Arthur Golding
Arthur Golding | |
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Born | 1536 |
Died | 1606 |
Arthur Golding (c. 1536 – May 1606) was an
Biography
Arthur Golding was born in
When Golding was 11, his father died. In 1548, his half-sister Margery, by John's first wife, became the second wife of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, and, by 1552, his brother Henry was steward for his brother-in-law's household. Another sister Dorothy married Edmund Docwra MP of Crookham, Berkshire, and was mother of the soldier and statesman Henry Docwra, 1st Baron Docwra of Culmore.
By 1549, Arthur was in the service of
Golding married Usula (d. 1610), daughter of John Roydon of Chilham, Kent, sometime before 1575. They had eight children. The death in 1576 of an older brother, Henry, left him with some property, but it was heavily encumbered with debt and litigation with the heirs of his brother's widow proved expensive. Golding borrowed heavily in the 1580s and was in debtors' prison in the early 1590s. He died in May 1606 and was buried on 13 May at St Andrew's Church, Belchamp St Paul.[4]
Translation of Ovid
Golding is remembered chiefly for his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The first edition appeared in 1567 and was the first to be translated directly from Latin into English. However, Golding may not have been the first, and certainly not the only early Elizabethan author to attempt a translation of this great work. In his Pleasant Fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis (1565), Thomas Peend says that he had already started on his own version when he heard that another gentleman -- Golding -- was engaged on the same task, and so he gave up. A revised edition appeared in 1575 and there were further editions in 1587, 1603 and 1612.[5] Many other translations followed, including George Sandys's (1621) and Samuel Garth's (1717).[6] Golding's translation, however, was read by Shakespeare and Spenser and "conveys a spirited Ovid with all his range of emotion and diversity of plot".[7] Golding represents the stories he translates in a vivid way, "delivering every twist and turn in as whole-hearted a manner as possible".[7] His translations are clear, faithful and fluent, as seen in this excerpt where Ovid compares blood gushing from Pyramus' wound to water bursting from a pipe:[8]
And when he had bewept and kist the garment which he knew,
Receyve thou my bloud too (quoth he) and therewithal he drew
His sworde, the which among his guttes he thrust, and by and by
Did draw it from the bleeding wound beginning for to die,
And cast himself upon his backe, the bloud did spin on hie
As when a Conduite pipe is crackt, the water bursting out
Doth shote it selfe a great way off and pierce the Ayre about.[9] (4.143–9)
Written in rhyming couplets of
Golding's translation, though, is without any question the most influential version on Shakespeare, and Shakespeare's use of it has become an important part of the history of the translation itself. As a man of strong
With skill heede and judgment thys work must bee red
For else to the reader it stands in small stead.
He prefixed a long metrical explanation of his reasons for considering it a work of edification, in which he asked his readers to look past the heretical content of the pagan poem, set forth the morals which he supposed to underlie the stories, and attempted to show how the pagan machinery might be brought into line with Christian thought.[3]
It was from Golding's pages that many of the Elizabethans drew their knowledge of classical mythology.[3] In his ABC of Reading, Ezra Pound reproduced passages of the translation, noting: "Though it is the most beautiful book in the English language, I am not citing it for its decorative purposes but its narrative quality."[10]
Other translations
Most of Golding's work consists of prose translations that were from Latin and French texts. A Calvinist, he translated contemporary Protestant leaders:
Golding was given the job of completing John Brende's translation of Caesar's
He produced few original works. One was the account of a murder in 1577 and another of a prose Discourse on the earthquake of 1580, in which he saw a judgment of God on the wickedness of his time. He inherited three considerable estates in Essex, the greater part of which he sold in 1595.[12] The last record of Golding in an order dated 25 July 1605, giving him license to print some of his works.[3]
In recent years Golding's prose translations of the Psalms (included in his translation of Calvin's Commentaries) have attracted attention for their accuracy, clarity, good English and sober poise. They have been extracted from the Commentary and published separately, well-edited by Richard G. Barnes, as The first separate edition of the Psalms of David and others / as rendered into English by Arthur Golding (San Francisco, Arion, 1971). Donald Davie discusses them with high praise, and reprints many, in The Psalms In English (Penguin, 1996).
Golding, in the translation of The sermons of J. Calvin upon Deuteronomie, has the first known recorded instance of the idiom "neither here nor there".
Over the course of his lifetime, Golding translated up to 5.5 million words.[11]
Legacy
Golding's "puritan cast of mind"
Notes
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/10908. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Golding, Arthur (GLDN552A)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. The statement that he was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, lacks corroboration.
- ^ a b c d e f Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 212.
- ^ Considine, 2004
- ^ "Full text of "Shakespeare's Ovid : being Arthur Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses"". Retrieved 12 November 2013.
- ^ a b "Golding, Arthur." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. 75-77. Print.
- ^ a b The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. Ed. Philipe Hardie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
- ^ "Golding, Arthur." The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 424. Print.
- ^ Ovid. The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ovidius Nasos Worke, Entitled Metamorphosis, Translated Oute of Latin into Englishe Meter. Trans. Arthur Golding. Ed. J.M. Cohen. London: Willyam Seres, 1567. Print.
- ^ Pound 1934, p. 127.
- ^ a b c Wortham, James. "Arthur Golding and the Translation of Prose." Literary Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Aug. 1949. 339-37. Gale Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 February 2012.
- ^ a b c "Golding, Arthur." The Cambridge Guide To English Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006 444-45. Print.
References
- Considine, John. "Golding, Arthur (1535/6–1606)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 13 Oct 2010.
- "Golding, Arthur." Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. 75-77. Print.
- "Golding, Arthur." The Oxford Companion To English Literature. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 424. Print.
- "Golding, Arthur." The Cambridge Guide To English Literature. 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006 444-45. Print.
- Ovid. The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ovidius Nasos worke, entitled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into Englishe meter. Ed. J.M. Cohen. Trans. Arthur Golding. London: Willyam Seres, 1567. Print.
- Pound, Ezra. ABC of Reading (1934) New Directions (reprint). ISBN 0-8112-1893-7
- The Cambridge Companion To Ovid. Ed. Philipe Hardie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
- Wortham, James. "Arthur Golding and the Translation of Prose." Literary Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Aug. 1949. 339-37. Gale Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 February 2012.
External links
- Works by or about Arthur Golding at Wikisource
- Works by Arthur Golding at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Lee, Sidney (1890). . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 22. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 75–77.