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Textual Translation/Textual Transformation of a Greek Pastoral Romance: The First Appearance of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe in Golden-Age Spain

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Abstract

The Hellenistic Greek Romance Daphnis and Chloe was supposed to be unknown in sixteenth-century Spain. However, the Spanish romance of chivalry Lidamarte de Armenia (1568), by the minor Spanish humanist Damasio de Frías, contains a partial translation and adaptation of the first two books of that romance. Through a textual comparison with the Greek, French, Italian and neo-Latin texts (that last recently determined by the German Classicist Heinz Hofmann to be too late for a possible influence), I determined that Frías had used both the Greek and the French texts for his translation. Since Frías had probably studied Greek at the University of Salamanca, and was in the employ of the Admiral of Castile, one of the tutors of Prince don Carlos, at the time of Queen Isabel de Valois, wife of Philip II, the 2 texts would have been a natural choice for him.

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Notes

  1. R.L. Hunter, A Study of “Daphnis and Chloe”, London, 1983, p. 3.

  2. J. González Rovira, La novela bizantina de la Edad de Oro, Madrid, 1996, pp. 20, 24. Achilles Tatius was evidently less well–known than Heliodorus.

  3. F. López Estrada, Los libros de pastores en la literatura española, Madrid, 1974, p. 70.

  4. M. I. Gerhardt, Essai d’Analyse Littéraire de la Pastorale dans les Littératures Italienne, Espagnole et Française, Leiden, 1950, p. 305n. 54; J. T. Cull, ‘Androgeny in the Spanish Pastoral Novels’, Hispanic Review, 57, 1989, p. 318; A. Solé-Leris, The Spanish Pastoral Novel, Boston, 1980, pp. 22–3.

  5. In addition to new biographical information, Juan Montero Delgado’s article on Frías’s invective against Antonio Villegas’s Inventario sums up previous biographical studies, including the introductory material in my 1975 thesis-edition of Frías’s Lidamarte de Armenia. Juan Montero Delgado, ‘Noticia de un texto recuperado; la invectiva contra Antonio de Villegas a su Inventario’, Voz y Letra, 14, 2003, pp. 79–98; M. L. Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition of a Sixteenth-Century Spanish Novel of Chivalry: Damasio de Frías y Balboa’s Lidamarte de Armenia, with Introductory Study’, PhD diss., University of California, 1975, pp. x–li.

  6. At least Empedocles is one of the earlier expressions of ‘the divine immanence in the natural world’, W. E. McCulloh, Longus, New York, 1970, p. 83. Hunter equates this Eros as well with Hesiod’s and with subsequent Orphic beliefs (Hunter, “Daphnis and Chloe” [n. 1 above] p. 32).

  7. J. Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’, in Longus Pastorales (Daphnis et Chloé), Paris, 1987; notes of Amyot: ‘la leçon de Lycénion, dans ses détails précis, est passée pudiquement sous silence’ (‘Lycanion’s lesson is modestly passed over in silence’) (LXXIV); and of Caro: ‘De style baroque, cette traduction, non seulement paraphrase sans retenue le modèle grec dont le mot à mot apparaît < cossa secca > à Caro, mais elle l’ enrichit généreusement (l’ ho ingrassata) de trouvailles personnelles’ (‘Of baroque style, this translation not only paraphrases the Greek model without holding back, and in which word for word seems “a dry thing” to Caro, but he enriches it generously (I have fattened it) with his own finds’) (LXXVIII). Caro, in fact, somewhat amplifies the Lycanion episode.

  8. Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’ (n. 7 above) p. LIX

  9. J.R. Morgan, ‘Introduction’, in Longus. Daphnis and Chloe, Oxford, 2004, p. 20; Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’ (n. 7 above), pp. XV–XXXI, although for Vieillefond, MS. F = A, and MS. V = B. Georges Dalmeyda proved the dependence of two of Henri Estienne’s Eglogues on MS. F; G. Dalmeyda, ‘Henri Estienne et Longus’, Revue de Philologie, de Littérature et d’Histoire Anciennes, 8, 1934, pp. 169–181.

  10. Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’ (n. 7 above) pp. LXXII–III. Longus, Les amours pastorales de Daphnis et Chloé, traduit du grec ancien par Jacques Amyot, ed. Sabine Wespieser, Arles, 1988.

  11. Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’ (n. 7 above) p. LXXVI. A. Caro, Gli amori pastorali di Dafni e di Cloe, ed. L. Salori, Rome, 1982.

  12. Vieillefond, ‘Introduction’ (n. 7 above) p. LXIII; C. Gagliardi and L. Gambara, ‘Introduzione’, De Navigatione Cristophori Columbi, Roma, 1993, p. 14. But see note 34 below.

  13. Montero, ‘Noticia de un texto recuperado’ (see n. 5 above), p. 79 n.1.

  14. Ibid., p. 84.

  15. Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ (n. 5 above), p. xi.

  16. Brodio was evidently ‘a pottage of bread and meat given to beggars at the door’, A New Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages, by Henry Neumann, London, 1802. According to Covarrubias, brodio was ‘El caldo con berzas [cabbages] y mendrugos que se da a la portería de los monasterios, de los relieves de la mesa’, or ‘el estudiante pobre, que a la hora de comer acude al monasterio o colegio’, ‘pan y caldo, en que metían legumbres y sobras, también llamado brodio’, S. Covarrubias, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, ed. F. C.R. Maldonado, Madrid, 1994.

  17. Montero, ‘Noticia de un texto recuperado’ (see n. 5 above), p. 84.

  18. Hernán Nuñez retired in 1548 and was replaced by León de Castro, who had previously taught beginners (J. López Rueda, Helenistas españoles del siglo XVI, Madrid, 1973 p. 68). López Rueda recounts the fate of Castro’s nearly unreadable Comentarios a Isaías, whose lack of sales Castro blamed on the great poet, linguist and theologian Fray Luis de León, with whom Castro had already had one dispute about a classroom (pp. 78–9, 83). Those disputes, in addition to Castro’s opposition to Fray Luis’s study of the Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, were to culminate in Fray Luis’s famous imprisonment by the Inquisition in 1573 (83–4).

  19. López Rueda, Helenistas españoles (n. 18 above), p. 31.

  20. Luis Enríquez de Cabrera, Sixth Admiral of Castile, and Frías’s patron (Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ [n. 5 above], p. lii), was the nephew of the Fourth Admiral, Fadrique Enríquez de Cabrera, the great protector of both Spanish Erasmists and alumbrados (M. Bataillon, Erasmo y España, trans. A. A., México-Buenos Aires, 1950, p. 183), and the brother of don Alonso Enríquez, Abbot of Valladolid, a fervent Erasmist who had written the Defensiones pro Erasmo (1532), and De matrimonio Reginae Angliae (1532). (Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ [n. 5 above], p. lvi). Don Carlos’s tutors were García de Toledo and the humanist Honorato Juan. (J. Lynch, Spain 1516–1598. From Nation State to World Empire, Oxford-Cambridge, 1991, p. 262), but the Admiral was important enough to don Carlos that he had tried to involve him in a conspiracy in favour of the Low Countries (P. L. Fernández y F. de Retana, España en tiempo de Felipe II [1556–1598], tomo xix of Historia de España, ed. R. M. Pidal, Madrid, 2nd ed., 1966, p. 751), and to leave him a valuable jewel in his will. (L. Cabrera de Cordoba, Historia de Felipe II, Rey de España, ed. J. M. Millán and C. J. de Carlos Morales, vol. 1, Salamanca, 1998, 1618, p. 427. Fernández de Retana mentions as well the Prince of Éboli as the ayo of don Carlos (748).

  21. Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ (n. 5 above) p. xvii.

  22. Rueda, Helenistas españoles (n. 18 above) p. 390.

  23. E. Asensio, ‘Damasio de Frías y su Dórida, Diálogo de Amor. El italianismo en Valladolid’, NRFH, 24 1975, p. 223.

  24. A. Millares Carlo, Introducción a la historia del libro y de las bibliotecas, México, 1971, p. 122. The Greek passages were left blank in the printer’s MS, as they would not have been set in type. It is also possible that the ten to twelve Spanish scribes, who produced the lengthy and rather sloppy MS in a little less than a month, could not reproduce Greek script. (Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ [n. 5 above], p. lxviii).

  25. Millares, Introducción a la historia (n 24 above), p. 122. López also discusses the lack of Greek fonts in sixteenth-century Spain, p. 330, as does L. Gil Fernández, ‘El Humanismo español del siglo XVI’, Estudios clásicos, 51, 1967, p. 288.

  26. Cozad, ‘An Annotated Edition’ (n. 5 above), p. 818.

  27. Or perhaps he was influenced by the name Philotas, the son of Parmenon, who was one of Alexander the Great’s generals and was executed by Alexander for treason (Plutarch, Life of Alexander, 48), or Philotas, who was the Greek dithyrambic poet, musician, and disciple of Philoxenus (Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, www.ancientlibrary.com/Smith-bio/index.html).

  28. Or if quasi: ‘just like soft branches of oak’.

  29. P. Russell, Traducciones y traductores en la Península Ibérica 1400–1550, Barcelona, 1985, p. 9.

  30. M. Zappala, ‘Luciano español’, NRFH, 31, 1982, p. 38.

  31. G. Andrés, ‘El helenismo en Toledo en el tiempo del Greco’, Cuadernos para investigación de la literatura hispánica, 11, 1989, p. 170.

  32. Cozad, An Annotated Edition (n. 5 above), p. lviii; M.S. Salazar Ramírez, Damasio de Frías. Controversias literarias en la corte vallisoletana, Valladolid, 2002, p. 31: ‘La pertenencia al círculo de los Almirantes de Castilla lo puso en contacto directo con Italia, según se desprende de las citas y conocimiento de obras allí producidas…’ (Belonging to the circle of the Admirals of Castille put him in direct contact with Italy, as is clear from the citations and knowledge of works produced there…) or ‘los modelos que Damasio seguía los encontramos constantemente en Italia’ (the models that Damasio followed we constantly find in Italy) (32). In addition, the Admiral’s wife had an Italian title: ‘doña Ana de Cabrera, condesa de Módica en Sicilia’ (Asensio, ‘Damasio de Frías y su Dórida’ [n. 23 above], p. 219).

  33. A. Laurent, Jacques Amyot, L’Humaniste, Ibis, 1998, p. 57.

  34. Recently, Heinz Hofmann in his excellent study ‘The Expositi of Lorenzo Gambara de Brescia: A Sixteenth-Century Adaptation in Latin Hexameters of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, in Fictional Traces: Receptions of the Ancient Novel, eds M. P. F. Pinheiro and S. J. Harrison, 1 vol., Groningen, 2011, pp. 107–25, has put to rest the myth of earlier printed editions of the Expositi. The earliest printed edition of that work was in 1574, not 1555, as had been alleged by Vieillefond, who quotes previous bibliographers. That is, there was no printed text of the Expositi available until several years after Frías wrote the Lidamarte in 1568, a fact that would easily explain its lack of influence in the Spanish text.

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  1. Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Mary Lee Cozad

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Cozad, M.L. Textual Translation/Textual Transformation of a Greek Pastoral Romance: The First Appearance of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe in Golden-Age Spain. Int class trad 20, 127–135 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12138-013-0327-6

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