Revue belge de philologie et
d'histoire
The Translations of Lucian by Erasmus and S. Thomas More
C. R. Thompson
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Thompson C. R. The Translations of Lucian by Erasmus and S. Thomas More. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome
18, fasc. 4, 1939. pp. 855-881;
doi : https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.1939.1316
https://www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_1939_num_18_4_1316
Fichier pdf généré le 10/04/2018
THE
BY
TRANSLATIONS
ERASMUS
AND
S.
OF
LUCIAN
THOMAS
MORE
ι
Lucian was not the most popular or influential Greek author
in the earlier decades of the sixteenth century : that honour,
I think, belongs rather to Plato or to Plutarch. But Lucian
ranked high.
In his numerous works modern readers might
find a trenchant wit and an easy and graceful style, qualities
that coupled, him with Aristophanes ; much sound moral and
ethical advice (depending, of course, upon which of his works
were reàd), which put him in the company of Plutarch, Xenophon and Isocrates ; and entertaining fictions such as Vera
Historia and Icaromenippus. Becàuse of the variety he offered, Lucian often appearedremarkably different to different
persons, like the éléphant described by the blind men.. St.
Thomas More,, a pious Catholic, enjoyed his wit and his satire
of vice and hypocrisy. Luther, who did not know Lucian so
well, thought of hun only as an atheistic scoffer at religion
and a mocker of Christianity, and therefore unqualifiedly
denounced him and all his works and all his friends, particularly
Erasmus. That grave and earnest Christian Sir Thomas
Elyot recommended Lucian's dialogues for boys, but he was
careful to advise that some of them ought to remain untouched :
«'... it were better that a childe shuld neuer rede any parte of
Luciane than all Luciane » (*).
One who possesses an ironie temper will dérive the most
pleasure from Lucian. Erasmus was such à man, and it is
(1) Govemor, ed. H.H.S. Croft (London, 1880), I, 58.
R. B. Ph. et H. — 55.
856
C. R.
THOMPSON
(2)
this fact that accounts for his fondness for Lucian. He was
the paramount Lucianist of the Renaissance. There were
other Lucianists in his time, to be sure, but there was none
greater, and none more generally praised and condemned for
being such, than he. His Moriae Encomium was indisputably
the best of the many Lucianic writings of the age. Moreover,
he translated a larger number of Lucians works than anyone
else did, and his versions were by far the most frequently printed. His early translations from Lucian were matched by those
of his friend Thomas More, made at the same time. More
never found time to translate any additional ones, however.
Erasmus added to his from time to time.
Professor Thomson thinks that «... the great contribution
of Erasmus to European culture was this, that he brought back
irony into literature », and that he did this in conjunction with
More (*). Whether or not Erasmus and More should be given
the credit, or most of the credit, for making literature again
ironical may perhaps be questioned ; but Thomson's further
contention, that «... Erasmus and More were led to see what
might be effected in literature by irony as a resuit of their common study of Lucian » (2), is scarcely to be denied. There is
incontestable évidence that these two famous humanists read,
enjoyed, and imitated the Samosatensian in their younger
days and profited by what they learned, both from his matter
and from his style.
Some of the fruits of their study of Lucian are apparent in
their best-known books, Moriae Encomium, Colloquia, and
Utopia. The translations from Lucian that were, so to
speak, a portion of the préparation for these works have,
however, received but very slight notice. Of More's is this
especially true. There are intelligible and pardonable reasons
for this circumstance : his versions of Lucian are trifles indeed
if compared with Utopia, the Dialogue concerning Hérésies,
(1) J.A.K. Thomson. Erasmus in England, in England und die Antike
(Bibliothek Warburg, Vortraeqe, 1930-31 [Leipzig and Berlin, 1932]),
p. 67.
(2) Ibid., p. 67.
'
(3)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
857
the Hisiory of King Richard the Third, or the Dialogue of
Comfort against Tribulation.
Yet these translations are of
interest and significance to the student of More's writings
because they appeared when they did, and because More
seleeted this particular author to translate. And his
translations, like Erasmus', were familiar to his contemporaries.
If the statement were made that one of More's works was
printed at least thirteen times during his life-time, which
one would the reader think it to have been? Utopia, doubtless.
It was, as a matter of f act, his translations of some of Lucia n's
dialogues (x). According to Lupton (2), Utopia was printed
only five, or possibly six, times before 1535.
Insofar as I
can ascertain, More's renderings of Lucian were printed in
his lifetime more frequently than was any other work of his.
Though of course this does not mean that they were as
important or as influential as the others, it does prove that they
had what may seem to us a surprising popularity.
It is my purpose to discuss the circumstances surrounding
these versions of Lucian by Erasmus and More, and to describe
and appraise them. In doing so I shall give especial attention
to Tyrannicida, inasmuch as each man not only translated
this speech, but each wrote, in friendly compétition with the
other, a declamatio in reply to it. These « replies » are interesting and suggestive as reflections of their author's early reading
and taste.
(1) More's translations appeared in 1506 (Paris, Ascensius) ; 1514
(Basel, Froben) ; 1514 (Paris, Ascensius) ; 1516 (Venice, Aldus) ; 1516
(Paris, Ascensius) ; 1517 (Basel, Froben) ; 1517 (also Basel, Froben) ;
1519 (Florence, Junta) ; 1520 (Louvain, Martens) ; 1521 (Basel, Froben) ;
1528 (Lyons, Gryphius) ; 1534 (Basel, Froben and Episcopius) ; 1534
(Lyons, Gryphius). With one exception, these translations accompanied
Erasmus'. — More's translations were also printed in 1535 by Gryphius,
but whether the volume appeared in More's lifetime (he died 6 July 1535)
I do not know. The volume has no colophon, and the title-page gives
only the year of publication.
(2) The Utopia of Sir Thomas More [the Latin text and Robinson's
English translation of 1551] ed. J. H. Lupton (Oxford, 1895), pp. lxiv
ff. Hereafter cited as Lupton.
858
C. R. THOMPSON
(4)
II
In the first place, a few words respecting Lucian's fortunes
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As was remarked
above, his réputation was equaled or surpassed by those of
but few of the classical writers. More than 270 printings of
works by him, or thought to be by him, were made before
1550. The Greek text alone was printed more than sixty
times between 1496, the date of the ediüo princeps, and 1550 (*).
In addition to the Greek text and the numerous Latin
translations, translations in the vernacular tongues appeared from
time to time.
The most popular of Lucian's compositions in, say, 1500
(popularity being estimated by frequency of printing) were
Charon, Vera Historia, Scipio (i. e. , Dialogi Mortuorum, xn),
and Dialogi Mortuorum, x. In the period 1470-1550, the bestknown writings of Lucian were, besides those just enumerated,
the various Dialogi (Mortuorum, Deorum, Marini, Meretricii),
De Calumnia, Timon, De Us Qui mercede conducti degunt,
De Luctu, Philopseudes, Toxaris, Alexander, Gallus, Cynicus,
Menippus, and « Philosophorum Vitae» (Vitarum Auctio*!).
Some of these may have owed their popularity of the fact
that they happened to find a translator in Erasmus and were
therefore often reprinted.
Like other writers, Lucian was credited not only with the
works he did Write, but with others as well. Scholars
generally agree that Halcyon, Nero, and the notorious Philopatris
are not by him. Of Charidemus, Amores, Longaevi, Lucius sive
Asinus, Hippias, Pseudologista, Ocypus, Pseudosophisia, Tragodopodagra, Eunuchus, Judicium Vocalium, Cynicus, Demosthenis Encomium, Abdicatus, Phalaris I and II, Tyrannicida,
and the epigrams, some are thought spurious and others are
more or less suspect. The Renaissance, less perturbed by
questions of disputed authorship than we are, was content to
(1) These and subséquent bibliographical facts are taken from the
bibliography of Lucian in my unpublished Princeton dissertation, Lucian
and Lucianism in the English Renaissance ; an Introductory Studg (1937).
(5)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
859
accept as Lucian's all the writings that had descended with
his name attached to them i1). All the spurious or doubtful
works were known and printed, either separately or, as usually
happened, in éditions of Lucian's collected works. Tragodopodagra and Lucius sive Asinus were the favorites among
them.
Lucian had a considérable vogue in Italy in the fifteenth
century, as he had in Germany and, to a slighter degree, in
France, in the first half of the sixteenth century (2). Ever
since Guarino of Verona, while studying Greek in Constantinople in 1403-08, had read and translated De Calumnia (3),
numerous Latin versions of Lucian's dialogues and essays had
been made. Aurispa, Poggio, Francesco Accolti, Carlo Marsuppini, the poet Pontano, Nicholas Leoniceno, Rinucci Aretino,
Aeneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II), Mapheus Vegius, Francesco
Griffolini, Leon Battista Alberti, and Matteo Maria Boiardo
(author of a popular dramatic version of Timon), to name
only the best-known ones, were writers or scholars who
translated or imitated them. Many of their translations, beginning
(1) In two instances it went even further : it accepted as Lucian's two
modern (fifteenth-century) compositions, the Palinurus (i. e. Dialogus de
Felicilate et Miseria) of Mapheus Vegius and the Virtus Dea of Carlo
Marsuppini.
(2) The most important accounts (none of them exhaustive) of his
réputation are : Richard Förster. Lucian in der Renaissance, Archiv für
Literaturgeschichte, XIV (1886), 337-363 ; J. Rentsch. Lucianstudien (Plauen, 1895) ; Natale Caccia. Note sa la fortuna di Luciano nel
rinascimento (Milan, no date) ; Olga Gewerstock. Lucian und Hutten zur
Geschichte des Dialogs im 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1924) ; Gottfried Niemann. Die Dialogliteratur der Reformationszeit nach ihrer Entstehung und
Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1905) ; Adolf Hauffen. Zur Literatur der ironischen
Enkomien, Vierteljahrschrift für Literaturgeschichte, VI (1893),
161-185 ; Ludwig Schenk. Lukian und die französische Literatur im Zeitalter der Aufklörung (Munich, 1931), pp. 11-15 ; Sir J. E. Sandys. A Histonj
of classical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1903-08), II, passim ; Martha Heep.
Die Colloquia familiaria des Erasmus und Lucian (Halle, 1927).
(3) De Calumnia had an interesting history in the Quattrocento, both
in literature and in art. See Rudolph Altrocchi. The Calumnij of Apelles
in the Literature of the Quattrocento, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, XXXVI
(1921), 454-491.
860
C. R. THOMPSON
(6)
with those of Aurispa and Rinucci Aretino (Rome, c. 1470-72),
were printed in the fifteenth century. Not only were they
printed in Italian cities but in French, German, and Netherlandish ones as well. Of the works translated, De Calumnia,
Charon, and Lucius sive Asinus were the most popular. Rinucci's translations were easily the most frequently printed ;
they appeared five times as often as any other person's.
In perusing the record of translations, adaptations and
imitations of Lucian in Germany, one is impressed by the
diversity of interests represented by his admirers, and by his
curious but quite understandable relations with certain literary
aspects of the Protestant Reformation. Humaniste, educators, and partisans in the disputes between Lutherans and
Roman Catholics read and imitated him. The time was out
of joint. A taste for individual expression, for criticism (or
at least for satire and complaint) was prevalent. Lucian was,
in a sensé, a patron of this spirit. He was the enemy of obscurantism and fraud, a sharp-witted writer who combined humour
and wit with his satire and amused as well as instructed his
readers. So it was natural that the methods and even the
characters of his dialogues should be pressed into service by
sixteenth-century writers who, like him, wished to call
attention to abuses and evils in society. They utilized his matter
and his forms in their compositions. Such writers as Ulrich
von Hutten (*) borrowed from him again and again. It would
almost seem that the scholar or man of letters who was unacquainted with Lucian's works would have been regarded as
Hofuôfj απαίδευτος, as Lucian (2) himself says of one who
seemed ignorant of Homer.
Since most of the translations and imitations of Lucian
in Germany were made after Erasmus and More had made
theirs, they lie beyond the scope of this paper ; but to say
that Reuchlin, Agricola, Pirckheimer (whose Lucianic Apologia
(1) Cf. Caccia. op. cit., pp. 99-143 ; Niemann. op. cit., pp. 18 ff. ; Albert
Bauer. Der Einfluss Lukians von Samosata auf Ulrich ν. Hutten, Philologus, LXXV (1919), 437-462.
(2) Gallus, 2.
(7)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
861
seu Podagrae Laus, 1521, is declared by Hauffen to have Q)
been second only to Erasmus' Moriae Encomium in the extent
of its influence as a model of ironical encomium), Beatus
Rhenanus, Hans Sachs, Melanchthon, and von Hutten were
included among them will be évidence enough of his widespread and continuous réputation.
III
Although the chronology of his Greek studies is not certain,
it seems likely that Erasmus was introduced to the language
when a schoolboy in Deventer. In his autobiographical letter
to Johannes Botzheim (1523), he writes : Ad Graecas literas
vtciinque puero degustatas iam grandior redii, hoc est annos
natus plus minus traginta... (2). Alexander Hegius, master of
the school at Deventer, knew some Greek which he had learned
from Agricola (3). But Erasmus could have acquired little
beyond the barest rudiments of the language in Deventer, for
it was not for eight or ten years after he had gone to Paris
(1495) that he could handle the language with readiness. We
may présume, however, that he gave attention to it intermittently almost from the time he arrived in Paris, meager though
the means of instruction were (4).
He found little Greek in England when he first visited the
(1) Op. cit., p. 185.
(2) Opus Epistolamm Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P. S. Allen [and
H. M. Allen and H. W. Garrod] (Oxford, 1906-...), 1, 7, 19-20. Here
after cited as EE., by volume, page, and line.
(3) P. S. Allen, The Age of Erasmus (Oxford, 1914), p. 16. In Adag.
339 {Quid cani et balneoi) Erasmus says Hegius taught him the éléments
of « each tongue » (i. e., Greek and Latin). But see EE., I, 48, 39, note.
(4) In a letter to Erasmus written in 1528, Hector Boece, Principal of
King's College, Aberdeen, recalling his association with Erasmus in Paris,
c. 1495, wrote
to' that ...Grèce lingue periciam... tenes (EE., VII, 400, 19-22).
If tenes is
be taken as referring not to the present (1528) but to the
Paris year, it is évidence that Erasmus began the study of Greek as soon
as he came to Paris. Preserved Smith (Erasmus [New York and London,
1923], p. 24) thinks Boece does mean the Paris year.
862
C.
R.
THOMPSON
(8)
country in 1499. Allen (^believes that his reason for refusing
Colet's invitation to remain in Oxford then was that there
was no opportunity to get Greek there. When he returned
to Paris he gave severe attention to his Greek. Graecae literae
animum meum propemodum enecant ; verum neque ocium datur,
neque suppeüt quo libros aut praeceptoris operam redimam,
he wrote to his friend Batt in March 1500 (2). Greek was what
he wanted, for he was beginning to realize its indispensable
value to the man of letters (3). Greek books took precedence
over clothing in his budget (4). We find him in September
1500 struggling with Homer (5). He seems to have thought
at one time of employing a teacher to assist him, but the
teacher, Georgius Hermonymus, could or would teach little (6).
Still, Erasmus was making progress, and he may have made
some translations of Euripides, and possibly of Isocrates
also, at this time (1501) (7).
In September 1502 he was able
to say that he could write Greek fairly well : In Graecis litteris
sum totus, neque omnino operam lusi ; eo enim profeci vt mediocrüer quae velim Graece scribere queam, et quidem ex tempore (8).
In 1503 he made his first considérable translations from
Greek, three déclamations of Libanius the sophist (9). Two
(1) EE., I, 592.
(2) Ibid., I, 285, 22-24.
(3) Writing to Batt in September 1500, he says : Verum Graece te scire,
mi Batte, percupio, turn quod sine his literas Latinas mancas esse video,
turn vt conuictus noster sit iucundior,si omnino iisdem studiis delectabimur
(ibid., I, 301, 66-68). In 1504 : Nam hoc vnum expertus video, nullis in
literis nos esse aliquid sine Graecitate (ibid., I, 406, 90-92). Cf. ibid., I,
407 ff.
(4) Ad Graecas literas totum animum applicui ; statimque vt pecuniam
accepero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam (ibid., I, 288,
62-64).
(5) Ibid., I, 305, 3, and note.
(6) Erasmus writes of him that... Graece balbutiebat, sed talis vt neque
potuisset docere, si voluisset, neque voluisset, si potuisset (ibid., I, 7,
23-24).
(7) Ibid., I, 365, 6-7, and note.
(8) Ibid., I, 381, 9-12.
(9) They are printed in Desiderii Erasmi Roteroda mi Opera Omnia...
(9)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
863
of these were on Homeric subjects, the third on Medea :..,
tres flosculos strenulae... de Graecorum rosariis decerptos... ;
as Erasmus elegantly terms them Q).
In view of his fancy
for another Greek writer who, though he could scarcely be
called a sophist, was a prolific producer of sophistical
compositions, Lucian, it is not surprising that Erasmus should have
been attracted to Libanius,... cui, as he points out, doctorum
hominum calculis inter Atticistas praecipuus locus tribuitur (2).
During his résidence in Louvain (1502-04), he made a verse
rendering of the Hecuba of Euripides, and a few years later,
during his second visit to England, one of Iphigenia in Aulis (3).
In 1504-05 Erasmus essay ed to teach Greek (4). According
to one of his pupils, he « féliciter » translated the Odysseij (5),
but there appears to be no other record of this translation.
By 1505-06 he must have been fairly proficient in Greek.
He had early recognized the imperative need of a knowledge
of the language, and he set himself to get it. He persevered
until he got it.
Thomas More had better luck than Erasmus with teachers.
He learned his Greek from the celebrated humanists Linacre
and Grocyn, « that well learned and great cunning man » (6), of
whom Erasmus wrote,... nonne primum in Anglia Graecae
linguae rudimenta didicit (7)? Grocyn was in Oxford when
More was a student there, and it is therefore conceivable that
ed. J. Leclerc (Leiden, 1703-OG), I, coll. 547-55G. Erasmus apparently
did not offer them to the public for some years after they were made ;
the first known édition is dated 1519 (EE., I, 390). The Leclerc édition
of Erasmus' works will be cited hereafter as LD.
(1) EE., I, 392, 54-55.
(2) Ibid., I, 392, 59-60.
(3) Ibid., I, 4, 29-31 ; I, 5, 23-27 ; cf. I, 365, 6, and note. The
translations are in LB., I, coll. 1129-1186. See below, p. 867.
(4) EE., I, 286, note.
(5) Ibid., I, 306, note.
(6) Nicholas Harpsfield. The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Moore,
Knight, ed. Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock. Early English Text Society,
Original Series, N° 186 (London, 1932), pp. 13 f.
(7) EE., II, 486, 56-57. It is not certain, however, that Grocyn was
the first to teach Greek in England.
864
C. R.
THOMPSON
(10)
More had instruction from him at that time. But Stapleton's
. statement (*) that More learned Greek fröm Linacre in Oxford
(c. 1493) must be erroneous, for Linacre was in Italy until at
least 1496 (2). Furthermore, More's own words seem to indicate
that most of his Greek was learned, not in Oxford, but in
London, some years after he had left the university.
As
early as 1501 he writes (to John Holt) : «At in bonis artibus
quid proficist » inquis. Egregie scilicet ut nihil supra.
Ita
enim sepositis latinis litteris grecas sequor.... Grocinus preceptor meus (3). In his epistle to Dorpius (1515), More speaks
of ... quum ipse jam olim idem Aristotelis Opus audirem Graece,
eodem mihi praelegente atque interpretante Linacro... (4). The
Aristotelis Opus was the Meteorologica. More attended Linacre's lectures on that work (probably given in London, and
not, as Stapleton would have it, in Oxford) in 1500 or 1501.
In a letter to Colet (1504) More refers to Grocyn as ...solo
(dum tu abes) vitae meae Magislro ;... and to Linacre as ...studiorum praeceptore (5). These two scholars, then, were his
instructors in Greek.
During his law-student years in London, More made his
first translations from Greek. He and William Lily, who
was later to become the first Master of St. Paul's School,
matched their skill in turning some epigrams from the Anthologia Graeca into Latin. Each made a translation of selected
epigrams. In the published work, Progymnasmata as it was
entitled, the Greek text of each epigram was printed, followed
by Lily's and More's versions. The Anthologia Graeca had been
(1) Thomas Stapleton's Latin life of More, from his Tres Thomae, is
reprinted in Thomae Mori... Opera Omnia... (Frankfort, 1689). The
statement about More's Greek is on p. 5. The Frankfort édition of More's
Latin works will be cited as Opera Omnia, 1689.
(2) P. S. Allen. Linacre and Latimer in Italy, English Historical
Review, XVI 11(1903), 514-517 ; and see ibid,, L (1935), 696-698.
(3) The letter is printed in Anglia, XIV (1891-92), 498 f. There proficio appears instead of proficis, and libris in place of litteris. Miss
Hitchcock (op. cit., p. 306) prints proficis and litteris.
(4) Opera Omnia, 1689, p. 298.
(5) Stapleton. op. cit., in Opera Omnia, 1689, p. 8.
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
(11)
865
published only a few years before (editio princeps Florence,
1494). More's and Lily's
translations from it must have
been among the earliest made in England.
In the Progymnasmata are translations of two epigrams
then attributed to Lucian, one of AnthoL, ix, 74 and the other
of x, 26 (*). Besides the translations he made in association
with Lily, More both translated and composed many other
epigrams in these years. Among these Epigrammata are
two more of « Lucian's » poems from the Anthologia, xi, 408
and xi, 410. The former may be quoted as typical.
Την κεφαλήν βάπτεις, το δε γήρας οϋποτε βάψεις,
ουδέ παρειάων εκτανύσεις ρυτίδας,
μη τοίνυν το πρόσωπον άπαν ψιμύθφ κατάπλατνε,
ώατε προσωπεΐον, κούχΐ πρόσωπον εχειν.
ουδέν γαρ πλέον εστί' τί μαίνεαι; οϋποτε φϋκος
και ψίμυθος τεύξει τψ Έκάβην Έλένην.
More :
In anum fucis frustra utentem
Saepe caput tingis, nunquam tinctura senectam,
Aut tensura genis quae tibi ruga tuis.
Desine jam faciem stibio perfundere totam,
Ne persona tibi haec sit modo, non facies.
Cum nihil assequeris fuco stibioque, quid amens
Vis tibi? nunquam Hecuben haec facient Helenen (a).
More's epigrams were not published until 1518 (Basel,
Froben). With them were printed the third édition of Utopia
and the epigrams of Erasmus. We know, however, that they
were youthful productions. Erasmus informs Froben in 1517
that More Epigrammata lusit adolescens admodum ac pleraque
puer (3) ; and when writing to More himself in 1520 reminds
him that most of his (More's) epigrams were written more than
twenty years before, and nearly ail of them more than ten
(1) The numbers are those given in the Loeb Classical Library Greek
Anthology, éd. and trans. W. R. Paton (London and New York, 1916-18).
(2) Opera Omnia, 1689, p. 239.
(3) EE., III, 57, 9-10.
866
C. R.
THOMPSON
(12)
years before i1). How accurate Erasmus is here, or in precisely
which year they were written, is not altogether certain, but
probably they were made between 1500 and 1504 or 1505.
More may have been studying Greek for some time before he
translated verses with Lily, who had known Greek for years.
Yet More was precocious in languages, and he must have learned
Greek in considerably less time than most men require. His
friend Richard Pace wrote of him :
Here I will remark that no one ever lived who did not
first ascertain the meaning of words, and from them gather
the meaning of the sentences which they compose — no
one, I say, with one single exception,
and that is our
own Thomas More. For he is wont to gather the force
of the words from the sentences in which they occur,
especially in his study and translation of Greek. This is
not contrary to grammar, but above it, and an instinct
of genius (2).
Whether made in 1503 or 1504 or somewhat earlier, the
Progymnasmata and Epigrammata at any rate contained the
first translations of Lucian (more correctly, of writings believed
to be Lucian's) that are known to have been made in England ,
and they are important for that reason.
IV
Thomas More and Erasmus had been fast friends from
the date of their first meeting in 1499. In an oft-quoted
letter written in that year Erasmus asks, Thomae Mori ingenio
quid vnquam finxit natura vel mollius, vel dulcius, vel feliciusi?) ?
In after years he never tired of praising the character and accomplishments of his friend, whom he once addressed as...
More mortalium omnium mihi charissime (4). The names of
these two humanists have always been linked by posterity.
(1) Ibid., IV, 240, 38-39.
(2) De Fructu qui ex Doctrina percipitur (1517), trans, and quoted by
T. E. Bridgett. Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More (London, 1891),
p. 12.
(3) EE., I, 274, 23-25.
(4) Ibid., III, 76, 7.
(13)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
867
Sometime in the latter half of the year 1505 Erasmus paid
his second visit to England. He remained there until the
following June. Most of the time he spent in London, where
he renewed the friendships he had made six years before and
formed new ones as well. Since they had last met, More and
Erasmus had both given themselves to study, the one to law
and letters and the other to divinity and letters. More had
lived for about four years, without vow, in the Charterhouse.
He had by now concluded his legal studies, had served in
Parliament, and had married. He had been at Greek for at
least four or five years, and with Lily had made translations
therefrom. He was already a man marked for success at the
bar, in public service, and in literature. Erasmus, too, had
made progress in those years. He had passed the time since
his earlier visit in Paris and Louvain, in unremitting study.
His name was known to the reading public for his Adagia,
a small volume published in 1500 ; some notes to Cicero's
De Officiis (1501) ; Enchiridion Militis Christiani (1503) ;
an édition of Lorenzo Valla's hitherto unprinted In Novum
Testamentum Adnotationes, published a few months before the
trip to England ; and several less important works. He had
begun work on Jerome, and had translated from Greek some
déclamations of Libanius and a tragedy (possibly more) of
Euripides. The translation of Euripides, however, was not
yet published (x).
Erasmus may not have possessed More's remarkable quickness
in languages, but he had industry and uncommon talent ;
moreover, he was able to devote all or most of his time to his
studies, as More, pressed by the law, was not. Consequently
the two men must have been about equal in their knowledge
of Greek in the year 1505. Both were enthusiastic about
Greek literature, and both had amused and improved
themselves as students by the discipline of translation. Both had
read Lucian, too. Whether or not More knew Lucian's dialo(1) The translations of Hecuba and Iphigenia in Aulis were published
in Paris by Badius (Ascensius) in September, 1506. Cf. EE., I, 417.
868
C.
R.
THOMPSON
(14)
gues as early as he did the epigrams that went under Lucian's
name, we cannot tell. As for Erasmus, he had no doubt been
familiar with Lucian's works for several years, and we know
that he had attempted a translation of one of them, Tragodopodagra, a mock-tragedy on gout, then received as Lucian's but
now reckoned spurious. Erasmus endeavoured to turn this
jeu d'esprit into Latin verse, but was defeated by the prosodie
difficulties involved. The choruses, he discovered, could not
happily be put into Latin without losing most of their
attractions (1). He quotes examples, and adds : Haec atque id
genus quum apud Graecos plurimum habeant gratiae ob facetissimam imitationem, Latinus sermo nee vmbram horum possit
reddere (2).
Thomson (3) suggests that it was probably More who first
« discovered » Lucian. It is possible, if undemonstrable, that
he read Lucian in the original before Erasmus did ; but on
the other hand, Erasmus must have known Lucian in Latin
as early as 1499, for in February of that year he wrote to his
pupil, Lord Mountjoy, of an occurrence so remarkable that...
tu credas ex veris Luciani narrationibus petitum... (4). Lucian's
Vera Historia had been published in Latin translation four
times (1475/6, 1493, 1494, 1497) before 1499, so that Erasmus
could easily have read it. Therefore I think that it is at least
as probable that it was Erasmus who made the « discovery »
as it is that More made it.
Which of them knew Lucian first is not of capital importance.
What is important is that in 1505 they decided to translate
some of Lucian's dialogues.
(1) Vertere coeperam Podagram Luciani priorem, opus mire festiuum,
sed destiti, potissimum deterritus epithetis, quibus abundant chori ; in
quibus non erat spes in Latinis assequi compositionis felicitatera, quam
videmus in Graecis dictionibus. Quod si dictiones singulas pluribus explicuissem, peribat gratia totius carminis. Nam hymni sacri fere constant
huiusmodi deorum cognomentis religiose compositis, praesertim apud
Graecos (ibid., I, 6, 36-7, 6).
(2) Ibid., I, 7, 17-19.
(3) Op. cit., p. 75.
(4) EE., I, 224, 27-28.
(15)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
869
... if we picture Erasmus discovering his younger friend
prepared in the first year of his married life for relaxation
we may imagine how happily Lucian met the situation.
Here one learnt how to controvert without heat, how to
undermine the entrenchments of pedantry and ignorance
by irony, and tease the adversary by raillery into some
acknowledgment of the truth. Above all, one learnt to
be daring in the invention of ingenious conceits (x).
As their subséquent writings show, the two men did not
soon forget what they learned from Lucian.
These translations may now .be described. For the sake
of convenience, I shall discuss Erasmus' first, then More's ;
but the translations of Tyrannicida and the déclamations
written by the translators in reply thereto will be considered
later. In addition, translations of Lucian made by Erasmus
later than 1506 must be noticed, in order that the account be
complete.
Between the date of his attempt at Tragodopodagra and 1517,
Erasmus translated thirty-six of Lucian's writings (2). Eighteen of these were short dialogues from Dialogi Deorum, Dialogi
Marini, and Dialogi Mortuorum, the others a miscellaneous
and représentative lot. The eighteen short dialogues and ten
longer ones, together with the four translated by More, were
published in Paris by Badius late in 1506. For purposes of
description they may be divided into two groups. The first
consists of six translations by Erasmus (Toxaris, Alexander,
Gallus, Timon, Tyrannicida, and De Us qui Mercede conducti,
degunt) and the Declamatio he wrote in reply to Tyrannicida,
and the four translations by More plus More's reply to TyrannU
(1) A. W. Reed. Sir Thomas More, in The Social and Political Ideas of
some Great Thinkers of the Renaissance and the Reformation, ed. F. J. C.
Hearnshaw (London, 1925), p. 129.
(2) Erasmus' translations, with the exception of that of Longaevi (on
■which see below, p. 874) are in LB., I, coll. 183-340.
870
C. R. THOMPSON
(16)
cida. These ten translations and two original déclamations Q)
were printed by 13 November 1506 (the ones by Erasmus being
finished by 1 November). But the volume containing them
was not given to the public until a second set of translations
from Lucian (not mentioned on the title-page), lately received
from Erasmus, had been added to it. By 17 November
Erasmus had translations of eighteen short dialogues from Dialogi
Deorum, Dialogi Marini, and Dialogi Mortuorum, and of
Hercules, Eunuchus, De Sacrificiis, and Convivium ready with
which to supplement the translations he had given to Badius
earlier in the year, after his return from England but before
his departure for Italy. He sent the additional ones to Paris
from Italy, and they were added to those already in type (2).
The title-page (abbreviations expanded) reads as follows :
Luciani viri quam diserlissimi compluria opuscula longe
festiuissima ab Erasmo Ro-\terodamo et Thoma moro interpretibus optimis in latinorum linguam tra-\ducta. hac sequentur serie. | Ex Erasmi interpretatione | Toxaris siue
de amicicia Luciani dialogus. | Alexander qui et Pseudomantis eiusdem. | Gallus siue Somnium eiusdem quoque
luciani | Timon seu Misanthropus. | Tyrannicida seu pro
tgrannicida eiusdem declamatio. | Cum declamatione
Erasmica eidem respondente. | De iis qui mercede conducti
degunt dialogus eiusdem. \ Et quaedam eiusdem alia. \ Ex
Mori traductione. \ Tgrannicida Luciani Moro interprète. |
Declamatio Mori de eodem. | Cynicus Luciani a Moro
versus | Menippus seu Necromantia Luciani eodem
interprète. | Philopseudes seu incredulus Luciani ab eodem Moro
in latinam linguam traductus : | Ex aedibus Ascensianis (3).
The first translation in the volume is that of Toxaris, Lucian's
dialogue between a Greek and a Scythian on the subject of
friendship. Each speaker tells five stories of countrymen
(1) And also a poem by Erasmus, De Senectute, which is not mentioned
on the title-page.
(2) Ph. Renouard. Bibliographie des impressions et des œuvres de
Josse Badius A&censius (Paris, 1908), III, 26 ; Pierre de Nolhac. Érasme
en Italie (Paris, 1888), p. 7 and note ; EE., I, 416 and 434 ; F. M. Nichols.
The Epistles of Erasmus (London, 1901-18), I, 421 f.
(3) Ph. Renouard. op. cit., III, 26.
(17)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
871
famed for their invincible loyalty to friends. This dialogue,
says Erasmus, is one that his own génération would do well
to ponder :
[Amicitia] Nunc Christianis vsque adeo in desuetudinem
abiit, vt non dicam vestigia, sed ne nomen quidem ipsum
extet ; quum nihil aliud sit Christianismus quam vera
perfectaque amicitia, quam commori Christo, quam viuere
in Christo, quam vnum corpus, vna anima esse cum Christo ;
hominum inter ipsos talis quaedam cummunio qualis est
membrorum inter se corporis (*).
Toxans was inscribed to Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester,
onetime Chancellor of Cambridge and the future founder of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a college established for the
express purpose of providing a home for the New Learning (2),
and, it might be added, the college whose late President, Dr.
P. S. Allen, was the foremost of Erasmus scholars.
Then comes Alexander. The prefatory address is to René
d'Illiers, Bishop of Chartres. As an exposé of a notorious
rogue and swindler, Alexander must have been much enjoyed
by Erasmus, who has in his Colloquia several stories of the
same order (3). The world in his time too had its share of
fortune-tellers and quacks, and Erasmus remarks this in his
préface, in words that make us think of the colloquy Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo :
... Luciani Pseudomantem misi, scelestissimum quidem
illum, sed quo nemo sit vtilior ad depraehendendas coarguendasque quorundam istorum imposturas, qui nunc
quoque vel magicis miraculis, vel ficta religione, vel adsimulatis condonationibus aliisque id genus praestigiis, vulgo
fucum facere solent (4).
(1) EE., I, 417, 22-28»
(2) Lucian was one of the Greek authors whora Foxe's statutes suggested
the University Reader in Greek might teach (P. S. Allen, Erasmus
[Oxford, 1934], pp. 145-148).
(3) Alcumistica, Exorcismus sive Spectrum, Peregrinatio Religionis
Ergo.
(4) EE., I, 431, 4-8.
R. B. Ph. et H. — 56.
872
C R. THOMPSON
(18)
Gallus has always been one of the most popular of Lucian's
works, a fact easily accounted for in view of its good humour,
its clever dialogue, and its underlying seriousness. It is one
of the Lucianic dialogues certain to be known by anyone
who knows Lucian at all. Erasmus dedicated his rendering
of it to Christopher Urswick, and ecclesiastic who had been in
the service of Henry VII, and he wrote that in it :
Audies enim Gallum cum haero sutore confabulantem
magis ridicule quam vllus possit γελωτοποιός,'- sed rursum
sapientius quam theologorum ac philosophorum vulgus
nonnunquam in scholis magno supercilio magnis de nugis
disputât (*).
Timon is another popular work ; in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was one of the favorite Lucianic writings.
Erasmus was not the first to translate it into Latin, but he
considered his predecessors' efforts most unsatisfactory :
Is est Luciani dialogus quo vix alius lectu vel vtilior vel
iucundior; versus quidem ille iampridem ab alio nescio
quo, sed ita versus vt interpres hoc modo demonstrare
voluisse videatur sese neque Graece scire neque Latine ;
neque temere adeo quis suspicetur eum interpretem subornatum ab iis qui Luciano male volunt (2).
Latin versions of Timon had been published four times
(1494, 1497, 1500, 1502) before 1506, but the names of the
translators are unknown, so we cannot identify the interpres
who was so woefuUy incapable of turning Lucian's Greek into
Latin.
Timon was dedicated to another of Erasmus' ecclesiastical
friends of the English Court circle, Thomas Ruthall, « humanissime Ruthalle », as Erasmus calls him. He was Chancellor of
Cambridge in 1503.
Then comes Tyrannicida, discussion of which I shall postpone for the present, and after it De iis qui Mercede conducti
degunt. This monologue-essay gives an interesting and vivid
(1) Ibid., I, 426, 57-61.
(2) Ibid., I, 424, 10-15.
(19)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
873
account of the misérable existence of a dependent scholar
living, or rather trying to live, on the inconsiderate stinginess
of a boorish man of wealth.
Naturally this essay had an
especial appeal for the literati of Erasmus' day, who not seldom
deplored in their writings the poverty and neglect that the
man of letters is heir to (x).
This translation Erasmus made when about to leave for
Italy (2). He inscribed it to his friend and occasional
correspondent John Paludanus, Public Rhetor, and subsequently
Scribe, of the University of Louvain.
Evidently Paludanus
must have had some taste of court life and was able to read
the work with sympathy, for the dedicatory letter says :
In eo non sine voluptate tanquam in speculo videbis
aulicae vitae incommoda ; quae tu mihi saepenumero
commemorare solebas, nimirum expertus et veluti naufragio
eiectus ac vix isti liberae litterariaeque vitae redditus (3).
These six translations comprise the first group by Erasmus
in the 1506 volume. The second is made up of eighteen short
dialogues and four longer compositions, Hercules, Eunuchus,
De Sacrifiais, and Convivium. The préface to them, addressed
to Jerome de Busleiden and dated 17 November 1506, was written in Bologna. The translations were made, according to
Erasmus, ...pauculis his diebus, dum obsidionis metu Florentiam
pro jugeremus... (4). Busleiden had met Erasmus at Orléans
in 1500. He was also a friend of More ; a letter from him
to More was printed with Utopia. It was through Busleiden's
bequest that the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, one of the
seminaries founded as a nursery of the New Learning, was
established.
First among these translations are those of the eighteen
(1) Cf. G. Manacorda. Notizïe intorno alle fonti di alcuni motioi satirici
edalla loro diffusîone durante il Rinascimento, Romanischk Forschungen,
XXII (1908), 733 ff.
(2) EE., I, 429, 4-5.
(3) Ibid., I, 429, 5-9.
(4) Ibid., I, 435, 35-36. The armies of Julius II were threatening
Bologna.
C. R. THOMPSON
(20)
short dialogues. These are : Dialogi Mortuorum, vin, vu,
xvii, xviii, ui, x, xii, xi, xxv, xxiv, ix, xiii, xxvi, xxi ; Dialogi
Deorum, xix, xxi, xxiv, xii ; Dialogi Marini, ι Q). After them
comes the version of Hercules (Gallicus). A feigned introductory lecture, it is a pretty display of suave rhetoric such as
the sixteenth century, whose formai éducation was based
largely upon rhetorical principles, could admire more than
most of us, in an age when éducation rests mainly upon other
grounds, are able to do.
Next is Eunuchus, a dialogue on a somewhat novel topic.
It is now classed among the spurious writings. After Eunuchus
comes De Sacrificiis, an essay on the ignorance and silly
credulity of people who believe in the efficacy of sacrifice to
the gods. This is one of the compositions that the orthodox
of Erasmus' day probably had in mind when they helped to
spread Lucian's réputation as a mocker and as a scoffer at
religion. There is nothing whatever in it about Christianity,
of course, but this tongue-in-cheek author Lucian did not
confine his gives to heathen and idolatrous religions ; he also
attacked the true faith — in Mors Peregrini and Philopatris
— as everyone knew.
Convivium, one of Lucian's most entertaining narratives,
is a report of a wedding feast at which the philosophers —
some of whom are uninvited guests — fall to quarreling and
finally to fighting. Erasmus' translation is preceded by a
letter to John « Eutychius », whom Allen (2) identifies as
John Huttich of Mainz.
Still another translation remains to be mentioned, although
whether it was made in 1505-06 is not certain. In his letter
to Botzheim, Erasmus enumerates his translations from Lucian
and then adds : Verteramus et Longaeuos, dictantes tantum,
sed notarius suffuratus libellum Montioio dicatum pro suo
(1) In the table of contents in LBt, I, these eighteen dialogues are listed
as Dialogi amatoriU The word amatorii is misleading, as the dialogues
are not on amorous subjects, and none of them is from Dialogi MeretriciU
(2) EE., II, 502.
(21)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
875
aedidit Lutetiae i1). The secretary who pilfered the translation
and published it as his own was Gervase Amoenus. It was
printed by Badius in 1513 in Geruasii Ameni Drucensis. Lucubratiunculae quaedam non inuenustae.... (2) The translation,
naturally, does not appear with the others in éditions of
Erasmus' works, the unique copy of Amoenus' Lucubratiunculae
having been discovered only a few years ago. That it was
made between 1505 and 1513 is all we know of its date, but the
fact that Erasmus refers to it just after writing about the
translations published in 1506 suggests that it was made in
that year or a short time afterwards.
When the 1514 (Paris, Badius) édition of Erasmus' Lucian
appeared it contained seven new translations. They were
new to the public, that is, not newly made, for all of them
had been finished at least two years before, as the préfaces
attest. Some were no doubt made even earlier and were laid by
until there should be a sufficient number to publish together ;
for instance, in De Duplici Copia Verborum ac Rerum, which
was published in 1512, Erasmus says he has translated Lucian's
Abdicatus (3). The translations are of Satumalia, Cronosolon,
Epistolae Saturnales, De Luctu, Abdicatus, Icaromenippus,
and De Astrologia. A brief dedicatory epistle (4) to Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, précèdes them. This was written
29 April 1512, but as the translations were not published
until more than two years later, Erasmus wrote a new préface,
likewise adressed to Warham. This one was not printed in
the Lucian volume, however, but the 1512 one was (5).
Satumalia is an agreeable dialogue in which Lucian's irony
is less stinging than usual. The arrivai of the annual festival,
the Satumalia, raises a few questions of dogmatic theology
in the mind of the priest of Cronus, who accordingly interrogates
the superannuated god. The priest would like to know how
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
EE„ I, 8, 8-10.
Ibid., VIII, xxi.
LB., I, coll. 87 F
EE„ I, 512 f.
Ibid., I, 561.
876
C.
R.
THOMPSON
(22)
much truth there is in the Homeric and Hesiodic tales of the
events of Cronus' reign. Cronus tells him as much as he ought
to know and refuses to be troubled with further queries.
After this we have Cronosolon, wherein the laws governing
the holiday season are set forth by the priest Cronosolon.
These decrees turn the usual order of things topsy-turvy :
all men, masters and slaves, rich and poor, are to be equal ;
debts of poor men shall be discharged by the wealthy ; all
people are to enjoy themselves, sharing food and drink with
one another.
The third in this Saturnalian series is Epistolae Saturnales,
letters from Lucian to Cronus complaining of the injustice of
the present distribution of wealth and petitioning for a « new
deal ». The rich, he avers, are too niggardly with their goods.
Cronus warns against supposing that the rich are happy, but
he dispatches a letter to the wealthy citizens, enjoining them
to be more generous.
De Luctu, an essay on the ridiculous custom of mourning
for the dead, contains some valuable material for the student
of ancient religion. Lucian makes fun of the funeral customs
of the common people, and their beliefs about survival after
death, as relies of superstition or as hypocrisy.
Then we have Abdicatus, an imaginary speech to a jury
by a young physician who has been disinherited by his father
for ha ving failed to cure his step-mother of madness. The
pièce has some merits as a μελέτη, but little interest.
Icaromenippus, which follows,is a vera historia telling of the
wonderful journey of Menippus to the moon, the sun, and
heaven, and of his adventures in those strange places. This
gives Lucian opportunity to relate most strange stories, and
incidentally of inflicting some hard blows on his favourite
enemies, the philosophers. The translation of Icaromenippus
was inscribed to Andrew Ammonius, an Italian friend living
in England. He was at one time in Mountjoy's service, and
became Henry VI U's Latin secretary (x).
(1) Ibid., I, 455 ; I, 493.
(23)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
877
De Astrologia is a short treatise on heaven and the stars,
in which their influence on human life is considered. Francklin,
the eighteenth-century translator of Lucian, was probably
right in saying that although the pièce is written with a serious
air, «... a vein of delicate Irony and Sarcasm apparently runs
through the whole, and must convince every intelligent Reader,
that his Intention was to turn this absurd and pompous
Science into ridicule » Q). De Astrologia, the last of the 1514
additions, was dedicated to John Baptista Boerio, a Genoan
who became physician to Henry VII and Henry VIII (2).
A word about the text. When Erasmus undertook his
translations of 1505-06, two éditions of Lucian in Greek existed,
the editio princeps of 1496 and Aldus' of 1503. (3)
(1) Thomas Francklin. The Works of Lucian from the Greek (London,
1780), II, 55. The most recent translator, Professor A. M. Harmon
(Loeb Classical Library Lucian, V, 347) expresses a similar judgment.
(2) EE., I, 519. In 1506 Erasmus accompanied Boerio's two sons to
Italy as their tutor {ibid., I, 427, 28-30). In the British Museum is a
MS (Add. 19553) containing translations by John Boerio, one of the sons,
of Isocrates' Ad Nicoclem and Lucian's De Calumnia (ibid., VIII, 324).
(3) \V. H. WooDWARD, in his Desiderius Erasmus Concerning the Aim
and Method of Education (Cambridge, 1904), p. 13, says Erasmus translated
from a Lucian published by Aldus in 1504. The 1716 catalogue of the
University of Leiden Library (p. 519) lists Lucîani opera, Venice, 1504,
without saying whether it is in Greek or Latin. I find no other record of
a 1504 édition of Lucian in Greek, whether published at Venice or elsewhere, and the standard authorities on the Aldine press (e. g., A. A. Renouard and Firmin Didot) do not know of any Aldine 1504 Lucian. The
first section of Aldus' volume, containing Lucian, is dated February 1503
in the colophon ; the second, June 1503. The pages of the volume are
numbered consecutively, and not by sections. Woodward and the Leiden
cataloguer changed the February date to 1504, apparently to bring it into
conformity with the modern system by which the year begins in January
instead of March. The Venetians dated their public acts by a calendar
beginning the year 1 March, but from c. 1520 the custom began of dating
private documents by a calendar beginning 1 January (A. Giry, Manuel
de diplomatique [Paris, 1894], pp. 106, 127).
Since it would take some time
established,'
for a change in the calendar to become
it would be 'natural
to expect that some documents and books would use the January new
year before 1520.
I am indebted for this information, as well as for assistance in other
parts of this paper, to Professor Preserved Smith of Cornell University.
878
C.
R.
THOMPSON
(24)
The 1503 text is corrupt in accents and spellings, but in the
parts of it I have tested I found few différences in words, few
omissions or additions, that is, between it and the good text
represented by the 1496 (x) and modern éditions. Erasmus'
translations could have been made from the 1503 text and yet
be for the most part correct. We know that when he died
Erasmus owned an Aldine Lucian in Greek (2), but we cannot
assert that it was the 1503 one or that, if it was, he had it
in 1505-06, or that he did not then have a 1496 one. It is
probable, I think, that he used the 1503 text, but it is a question
that must be left open.
In translating, Erasmus adhered fairly closely to the Greek.
Occasionally he paraphrased or expanded or condensed the
original, apparently for the sake of clarity or decorum. Perhaps one reason for close translation, besides the excellent one
of respecting his author's words, was that he thought that
translating in that way instead of freely was a better means
of acquiring a command of the language. In 1505-06 he still
had something to learn about Greek. In the préface to De
lis qui Mercede conducti degunt he déclares that... nullum sit
mea sententia facinus audacius quam si coneris ex bene Graeds
bene Latina facere (3). In turning Libanius into Latin he had
followed, he says, the ...veterem Ulam M. Tulii regulam, vt in
vertendo sententias modo mihi putarim appendenda, non annumeranda verba. Tametsi nouus interpres, religiosior esse malui
quam audacior (4). He translated Euripides' Hecuba closely (5),
but abandoned this practice in Iphigenia (6). In translating
Lucian, however, he returned to it.
(1) Cf. A. A. Renouard. Annales de l'imprimerie des Aide (Paris, 1803),
p. 164.
(2) Fritz Husner. Die Bibliothek des E rasmus, in Gedenkschrift zum
400. Todestage des Erasmus von Rotterdam. Herausgegeben von der
Historischen UND Antiquarischen Gesellschaft zu Basel (Basel,
1936), p. 239, n» 123).
(3) EE., I, 429, 11-430, 13 ; cf. I, 393, 100-101.
(4) Ibid., I, 393, 95-98.
(5) Ibid., I, 419, 50-63.
(6) Ibid., I, 440, 10-28 ; cf. I, 441, 25-35.
(25)
THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
879
Erasmus not only translated more of Lucian 's writings than
anyone before had done (eighteen short dialogues and eighteen
longer pièces), but he also translated many for the first time.
Among his versions we find only two works, Timon and De
lis qui Mercede conducti degunt, that were popular with his
predecessors in the fifteenth century. With the exception of
these and of Hercules, Saturnalia, Epistolae Saturnales, Dialogi Mortuorum, xin, Gallus, and Convivium, none of the works
translated by him, so far as I can détermine, had been
translated before. Perhaps the relative simplicity or difficulty
of the Greek had something to do with his choices, though the
works he first translated are not Lucian's easiest ones. We
recall that he found his first choice, Tragodopodagra, so troublesome that he gave it up.
As we know, he took up the translating of Lucian principally
as a sound method of improving his knowledge of Greek.
Itaque coactus ipse mihi praeceptor esse, verti multos Luciani
libellos, vel in hunc vsum, vt attentius Graece legerem... (*).
But besides being a pleasurable exercise in itself, a profitable
linguistic discipline, and a means of complimenting one's
friends, this translating and circulating of pièces of Greek
literature helped to promote the study of Greek by others.
As one who wished to encourage the study of that language
and to advertise its riches, Erasmus could perforai useful
missionary labours through his translations. And one reason
that he ceased to translate Lucian after 1517 was his confidence
that by that time Greek was gaining in popularity and was
able to stand on its own feet. Referring to his versions of
Lucian, he wrote (1523) : ...sed vbi Graecae linguae peritia
coepit esse vulgo communis, id quod miro successu factum est
apud nos, coepere negligi ; quodr ego sane vt futurum sciebam,
ita factum gaudeo (2).
The inherent worth of Lucian's works was another reason
for Erasmus' attraction to them. He found in them much
(1) Ibid., I, 7, 24-8, 1.
(2) Ibid., I, 8, 11-13.
880
C. R. THOMPSON
"
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of ethical and social value to pass on to his readers. Many
of the follies and fads satirized by Lucian were, in Erasmus'
judgment, singularly similar to those of sixteenth-century
Europe. Lucian was a clever writer who could make vice
appear ridiculous and at the same time amuse his readers —
precisely the purpose of Erasmus himself in many of his own
writings. In some interesting lines in his préface to Gallus
he observes that authors who expose the hypocrisies and
ignorance of men are likely to be harshly spoken of by their
contemporaries. Of Lucian he says :
. _
Pari libertate deos quoque passim et ridet et lacerat,
vnde cognomen inditum άθέον, speciosum profecto vel hoc
nomine quod ab impiis ac superstitiosis attributum....
Tantum obtinet in dicendo gratiae, tantum in inueniendo
felicitatis, tantum in iocando leporis, in mordendo aceti,
sic titillât allusionibus, sic seria nugis, nugas seriis miscet ;
sic ridens vera dicit, vera dicendo ridet ; sic hominum
mores, affectus, studia quasi penicillo depingit, neque
legenda, sed plane spectanda oculis exponit, vt nulla
comoedia, nulla satyra cum huius dialogis conferri debeat,
seu yoluptatem spectes, seu spectes vtilitatem (x).
When translating Convivium he could not refrain from pointing out that the bickering and the banausic behaviour of
philosophers and theologians of his own day were not less remarkable than the conduct of the learned gentlemen at Lucian's
banquet, and that consequently this work might be read with
much profit by modems :
At mihi videtur iustius esse stomachandum in huius
saeculi mores, quo videmus philosophorum ac theologorum
scholas multo puerilius etiam inter se dessidere nee minus
atrociter digladiari ; turn inter religionis professores nihilominus cruentam esse pugnam quam in eo conuiuio fuisse
Lucianus vel finxit vel retulit (2).
Of Timon he writes that there is scarcely another pièce in
Lucian ...vel vtilior vel iucundior ;... (3). Utilitas was for Eras(1) Ibid., I, 425, 39-41 ; 425, 43 - 426, 50.
(2) Ibid., II, 503, 5-9.
(3) Ibid., I, 424, 11.
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THE TRANSLATIONS OF LUCIAN
881
mus essential. The fact of especial interest is that he found
Lucian so satisfactory an author in this respect.
In the epistle to Botzheim (*), Erasmus gives the
classification and arrangement of his works, by volumes, that he wishes
his literary executors to adopt in publishing his collected
writings. The translations of Lucian are to be in volume one,
which will contain those works ...quae spectant ad institutionem
literarum.... Volume four is to be given over to works... quae
faciunt ad morum institutionem : Moriae Encomium,
for
example, and Institutio Principis Christiani. He says of this
group : Ad hoc genus pertinent et Luciani plaeraque, quanquam
ea in primum tomum assignauimus, proving that in his opinion
Lucian ought to be read for the moral and ethical pabulum
he provides as well as for mère amusement.
Erasmus' translations of Lucian were printed more than
forty times between 1506 and 1550 (2). Frequently ail of them
were printed together, accompanied by More's, but some
volumes contained only Erasmus' and sometimes only a few
of those. That they appeared so many times in forty-four
years can only mean that they found considérable public
favour. Later générations paid little regard to them, but
Erasmus' own âge knew them well and thought highly of them.
Erasmus himself records that they were received with great
applause : Rapiebantur hae nugae primum magno studiosorum
applausu... (3). Adrian of Baarland wrote of them :... dignos
eos censeo quos omnes literarum sacra colentes non modo legant
sed ediscant etiam et omnium peregrinationum comités habeant (4).
(to be followed).
C. R. Thompson.
(1) Ibid., I, 38 f.
(2) [Ferd. van der Haeghen], Bibliotheca Erasmiana, Répertoire,
2« série, Gand, 1893, 39-42.
(3) EE., I, 8, 10-11.
(4) Ibid., II, 387, 46-48.