As Dryden drew near the end of the Dedication to his translation of
the Aeneid he listed the "Helps" he had had in "this
Undertaking." His first acknowledgment was to the
late Earl of
Lauderdail [Richard Maitland, fourth Earl],
[who] sent me over his new Translation of the
Æneis;
which
he had ended before I ingag'd in the same Design. Neither did I then intend
it: But some Proposals being afterwards made me by my Bookseller, I
desire'd his Lordship's leave, that I might accept them, which he freely
granted; and I have his Letter yet to shew, for that permission. He resolv'd
to have Printed his Work; which he might have done two Years before I
cou'd Publish mine; and had perform'd it, if Death had not prevented him.
But having his Manuscript in my hands, I consulted it as often as I doubted
of my Author's sense. For no Man understood
Virgil better
than
that Learned Noble Man. His Friends, I hear, have yet another, and more
Correct Copy of that Translation by them: which had they pleas'd to have
given the Publick, the Judges must have been convinc'd, that I have not
flatter'd him.
[1]
This is the by far the most extended statement of debt in the
Virgil on Dryden's part, and it has given rise to no little
controversy as to the full measure of that debt. Lauderdale's translation was
published posthumously in late 1708 or early 1709 with a second edition
appearing some time between 1715 and 1718.
[2] The editor of this second edition
zealously
marked lines and passages with double marks of quotation to point to
Dryden's borrowings
in toto for his
Aeneid and
with
single marks of quotation to signal lesser depredations. What this
anonymous editor did not know was that the Earl had made quite free with
some early translations of parts of the
Aeneid which Dryden
had
published in
Sylvae (1685), i.e. the episodes of Nisus and
Euryalus from Books V and IX, of Mezentius and Lausus from Book X,
and of Venus and Vulcan in Book VIII. Students of Dryden's work have
both defended and condemned him for his borrowings
from Lauderdale; more recently attempts have been made to show that
Lauderdale was the borrower, not Dryden. The question is more than an
Alphonse-Gaston matter of precedence, for the borrowings are so very
extensive that even the complacence in these matters of
late-seventeenth-century and early-eighteenth-century men of letters would
be disturbed.
Professor Helene Maxwell Hooker stated, a number of years ago, that
comparison of Dryden's and Lauderdale's translations of the
Georgics "clearly establishes the fact that Lauderdale sent
over
not only his Aeneis [she had just quoted Dryden's Dedication
on this]; he also sent over his Georgics. Among all the
English
versions represented in Dryden's Georgics, Lauderdale is
first,
leading [Thomas] May by a very slight margin."[3] Mrs. Hooker calculated Dryden's
debt to
be "a total of 241 rhyme words—Book I, 110; Book II, 25; Book III,
50;
and Book IV, 56. Dryden uses 5 identical lines, all in Book I. In addition
there are 42 questionable lines—2 in Book I; 7 in Book II; 10 in
Book
III; and 23 in Book IV. In company with Thomas May, Lauderdale served
very much as a skeleton for the rhyme scheme of his friend's translation"
(p. 296). L. Proudfoot, in his Dryden's "Aeneid" and Its Seventeenth
Century Predecessors
(1960), bluntly remarks that "there is simply no defence [for Dryden]
against a charge of plagiarism from Lauderdale. It must have been in the
consciousness of this that Dryden penned his Acknowledgment; but it
remains inadequate. . . . Not all that can be written about the difference
between literary morality in Dryden's day and our own can conceal the fact
that Dryden tried to bluff."[4] Of the
forty lines that Dryden took over "either verbatim or nearly so" in his
translation of the fourth Book of the Aeneid Proudfoot assigns
twenty-one to Lauderdale (pp. 265 and 266).
Most recently, Professor Margaret P. Boddy has attempted to defend
Dryden by suggesting that he had completed his translation of the
Georgics
and of the first eight Books of the
Aeneid by May 26, 1695,
one year earlier than the usually accepted date. By extension of a highly
conjectural argument, Dryden is made out to have finished
Georgics I-III and
Aeneid I-IV in the first five
months of 1694. Lauderdale, concludes Professor Boddy, "
could
have
been [my italics] one of the friends to whom Dryden transmitted
various parts of his translation as he finished them," and since it is known
that Lauderdale saw the "arguments in prose" prefixed to each
Georgic, Professor Boddy also concludes that he "certainly
must
have seen the text of the
Georgics." Even though it is known
that Addison provided the arguments in prose, arguments which would not
necessarily have been yet added to the text of Dryden's
Georgics, Professor Boddy finds it "unlikely that the copying
is the other way round," i.e. that Dryden copied from Lauderdale.
[5] In a later article
Professor Boddy shows that Lauderdale probably had a manuscript version
of Dryden's translations of those parts of the
Aeneid he
published in
Sylvae (1685) and goes on to state that "the
revisions in both late manuscripts [of Lauderdale's
Aeneid]
indicate that Lauderdale revised with a manuscript of Dryden's translation
before him, being probably one of the gentlemen of taste to whom Dryden
sent copies of his translation book by book as he finished them." At this
point Professor Boddy footnotes a reference to her earlier article in support
of her statement that "Lauderdale had seen a manuscript of Dryden's
Georgics." And then she makes what is surely another
unwarranted assumption when she writes, "Moreover, while the possession
of a manuscript of translations of Virgil by Dryden printed in the 1685
Sylvae need not mean that Lauderdale saw the later
manuscripts, it certainly helps to establish a pattern."
[6] In
anticipation of later discussion it will be well to point out that Lauderdale
was in France when he may be presumed to have "sent over" (the words
are Dryden's) the translation Dryden saw. While there are seven known
extant manuscripts and evidence of the existence of two others containing
various parts of his translation,
[7]
there are none of Dryden's translation. Lauderdale, in France, with little
hope of publishing his translation, could afford to send a manuscript over
to England; after all he had more. Dryden, in England, permitted some of
his friends to see his manuscript and transcriptions
[8] made from it; whether he would
take the
chance of sending a manuscript to Lauderdale in France is another
matter.
What is obviously needed in the vexed question of who borrowed
(plagiarized?) from whom is a chronology of events, in so far as one can
be reconstructed now. The relevant dates are these:
- c. 1682 "The Lord Maitland . . . who began his excellent
Translation of Virgil" is associated with Dryden in a literary academy
begun by the Earl of Roscommon.[9]
One should note that the translation is "of Virgil," not of the
Aeneid alone. And that it is said to have begun as early as
1682.
- 1684 Dryden translates Virgil's fourth and ninth
Eclogues for Miscellany Poems; the other eight
Eclogues were translated by a number of his friends and
acquaintances, but Lauderdale is not among them, possibly because of
political difficulties (see DNB).
- 1685 Sylvae contains part of the fourth
Georgic, translated by "an unknown Hand," which had been
attributed to Thomas Creech until Professor Hooker pointed out that the
passage, the Orpheus and Eurydice episode, appears as lines 491-637 of
Lauderdale's translation (first edition). Professor Boddy believes the
translation is Creech's and that Lauderdale simply took it over as he had
passages from earlier translations of passages from the
Aeneid
by Dryden and John Stafford.[10] This
collection also includes Dryden's translations of those parts of the
Aeneid, listed above, from which Lauderdale borrowed
extensively.
- 1689 Lauderdale translates Book VI of the
Aeneid.[11]
- 1689 or 90 Lauderdale follows James II to France.[12]
- 1690 Lauderdale translates Books VIII and IV.
- 1691 Lauderdale translates Books XII, XI, and IX.
- 1692 Lauderdale translates Books X, II, III, and V and sells his
collection of MSS.[13] This date is of
importance in that Professor Boddy (PQ, [1963], 269-270)
asserts that Dryden's request for Lauderdale's "decorations," mentioned in
a letter dated April 1695 by both Edmond Malone and Charles Ward, is for
the 102 brass cuts (plates) used by John Ogilby in his Virgil
and
which she conjectures came into Lauderdale's hands. Tonson paid
somebody £200 for these plates. What is more, Lauderdale sold his
collection of drawings and engravings in 1690 (Boddy, PQ,
[1963], 270). Since the Earl needed money all this time, what more natural
than that he would have sold the 102 plates in this 1690 sale, if not in the
1692 sale of MSS? By April 1695, a date which Professor Boddy would put
back a year, the Earl may
have already died; he died in Paris in 1695, but no month or day date is
known.[14]
- 1693 Lauderdale translates Books I and VII.
- Dec. 12, 1693 Dryden writes, "I have undertaken to translate all
Virgil: & as an Essay, have already paraphrased, the third Georgique,
as an Example; it will be published in Tonsons next Miscellanyes, in Hilary
terme."[15]
- July, 1694 The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694, Being
the Fourth Part of Miscellany Poems contains Dryden's version of
the
third Georgic and Lauderdale's translation of the first
Georgic.
- April, 1695 Dryden translates the fourth Book of the
Aeneid. As he is translating the works in order, this means
that
the Eclogues and Georgics and the first three
Books
of the Aeneid are complete.
- 1695 Lauderdale dies in Paris; only the year date is
known.
In 1684 Dryden had translated the fourth and ninth
Eclogues; Lauderdale, whose translation of "Virgil" is said
to
have been begun by 1682, would have translated the Eclogues
first, then the Georgics, and finally the Aeneid,
as
others had before (notably John Ogilby) and as others were to do later
(notably John Dryden). Examination of the fourth Eclogue in
the two versions shows that they coincide in the rhyme words for ten
couplets, "coincide" including what I consider to be such parallels as
"shows/foregoes" in the one as against "grow/forego" in the other.
However, each or both could have got the rhyme words for seven of these
ten couplets from any one of four predecessors. One remains with the
rhyme words for three couplets and two possible slight verbal
parallels—both have "cluster'd Grapes," and where Dryden has
"nauseous Qualms" Lauderdale has "tedious Qualms."[16] Similarities in the ninth
Eclogue are
confined to rhyme words for four couplets and one verbal
similarity—where Lauderdale has "dodder'd Beech" Dryden has
"dodder'd Oak," a sufficiently unusual word, the first use of which the
OED tentatively attributes to Dryden. There the word is
defined
as a "word conventionally used (?after Dryden) as an attribute of old oaks
(rarely other trees); app. originally meaning: Having lost the top or
branches, esp. through age and decay; hence, remaining as a decayed
stump." Dryden uses the word in the Aeneid (II. 701-702) to
describe an old laurel tree. One cannot believe that both Dryden and
Lauderdale came independently upon the word—or coined
it—for the
same passage in Virgil.
The amount and kind of Dryden's borrowings from his fellow
translators in the 1684 translation of the Eclogues compared
to
Lauderdale's borrowings
from the volume reveal quite clearly how much more Dryden depends on
his predecessors than does Lauderdale. (I have tabulated these in a yet
unpublished article.) For one thing, Dryden borrows more words, phrases,
and lines than Lauderdale, who contents himself, with very rare exceptions,
with rhyme words. Take, for example, the well-known
Fortunatus
senex passage in the first
Eclogue, translated by John
Caryll in the 1684 volume and running to fifteen lines in that translation.
Lauderdale borrows rhyme words for two couplets—nothing more.
Compare, however, Dryden's possible borrowings, indicated by my italics
in his version:
O Fortunate Old Man! whose Farm remains
For you sufficient, and requites your pains,
Tho' Rushes overspread the Neighb'ring Plains.
Tho' here the Marshy Grounds approach your Fields,
And there the Soyl a stony Harvest Yields.
Your teeming Ewes shall no strange
Meadows
try,
Nor fear a Rott from tainted
Company.
Behold yon bord'ring Fence of Sallow Trees
Is fraught with Flow'rs, the Flow'rs are fraught
with
Bees:
The buisie Bees with a soft murm'ring Strain
Invite to gentle sleep the lab'ring Swain.
While from the Neighb'ring Rock, with Rural
Songs,
The Pruner's Voice the pleasing Dream prolongs;
Stock-Doves and Turtles tell their Am'rous pain,
And from the lofty Elms of Love complain.
This is typical of Dryden's practice throughout the
Eclogues.
What is more, his reliance on remoter predecessors in the translation of the
Eclogues is consistently greater than Lauderdale's. (My
unpublished tabulation). All of which is to suggest that given a body of
translation—of the
Eclogues—available to
Dryden and to
Lauderdale, the former helped himself much more plentifully than the
latter, despite (or was it because of?) his association in one of these
translations, the joint effort of the 1684 volume. Thus, when one is
confronted with the many parallels in Dryden's and Lauderdale's versions
of the
Eclogues, the natural supposition is that the borrower
was
Dryden, since he at least saw Lauderdale's manuscript translation of the
Aeneid, while there is absolutely no evidence that Lauderdale
ever saw any part of Dryden's final manuscript. The extent of the debt,
discounting rhymes, lines, and words and phrases available to Dryden from
the
other predecessors, is the rhyme words for forty-five couplets, six nearly
identical lines, and nineteen words or phrases. Possibly this may seem too
little to matter, but when it is added to Dryden's considerable debt to his
other predecessors, and he borrowed from every one of them, the total may
give rise to questions of literary morality and, more importantly, of
Dryden's artistry.
It may be recalled that the editor of the second edition of
Lauderdale's Virgil used double and single marks of quotation
to point out Dryden's indebtedness to this version. And it should also be
remembered that L. Proudfoot (1960) analyzed Book IV of the
Aeneid to show to what extent Dryden
used his predecessors' versions. Despite, or possibly because of, these two
attempts to gauge the exact degree of indebtedness, I have myself analyzed
the translations of Book IV of the
Aeneid by Dryden and by
Lauderdale in the attempt to show that the debt is greater than has hitherto
been realized. The editor of the second edition of Lauderdale's
Virgil was not interested in rhyme words particularly, and
Proudfoot was not sufficiently rigorous in the matter of half-rhymes or
verbal similarities. First of all, it must be said that Dryden obviously had
had access to the manuscript which provided the text for the second edition
of Lauderdale's translation, for in twenty-two of twenty-five lines where
Lauderdale revised the first edition Dryden is indebted to or follows (or
coincides with, although the number is too great for coincidence) the second
edition. For example, line 783 in Dryden's version of Book IV reads,
"Then shall I seek alone the Churlish Crew";
Lauderdale's first edition reads, "Shall I alone go with some jocund Crew"
(l. 597); whereas his second edition reads, "Shall I alone go with the
churlish Crew" (l. 628).
[17] Proudfoot,
it should be observed, does not comment on this similarity. The three
places where Dryden seems to favor the first edition are at his lines 399,
864, and 968 where he has "
Ascanius," "the," and "calling,"
closer to the first edition's "
Ascanius," "the," and "call'd" as
opposed to the second edition's "Son
Iulus'," "his" and
"invok'd." But these may be coincidences, the first being of very little
consequence indeed and all being cancelled by the significant similarities
between Dryden and Lauderdale's second edition. As one more example,
compare the last lines of the fourth book in each version. Lauderdale 1 has,
By Heaven's Command I bring.
This Present sacred to th' infernal King:
I free from Flesh, then cut her yellow Hair,
Heat slipt away, her Life dissolv'd in Air.
Lauderdale 2 reads,
I set thee free from Flesh, devote thee to the Dead:
This Off'ring to the infernal King I bear:
She said, and strait she cut the yellow Hair;
Heat slip'd away, her Life dissolv'd in Air.
And Dryden has,
And said, I thus devote thee to the dead.
This Off'ring to th' Infernal Gods I bear:
Thus while she spoke, she cut the fatal Hair;
The strugling sould was loos'd, and Life dissolv'd in Air.
Unless one wishes to believe that the unknown editor of Lauderdale 2
plagiarized from Dryden's version in order to make Dryden's debt to
Lauderdale
seem greater, the only tenable conclusion is that Dryden helped himself
from Lauderdale 2.
[18] In the following
table I list only the similarities
not noted by Proudfoot.
Dryden
is not quoted when his version is identical to lauderdale 2. Lauderdale 2 is
first in the table:
17 resolv'd/22 27 my former Flame/32
[19] 40-41 Flame/came/52-53
Name/Flame 48
hems/55 hemm'd 48-49 Hand/Land/58-59 Land/Sand 52 propitious
Heav'n/62 58 the favour of the Gods implore/66 Implore the Favour of the
Pow'rs above 60-61 delays/Seas/68-69 way/Stay 63 shatter'd/71 81
distracted/97 83 Wounded at random/96 Wounds with a random Shaft 88
her Tyrian Wealth display'd/103 Displays her
Tyrian Wealth
92
When Day declines
[20]/107 101
Likeness/122 104 Exercise (noun)/124 (verb) 117 lasting Peace/140 118
possess/141 possess'd 124 Then Venus/148 146-147 Fright/Night/172-173
Flight/Night
[21] 153 Consents/180
152-153 smiles/Wiles/180-181 166-167 Chains/sustains/198-199
restrains/sustains
[22] 169 young
Ascanius/200 178 his Shafts sound/214 His Quiver sounds 191 Torrents/238
198-199 foreshew/Woe/245-246 arose/woes 202 specious/249 215-216
Eyes/spies/266-267 Cries/Eyes
[22] 217 lofty/268 236-237
crown'd/wound/292-293 crown'd/Ground
[23] 236 Enrich/293 240-242
Line/shine/Wine/298-299 Wine/divine 242 pour/298 pouring 252 admits [to
her bed]/313 260 better Fame/325 263-264 waits/Fates/332-333 Fate/relate
265-266 down/Son/334-335 won/Son
[24] 277 design of lingring/344 Designs
281-283 tries/flies/Skies/352-353 flies/Skies
[25] 286-287 fright/Light/358-359
sight/Light
[26] 315 hath sent me
down/394 Has sent me down 341-342 obey'd/betray'd/423-424 say/obey
353 Perfidious Man/439 355 base/441 356 plighted/444 361-362 It would
not grieve me if you were not bound/To foreign Kingdoms, unknown
Coasts to sound./449-450 False, as you are, suppose you were not
bound/To Lands unknown, and foreign Coasts to sound
[27] 365-366 I, by these Tears and your
Right
Hand implore/(Since hopeless I can boast
of nothing more/455-456 By this right hand (Since I have nothing more/To
challenge but the Faith you gave before 367 Nuptial/458 368-369 if in your
Eyes/
Dido was ever fair/459-460 If ever
Dido . . .
,/Were pleasing in your Eyes
[28]
382-383 Inmoveable his Eyes he held,/By
Jove's
command/480-481 unmov'd he holds his Eyes,/By
Jove's
Command 414-415 bright/fright/512-513 bright/Sight 419 Surrey'd/520
420-421 scorn/born/522-523 forsworn/Goddess-born 430-431
Shore/bore/536-537 more/Shore 426-427 pain/vain/531-532 complain/vain
431 Fool that I was/540 438-439 detain,/. . . seek Kingdoms
through/548-549 detain;/Go seek thy promis'd Kingdom through the
Main
[29] 447 abruptly/562 417
shuns/563 506 justling
[30]/639 506-507
rend/bend/640-641 bend/rend
[31] 508
o'erspreads the Ground/642 they sprea'd the Ground 514-515
Pain/vain/651-652 Pains/remains 533-534 afright/Night/673-674 hight/Night
539 o'er the Stage/686 565-566 Hearts/Arts/710-711 part/Art 567 expos'd
to Air/713 expos'd in Air 568 a lofty
Pile/713 585-586 spread/Bed/733-735 Deed/spread/Bed 587-588
round/Sound/736-738 around/unbound/Ground 590 thrice invokes/738
591-592 name/Fame/739-740 proclaims/Names 600-601 bare/Star/751-752
bare/Hair 600 girt/752
[32] 601
conscious/754 622-623 receiv'd-reliev'd/799-780 reliev'd/receiv'd 628-629
churlish Crew/pursue/783-784 636-637 Air/care/795-796 Despair/Air 641
resolv'd/801 643-645 appears/Hairs/Ears/803-805 appears/wears/Ears 643
youthful Mein/804 649-651 Pow'r/o'er/Shore/814-815 o'er/Shore 654-655
Night/fright/820-821 flight/Night 656 rouz'd/824 656-657 Away/ . . . stand
to Sea/824-826 delay/weigh/stand to Sea 660-661 art/impart/829-830
art/heart 662-663 afford/his flaming Sword/833-834 his flaming
Sword/Cord
[33] 684-685 gave your
Throne/own 855-856 gave . . . my Throne/shown
[34] 687 feeble/860 688 his scatter'd
Limbs/862 691 doubtful/865 697 nuptial/873 702-703 ordain'd/land/878-879
ordain . . ./commands/Lands 708-709 Peace/possess/888-889 cease/Peace
719 With Fire and Sword/902 726-727 said/dead/907-908 732-733
Stygian Jove/remove/915-916
Stygian
Jove/Love
740 mounts the Pile/928 mounts the Fun'ral Pile 758-759
spy'd/dy'd/950-951 side/dy'd 762 dismal/957 778 involing/978 invoke 784
mounts the Pile/984 793-795 sent
Iris down/To free her Body
from the Bonds of Life,/Strife/995-996 Sent
Iris down, to
free
her from the Strife/Life
Proudfoot concludes that of forty lines of Aeneid IV in
Dryden's version, which agree to the extent of at least four-fifths in any
given line, twenty-one agree with Lauderdale (pp. 265-266). Earlier,
Proudfoot had written that Lauderdale's version of Virgil "is not only
readable itself, but . . . it was read by the greatest poet of his day and used
by him as a standard and store of material for his own attempt" (p. 179).
The editor of L2 marks twelve lines with double quotes and 46 with single
quotes.[35] Dryden could, then, have
got the rhyme-words for one hundred and twenty-two of his couplets from
L2,
as well as forty-eight phrases (i.e. two or more words together) and
forty-five words. This is an impressive total, and when one counts the
actual number of lines in which these various borrowings or coincidences
or parallels occur, they total 315 of the 1009 lines of Dryden's version of
the fourth Book. If one adds to this the number of couplets (69) for which
Dryden could have gone to one of his seventeenth-century predecessors
other than Lauderdale,
according to Proudfoot's analysis, the
total number of couplets becomes 191 and the total number of lines
becomes 454.
Proudfoot is not concerned, it is well to repeat, to explore Dryden's
possible indebtedness to his predecessors for single words, except in very
rare instances. Nor have I done so either, except for L2, but I have checked
the predecessors independently and have discovered that Proudfoot
sometimes overlooks additional possibilities of indebtedness on Dryden's
part. That Dryden, already up to his neck in debt for rhyme-words, might
have derived those for one more couplet from the 1654 Ogilby translation,
i.e., suspect/erect (ll. 137-138) from Ogilby's reflect/erect (p. 265) is of
almost no interest whatsoever. That Proudfoot should have overlooked the
following is another matter entirely. Dryden's version is first, then Sidney
Godolphin's part of The Passion of Dido for Aeneas (1658):
Propitious Heav'n, and gracious Juno, lead
This wand'ring Navy to your needful Aid (62-63)
Propitious Heaven it seems, and Juno ledd
These Trojans heere, with soe desir'd an aid (51-52)
Impatiently he views the feeble Prey,
Wishing some Nobler Beast to cross his way (227-228)
Meantime, the gath'ring Clouds obscure the Skies (231)
he wishes some incensed Bore his praye
or Lyon from the hill would crosse his waye
Meanwhile the gathering cloudes obscure the Pole (167-169)
(At ll. 235-236 Dryden has to Coverts ride/side and at 171-172 Godolphin
has divide/to coverts Ride).
Base and ungrateful, cou'd you hope to fly,
And undiscover'd scape a Lover's Eye!
Nor cou'd my Kindness your Compassion move,
Nor plighted Vows, nor dearer bands of Love! (441-444)
Could thy dissembling hart consent to flye
this hated Land, with cruell secresye
Perfidious man, canst thou soe soone remove
the Bondes of vows, and dearer bondes of Love? (307-310)
Look, Anna, look; the Trojans crowd to
Sea,
They spread their Canvass, and their Anchors weigh. (601-602)
Anna she sayes, thou seest the peopled seas
the Phrigeans now their fatall Anchors waye (435-436)[36]
Proudfoot fails to note Dryden's almost verbatim borrowing of a
couplet from Edmund Waller's part of The Passion of Dido for
Aeneas (1658). Dryden has "Witness, ye Gods, and those my better
part,/How loth I am to try this impious Art" (710-711); Waller has,
"Witness, ye Gods! and thou my dearest part!/How loath I am to tempt this
guilty art" (51-52). Compare also the rhyme words; Dryden's version is
first: Dome/Tomb (667-668), tomb/come (27-28); above/Love (694-695),
prove/love (41-42); Vest/Guest (714-715), guest/dressed (55-56). Proudfoot
quotes a couplet from John Vicars's translation (1632) as a possible source
for Dryden's lines 188-189 and remarks, "I am not fully satisfied, from the
evidence of Book VI, and from such further comparisons as I have been
able to make, that Dryden consulted Vicars at all, but I think it likely" (p.
33). He remarks similarities in rhyme words in four more couplets, and that
is all. There are, however, thirteen more of Dryden's couplets
which may owe their rhyme words to Vicars's version.[37] What is more, although I have not
thought
it necessary to carry my analysis to verbal similarities, there are some
between the two versions. According to Proudfoot, Dryden's "debts" to
Robert Stapylton's translation of Book IV (1632) "are small" (p. 125).
However small the debts may be, they should be increased to the slight
possible extent of the rhyme words for five couplets.[38] Proudfoot has very little to say
about Sir
Robert Howard's version of the fourth book, published in his
Poems (1660). He suggests that Howard "appears to have
been
consulted by Dryden" (p. 156) and finds that Dryden is indebted to him for
one line (p. 266), hardly a significant number. But he says nothing about
the rhyme-words for twenty couplets (actually sixteen couplets and four
triplets) in which Dryden coincides with Howard.[39]
To recapitulate, then. Dryden could have got the rhyme-words for
122 of his couplets from Lauderdale's second edition, as well as 48 phrases
and 45 words, so that the total number of lines affected would be 315.
Proudfoot's analysis adds another 69 couplets, which brings the total
number of couplets to 191 and the number of lines to 454. Add to this the
rhyme-words for 48 more couplets (actually 43 couplets and 5 triplets) and
the number of lines swells to 555, well over half the 1009 lines in Dryden's
version. And this is without any attempt to trace indebtedness as to word
or phrase in any predecessor other than Lauderdale.
Proudfoot should have a penultimate word. "But for Heaven's sake,"
he exclaims, "do not let us conclude that he [Dryden] was saving time or
work. The perpetual consultation and weighing of texts described by Bottkol
and documented by Miss Hooker and myself is unimaginably toilsome and
slow." He thereupon undertakes to translate a familiar text faster and with
less labor than anybody following Dryden's method. And he concludes "that
Dryden's procedure is intelligible only if we presume that he was seeking
a definitive version, constantly embodying in his own work what he thought
had been well done, and constantly measuring himself against the best
version he could find of any given version" (p. 267). Almost surely so, but
with some qualification: Dryden had available to him a composite
framework of line beginnings, rhyme-words by the hundreds, and a number
of words and phrases upon which to build his own version. Only by
analysis such as has been attempted here can the extent of
that framework be known and the ensuing comparison of that framework
with the completed edifice be made.