CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 679ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIESTRANSLATIONS OF OVID
In England classical mythology was widely used. Ovid was the most popular
source, and the Metamorphoses were known to educated people in Latin, French,
or English versions. The English version by Arthur Golding (1567), preeminent
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, was used by Shakespeare. Although
it was clear and faithful to the text of Ovid, its fourteen-syllable lines hardly did
justice to Ovid's swift-moving energy. The translation of George Sandys (1626)
largely took its place, and was in part successful because of the tighter rhythm
of its ten-syllable heroic couplets. Here are the opening two lines of the poem
in Golding's version, then in Sandys':
¥
(G) Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge, I purpose to entreate;
Ye gods vouchsafe (for you are they that wrought this wondrous feate)....
(S) Of bodies chang'd to other shapes I sing.
Assist you gods (from you these changes spring)....Sandys (1578-1644) worked on his translation during the voyage from En-
gland to Virginia, where he was treasurer of the Virginia Company, and he com-
pleted it during his time in Jamestown. He probably returned to England in 1626
to see to its publication. Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished is therefore the first verse
work in English (other than a ballad, Good Newes from Virginia, about the
vengeance taken by the settlers for the Indian massacre of 1622) completed in
America. Its importance was assured by the second edition, published at Ox-
ford in 1632, which included an allegorical commentary and a full-page wood-
cut to illustrate each of the fifteen books.^6 The commentary interpreted the leg-
ends in moralizing or Christian terms, but Sandys excelled his predecessors in
the breadth of his learning and the incisiveness of his prose. Here are some of
his comments on the transformation of Arachne (for her story, see pp. 164-166):¥
These personages, with the places, being woven to the life by Arachne, she in-
closeth the web with a traile of Ivy; well suting with the wanton argument and
her owne ambition. Worne in garlands at lascivious meetings; and climing as
ambitious men, to compassé their owne ends with the ruin of their supporters.
Minerva tears in peeces what envy could not but commend, because it published
the vices of great ones; and beats her with the shuttle to chastise her presump-
tion: who not induring the indignity hangs her selfe; and is by the Goddesse
converted into a Spider: that she might still retain the art which she had taught
her, but toile without profit. For uselesse and worthlesse labors are expressed
by the spiders web: by which the Psalmist presents the infirmity of man, and
vanity of his actions.