Two Tragedies of Seneca

Two Tragedies of Seneca

Medea and The Daughters of Troy

Rendered into English Verse, with an Introduction

By

Ella Isabel Harris

Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
M DCCC XCIX

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY LAMSON, WOLFFE AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY ELLA ISABEL HARRIS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I
SOURCES OF SENECAN INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH DRAMA

The interest of English students in the dramas of Seneca lies in the powerful influence exerted by them upon the evolution of the English drama, and these translations have been undertaken in the hope that they may be found useful to English students of English drama.

Though all the tragedies ascribed to Seneca are not by the same hand, yet they are so far homogeneous that in considering them as a literary influence, one is not inclined to quarrel with the classification that unites them under a single name. For the present purpose, therefore, no time need be spent in the discussion of their authorship or exact date, but we may turn at once to look for their appearance as agents in the development of the modern, serious drama. In this relation it is hardly possible to overestimate their determining influence throughout Europe. Perhaps it may have been owing to the closer racial bond between the Romans and the French that while the Senecan influence upon the drama in France was so overmastering and tyrannical, in England the native spirit was stronger to resist it, and the English drama at its best remained distinctively English, the influence exercised over it by the Senecan tragedies being rather formative than dominant.

Before the time of Marlowe and Shakespeare the forces that determined the development of the serious drama in England were practically twofold: one native, emanating from the moralities and miracle plays; the other classic, and found in the tragedies long ascribed to Seneca. These remnants of the Roman drama were known to the English at a very early date, were valued by the learned as the embodiment of what was best in ancient art and thought, and were studied in the Latin originals by pupils in the schools even while the schools were still wholly monastic. During the latter half of the sixteenth century, separate plays of Seneca were translated into English by various authors, and in 1581 Thomas Newton collected these translations into one volume, under the title of "Seneca his Ten Tragedies, Translated into English." After an examination of these translations one can readily understand why Elizabeth felt the need of an English translation of the Latin favorite, and herself essayed to turn them into English verse. In 1702 Sir Edward Sherburne published translations of three of the plays, but the edition of 1581 still remains the only complete English translation. From the edition of 1581 I quote a part of the translation of the beautiful lines on the future life, Troades, Act II., Scene iv.:—

In Sherburne's translation of 1702 the same lines are rendered as follows:—

It is also interesting to compare Sherburne's version with the earlier one in the famous passage which closes the chorus at the end of the second act of the Medea; Newton's edition gives the lines as follows:—