensus of opinion clearly awards to Virgil pri-
macy among Latin poets, there are some noteworthy variations of
sentiment with regard to the rank of Ovid. He is called in the poem
Greenes Vision "chiefest poet of his time. " In the Gorgious Gallery
of Gallant Inventions occurs the line
r-,
"Ouid yet of poets prince, whose wit all others past. "11*
Stanyhurst, as has already been ieen, places the /Eneid side by
side with the Metamorphoses as preeminent in the mingling of
pleasure with profit. In his Tragical Tales (1587) George Turber-
vile expresses what must be regarded as the prevailing opinion:
"Two things in cheefe did moue me thus to write,
And made me deeme it none offence at all:
First Ouids workes bedeckt with deepe delight,
Whom we of poets second best doe call. "120 .
In the foregoing discussion Ovid has appeared as "the amorous
schoolmaster". There are numerous allusions in similar strain.
Thus, in the introductory compliments on Chapman's poems, "J.
D. of the Middle Temple" writes:
"For love till now hath still a master miss'd
Since Ovid's eyes were closed with iron sleep.
But now his waking soul in Chapman lives
Which shows so well the passions of his soul,
And yet this muse more cause of wonder gives,
And doth -more prophet-like loves art enrol.
For Ovid's soul now grown more old and wise,
Pours forth itself in deeper mysteries. "121
"Another" thus expresses himself:
"Since Ovid, Love's first gentle master, died, j
He hath a most notorious truant been,
And hath not once in thrice five ages seen
^Helkonia, ed. T. Parke, I, p. 188.
*? Ed. T. Parke, p. 103.
*" The Authors Excuse.
** Works of Chapman, Minor Poems and Translations, p. LXXIV.
"J. D. " is John Davies.
\
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? 34 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
That same sweet muse that was his first sweet guide;
But since Apollo, who was gratified
Once with a kiss, hunting on Cythnus' green
By Love's fair mother, tender beauty's queen,
This favor unto her hath not envied,
That unto whom she will she may infuse,
For the instruction of her tender son,
The gentle Ovid's easy, supple muse,
Which unto thee, sweet Chapman, she hath done;
She makes in thee the spirit of Ovid move,
And calls thee second master of her love. "122
George Turbervile, in reading Ovid,
"found him full of amours everywhere:
Each leaf of loue the title eke did beare. "123
I The works of Greene are full of allusions to Ovid as preceptor in
the art of love; and there are numerous allusions such as Gascoigne's
"Ouids wanton verse ;"124 Pasquils Night-cap, line 3089, "Fond wan-
tonizing Ouid;"128 Edward Rainsford's allusion to the banishment
of "wanton Ouid;"128 Henry Crosse's employment of the same
term,127 and his further mention of "that grand-maister of wanton-
nesse, Ouid. "128
"lb.
*" Tragical Tales (1587), under the title The Authors Excuse.
m The Posies, ed. Cunliffe, p. 95.
"Grosart's Occasional Issues, Vol. V, p. 101.
"lb. , VII, p. 104.
TM lb, VII, p. ui.
? lb. , p. 124.
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? UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-12-26 11:22 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015031370292 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust.
Judicious like it, let the Throng bray Two things are com-
monly blamed in Poetry: nay, you take away That if Them, and
these are Lyes and Flattery. But I have told them in the worst
words: For 'tis only to the shallow insight that they appear thus.
Truth may dwell more clearly in Allegory, or a moral 'd Fable,
than in a bare Narration The greatest danger that I find
in it is that it wantons the Blood, and Imagination; as carrying a
man in too high a Delight. " John Davies of Hereford was moved
to declare in Humours Heauen on Earth:96 "Poets, whiche all men
w The Posies, ed. Cunliffe, p. 466.
"Ed. McKerrow, I, p. 89.
"G. G. Smith, I, p. 365.
"Arber: English Garner, VII, p. 253.
"Ed. of 1696, p. 96.
"His note to stanza 148.
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? 24 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
taxe for lying, doe least lie of any, the morall of their fictions
considered. " No ordinary ridicule sufficed to strike out of the hand
of the defender of poetry his trusted weapon of allegory. With
that he felt ready to meet any attack.
The most enthusiastic appreciation of the poetry of Ovid occurs
in the introduction of Arthur Golding to his famous and widely
influential translation of the Metamorphoses. In the Dedication of
the first four books to Leicester, "at Cecil House, the 23rd day of
I December, 1564," Golding says:
"If this woorke was fully performed with like eloquence and
connying of endyting by me in Englishe, as it was written by Thauc-
thor thereof in his moother' tonge, it might perchaunce delight your
honor for the nomber of excellent devices and fine inven-
tions conteined in the same, purporting outwardly moste pleasant
tales and delectable histories, and fraughted inwardlye with moste
pithie instructions and wholesome examples, and conteynyng bothe
wayes moste exquisite connynge and deepe knowledge. "
In the dedicatory epistle of 1567 to his noble patron, Golding
undertakes to show by elaborate analysis what he regards as the
great significance of the poem. Ovid has brought the entire philoso-
phy of "turned shapes" into "one whole masse. " The poet shows
that nothing persists without change, and that in these changes
nothing is lost; that the soul is immortal; and that the Pythagor-
ean view of the transmigration of the soul applies to the spirit of
animal life, not to the rational soul.
"and in all are pitthie apt and pleyne
Instructions which import the prayse of vertues, and the shame
Of vices, with the due rewardes of eyther of the same. "
Hence the translator sees in the Daphne story "a myrror of
virginitee. " In the story of the fall of Phaethon he reads the
miserable end of youthful ambition.
"This fable also dooth advyse all parents and all such
As bring up youth, too take good heede of cockering them too
much.
It further dooth commend the meane: and willeth too beware
Of rash and hasty promises which most pernicious are,
And not to bee performed: and in fine it playnly showes
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 25
What sorrow too the parents and too all the kinred growes
By disobedience of the chyld: and in the chyld is ment
The disobedient subject that ageinst his prince is bent. "
The metamorphoses of the crow and of the raven warn against
the consequence of ill report; the mishaps of Ocyroee show the
perils of undue curiosity; and the tale of Battus is to be taken as
"a very good example" for the covetous. Those who delight in
hawking and hunting, in wantonness and gluttony
"Upon the piteous story of Actaeon ought to think.
For theis and theyre adherents used excessive are in deede ?
The dogs that dayly doo devour theyre followers on with speede. "*
Thus to Golding every myth is an exemplum, and from that point of^
view he thus sums up his account:
"Theis fables out of every booke I have interpreted,
Too shew how they and all the rest may stand a man in sted. "
The next object of the translator's concern is to remind his
patron that the ancients in their ignorance attributed to many gods
what is actually the will of "the true eternall God. "
"For Gods, and fate, and fortune are the terms of heathenesse,
If men usurp them in the sense that Paynims doe expresse. "
These terms Golding proceeds to interpret, admitting the while
that their most satisfactory explanation is to be found in Scripture.
Nevertheless, he insists that the legends that employ the terms
are really of value in promoting virtue and godliness, especially
since in the opinion of many pious and learned men the legends
originated in Scripture.
"What man is he but would suppose the author of this booke
The first foundation of his woorke from Moyses wryghtings
tooke?
Not only in effect he dooth with Genesis agree,
But also in the order of creation, save that hee
Makes no distinction of the dayes. "
Not only does Golding square to his own satisfaction Ovid's
account with that of Moses, but he further argues that the order of
creation is in agreement. According to this position Prometheus
appears to be "theternall woord of God. " The Golden Age finds
its counterpart in Eden; the four ages have biblical parallels; and
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? 26 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
even the account of the flood is satisfactory, save that Ovid was
misled as to the date because in his account he followed "the boast-
ful, shameless Greeks. "
In conclusion:
"The readers therefore earnestly admonisht are too bee
Too seeke a further meaning then the letter gives too see,
The travell tane in that behalf although it have sum payne
Yet makes it double recompence with pleasure and with gayne. "
No one is more insistent than Golding that the reader is not to
take offense at what may appear to him wanton word or lewd
matter:
"For sure theis fables are not put in wryghting to thentent
Too further or allure too vyce: but rather this is ment,
That men beholding what they bee when vyce dooth reign in stead
Of vertue, should not let their lewd affections have the head. "
In his Preface to the Reader Golding makes an earnest attempt
to guard against offense "the simpler sort" when confronted with
the many names of pagan deities. He sadly admits that:
"The trewe and ever living God the Paynims did not knowe:
Which caused them the names of Goddes on creatures too
bestowe. "
For human nature, he explains, corrupted by Adam's fall, lost
the original sparks of divine grace and descended into superstitions
of all sorts. Satan directing, stars, spirits, animals, and even human
passions became objects of worship among the pagans. Myth-
makers had, therefore, an ulterior purpose in bestowing the various
names of the deities. Hence the names Jove and Juno signify
princes; Ops and Saturn, old people; Phoebus signifies the young;
Mars, men of war; Pallas, the learned, and so on. Moreover, the
proper names stand for various other things which the translator
leaves to the interpretation of his readers:
"Now when thou readst of God or man, in stone, in beast, or tree
It is a mirror of thyself thyne owne estate too see.
For under feyned names of Goddes it was the poets guyse
The vice and faults of all estates too taunt in convert wyse
And likewyse too extoll with prayse such things as doo deserve. "
The various metamorphoses, are therefore to be interpreted in a
spiritual sense, and are related both for pleasure and for profit.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 2. "]
K
"Pleasant terms and art" are employed by the poet in order to hold
the attention to the moral lessons in the legends. And if these lessons
are presented in veiled or dark language, it is in order to make their
discovery all the more attractive to the reader. On his part certainly
good judgment is essential; for in Golding's view the poems are **
flowers, from which bees will extract honey and spiders poison. ,
Those who cannot brook "the lively setting forth" of the work
should recognize their classification as readers and for the time
being at least leave the work alone. Thus Golding brings his in-
troduction to a close, not hoping to have equalled "the pleasant
style" of his original, "who in that all other doth surmount. " He
takes satisfaction in having presented to English readers a "sea of
goodes and Jewelles," for no other work of Ovid, he believes, has
more mysteries, sage counsels, good examples, fine inventions,
strange variety, and wealth of information.
Despite the familiar sound of much of this, it is clear that the
translator himself believed that he had rendered a real service. His
attitude may be defensive and his method of interpretation still
resolutely allegorical; but he has a fine and infectious enthusiasm for
his original. Twenty years later Webbe recognised the service of
Golding to the nation in making accessible "all kind of good learn-
ing,"97 and 10 narrative poets and dramatists the translation became
a treasury of classic myth and legend.
It remains to note some of the chief obiter dicta relating to Ovid
during the Elizabethan period. They serve to illustrate the views
expressed in the preceding discussion. That the statements here
presented are not more numerous or more extensive is due in part
to the fact that they antedate historical criticism in England and in
part to the fact that where an influence is so widely and persistently
felt as was that of Ovid, there is less occasion for specific acknowl-
edgements.
As might be expected, there is expression of the view that Ovid
was a corrupting influence. From this point of view the Ars Amandi
is censured. In several instances the poem is held to be the real
"A Discourse of English Poetrie, ed. Arber, p. 34.
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? 28 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
cause for the poet's banishment from Rome. George Whetstone,
in his Rocke of Regarde, makes Bianca Maria sum up her evil life
thus:
"The Arte of Love for exercise I redde,
And thus my life in Venus court I ledde. "98
A naive expression of the same view appears in Tom Tel-
Trot hes Message:
"Whilome by nature men and women loued,
And prone enough they were to loue thereby;
But when they Ouids ars amendi proued,
Both men and women fell to lecherie. "99
The suggestive quality of the poem is recognised by John Day in
his lie of Guls (produced in 1605) when he makes the gentleman
in the prologue call for scenes "that will make a man's spirits stand
on their tip toes, and dye his blood in a deep scarlet like your Ovid's
Ars Amandi. "100
John Davies of Hereford regards the poem as the antithesis of
his own ideals:
"Whist, Muse, be mute, wilt thou like Naso proue,
And interlace thy Lynes with levity?
Wilt thou add Precepts to the Arte of Loue,
And show thy vertue in such vanity?
So to pollute thy purer Poesy ? "101
He makes the as yet unsullied sheet of paper thus exclaim:
"Another (ah, Lorde helpe) mee vilifies
With Art of Loue, and how to subtilize. "102
Nicholas Breton reflects the same attitude when he declares:
"I will give over Artem Amandi and I will with thee to some more
worthy study. "103 Two conditions imposed upon Maurice Byrchen-
shaw when he was granted laureation at Oxford were that he
"Ed. J. P. Collier, pp. 20-22.
"New Sh. Soc, Series VI, p. 113.
100 Ed. Bullen, Prologue, pp. 5-6.
m Ed. Grosart, I, p. 67.
1MVol. II, p. 75, Papers Complaint.
m The Wil of Wit, etc, ed. Grosart, II, p. 12.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 20.
should write the required number of verses and promise not to read
Ovid's Art of Love to his pupils. 104
Although even now the precise reason for the banishment of
Ovid is unknown, Elizabethan writers often ascribe the punish-
ment to the displeasure of Augustus at the character of the Ars
Amandi. Such is the belief, of Thomas Becon: "Was not the poet,
Ovidius banished of Augustus Caesar for the books which he made
De Arte Amandi (he might more justly have termed them
De Arte Meretricandi), because that through the reading of them he
corrupteth the minds of the youth. "106 The views of Robert Greene
are similar: "Such fantastike poets who with Ouid
seeke to nourish vice in Rome by setting down Artem Amandi, and
giuing dishonest precepts of lust and leacherie, corrupting youth
with the expence of time, vpon such friuolous fables; and therefore
deserue by Augustus to be banished from so ciuill a countrie as Italie,
amongst the barbarous Getes to Hue in exile. "108 In Greenes
Mourning Garment this opinion is reiterated: "Ouid, after he was
banished for his wanton papers written de Arte Amandi, and his
amorous Elegies between him and Corrina, being amongst the
barbarous Getes, and though a Pagan, yet toucht with a repenting
passion of the follies of his youth, hee sent his Remedium Amoris
and part of his Tristibus to Caesar, not that Augustus was forward
in those fancies, or that hee sought to reclaim the Emperor from such
faults; but as a gathering by infallible coniectures, that hee which
seuerely punished such lasciuious liuers, would be glad to hear of
their repentant labours. "107 The legend is repeated in the curious
poem entitled Greenes Vision. 108
"Quaint was Ouid in his rime,
Chiefest poet of his time.
What he could in wordes rehearse,
Ended in a pleasing verse,
Apollo, with his ay-greene baies,
Crowned his head to shew his praise:
And all the Muses did agree,
m Austin and Ralph: The Lives of the Poets Laureate, p. 5.
1W Sermons, Parker Soc, p. 383.
""Ed. Grosart, IX, p. 294. Cf. pp. 9; 120; 221; 250.
im lb. , p. 120.
"? lb. , XII, pp. 199-200.
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? 30 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
He should be theirs, and none but he.
This Poet chaunted all of loue,
Of Cupids wings and Venus doue:
Of faire Corrina and her hew,
Of white and red, and vaines blew.
How they loued and how they greed,
And how in fancy they did speed.
His Elegies were wanton all,
Telling of loues pleasing thrall.
And cause he would the Poet seeme,
That best of Venus laws could deeme,
"'Strange precepts he did impart,
And writ three bookes of loues art.
There he taught how to woe,
What in loue men should doe,
How they might soonest winne
Honest women unto sinne:
Thus to tellen all the truth,
He infected Romes youth:
And with his bookes and verses brought
That men in Rome naught els saught,
But how to tangle maid or wife,
With honors breach through wanton life:
The foolish sort did for his skill .
Praise the deepnesse of his quill:
And like to him said there was none,
Since died old Anacreon.
But Romes Augustus worlds wonder,
Brookt not of this foolish blonder:
Nor likt he of this wanton verse,
That loves lawes did rehearse
For well he saw and did espie,
Youth was sore impaird thereby:
And by experience he finds,
Wanton bookes infect the minds,
Which made him straight for reward,
Though the censure seemed hard,
To banish Ouid quite from Rome,
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?
THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 31
This was great Augustus doome
For (quoth he) Poets quils
Ought not for to teach men ils. ''^/
In recognition of the moral significance of Ovidian fable, when
read with due reservations and in the light of allegorical interpre-
tation, very little appears between the enthusiastic praise of Golding
in 1564 and the dedication in 1628 of George Sandys' Ovids Meta-
morphoses Englished, Mythologis'd, and Represented in Figure. In
his reliance upon the allegorical interpretation of concealed lessons
and truths, Sandys was as thoroughgoing as Golding had been; but
during the interval far less enthusiasm is expressed. William Webbe
regarded the Metamorphoses as the most profitable of Ovid's
works;109 and he praised Golding "for his labour in Englyshing
Ouids Metamorphosis to profit this nation in all kind of
good learning. "110 In like manner Richard Stanyhurst observes in
his preface to his translation of the yEneid (1582): "And certes
this prehemirrency of writing [the interlacing of pleasure with pro-
fit] is chieflye too bee affurded too Virgil in this wurck
and too Ouid in his Metamorphosis. As for Ennius, Horace,
Iuvenal, Persius, and the rabblement of such cheate Poets, theyre
dooinges are, for fauore of antiquitye, rather to bee pacientlye allowed
then highlye regarded. "111 It is not improbable that one reason for
Stanyhurst's summary dismissal of the "cheate poets" was that they
did not appear to him to yield the familiar moralizations. John
Taylor found moral lessons in Ovid. Though admitting that he
knew no language save his own, he declares that he had read Virgil
and Ovid;112 and in his Verses Presented to the Kings own Hand'.
expresses the following opinion:
"In Ouids Metamorphosis I finde
Transformed Formes, and strange misshapen Shapes
Of humane transmutations from their kind
To Wolves, to Beares, to Doggs, to Pyes, to Apes;
Yet these were but Poeticall escapes,
(Or Morallizing of unnat'rall deeds)
mA Discourse of English Poetrie, ed. Arber, p; 29.
U0Ib. ,p. 34.
m G. G. Smith: Elizabethan Critical Essays, I, p. 136.
mWorkes, Spenser Soc, Part II, p. 385.
. -
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? 32 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
To shew that Treasons, Murders, Incests, Rapes,
From Bestiall minds, (in human forms) proceeds. "118
The author of The Fable of Ouid treting of Narcissus recognizes
"Ouids meaning straunge
That wysdome hydeth with some pleasaunt chaunge. "
He furthermore asserts
"That Ouid by this tale no folly ment. "114
Humfrey Gifford is aware that
"The bookes of Ouids changed shapes
A story strange doe tell,
How Orpheus to fetch his wife
Made voyage unto hell. "116
Of opposing opinions in this connection perhaps no one is more
clearly stated than that; which appears in No Whippinge, nor Trip-
pinge, etc. (1601):
"Let Ouid, with Narcissus idle tale,
Weare out his wits with figurative fables.
Old idle Histories grow to be so stale,
That clowns almost haue bard them from their tables,
And Phoebus, with his horses and his stables,
Leaue them to babies: make a better choise
Of sweeter matter for the soules reoice. "118
In Loves Martyr (1601), Robert Chester appears to support this
idea:
"Away fond riming Ouid, lest thou write
Of Prognes murther, or Lucretias rape. "117
Nicholas Breton writes in like manner:
"In Ouids Metamorphosis
I read there of a spring,
Whereby Narcissus caught his bane,
"? Spenser Soc, Vol. XXI, p. 8.
"* Pr. by Thomas Hackette, 1560.
"* Posie of GUloAowers, Grosart's Occasional Issues, I, p. 50.
"* Ed. C. Edwards, London, 1895.
m Ed. Grosart, New Shakespeare Soc, Series VIII, 2, p. 38.
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? THE POETRY AND CHARACTER OF OVID 33
\
(And) only with looking
If this be false, blame Ouid then
That such a tale would write. "118
Although the consensus of opinion clearly awards to Virgil pri-
macy among Latin poets, there are some noteworthy variations of
sentiment with regard to the rank of Ovid. He is called in the poem
Greenes Vision "chiefest poet of his time. " In the Gorgious Gallery
of Gallant Inventions occurs the line
r-,
"Ouid yet of poets prince, whose wit all others past. "11*
Stanyhurst, as has already been ieen, places the /Eneid side by
side with the Metamorphoses as preeminent in the mingling of
pleasure with profit. In his Tragical Tales (1587) George Turber-
vile expresses what must be regarded as the prevailing opinion:
"Two things in cheefe did moue me thus to write,
And made me deeme it none offence at all:
First Ouids workes bedeckt with deepe delight,
Whom we of poets second best doe call. "120 .
In the foregoing discussion Ovid has appeared as "the amorous
schoolmaster". There are numerous allusions in similar strain.
Thus, in the introductory compliments on Chapman's poems, "J.
D. of the Middle Temple" writes:
"For love till now hath still a master miss'd
Since Ovid's eyes were closed with iron sleep.
But now his waking soul in Chapman lives
Which shows so well the passions of his soul,
And yet this muse more cause of wonder gives,
And doth -more prophet-like loves art enrol.
For Ovid's soul now grown more old and wise,
Pours forth itself in deeper mysteries. "121
"Another" thus expresses himself:
"Since Ovid, Love's first gentle master, died, j
He hath a most notorious truant been,
And hath not once in thrice five ages seen
^Helkonia, ed. T. Parke, I, p. 188.
*? Ed. T. Parke, p. 103.
*" The Authors Excuse.
** Works of Chapman, Minor Poems and Translations, p. LXXIV.
"J. D. " is John Davies.
\
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? 34 SOME ELIZABETHAN OPINIONS OF
That same sweet muse that was his first sweet guide;
But since Apollo, who was gratified
Once with a kiss, hunting on Cythnus' green
By Love's fair mother, tender beauty's queen,
This favor unto her hath not envied,
That unto whom she will she may infuse,
For the instruction of her tender son,
The gentle Ovid's easy, supple muse,
Which unto thee, sweet Chapman, she hath done;
She makes in thee the spirit of Ovid move,
And calls thee second master of her love. "122
George Turbervile, in reading Ovid,
"found him full of amours everywhere:
Each leaf of loue the title eke did beare. "123
I The works of Greene are full of allusions to Ovid as preceptor in
the art of love; and there are numerous allusions such as Gascoigne's
"Ouids wanton verse ;"124 Pasquils Night-cap, line 3089, "Fond wan-
tonizing Ouid;"128 Edward Rainsford's allusion to the banishment
of "wanton Ouid;"128 Henry Crosse's employment of the same
term,127 and his further mention of "that grand-maister of wanton-
nesse, Ouid. "128
"lb.
*" Tragical Tales (1587), under the title The Authors Excuse.
m The Posies, ed. Cunliffe, p. 95.
"Grosart's Occasional Issues, Vol. V, p. 101.
"lb. , VII, p. 104.
TM lb, VII, p. ui.
? lb. , p. 124.
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