Читать книгу The epistle of Othea to Hector; or, The boke of knyghthode - de Pisan Christine - Страница 5
Оглавление“Tres haulte flour, par le monde louee,
A tous plaisant et de dieu auouee,”
it proceeds,
“Et a vous tres noble prince excellant,
Dorliens duc loys, de grant renom,
Filz de Charles Roy quint de cellui nom,
Qui fors le roy ne congnoiscez greigneur,
Mon tres loue et redoubte seigneur,
Dumble vouloir moy, poure creature,
Femme ignorant, de petite estature,
Fille iadis philosophe et docteur,
Qui conseiller et humble seruiteur
Vostre pere fu, que dieu face grace,
Et iadis vint de Boulongne la grace,
Dont il fu ne, par le sien mandement,
Maistre Thomas de pizan, autrement
De Boulonge, fu dit et surnomme,
Qui sollempnel clerc estoit renomme.”
This is the dedication which appears, not only in some other MSS. but in the edition printed by Philippe Pigouchet at Paris, probably in 1490, under the title Les cent histoires de troye.[83] Of the other three manuscript copies in the British Museum, Royal MS. 14 E. ii. (f. 294) and 17 E. iv. (f. 272) have no dedication at all, while that in Harley MS. 219 (f. 106) appeals to a third patron:
“Prince excellent de haute renommee,
De qui grand vois par le mond est semee,
Tres noble en fais, sage, duit et apris
De touz les biens qui en bon sont compris,
Roy noble et haut chiualer conquerour,
Digne destre par vaillaunce Emperour,
A vous puissant, tres redoute seignour,
Qui dessur vous ne cognoise greignour,
Soit tres humble recommendacioun
Deuant mise de vray entencioun
De par moy que en sagesse non digne
Femme ignorant suy nommee Cristine,
Fille iadis philosophe et docteur,
Qui conseiller fu, humble seruiteur
Au Roy Charles quint, qui dieu face grace.”
The king who is thus addressed can be no other than the unfortunate Charles VI., although any hopes that he once excited had by this time been dispelled by his strange intermittent fits of insanity, which dated from 1392. Very similar terms were employed in the dedication to him by name of the “Chemin de long estude” in 1402:
“A vous, bon roy de France redoubtable,
Le VIe Charles du nom notable,
Que Dieux maintienge en joie et en sante,
Mon petit dit soit premier presente,
Tout ne soit il digne qu’en telz mains aille,
Mais bon vouloir comme bon fait me vaille.”
In this instance, however, Christine associated with him his uncles Berry and Burgundy and his brother Orleans, who during his incapacity divided the real power between them:
“Et puis a vous, haulz ducs magnifiez,
Dicelle fleur fais et ediffiez,
Dont l’esplendeur s’espant par toute terre,
Par quel honneur fait los a France a querre.”
In her presentation copies she was not wont to measure her language, and probably Scrope’s extravagant eulogy of the Duke of Berry was based upon what he found in his MS., although, instead of translating the dedication as it stood, he chose to embody it in his preface. On the other hand, Christine of course was in no way responsible for the statement that the duke lived for a hundred years (p. 3). How it originated is a mystery, for there is no doubt whatever that he died on 15th June, 1416, at the age of seventy-six.[84] Jean Bouchet indeed in his Annales d’Aquitaine,[85] although he records the date of his death correctly, states that he was ninety or thereabouts, but he gives no authority, and it is enough to say that Berry’s father King John II. was born in 1319, and his eldest brother Charles V. in 1337. It will be seen that Scrope represents him as a perfect paragon of chivalrous qualities, unrivalled in his time both in war and in council, as well as for deeds of piety. In more sober history, however, he by no means appears to such advantage. His cultured and sumptuous tastes, his splendid buildings and his library and other rich collections, have shed a certain lustre on his name; but, as he showed especially in his government of Languedoc, he was cruel, rapacious, and unprincipled, and in critical times his life was that of a selfish and prodigal voluptuary. For war he had neither talent nor zest; his real element appears to have been diplomacy, and, apart from his patronage of art and letters and his benefactions to the church, his chief claim to credit rests on his repeated attempts to mediate between the Burgundian and Orleanist factions. Scrope’s estimate of him is in striking contrast with that of modern historians, such as Raynal[86] and Martin, the latter of whom in recording his death writes, “Ce prince laissa une mémoire souillée entre toutes dans cette êpoque de souillures. Il joignait à bien d’autres vices le vice que la France pardonne le moins à ses chefs, le péché irremissible, la lâcheté.”[87]
To pass from the preface to the “Epistle of Othea” itself, there is no reason to suppose that the translator had received the training of a scholar; on the contrary, the probability is that, owing to a sickly youth and other drawbacks, his education had been more or less neglected. It is not even certain that he had been regularly taught French. From a curious passage interpolated by Trevisa in his translation of Higden’s “Polychronicon,” which was finished in 1387, it seems that the fashion was then already dying out among the class to which by birth he belonged,[88] and possibly therefore he learnt all he knew of the language while he was with his stepfather in France. Be that as it may, his rendering of Christine de Pisan’s French may claim on the whole to be fairly well done. The verse of his “textes” is too much of the doggrel type and his meaning is sometimes obscure, but as a rule he follows the original closely, while the orthography of the MS., though atrociously bad, is no worse than what we are accustomed to in the Paston Letters and elsewhere at the same period. Occasionally, as is only natural, he goes astray, though it is of course possible that the fault lay with the MS. from which he translated. In most cases the source of his errors is obvious. Thus he translates “ton bon cuer” (p. 5) by “all good hertys,” having evidently mistaken “ton” for “tou[t]”; and again “en quant fraisle vaissel est sa vie contenue” (p. 28) by “in how frele (sc. frail) a vessel his lyff is all naked” (toute nue)! Similarly “conscience pour soy” (p. 16) appears as “conscience for feyth” (foy); “ala querre les autres dieux” (p. 62) as “thanne went he forth [to seek] the tothir iio” (deux); “mais a nostre propos [la fable] veult dire” (ibid.) as “Mars to owre purpose seith”; and “gard toy de lagait (l’agait) de tes ennemis” (p. 73) as “kepe the (sc. thee) from the peple (la gent) of thyn ennemyes.” It is not so easy to understand the process by which the simple sentence “Vanite fist lange devenir deable” (p. 15) was transformed into “Vanite made avoyde degre to becum a fende,” whatever that may mean; or why in the story of Acis and Galatea (p. 65) “un iouuencel qui Acis estoit nommez” became “and he was dede” (sc. dead), though possibly in this case there was some confusion between “acis” and “occis.” But the strangest mistranslation is in the words “Averyse and covetise be iio sausmakers the which sesseth neuer to seye, ‘Bryng, Bryng’” (p. 105), where the French text has “sont ii. sancsues,” sanguisugæ, or leeches. The reference of course is to Proverbs xxx. 15, “The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, ‘Give, give’”; and, as stated in the note, “horseleeches” is in fact the rendering given in another translation of Christine’s work. Scrope’s “sausmakers” can hardly be anything but “sauce-makers,”[89] but it is not impossible that he coined the mongrel word “sanc-suckers,” which the scribe miscopied.
The second English translation of the “Épître d’Othéa” referred to above can be so little known that a brief account of it will not be superfluous. It exists only in the form of a small printed octavo in black-letter with the title Here foloweth the C. Hystoryes of Troye, and there is no doubt that it was taken from Pigouchet’s French edition of 1490,[90] or one of the reprints; in fact it copies the second title in French, merely omitting the imprint “à Paris.” Many of its rough woodcuts, one of which accompanies each “texte,” also come from the same source, being generally reversed, but others are independent and their subjects often have no connexion whatever with the text. In place of the dedication to the Duke of Orleans the translator gives a prologue of his own in ten seven-line stanzas, the first two of which are as follows:
“Boke, of thy rudenesse by consyderacion
Plunged in the walowes of abasshement,
For thy translatoure make excusacion
To all to whom thou shalt thy selfe present,
Besechynge them vpon the sentement
In the composed to set theyr regarde
And not on the speche cancred and frowarde.
“Shewe them that thy translatour hath the wryten,
Not to obtain thankes or remuneracions,
But to the entent to do the to be wryten
As well in Englande as in other nacyons.
And where mysordre in thy translation is,
Vnto the perceyuer with humble obeysaunce
Excuse thy reducer, blamyng his ygnoraunce.”
All the information which he gives about himself in this prologue is that, when he made his translation, he was “flowring in youth,” but after the “Finis” he has added, “Thus endeth the .C. Hystories of Troye, translated out of Frenche in to Englysshe by me. R.W.” This again is followed by the colophon, “Imprynted by me Robert Wyer, dwellyng in S. Martyns parysshe at Charyng Crosse at the sygne of S. John̄ Euangelist besyde the Duke of Suffolkes place”; and it is therefore highly probable that R. W. and Robert Wyer were identical, though the latter is not otherwise known except as a printer. A list of nearly a hundred books issued by him has been made up,[91] ranging in date from 1530 to 1556, and all those which, as in this instance, have the Duke of Suffolk’s name in the imprint must have been published after 1536, when the property referred to, which previously belonged to the Bishop of Norwich, passed into his possession. The date of the book therefore is about 1540–1550, though the translation may have been made some years before. For the sake of comparison with the earlier version of Stephen Scrope, one of the texts with its commentary is here given:
The.xxviii. Texte.
Loue and prayse Cadmus so excellente,
And his dyscyples holde thou in chyerte.
He gaygned the fountayne of the Serpente
With ryght great payne afore that it wolde be.
The.xxviii. Glose.
Cadmus was a moche noble man and founded Thebes, whiche cytie was greatly renomed. He set there a study & he hym selfe was moche profoundly lettered and of great science. And therfore sayth the fable that he daunted the serpent at the fountayne, that is to vnderstande the science and sages that alwayes springeth; the Serpent is noted for the payne and trauayle which it behoueth the student to daunte afore that he maye purchase scyence. And the fable sayth that he hym self became a serpent, which is to vnderstande he was a corrector and mayster of other. So wol Othea say that the good knight ought to loue and honour the clerkes lettered, which ben grounded in science. To this purpose sayeth Arystotle to Alexandre, “Honour thou scyence and fortyfie it by good maysters.”
The.xxviii. Allegorie.
Cadmus whiche daunted the Serpent at the fountayne, whiche the good knyght ought to loue, we may vnderstande the blyssed humanite of Jesu christ, which dompted the serpent and gaigned the fountayne, that is to say the lyfe of this world, from the which he passed afore with great payne and with great trauayle. Wherof he had perfyte victory whan he rose agayne the thyrd day, as sayth S. Thomas, “Tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.”
In conclusion it only remains to say a few words on the possible connexion of Stephen Scrope with two other works already mentioned, which, like his “Epistle of Othea” or “Boke of Knyghthode” and his “Sayings of the Philosophers,” were written for Sir John Fastolf or under his influence. One of them, the “Boke of Noblesse,” is preserved in a unique copy in the British Museum, Royal MS. 18 B. xxii., and was edited for the Roxburghe Club in 1860 by Mr. J. Gough Nichols. In the form in which it has come down to us, it was addressed to Edward IV. at the time of his invasion of France in 1475, professing to be “write and entitled to courage and comfort noble men in armes to be in perpetuite of remembraunce for here noble dedis, as right conuenient is soo to bee,” or, more precisely, for the purpose of inciting the English to recover by force of arms their lost foreign conquests. The contents were admirably summarized in the editor’s introduction, and all that need be said of them here is that, in addition to a highly interesting retrospect of English relations with France, they include a large amount of matter derived from a French treatise on the art of war, which is spoken of as the “Arbre de Batailles” and attributed to “Dame Cristyn.” Although the editor failed to identify the author, he pointed out that he must have been intimately associated with Fastolf and had access to his papers. Strictly speaking, Fastolf’s name is not specially prominent except in the marginal insertions and notes, where the writer refers to him as “myne autor” and gives several curious anecdotes as heard from his lips. The body of the MS. is clearly not autograph; but these additions, together with the title and colophon,[92] are in a different handwriting, and, although the editor seems to have been unaware of the fact, it is beyond question that of William Worcester, or Botoner, who was not only Fastolf’s servant and secretary, but is also known as an annalist and a diligent collector of matter on historical, topographical and other subjects.[93] The editor therefore dismissed his claims to the authorship of the work rather too hastily, for, as the final touches were certainly his, the only question is whether he was also responsible for the whole of it from its inception. From the limit of date of the events mentioned there is some reason to believe that it was originally composed within Fastolf’s lifetime and was only revised and enlarged in 1475 for a special occasion; and its date may perhaps be fixed still more exactly, since there is an allusion (p. 42) to “another gret armee and voiage fordone for defaut and lak of spedy payment this yere of Crist Mlccccli.” Apart from the final additions there is evidence to connect Worcester with it in a passage of the prologue to a series of documents relating to the wars in France which were collected by him,[94] mainly no doubt from materials that belonged to Fastolf, and which may be regarded as pièces justificatives to the “Boke of Noblesse.” This collection also appears to have been designed for Edward IV., but the original prologue was awkwardly recast, as we now have it, after Worcester’s death by his son for dedication to Richard III. The passage in it referred to, for which he is responsible, is as follows:
“And I, as moost symple of reasone, youre righte humble legemane, cannot atteyne to understond the reasons and bokes that many wise philosophurs of gret auctorite have writtene upone this vertue of Force, but that my pore fadyr, William Worcestre... toke upone hym to write in this mater and compiled this boke to the most highe and gretly redoubted kyng, your most nobille brodyr and predecessoure, shewyng after his symple connyng, after the seyng of the masters of philosophie, as Renatus Vegesius in his Boke of Batayles, also Julius Frontinus in his Boke of Knyghtly Laboures, callid in Greke Stratagematon, a new auctoure callid The Tree of Batayles.”
Obviously this cannot apply to the purely historical documents of which the collection itself consists. It is, however, strongly suggestive of the “Boke of Noblesse,” to which they are, as it were, an appendix, and coupled with the evidence of the handwriting of the additions, it leaves little room for doubt that William Worcester was its author. At the same time, it is by no means unlikely that Stephen Scrope also had a hand in it. If indeed it was wholly compiled in 1475, this is impossible, since he died in 1472.[95] Assuming, however, for the reason given above, that it dates from 1451, or thereabouts, he was residing at the time with Fastolf and was no doubt on familiar terms with Worcester. As already remarked, a prominent feature of the work is the number of extracts translated from the so-called “Arbre de Batailles” of “Dame Cristyn.” This, however, was not, as the editor supposed, Honoré Bonet’s treatise of that name[96] assigned to a wrong author, but Christine de Pisan’s “Faits d’armes et de chevalerie” under a wrong title.[97] Whether Worcester was capable of making translations from it as early as 1451 is somewhat doubtful; for he seems to have only begun to learn French about August, 1458,[98] little more than a year before Fastolf’s death. Scrope on the contrary had before this translated two French works for the latter, one of them being by the same Christine, and it is therefore in this part of the “Boke of Noblesse,” if at all, that he may possibly have collaborated.
Unlike the last-named work, the anonymous English version of Cicero’s “De Senectute” which Caxton printed in 1481 has already been attributed to William Worcester,[99] the ground of this assumption being an entry made in his “Itinerarium,”[100] that on 10th August, 1473, he presented to Bishop Waynflete at Esher a translation which he had made of this treatise, but got nothing in return. Apart from this statement there is no more reason for attributing Caxton’s text to Worcester than to Scrope. The language is better than might have been expected from either of them, but as no MS. copy exists, we cannot tell to what extent it was edited by Caxton. In the preface, as may be seen above (p. xxx.), it is said that the translation was made from the French of Laurence de Premierfait by Sir John Fastolf’s “ordenaunce and desyre.” As there is no reason to doubt this, its date cannot be later than 1459, so that, if Worcester was the translator, he kept it at least thirteen years before he offered it to Waynflete. This does not seem very likely, and his translation was therefore possibly a different one altogether, completed shortly before the occasion when the bishop so disappointed him by his cold acceptance of it. The earlier version in that case was almost certainly by Scrope; but, where so much is left to conjecture, the most that can be said is that the evidence upon which it has hitherto been assigned to Worcester is not wholly conclusive.
G. F. W.
