The Latin poet Ovid composed his renowned Metamorphoses
during the reign of the emperor Augustus. The poem is
perhaps best described as in a genre of its own - a super-epic.
Constructed of approximately 250 epylia interwoven into
one continuous narrative, it is still debated whether or
not this has the technical and narrative qualifications
for an ancient epic. It is definable as a super-epic,
though, as it best formulates what Ovid himself was
striving to create; a 'carmen perpetuum' [everlasting
song], as he vows in his opening in Book I. It could be
said that it is a work fuelled by egocentricity. He mocks
the epic tradition and its hyperbolic gravity and pushes
the limits of the epic genre to the full. His frequent
bathos and comic attempts in serious moments can however
make him seem more of a Puck, not the intended Oberon.
But the key to Ovid's trickery is his beautiful and
emotional retelling of the myths. This rich anthology of
myth embedded in the poem (varnished with Ovid's fertile
imagination) is undeniably what is plundered most from
Ovid's work; Chaucer and Shakespeare were frequenters of
his poetry. In A Midsummer Night's Dream the
Mechanicals' play-within-the-play (the myth of Pyramus
and Thisbe) has been plucked from Metamorphoses.
Yet these aspects are all but the tip of the aesthetic
iceberg. Ovid's genius lies beneath: His technical
mastery and his manipulation of the contents. What
comprises Metamorphoses' three-dimensional
essence is active and sharp imagery, varying narrative
perspectives, emotional drama and diversity in mood, pace,
tone and subject matter. Though perhaps inappropriate to
become engrossed in any allegorical philosophy woven into
Metamorphoses', theological threads (i.e. the
transmigration of souls) must nonetheless be considered
in the poem's meaning. It is Ovid's skill of narrative
which turns a set of carved reliefs into a Technicolor
film.
Besides imitation and allusion to Metamorphoses,
perhaps the greatest task is to translate effectively.
John Dryden (1631 - 1700) translated approximately forty-thousand
lines of ancient language into Jacobean verse; among them,
several of Ovid's epylia. Concentrating on his
translation of Ovid's story of Ceyx and Alcyone, I wish
to discern whether or not Dryden has captured this three-dimensional
aspect of Metamorphoses; whether or not he has
translated the components of both the vivid story and the
masterful technique of Ovid.
Dryden himself follows in the tradition of Jacobean
modernism after Ben Jonson. Though using the classics as
a template for all of his work, he nonetheless pioneered
in all major literary fields; literary criticism, poetry,
drama, translation and satire. In 1666 he published his
modern epic Annus Mirabilis charting the heroic
reconstruction of the post-Cromwellian state. Months
later however, this triumph was somewhat overshadowed by
Milton's Paradise Lost, touching on the deep
religious unrest. This suggested that Dryden had not
written so pertinently. Owing to religious issues, Dryden
became reclusive in retirement and chose to write
translation as a social shield. The object of his art was
to capture beauty, poetic beauty. His writing is based
more around this aesthetic than any other.
The episode that Dryden has translated in Ceyx and
Alcyone follows Ceyx, the Trachinian king. He is
resolved, after certain omens, to go by sea to the oracle
at Claros. Alcyone, his beloved queen, begs him in vain
not to leave. Ceyx's ship is wrecked in a storm and he
dies. The ignorant Alcyone, at home, prays for his return;
she angers Juno who orders a dream to be sent to her
reporting Ceyx's death. Iris, Juno's messenger, reports
this to the god of Sleep. Sleep sends his most capable
son, Morpheus, to Alcyone in her sleep. Morpheus imitates
Ceyx's ghost and tells her that he is dead. Alcyone,
grief-stricken, goes onto the shore where she and Ceyx
parted; Ceyx's body returns in the waves to her. She is
transformed into a Halcyon bird by Apollo. She kisses
Ceyx, who is revived and also transforms into a bird.
Most immediately striking about Dryden's translation is
the directness of his writing. It is economical, succinct
and full of vitality. It many ways it mirrors Ovid's
economy and precision. Both the original and the
translation have their virtues and their vices. But a
naked and literal comparison of Dryden to Ovid, using a
checklist as it were, would be a biased approach. Dryden's
literary intentions for his translation are tantamount to
Ovid's. "I have not tied myself to a literal
translation; but I have often admitted what I have judged
necessary or not of dignity to appear in the company of
better thoughts" [2]. Dryden aims to use Ovid's work
as a potentially beautiful sculpture, not yet finished;
to then chip away at the jagged and incongruous edges,
refining every curve and line to maximise the beauty of
the original masonry. Dryden's 'Essay on Dramatic Poesy'
gives a more specific glimpse of his approach to Ovid,
"who wrote things so near the drama" [1].
Dryden, like countless others, recognised the sublime
dramatic, even theatrical potential within Metamorphoses.
His translation is very active in exposing capacity for
drama within a piece of action. Early in the passage,
Ceyx has left and Alcyone returns to their bed:
Alcyonae
lacrimas et, quae pars, admonet, absit.
Lit: '[the
bed and surroundings renew] tears in Alcyone, and they
remind her of that part which is absent'.
Yet Dryden's adds:
Her
husband's pillow, the widowed part
Which once he pressed.
Dryden's
detailed observation of the bed is indicative of his
attempts to rouse sympathy for the abandoned Alcyone and
increase the drama. He also draws attention to the bed, a
recurrent motif in the passage. Moreover, it is an
indication of his liberal use of the text and his licence
to modify it to his tastes. On translation, Dryden writes:
"But though I grant that here and there we may miss
the application of a proverb or custom, yet a thing well
said will be writ in all languages, and though it may
lose something in translation, yet, to him who reads it
in the original, 'tis still the same" [2]. Further,
he claims that the elegance of the original words cannot
be captured, only the impression of the word upon the
line and soul. Dryden's approach is ambitious; in aiming
to convey the essence of the piece, he recognises the
deeper aspect of the Latin which his work must nurture.
The above example immediately suggests that Dryden is
trying to recreate this core of intensity and emotion.
There is no doubt that Dryden has the technical skill to
match Ovid in ensnaring a feeling. During the shipwreck,
Ovid captures the immense force of the waves compressing
the sailors into the sea by using phonetically weighty
words, such as 'gurgite pressa gravi' [lit: crushed down
by the force of the water]. Dryden writes:
Down
sinks the ship within the abyss below;
Down with the vessel sinks the main.
Repetition of
the plosive 'down' placed emphatically at the beginning
of the line resound the impact of the wave, while 'below'
is placed just as importantly at the end of the line,
trapping the sailors within the line (sea). 'Abyss' is
apt word selection by Dryden to heighten the sense of
doom for the sailors.
The technical aspects of Dryden's translation are, like
Ovid's original, governed by meter and rhythm. Dryden,
said to have perfected the use of heroic couplets, uses
his forte. Bound by couplet rhyme and iambic pentameter,
the form is strict with an ambivalent effect. It can, on
the one hand, make his word selection and order more
precise, or it can have the opposite effect, filling the
line with monosyllabic words and pronouns. Heroic
couplets are perhaps limiting, pushing much of the
emphasis on rhyme which can often only account for half
the beauty of the line. The iambics can result in the
reader trundling along to the unchanging rhythm.
Ted Hughes, in his modern translation of some of the Tales
from Ovid, takes word selection and placement to be
paramount to portraying an emotion. He is similar to Ovid
in this respect. Dactyllic hexameter, the stock Latin
epic meter, was used by Ovid for his poem to be regarded
as within the said genre. It permits six metrons, four of
which can vary as either a dactyl [thesis/ arsis] or a
spondee [thesis/ thesis]. This gives the opportunity to
vary the pace of the piece, to add gravity or levity when
required; both giving the writer greater control of the
reader's emotions and creating a more lucid image through
sound and length: (When describing Sleep's palace)
Ianua nec
verso stridores cardine reddit
[Lit: No door
gives a creak with the turning of its hinges]
The two out-bursts of shorter syllables (the creaking)
break the predominant silence and calmness of the longer
syllables in the line. Or both mood and action can be
affected: (When Alcyone discovers her dead Ceyx):
"Nulla
est Alcyone, nulla est!" ait. "Occidit
una"*
[Lit: "Alcyone
is nothing, nothing!" She said. "She died as
one..."] *a = elided vowel.
The two elisions at the beginning of the line reflect
Alcyone's utter choking with grief, intermittent with
sobbing. In a direct comparison, Dryden's initially seems
flat:
No more
Alcyone, she suffered death
But instead
it captures the resoluteness of later in the speech. This
is due to Dryden subtly tempering his translation. He
does not leap at every opportunity for tragedy, and has
"admitted what I judged necessary" [2]. Though
in the last example Dryden failed to process the emotion
which Ovid enhances, he incorporates this technique at a
later point, though Ovid this time does not: (When
Alcyone realises that the dead sailor is her Ceyx):
"Tis
he, 'tis he," she cries, and tears her cheeks
If an
apostrophe is a close relation to the elision, Dryden has
succeeded in intensifying Alcyone's tears in the
disjointed effect which it brings upon the sentence.
Though the flowing iambics do not permit the control of
pace, Dryden uses punctuation to good effect. By his
sensitive placement of punctuation and aided by language,
he can influence the mood. Here, with up-beat, energetic
language: (As Iris enters the palace of Sleep)
The
Virgin, entering bright, indulged the day
To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away;
The two
commas in the first line serve to speed the pace, aided
by the enjambment into the next line. This acceleration
is timely by Dryden. He uses pace to create an entirely
fresh mood from the previous line and passage, in which
the reader has been introduced to the land of Sleep. (Describing
the river running from a rock)
An arm of
Lethe, with a gentle flow
By placing a
comma in the middle of several lines, having more or less
the same number of syllables either side, he gives the
passage a balanced, rocking, soporific quality - in a
different method from Ovid. The passage ends with a
deliberately long thirteen-syllable line, placed by
Dryden to again draw out the languid feel of the passage,
and at the same time indicate the number of dreams in the
place. Again, it has that balanced quality: (In
comparison to the number of dreams, there are not as many
leaves in a wood)
Nor
bearded ears in fields, nor sands upon the shore.
Just as the
reader is being drawn into the slow rhythm, Dryden
injects pace with the new passage of "The virgin,
entering bright...", more so than is notable with
Ovid, who at this point chooses to highlight a different
matter; Iris's hand physically pushing through these
empty dreams through word order. The strength of the hand
in the middle of the line (emphasised by a dactyl) parts
the dreams:
Quo simul
intravit, manibusque obstantia virgo
[Lit: As soon
as the virgin entered, she brushed aside the dreams with
her hand.]
In comparing many of the more common techniques of Ovid
and Dryden (pace, enjambment, alliteration polyptoton,
juxtaposition etc.) it is similar to watching a game of
chess; the same pieces either side, but moves at
different intervals. Dryden is being innovative in this
aspect, judging for himself where the minor
technicalities help to vitalise the poem. In alliteration,
for example:
The winds
augment the winter of the sky
And wage intestine wars.
The pounding
of 'w' resounds the futility of the tempest. In another
area, Ovid chooses to recreate the trickling waters of
the river Lethe:
invitat
somnos crepitantibus unda lapillis.
[Lit: The
water, moaning, invites sleep, drifting with the
pattering pebbles].
Repetition is likewise. Though perhaps commonly used by
both poets for metrical means, they are placed
appropriately, and serve often to alert the reader to
emotional intensity. In Dryden, Ceyx's demand for the
attention and co-operation of the sailors has a similar
effect in gaining the reader's attention:
Strike,
strike the top of the sail; let the main sheet fly.
Dryden has
also captured Ovid's frequent use of juxtaposition: Used
so often in Ceyx and Alcyone to suggest an
imbalance in the relationship of things so close - namely
the king and queen. In an Ovidian example, when Alcyone
is begging Ceyx not to leave:
Nec nisi
quae patiar metuam: pariterque feremus
Quidquid erit, pariter super aequora lata feremur.
[Lit: I shall
not fear, except for what I am suffering. We shall carry
equally
And we shall be carried equally by the sea, what ever it
will be.]
The polyptoton of 'pariterque...pariter' and 'feremus...feremur'
is used in a microcosmic sense by Ovid to foreshadow
inequality; an upset in the loving harmony of the
relationship of Ceyx and Alcoyne - indeed, Ceyx will die.
Here polyptoton is used, in the extreme sense, to
represent the harmony of life being disrupted to lead to
death. Dryden, in a characteristically perceptive and
direct manner, translates:
Then o'er
the bounding billows shall we fly,
Secure to live together, or to die.
The clear
juxtaposition of life and death between Alcyone and Ceyx,
as a means of exciting pity in the reader, is a recurring
motif used by both poets, often with Dryden mirroring
Ovid's placement.
Despite being used to highlight a particular point,
juxtaposition is also more concerned with the structure
of the poem, in which Dryden rarely differs from Ovid. He
is committed to "not meddling with the design [myth
elements] or the disposition of it". Moreover, he
acts more as the editor of appropriate material and moods,
rather than taking a designer's role.
Cohesion was one of Ovid's secondary objectives in Metamorphoses.
It was the key to his making the work appear continuous
and vital in creating an epic. Ovid works tirelessly to
link the epylia together. Also, in a story such as Ceyx
and Alcyone where propheticism and the completion of fate
play so large a part, he must make each individual story
coherent and whole. The more the fate element is
highlighted, the more harrowing it is for the reader.
Dryden saves himself half the onus by translating only
three-quarters of this single epylion; (Ceyx and Alcyone
were introduced two stories earlier).
Ring composition is used by Ovid to realise the cyclic
cruelty of fate, while also to create a continuity of
character. Since Alcyone parted from her husband on the
shores of Trachinia, she is compelled by grief (after
Morpheus' dream) to return to there. Dryden chooses to
augment the sense of Alcyone's grief, by making her
destination utterly precise:
That
place, that very spot she sought,
Or thither where her destiny was brought.
Dryden
observes that Alcyone is caught in a 'sliding doors'
complex. He makes her relive exactly the events of before,
again highlighting fatalism. Once more, he elucidates the
catastrophic outcome of life and death separating the two
lovers. The ring composition is echoed when Alcyone
"embraced the dead", where formerly she had
embraced her husband as he departed. Though first
initiated by Ovid, they are clearly also a vital
structure of Dryden's work. Dryden is also avid in
bringing the reader's attention (more so than Ovid) to
the recurring motif of the bed; both Alcyone and the god
of Sleep centre around them. He makes it a symbol of
where the absent or dead Ceyx and the living Alcyone are
joined in dreams, and where the suffering Alcyone endures
without Ceyx physically beside her.
The neo-classicist enters whole-heartedly into both aping
and embellishing Ovid's structural techniques which are
concerned with the narrative. In the similes which Ovid
uses, predominantly during the shipwreck scene, Dryden is
only too keen to follow suit:
Ovid:
Dat quoque ima saltus intra cava texta carinae
Fluctus; et ut milites, numero praestantior omni,
Cum saepe adsilarit defensae moenibus urbis...
Dryden:
Now all the waves their scattered force unite;
And as a soldier, foremost in the fight,
Makes way for the others, and, a host alone,
Still presses on, and, urging, gains the town.
The simile
continues with the soldiers (waves) attacking the
beleaguered town (ship). The simile serves to paint a
more vivid picture of the nature of the shipwreck, while
relating the experience to the reader through human
action. The suspense of the action (which Ovid builds) in
waiting for the ship to be inevitably destroyed is
increased by Dryden, who, of his own accord, incorporates
the same soldier simile:
The sea
grew white, with rolling waves from far,
Like heralds, first denounce the watery war.
The final
line is a preparatory line of Dryden's, used cleverly at
the end of the passage to build up the suspense of the
next passage and the shipwreck as a whole. His awareness
to relate the shipwreck to human experience using
personification is furthered by a metaphor he adds, again
of his own doing. The victimised ship is diseased in the
water:
The
frothy white appear the flatted seas,
And change their colour, changing their disease.
Like various fits the Trachin vessel finds,
This very apt
and vivid metaphor adds another aspect of the pain and
suffering of those in the shipwreck, inducing a further
element of pity. The storm scene is intended by Ovid to
be deliberately hyperbolic, and Dryden achieves the same
effect:
Seas dash
on seas, and clouds encounter clouds;
At once from east to west, from pole to pole.
These two
lines capture the repeated alliterative sounds of the war
of the elements. But Dryden again exceeds Ovid, whose
hyperbole is restricted vertically to the "pontus"
[sea] and "nubes" [clouds]. Dryden is
geographical; his entire world is shaken by the tempest.
Dryden relishes these dramatic moments, frequently
commenting upon Metamorphoses's theatrical
potential: "Yet he of them who had a genius most
proper for the stage was Ovid" [1]. But further than
dramatic is Ovid's profound cinematic (by 20th Century
standards) sense in his writing. This is imitated closely
by Dryden to fulfil its potential to captivate the reader.
From the panoramic view to the action-packed view, Ovid
again adjusts the camera to zoom in on the suffering
individuals:
Ovid:
Non tenet hic lacrimas, stupet hic, vocat ille beatos,
Funera quos maneant: Hic votis numen adorat
Bracchiaque ad caelum...
Dryden:
One weeps, and yet despairs of late relief;
One cannot weep, his fears congeal his grief;
But stupid, with dry eyes, expects his fate.
One with loud shrieks laments his lost estate,
And calls those happy whom their funerals await.
This wretch with prayers and vows the god implores...
It is not
only Ovid's individual focus which is cinematic, but
switching from person to person, giving in snap-shots a
popular account of the suffering of the sailors. Dryden
is only too ready to imitate.
Ovid's narrative diversity is further exemplified in
speech. The classical epic poems such as Virgil's Aeneid
were all told from the third-person. Yet Ovid mocks this
tradition and intensifies feeling when he moves from
third-person to first-person in character speech. The
lens moves into the eye of the character as Ovid combines
the form of elegiac poetry with epic poetry, never
previously done in the epic tradition before him. Dryden
follows suit, besides which he adds something to the
translation to increase the drama.
The final key structural matter is dividing elements of
comedy and tragedy. Ovid's comedy is made most commonly
through (besides those already mentioned) bathos, asides
to the reader and anachronism. Perhaps from a narrative
perspective; the sense of a looming figure behind the
scenes, manipulating the action, adds a hidden depth to
the poem. But on the comedy issue, Dryden is apprehensive:
"On these [emotional] occasions the poet should
endeavour to raise pity; but instead of this, Ovid is
tickling you to laugh" [2]. Dryden is not opposed to
comedy, having written much himself, such as the mock
epic MacFlecknoe. He dislikes the notion of
tragicomedy - or at least mixing the two emotions; in his
eyes, it is fundamental that the more appropriate of the
two must prevail. Ceyx and Alcyone is a love
story; a tragedy. Still, Ovid's purpose is to mock its
form and coax the reader to laugh at what Dryden
considers to be inappropriate times.
Some of the supposed comedy in Ovid is so subtle that the
tone of the piece is entirely subjective, according to
the reader's immediate attitude. It can be considered as
either poking frequent fun at the traditional love story,
or dividing into two halves a predominant emotional love
story with a quite independent comic interlude. Dryden
certainly tries to mould it into the latter. In doing so,
he makes a bold attempt to keep to his philosophy on
comedy, and treats the 'Sleep episode' as a near separate
story. Ovid's text allows for that. After Iris takes off
to fly to Sleep's palace, having received her orders from
Juno, Ovid switches the scene. New characters are
introduced (Sleep, Morpheus, Icelus and Phantasus). Ovid's
switch from the love story is definite, and the Sleep
episode is unmistakably a more comic piece; Sleep himself
is a satirical portrayal of an omnipotent deity. Dryden
recognises this switch, increasing its potential. After
the eerie, atmospheric introduction to the land of Sleep,
Dryden, as mentioned before, injects sudden pace with
Iris' entrance:
The
virgin, entering, bright, indulged the day
To the brown cave, and brushed the dreams away.
He
successfully undermines the gloomy blackness and ghostly
dreams and the "quiet next to death". There is
clear bathos in Iris entering with a multicoloured cloak
and committing, through light, something near sacrilege.
The looming dreams with haunting potential are simply
"brushed" aside. The colour black has been
mentioned by Dryden thrice in the last seven lines;
deliberately to be undermined by the cave now being a
normal brown. From here on Dryden, following Ovid, enters
precipitously into a new comic style. When Sleep finally
awakes, he is comically overcome by his own powers:
Ovid:
Excussit tandem sibi se...
Dryden: At length shook off himself...
In the next
line, Dryden adds some comedy of his own accord, in the
form of an aside:
...he
asked the dame
(And asking yawned), for what intent she came?
The power of
Sleep is contagious. After Iris has delivered her message,
she herself is "unable to support the fumes of sleep".
Then, while discussing what Icelus (Morpheus' brother)
can conjure up, Dryden lets his imagination run into the
preternatural:
Beasts...dragons...dreadful
images...monster shapes
Ovid states
he merely
fit fera,
fit volucres, fit longo corpore serpens
[Lit: becomes
animals, becomes birds, becomes a snake with a long body"].
Dryden's deliberately grotesque and hellish version could
be perceived as entering further into the spirit of
comedy; but it is not without its Christian undertones.
With further bathos, there is perhaps an aristocratic
snigger intended, when Dryden has just described what the
three dream-creating brothers can display:
These
three to kings and chiefs their scenes display,
The rest before the ignoble commons play;
The idea of
artificial theatricality (perhaps connected to what
Dryden thought of as Metamorphoses' potential
for the stage) in which these dreams are performed is
highlighted singularly by Dryden. In particular, it is
prominent in Morpheus' performance as Ceyx. First,
Morpheus is "prepared for flight". Then there
is a comic undermining of this "demon" creature
having to do a quick change of costume:
Then lays
aside the steerage of his wings
...[then] Assumes the king's;
Having
delivered his monologue as Ceyx:
Thus said
the player god; and adding art
Of voice and gesture, so performed his part.
There is a
certain mockery to the whole 'dream-business' of Sleep
and Morpheus, which is subtle comedy by Dryden. The joke
is perhaps realised with Dryden imitating the comically
harsh tone which Ovid gives to Morpheus (as Ceyx):
Rise,
wretched widow, rise, nor undeplored...
Full of harsh
imperatives, it is perhaps comic that Morpheus is
unskilled and insensitive in his art. But at this point
the Sleep episode begins to merge back into Ceyx and
Alcyone. Where Ovid quite easily and inconspicuously
blends his comic tone back into the tragicomic tone,
Dryden becomes ambiguous. The analogy of theatre could be
either subtle comedy or just imaginative writing. After a
somewhat 'iffy' changeover, Dryden realigns himself back
to the tragic love story, with not a whiff of comedy
throughout the remaining events. So Dryden's structure of
comedy and tragedy does not differ greatly from Ovid's,
but is certainly more categorised into tragedy, separate
comedy, then tragedy. Dryden's inclusion of this comedy
may also serve to increase the pity for Ceyx and Alcyone
- that there are comic, insensitive gods behind the
scenes controlling their two fated lives.
Anachronisms are a common feature of Metamorphoses:
This is again Ovid poking fun at the epic tradition by
including Roman habit into ancient mythical times. In the
previous story of Daedalion and Chione, Ovid
mentions that the beautiful Chione's face was 'snow-white';
it was a feature of aristocratic Roman women to wear
white make-up. Likewise, in Ceyx and Alcyone,
when she finds out that her husband is to leave, Alcyone
tore apart her
totos
capillos nondum ornata
[Lit: whole
hair, not yet decorated].
It was also a feature of Roman women to decorate and
style their hair. While Dryden includes these
anachronisms he makes a point of including his own. But
they are not intended for comic value. They are more
connected with elements of romantic poetry, using modern
versions of English myth. "Maid" and "court"
and "mansion" seem to be used for aiding the
English reader to enter into the spirit of myth. However,
the ghoulish anachronisms used when describing what
Icelus can imitate - "dragons...monster shapes"
- are also associated with English myth. Dryden is
perhaps not mocking the epic tradition, but the concept
of such things being able to exist in unreal dreams.
The theatricality which Dryden draws upon is one of the
many aspects of his own which he mixes into the story.
Dryden intends to make this a grave and emotional love
story, adhering to the love story tradition rather than
mocking it. This is initially indicated by the point at
which he starts his translation. After a brief prologue
explaining the background of events, Dryden launches
straight into Ovid's 'serious bit'. Ceyx has been
portrayed by Ovid as a wimpish, neurotic king. Dryden
does not give this background, but immediately creates
Ceyx as a "pious prince" who is "more
perplexed" by the portents, rather than Ovid's
"anxia" [lit: fearful] Ceyx. For Dryden, piety
and love are the virtues of Ceyx. During the shipwreck,
when Ovid highlights the comic helplessness and non-heroic
nature of Ceyx, the Dryden reader is more compelled to
regard Ceyx as a pious victim of the gods' will.
"I comprehend the passions and, in a larger sense,
the descriptions of persons and their very habits" [2],
Dryden immodestly writes. But by no means does Ovid leave
Dryden with much to create with the characters, who are
perfectly apt and two-dimensional for a love story.
Dryden does observe characters appropriately and does not
add independent actions or speeches to what Ovid has
already written. Moreover, the neo-classicist increases
some of the detail with which things are done, whilst
always ready to highlight issues surrounding the
separation of the two, as exemplified when Alcyone
returns to the shore. This is a successful technique to
further excite pity for Ceyx, but predominantly
distressed Alcyone (whom most of the story observes). The
only other minor difference here between the original and
the translation is that Dryden's Alcyone seems to have
extra elements of strength and resoluteness, as mentioned
before. This idea of endurance of the human soul links
well with Ceyx's piety.
Dryden is also keen to emphasise the situation in which
Ovid places his characters - two inferior human lovers
versus the immensity of nature and the fate of the gods.
This very Hardy-esque idea emerges from Dryden's frequent
reference to propheticism. Where it is implied by Ovid,
Dryden prefers to state it. When Alcyone begs Ceyx not to
leave, having seen visions of tombs without names on the
shore:
And fears
are oft prophetic of the event.
Then, when
she sees the dead Ceyx in Morpheus' dream:
And my
prophetic fear presaged too true.
The semi-conscious
sense which Alcyone has of being aware of her own tragedy
adds a further emotional element to the story. It also
intensifies the theme of fate running through Ceyx and
Alcyone.
Both poets' attention to the descriptive lighting
elements of the story are vital in creating fuller images.
But another continuous theme which Dryden includes, this
time of his own accord, is the opposition of vision and
blindness. During the shipwreck, he not only paints an
appropriately black, Acherontic picture (as Ovid does)
but he further mentions:
So swirl
the seas, such darkness blinds the sky.
There is also
the conflict of Alcyone's foresight and then its cyclic
fulfilment in the dream. She is adamant that she saw the
real Ceyx:
I saw, I
saw him manifest in view.
Then there is
a further sight element when Alcyone, mourning, stands on
the shore and sees a dead sailor float towards her; her
eyes cannot make out who it is; "...Who could judge
aright?", as Dryden moves Ovid's narrative camera to
behind Alcyone's eyes. Then, when the body is closer, she
sees truly and realises it is Ceyx. The sight element is
closely linked with fate, and again it indicates Alcyone's
consciousness of her own fate.
Mistrust and misjudgement of sight is also suggested, and
serves to heighten the pathos felt for Alcyone when she
so desires Ceyx to be physically with her. Her hopes are
betrayed by sight, and she is grappling with what is
truth and what is illusion. There is a slight
philosophical element here about perceiving truth,
perhaps referring to the empirical theories of
contemporary philosophers such as John Locke (1632 - 1704),
and the ability to find truth through the five senses. In
his poem Veni, Creator Spiritus, a prayer to God,
Dryden begs for God to "Submit the senses to our
soul" and "Make us Eternal Truths receive"
[4]. This quest for truth can possibly only be fulfilled
by God, and the human senses are unreliable to the
eternal soul. This issue of whether man was able to act
independently of God was a subject of contemporary
philosophical debate, highlighted by Milton's Paradise
Lost. Dryden's Augustan successor, Pope, discussed
this topic in his Essay on Man.
However, it is presumptuous to attribute personal truths
to Dryden in the translated text. He has written a poem
"which I hope I have translated closely enough and
given them the same turn of verse which they had in the
original" [2]. Translating was a means for Dryden to
make a living. Having lost his office as poet laureate
upon the accession of the Protestant William III in 1689,
Dryden, a convert to Roman Catholicism, was urged to
become more guarded in his opinions and beliefs.
Translating was a way of doing this.
Despite this, there is a clear Christian theme running
through Ceyx and Alcyone - an extension, perhaps,
of the anachronism. The structure of Ovid's story is
close to the English romantic structure like that of Sir
Gawain. In this, for example, the hero leaves the
Christian sophistication of Arthur's court, entering into
the preternatural heathen world on his quest, until he
finds a haven-castle by the will of God. The action then
comes in the hunts of his host and the moral is given,
somewhat subversively in this case, by the Green Knight
at the end of the tale. In Dryden's translation Ceyx is
the "pious prince" who sails off into the
shipwreck (the action), then the gloomy world of Sleep (in
which Dryden places Christian images concerned with Hell)
and then the resolution, with Ceyx coming back to life.
"I have endeavoured to choose such fables, both
ancient and modern, as contain each of them some
instructive moral" [2].
If Dryden does intend to include an instructive
moral in Ceyx and Alcyone, it is difficult to
recognise and state precisely without being tenuous. At
best, love, Platonic love, is eternal. However, this is
perhaps what Ovid himself was trying to say - and thus
the reason Dryden translated it. Themes are indeed
captured by Dryden. But to be instructive would be rash
and anaesthetically blunt: This is the intelligentsia
being written to. It is also worth considering that quite
what constituted a moral parameter by which to instruct
in late 1600s society was significantly doubtful. I
prefer the suggestion that this is a faint moralising
stab of an ostracised and ageing conservative Catholic to
the emerging sceptical materialists of the cosmopolitan
class - the class which Pope was soon to satirise in The
Rape of the Lock.
"I have but a house where I intended but a lodge"
[2], wrote Dryden on his composition of translation
poetry. This is indicative of the creative process
through which he has gone in translating Ceyx and
Alcyone. He entered it with strong intentions and
has proved an effective judge of appropriate material. If
his ultimate objective was to capture "Ovid's beaux"
[2], as Dryden puts it, he has succeeded. His ability to
imitate Ovid and innovate to equal Ovid's technical
brilliance has resulted in Dryden's translation being
thorough, full of imagery, diverse and energetic.
Moreover, his sensitivity towards the reader's emotions (rather
than the egotism engulfing Ovid's work) has created a
temperate piece of poetry.
Dryden has overcome the language barrier and captured
that all-important three-dimensional effect of Ovid's.
The dramatic scenes, the cinematic element, the
descriptive vigour and the narrative diversity of both
poets bring the work alive. Dryden's translation apes
those techniques and descriptions which create the effect,
and where the drama can be increased, does so suitably.
Though his moral intention is not clear, the work has
emotional and some philosophical depth.
On translation, the present-day poet Seamus Heaney writes;
"It is one thing to find lexical meaning for the
words and to have some feel for how the meter might go,
but it is quite another thing to find the tuning fork
that will give you the note and pitch of the overall work"
[3]. In a brief modern comparison with Dryden, Heaney's
translation of Beowulf also both innovates and
imitates. Heaney does not conform to the strict,
alliterative Anglo-Saxon meter, yet his word selection
and creation resounds the organic and onomatopoeic feel
to every Anglo-Saxon word. For both translators it is
fundamental to retain a feeling of the work. For Dryden
it is essential to convey this to the soul, and he uses
all necessary means to do this. In his own words: "An
author is not to write all he can, but all he ought"
[2].
References:
1 Dryden's Essay on Dramatic Poesy.
2 Dryden's Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern.
3 Heaney's Introduction to Beowulf.
4 Dryden's Veni, Creator Spiritus.
NB: Literal translations are my own, with great help from
C. S. Dammers. I have attempted in these lines to show a
basic reading of the Latin, in order that the reader may
see the extent of Dryden's invention.
© Thomas Bailey, May
2004
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