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A Note on This Edition

Sidney’s Arcadia is a complex mixture of prose and verse told in language that uses the full resources of rhetoric, figures of speech, metaphors, and balanced words and phrases. As such it has become like an old picture whose beauty is hidden by layers of grime. It has grown dim to our eyes. It needs restoration. But the Arcadia is also a work of genius. One hesitates to touch a syllable, to change a word, to alter the syntax of a sentence so as not to disturb some hidden beauty or lost meaning. Twentieth-century editors have modernized punctuation and spelling for Shakespeare and even the King James Bible. Arcadia needs such touching up, and more. There are so many places, from the first page on, where you cannot read without re-reading, where the sense is lost, or all seems dark. Trying to recompose sentences into modern English, one cannot help thinking how much of the Arcadia has simply never been read.

Part of the problem is that Sidney conveyed ideas, but not necessarily in sentences as we know them. Today most English sentences convey a single idea. Sidney wrote rapidly and at length, with little or no punctuation, often signaling the beginning of a new train of thought with But. In his letters (there are no manuscripts of Arcadia in his own hand) he often wrote the word as B/. To add to the confusion, the word often means nothing more than “and.” Quotation marks were unknown until the eighteenth century. Hence Sidney often starts a quote with a word or two and then “said he” before continuing. It gets annoying.

Another problem is that Sidney also overuses passive constructions and weak verbs like “to be” and “to have” in all their forms. He made frequent use of litotes, a double negative, as in the phrase “being a man of no few words.” Far too often he uses the wordy phrase “as it were” to signal a metaphor. Modifiers dangle. Tenses shift. Some verbs have no subjects. And all the while participles extend the Arcadia’s lengthy prose periods. In the first sentence of Book 1, for example, the sun is running while Strephon is viewing and casting his eyes and setting down in his countenance what he would say. He remembers the nourishing beauty of Urania and worries about his languishing remembrance of her. Sidney sentences often start with a pronoun or proper name followed by a participial phrase, as in “There she sat, vouchsafing my cloak (then most gorgeous) under her” before going on to designate a hill or slope as a “rising of the ground.” These constructions occur because Sidney used the –ing form for continuous action verbs and also to form adjectives and nouns. The style was typical for mid-sixteenth century England, when Thomas Wilson in his Art of Rhetoric (1553) could call a conclusion a “lapping up.”

Contemporary versions of Shakespeare are filled with subtle changes to help actors and audiences. To take one example, Al Pacino, who plays Shylock in the 2004 film version of The Merchant of Venice, regularly substitutes modern English for Shakespeare’s words. He says “informed your grace” for “possessed your grace,” “human flesh” for “carrion flesh,” “by a rat” for “with a rat,” “master of passion” for “mistress of passion,” “this losing suit” for “a losing suit.” Sidney’s Arcadia deserves as much, and probably even more, as in this passage on the good government of King Euarchus (whose name means good ruler, as something euphonius has a pleasing sound):

And therefore, where most Princes (seduced by flatterie to builde upon false grounds of government) make themselves (as it were) an other thing from the people; and so count it gaine what they get from them: and (as if it were two counter-ballances, that their estate goes hiest when the people goes lowest) by a fallacie of argument thinking themselves most Kinges, when the subiect is most basely subiected: He contrariwise, vertuouslie and wisely acknowledging, that he with his people made all but one politike bodie, whereof himselfe was the head; even so cared for them, as he would for his owne limmes: never restrayning their libertie, without it stretched to licenciousnes, nor pulling from them their goods, which they found were not imployed to the purchase of a greater good: but in all his actions shewing a delight in their wellfare, brought that to passe, that while by force he tooke nothing, by their love he had all.

Our version sacrifices some of the rhythm, diction, and syntax of the original for clarity:

Most princes, seduced by flattery, build upon false grounds of government and consider themselves as if they are another thing from the people. They count as their gain what they get from the people. By a fallacy of argument, they think themselves most kingly when their subjects are most basely subjected. Like a counter-balance, as it were, their estate goes highest when the people go lowest.

King Euarchus held the contrary view. He virtuously and wisely acknowledged that together he and his people made but one politic body, of which he was the head. He cared for them as he would care for his own limbs and never restrained their liberty, except when it stretched to licentiousness. Nor did he pull from them their goods, except where he employed them to purchase a greater good. In all his actions, he showed a delight in their welfare and brought it to pass that that while he took nothing by force, by their love he had all.

As the example shows, we have been sparing in moving words around, except in those places where phrases squint in several directions or re-reading is necessary to make sense of a passage. Elsewhere, when characters are speaking in stressful situations, Sidney’s suitably jumpy syntax has been retained. Long sentences that imitate a sequence of physical actions deserve a restorer’s respect. We have tried to stay as close to the original text as possible because Sidney’s rhetorical medium is part of his message. But our intention has been to make the 1593 text accessible, not to remain slavishly tied to inessentials at the cost of clarity. A translator, including one translating from English to English, has an obligation to be clear, and this obligation extends to syntax because reading is a sequential act. Anything that forces the reader backwards works against the intention of the author. Phrases that seem to go with the wrong words may be moved to bring referent and modifier close together for the reader’s convenience. Often the most complex sentences can be made clear by replacing pronouns with proper names, something any translator of a foreign language into English will do to avoid confusion. Sentence structure, repetitious syntax, the use of participial and correlative constructions, and passive verbs need not be left untouched, any more than spelling and punctuation. A word can be saved by changing did see to saw. It often makes sense to remove unnecessary negatives.

The second person pronominal forms thou, thee, thy, and thine were disappearing in Sidney’s lifetime. Shakespeare uses them as well as endings in –eth (hath, doth) deliberately to add formality to his plays. After much debate and despite objections from undergraduates, we retain “thou” and its forms. “Thou” can be found in Hemingway when he imitates Spanish or French. And Sidney’s usage is exact. “Thou” indicates familiarity or inferiority, except when a character is in an excited state or for special emphasis. Pyrocles addresses his social inferior Philanax as “thou” while Philanax uses the respectful “you.” Pyrocles switches to “you” when he agrees to be arrested, as they are then equals (4.5). Young Strephon uses both forms when passionately addressing his elder Claius. The distinction seems significant enough for us to leave these pronouns alone.

Sidney’s poems present a different set of problems for restoration. If left intact, they threaten our goal of making the 1593 edition that Shakespeare read available to a global audience. But it is often impossible to modernize or move a word without destroying the integrity of the lyric line. Our solution has been to respect the iconic aspect of the poems, to leave their language untouched, but to use footnotes and extensive punctuation to make it as easy as possible to follow their thought. Fortunately, Sidney is a very dramatic poet, by which we mean that his poems were written for particular characters in particular situations in the story. Often the lovers are signaling their true identities beneath their disguises, Musidorus as a shepherd and Pyrocles as an Amazon. Everything is in iambic pentameter, except where noted. The most difficult poem, written in quantitative meter, is Musidorus’ long elegiac lament to Pamela to pardon him for kissing her (3.1). It proved no less challenging in a prose summary. Left as it is, at least you can sing it, as Edward Plough, who has composed contemporary musical settings for each poem, explains in an appendix to this edition.

Though it may not seem obvious from the quantity of notes we felt necessary for the lyric poems, Sidney’s vocabulary is not particularly archaic or difficult. But some words have changed their meaning enough to become false friends. These are words you think you know the meaning of, but don’t. For example, when Sidney uses conceit, it means conception or imagination and not vanity, as in the contemporary sense. Want usually means lack in the Arcadia, not desire. Sidney uses desire as a verb where we would say want. A clown is someone of the lower classes, not a funny man in a circus. Silly means innocent, not inane. To stay is to pause. To do something straight is to do it immediately. Stuff refers to cloth and weeds to clothing. Sweet applies to what is charming, agreeable, or pleasurable, not necessarily sugary. Not to change false friends invites misunderstanding, but too many footnotes can be distracting. Our practice with regard to modernizing false friends is therefore eclectic. Sometimes we amend them, sometimes not.

Our restoration of Sidney’s Arcadia is therefore consistent, as Sidney might say, in its inconsistency. We tend to edit more at the beginning of the story than at the end on the assumption that readers who make it that far will have grown accustomed to Sidney’s style. It would be easy enough always to modernize Sidney’s now slightly archaic “heroical” to “heroic” and “tragical” to “tragic,” but we treat each instance separately, balancing the needs of the reader against the possible loss of flavor and rhythm.

The result is a text that on every page could probably be edited differently. The project began with the idea of using the 1674 edition on the theory that seventeenth-century editors would have corrected and clarified any cruxes. It turned out that new problems outweighed any fixes. We have therefore remained focused on the 1593 edition from which all others derive. We leave more extensive editorial apparatus, including a comparison of subsequent editions and notes, for our website. Scholars can compare texts and cite the original 1593 edition according to their needs, using the folio and line numbers we have included at the start of each chapter.

A five-hundred-page novel is not a play. There are no actors to use phrasing or gestures to make Sidney’s language comprehensible. Our experience is that modern readers want frequent paragraphing, modern spelling, more digestible sentences, and no footnotes. We have not gone that far, but we occasionally substitute synonyms for difficult or archaic words unless there is a particular reason to retain them, such as a pleasing sound or deliberate strangeness. There were no chapter divisions in 1593 or in later editions, but we have kept them as guides, because Sidney wrote in scenes (as Shakespeare did) based on what characters do in response to developing situations. We have replaced the eclectic, if not confusing, 1590 chapter summaries with our own.

This project began in the fall of 2010 with transcriptions and extensive suggestions by an international class of students in English and Comparative Literature at Purdue University: Russell Keck, Khalid Alrasheed, Bing Yan, Marisa Buccieri, Sophia Stone, Yuhan Huang, Massimiliano Giorgini, Hwanhee Park, Amy Tevault, Meng Wang, and Joanna Benskin. Joanna read and compared diligently as our graduate assistant. Mary Adkins served as an undergraduate reader for Book Four. Sharon Solwitz suggested solutions to many of the most difficult editorial and syntactic problems. Robert Stillman and Mary Ellen Lamb have been valuable interlocutors. Several of our classes of undergraduate and graduate students have vetted our effort to make the text of Sidney’s Arcadia accessible to modern readers while keeping it as close as possible to the original. They include Abbey Bush, Gene Cousins, Carley Fockler, Jake Moore, Leah Morey, Billy Biferie, Taylor Cochran, Emily Minguez, Dana Roders, Adrianna Radosti, Bryan Nakawaki, Stacey Smythe, Ingrid Pierce, Alex Cramer, Tiffany Hunsinger, Brooke Cleaver, Elizabeth Collins, Olivia Locke, Kaitlyn Circle, Joe Mushalla, Emily Shearburn, Emily Meyer, Elizabeth Ziga, and Ashley Seigal. We want to mention that this project received timely encouragement during the Sidney panels at the 2016 62nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America.

Illustrations in this text reproduce Mattäus Merian's copperplate engravings for the 1643 German translation, published too late for Shakespeare to have seen. The portrait of Mary Sidney appeared in an Italian translation printed in 1659. Selected footnotes from the edition of Sidney’s poetry by William A. Ringler, Jr., pay homage to his scholarship and succinctness.