by Patrick Lucky Hadley Athens in Rome, Rome in Germany Nicodemus Frischlin and the Rehabilitation of Aristophanes in the 16th Century Neo L atina Athens in Rome, Rome in Germany Herausgegeben von Thomas Baier, Wolfgang Kofler, Eckard Lefèvre und Stefan Tilg in Verbindung mit Achim Aurnhammer Neo L atina 25 Athens in Rome, Rome in Germany Nicodemus Frischlin and the Rehabilitation of Aristophanes in the 16th Century by Patrick Lucky Hadley Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Förderungs- und Beihilfefonds Wissenschaft der VG Wort. © 2015 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. 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Internet: www.narr.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Printed in Germany ISSN 1615-7133 ISBN 978-3-8233-6923-3 Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A Note on Orthography and Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Chapter I Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Chapter II Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation in Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Theorizing Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Frischlin ’ s Distillation of Humanist Theories of Humor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Modern Theorizations of Humor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Applying Translation Theory and Humor Theory to Frischlin ’ s Translations of Aristophanic Humor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Chapter III Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations . . . . 67 Plutus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Frogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Rhetoric and Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Chapter IV Nationalism and the Politics of the Holy Roman Empire in Frischlin ’ s Translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Knights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Acharnians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Frischlin ’ s Approach to the Politics of Dramatic Reception . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Chapter V The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Frischlin and the Developing Academic Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Frischlin and the Developing Political Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Frischlin and the Evolving Place of Obscenity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 Frischlin and the Developing non-Academic Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . 162 Chapter VI Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Translations and Editions of Aristophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Secondary Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Acknowledgments This book started life as a doctoral dissertation at the Universtiy of Toronto, where it never would have been written without the patient help and encouragement of far too many people to name here. Among these people, however, pride of place must go to Martin Revermann. By allowing me to develop this project on my own initiative when possible, holding me to a higher standard than I held myself, encouraging me at every step of the way, and always making time in his busy schedule to provide in-depth and invaluable feedback in his typically unassuming manner, Martin has been the ideal Doktorvater. His tremendous expertise, sharp eye, and insightful criticisms have improved every single page of what follows, and have rid this thesis of many infelicities and not a few embarrassing blunders. My own stubbornness and foolishness alone are to blame for those that remain. Kenneth Bartlett and Domenico Pietropaolo both generously took time out of their very busy schedules not only to be part of my committee, but to extend to me the sort of friendship, advice, and rigorous, helpful criticism that most doctoral students can only dream of getting from their committee members. Thomas Baier provided excellent criticism and insights as my external examiner, and Gonda Van Steen took the time to read the completed work and make excellent suggestions for revision. Without the patient guidance of these people, I would have been truly lost in dealing with this topic and putting it on paper. My editor at Narr, Tillmann Bub, has worked tirelessly to help see this book through the press, and has demonstrated a near Herculean amount of patience in putting up with my delays and difficulties. I am extremely grateful for his hard work and understanding. In the fall of 2012 I received a very generous fellowship from the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck, Austria, where I first sat down to write the central chapters of the dissertation. For the kindness, camaraderie, and invaluable scholarly advice and academic acumen they put at my disposal during the critical early stages of this project, I will be forever in the debt of my Tyrolean colleagues, whom I think of often and fondly. My friend Philip Sharpe kept me entertained with his antics during the final revisions of this manuscript for publication. I look forward to hearing of his further misadventures. Last but certainly not least, my family has shown endless support in the face of several cases of writer ’ s block and self-doubt. My parents embraced and encouraged a nascent love of what might seem a silly topic, while my brothers spared me many (but not all) of the beatings that a weakened state, brought on by too many weekends alone in the library, made all too easy to administer. Finally, my fiancée (now wife) Karen Maybury has stood by my side throughout this entire process, tolerating every lapse in patience, confidence, and hygiene that dissertating entailed. I know that being able to call myself her partner will prove to be of far greater value in the years to come than being able to call myself a highfalutin Doctor of Philosophy. 8 Acknowledgments A Note on Orthography and Translation I am indebted to Gonda Van Steen of the University of Florida for advising me to include English translations of all the significant Latin, Greek, and German quotations used in the following work. It is my hope that this will not only make the work intelligible to a wider audience, but will also draw greater attention to the challenges, limititations, and ultimately, the necessity of translation itself. Where portions of Aristophanes ’ plays are being quoted in both Latin and Greek, my translation is geared toward the Latin. This is, more than anything, a practical decision: notwithstanding the numerous textual variants between the Greek texts used by Frischlin and those used by modern translators, another translation of the Greek would be redundant, and would do little to highlight for the reader with no Latin the contours of Frischlin ’ s language and thinking. The shortcomings of these entirely utilitarian translations will be all too apparent in many passages, but most especially in my translations of the poetic agon in Frogs, where I have made no effort to replicate in English the metrical tricks which give the passage much of its humor in both Aristophanes ’ Greek and Frischlin ’ s Latin. In transcribing Latin, although I retain the Renaissance dipthongs -ae and -oe, I have eliminated the other diacritical marks, such as acute accents and superscripts for nasal consonants, typical of Renaissance Latin, and have instead transcribed Frischlin ’ s Latin in accordance with a modern, standard orthography of classical Latin. All changes in speakers are marked with “ small caps ” and italics. Chapter I Introduction The eleven plays of Aristophanes that survive today were preserved through the Middle Ages because they were believed to present the Byzantine student of rhetoric with a rich and complex example of the classical Attic Greek that every member of the imperial civil service and the higher echelons of the clergy was expected to master. 1 When Byzantine exiles, diplomats, and refugees reintroduced the Greek language and a passion for all things Hellenic into the blossoming Western European Renaissance at the end of the fourteenth century, they naturally brought with them a passion for Aristophanes ’ exemplary Attic. Aldus Manutius ’ 1498 editio princeps of the plays of Aristophanes reports that Theodore Gaza, a leader of the Greek revival in 15 th -century Italy, on being asked which Greek authors he would recommend, replied, “ Just Aristophanes, because he is very acute, fluent, learned and pure Attic ” . 2 Though the quote may be apocryphal, it is nonetheless an accurate reflection of the sentiments of Greek scholars and humanists in Italy. 3 Girolamo Amaseo reports that his elementary Greek education in 1493 consisted of nothing but intensive daily readings of Aristophanes and Homer preceded by simplified Latin translations of the passages read. 4 Amaseo ’ s experience is typical inasmuch as every beginning Greek student since the introduction of regular Greek courses in Italy by Manuel Chrysoloras in 1397 had relied on the use of paired translations into Latin to generate familiarity and comfort with the Greek language. 5 It is not entirely typical, however, inasmuch as Aristophanes ’ comedies often proved too topical and/ or obscene to be used as a text for novice students of Greek. 6 Although Aristophanes was talked about often enough in the Renaissance, 7 the troubling aspects of his plays and, by extension, his very person, were thought to be so abhorrent that merely invoking him as a proponent of any given idea could satisfy to completely discredit that idea. This can be seen as late as 1578 in the masterful bilingual edition of Plato published by Stephanus. In the Symposium, Plato has Aristophanes deliver a humorous speech explaining the origin 1 Wilson (1970) and (1996) 20. 2 As quoted in Wilson (2007 b) 10. 3 Among Italian humanists this reverence for Aristophanes ’ Attic language is traceable perhaps to the abundant praises of Quintilian (Inst. 10. 1. 65 - 66), whose precepts formed the foundation of much humanist education. 4 Grafton (1997) 145. 5 Wilson (1992) 8 - 12. 6 Wilson (2007 b) 11. 7 See Steggle (2007). of erotic love and what we might today call “ sexual orientation ” by positing three primeval races of doubled people, one male-male, one male-female, and one female-female, who were split for their hubris and thus doomed to spend the rest of their days longing after their original other half (Symposium 189 c - 193 e). In order to ensure that his readers will not assume that this speech, together with its dangerously un-Christian creation myth which insists that same-sex attraction is natural and divinely ordained, has the endorsement either of Plato or himself, Stephanus inserts the following comment immediately before the dialogue, giving it the title “ Naevus in hac Disputatione Detestandus ” : Quod tam crebram παιδεραστίας Plato iniiciat mentionem, abominanda esset in ipso audacia, nisi eo consilio id fecisset ut eam detestandam esse, hominibus suis voluisset demonstrare. Ita foedum Aristophanem foedae rei ministrum facit, et tamen impuros convivas applaudentes. At ipse Plato in primo νομοθεσίας turpitudinem illam detestatur, et τὸ παρὰ φύσιν τόλμημα vocat. 8 Since Plato makes such frequent mention of paederastia, his audacity would clearly have to be despised - that is, if he had not done so out of a desire to demonstrate to his fellow man that it should be despised in the first place. He therefore makes the filthy Aristophanes into the mouthpiece for that filthy idea. And although the vile party guests do applaud, Plato himself, in the first book of the Laws, detests that abominable filth, calling it “ the vice contrary to nature [to para physin tolm ē ma] ” . Despite the fact that he was eminently and undeniably foedus, the high regard in which Aristophanes ’ language was held meant that whenever a means could be found to circumvent the perceived obscenity of the plays, and the students could be trusted to work through the difficult topical references, efforts were made to study the plays of Aristophanes, 9 which meant, essentially, translating them. The difficulties surrounding Aristophanes ’ themes and language delayed the publication of a complete Latin translation until Andreas Divus ’ 1538 edition (although several earlier attempts of individual plays or fragments thereof had been made, beginning with Leonardo Bruni ’ s partial translation of Plutus c. 1440). 10 Although Divus ’ crib met the needs of beginning Greek students in Europe for a brief time, developments in literary tastes and education quickly rendered it obsolete, and voices across the Republic of Letters began to call for a better version. 11 Production of such a version was hindered, however, by the fact that anyone undertaking the project would need to justify it in the face of overwhelming criticism that the poet was obscene, that the plays were too dense and topical 8 Plato (1578) 3. 171. 9 Wilson (2007 b) 11 - 12. 10 Giannopoulou (2007). 11 For example, Humphrey (1559) 14 discusses the inadequacies of the “ ad verbum ” translations of Aristophanes and other authors available in his day, though he does acknowledge their initial use as aids for Greek acquisition. 12 Chapter I - Introduction to be understood easily, and that whatever of value could be gleaned from the language had already been made available in Greek and (purely practical) Latin. Nicodemus Frischlin was able to answer all of these criticisms in 1586 when he produced new and strikingly original Latin versions of five of Aristophanes ’ plays. With this work Frischlin completely recast the place of Aristophanes in the Republic of Letters, forcing readers to approach him not just as an aid to Greek acquisition, but as a dramatist of tremendous contemporary relevance. Frischlin was thus able to rehabilitate Aristophanes by calling attention both to the practical advice his plays could give on the administration of a res publica, and to the light they could shed on serious problems concerning rhetorical education, which Frischlin believed were worthy of study for the aspiring student of rhetoric and public administrator with a desire to serve the res publica that was the Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II. This rehabilitation required finding solutions to several complex and interdependent scholarly problems. The first and most obvious of these problems was the perceived obscenity and inappropriate material in the Aristophanic corpus, which required skillful suppression and/ or defense. Related to this was the necessity of maintaining and/ or establishing the political relevance of the plays themselves, which required Frischlin to create flexible allegories between his contemporary world and that of Aristophanes ’ Athens. More broadly, this required Frischlin to establish the parameters of the cultural and political milieu into which he was bringing his new version of Aristophanes. Frischlin ’ s solutions to these problems, however, were ultimately subordinate to his overarching goal, which was to shed light on the rhetorical aspects of Aristophanes ’ plays, and especially on Aristophanes ’ problematization of the use and abuse of rhetoric. By doing so Frischlin conscripted Aristophanes as an ally in his longstanding fight for improved and more open political discourse in the Holy Roman Empire. This book therefore presents an examination of Frischlin ’ s Latin translations of Aristophanes ’ Clouds, Plutus, Frogs, Acharnians, and Knights, which intends to discover how and why Frischlin used Latin translation of these then-controversial Greek plays to comment on the politics of the Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II, and on the humanist culture that thrived therein. In particular, this examination will seek to discover how Frischlin used his translations to qualify and enlarge upon political points made in his other, original works about humanist educational reforms and the legal abuses they sought to remedy. This line of inquiry will necessarily also seek to determine more precisely Frischlin ’ s place within the reception history of Aristophanes, and his contribution to the craft and theory of translation as a vehicle for serious textual study and political activism in the sixteenth century and beyond. Chapter I - Introduction 13 No work of particular length or vigor has yet been devoted to Frischlin ’ s translations, as heretofore they have been deemed to be largely derivative and of a secondary importance when compared to his massive output as a neo- Latin dramatist and poet. This trend has begun to change slightly, however, with the rise in importance of Translation Studies as a discipline, and the consequent recognition that translations have always been hotly contended and significant acts of interpretation. To date only Thomas Baier (2000) has dedicated a study to Frischlin ’ s translations, which provides valuable insight into some of the finer points of Frischlin ’ s use of syntax, meter, and vocabulary. Baier looks at the opening lines of the Plutus, comparing Frischlin ’ s version to that of Leonardo Bruni and concluding that Frischlin ’ s translation is ultimately Target-Language oriented. This study provides an excellent starting point for an investigation of Frischlin ’ s translations, and it will be clear at several points in what follows to what extent my own methodology is indebted to that used by Baier. This work aims to complement and enlarge upon Baier ’ s findings through further investigations into all of the plays, and into the context in which they circulated. Fortunately, the literary and political culture in which Frischlin worked has already received considerable academic study. David Price ’ s 1990 monograph, The Political Dramaturgy of Nicodemus Frischlin, deftly explores the political motives behind many of Frischlin ’ s more famous neo-Latin dramas, and takes great pains to highlight the oratorical and educational agenda behind much of Frischlin ’ s career. Ultimately, however, his survey is too broad. Although he analyzes a handful of plays in depth, he avoids commenting on the introductory material and other paratexts which inform a reader ’ s opinion of any given work. When it comes to Frischlin ’ s translations he is nearly silent, contenting himself to say only that Aristophanes provided a useful example of a politically involved dramatist, but never making an effort to explore why that personally inspiring example should then be translated and heavily annotated by Frischlin for his contemporaries, who would go on to reprint it for centuries to come. Several others have mentioned Frischlin in passing as an important figure in the reception of Aristophanes in the Renaissance, including Holtermann (2004) and Walsh (2008), but these mentions have been devoid of all detail and close textual or historical criticism, and were provided only as curiosities on the way to the chronologically later period of their surveys ’ focus. This book intends to fill this considerable gap in current research through a rigorous analysis of certain key issues across chapters 2 - 5. Chapter II outlines both the micro-level and macro-level translation analysis that will inform much of the work. It establishes translation studies as a viable and valuable means of literary criticism and cultural investigation. To avoid the pitfalls of subjectivity and ambiguity to which translation analyses are often subject, this chapter will outline a general adherence to 14 Chapter I - Introduction a skopos-based analysis of translation, where the author ’ s own statements about the goals and methods of his translation establish the criteria by which the translation is understood, analysed, and compared to the Source Text. This approach necessitates that Frischlin ’ s introductory materials form the backbone of the primary materials used in this chapter. Chapter III will concentrate on Frischlin ’ s use of his translations to highlight problems surrounding education and rhetoric in the German Renaissance. These same themes reappear in every translation and many of the original Neo-Latin dramas by Frischlin, and they will be shown to inform his conception of the plays ’ meanings and the function of his translations at nearly every level. Indeed, Frischlin ’ s very selection of plays to translate, and the physical order which he gives his completed codex, appear to have been central in shaping the content of his educational polemics. This chapter ’ s investigation is therefore centered especially in Clouds, Frogs, and Plutus, three plays which stand out as works typically either canonized (Frogs, Plutus) or shunned (Clouds) in the educational curricula of the Renaissance. The chapter then examines how Frischlin ’ s approach to these effects his approach to translating and presenting the ultimate meaning of his translated texts. Although these three plays form the central focus of chapter III, this agenda is not pursued to the exclusion of other sources whose microand macro-level anomalies reveal important details about Frischlin ’ s attitude to the rhetorical and educational cultures of his day. These sources range from the syntax and grammar of Frischlin ’ s translations of other plays, to the ideologies underlining their numerous paratexts and intertexts. Chapter III is therefore heavily informed by Frischlin ’ s other writings, and in particular his call for improved education and a conscientious application of forensic rhetoric in the Oratio de Vita Rustica of 1578. Based on the intertextual relationship between this work and the translations, I wish to suggest in this work that Frischlin ’ s plea for changes in rhetorical education is also a plea for serious reformation or, at very least, critical examination of certain political and judicial structures within the Holy Roman Empire. Chapter IV follows on this contention by dissecting Frischlin ’ s own critical view of those same political and judicial structures within the Holy Roman Empire. Sometimes, as in the case of Knights, Frischlin clearly announces his intention to use his translation to draw attention to a specific political issue. Oftentimes the connections are less clear, but, as certain parallels highlighted in the previous chapters will demonstrate, Acharnians too is used to bring attention to the problems caused by serious political corruption. While an analysis of these two plays thus constitutes the principal element of the fourth chapter, this analysis is carried out in the spirit of all other chapters in this work, in that it is not done to the exclusion of other facets of Frischlin ’ s translation or other texts which inform it and form its reference network. Of particular importance in discerning the political nature of these Chapter I - Introduction 15 plays in translation, is understanding the nature of the audience for whom Frischlin has written them. His dedications are thus carefully parsed in order to form, as best as possible, a prosopography of his notional audience. It must be stated at the outset that this reading is informed by Gérard Genette ’ s understanding of the functions of literary paratexts, particularly dedications, and operates on the assumption that Frischlin ’ s dedications, as well as his other introductory materials, serve a vital role in imparting meaning to his text for its readers. 12 This reading is supplemented by a careful analysis of the roles Frischlin seems to assign his audience(s) as critics and active participants in the discourse created by his translations. Not only does this analysis allow the translations to be placed within the larger context of the literary culture of the Renaissance, and in particular its obsession with dialogic literature; it also lays the groundwork for the discussion of Frischlin ’ s place within the overall reception history of Aristophanes. This is because discussion of Frischlin ’ s view of his audience necessarily leads back to lively debates concerning the audience ’ s composition and role in the source text, Aristophanes ’ Greek comedies. This will place Frischlin firmly within the tradition of classical reception, whereby “ chains of influence ” , as they are called by Budelmann and Haubold, 13 in the reception history of a text can be analyzed and, hopefully, used to distill some truth about the text itself. Analysis of these “ chains of influence ” , implicit in the preceding chapters, is the focus of the fifth chapter. This differs from previous works in the field of Aristophanic reception, in that its scope is not to write a comprehensive history of Aristophanic reception, but specifically to determine Frischlin ’ s place in relation to his predecessors and successors in the field of Aristophanic scholarship, translation, and adaptation. General trends and problems in the reception of Aristophanes up until 1586 set the background for an analysis of Frischlin ’ s work, and are used to demonstrate how he altered the preceding links in the chains of influence to which Aristophanes was already subject. These alterations are then used to determine what unique insights Frischlin ’ s translations offer into the Aristophanic source text. Finally, the chapter proceeds by determining the extent of the influence that Frischlin ’ s own insights had on those links that would succeed him. This has necessitated a great deal of bibliographic work, and some of the conclusions drawn are only preliminary. They are nonetheless valuable in locating the more lasting and subtle influence that his artistic and ideological interpretation of Aristophanes had on succeeding generations of scholars. Ultimately, this chapter takes issue with the current scholarly consensus, which maintains that Aristophanes was not appreciated as a “ political ” poet until the early 19th century. Instead, this chapter demonstrates that Frischlin helped initiate and maintain a politically engaged 12 Genette (1997). 13 Budelmann and Haubold (2008). 16 Chapter I - Introduction reading of Aristophanes that forced new readers to appreciate him both as a powerful social critic and as a truly hilarious playwright. Because of this engaging approach to the poet, Frischlin ’ s text helped keep scholars and students interested in Aristophanes for almost two centuries, during which his opinions on Aristophanes were reprinted continuously, and his text reached an ever wider audience and ever more influential heights of popularity. Chapter I - Introduction 17 Chapter II Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation in Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes The success of Frischlin ’ s approach to Aristophanes was dependent on the success of his translations. Although this point may seem obvious, the difficulties inherent in producing a “ successful ” translation of an author as troublesome as Aristophanes, and the many choices that the translator must make in doing so, quickly prove this simplicity to be an illusion. The handsome, dual-language octavo which reached the public in 1586 was not born fully armed from the head of Zeus, nor produced on a whim by a skilled Hellenist with a few days to kill. Rather, it was the product of a long process of intensive planning, theorization, compromise, and a great deal of hard work. Our evidence for this process is contained within the text itself. Its goal, the production of a “ successful ” translation, can be more precisely defined when one understands the received opinion of Aristophanes in Frischlin ’ s time. Though the tide was changing rapidly, and Frischlin was at the forefront of this change, real appreciation of Aristophanes was still hampered significantly by the perceived obscenity and topicality of his plays. Frischlin ’ s task as a translator was, therefore, to remove these elements as serious obstacles to the appreciation of the plays, and thereby to insist on the real worth of Aristophanes and his works as abiding both because of these elements, and despite them. Key to this task for Frischlin was an insistence on humor and laughter, risus, as one of the central elements imparting value to Aristophanes ’ plays, and therefore as one of the translator ’ s chief goals. This chapter will thus focus first on establishing how Frischlin approached humorous passages in general, before turning to examples illustrative both broadly of Frischlin ’ s practice, and of the unique problems presented by Aristophanic humor and the plays of Aristophanes in general - namely obscenity and topicality. In order to undertake this close examination of Frischlin ’ s translations of humorous passages, this chapter will first offer a broad outline of its theoretical approach to the two, distinct but related problems of how to theorize translation, and how to theorize humor. There is no simple, monolithic formula which can be applied to either of these phenomena to produce a completely coherent and universally satisfactory explanation of the mechanisms at work in producing either a humorous text or a translation thereof, but a great deal of sophisticated theoretical research on humor and translation - much of it with the corpus of Aristophanes specifically in mind - has been undertaken recently, and this body of groundbreaking research will povide us with the tools necessary to construct a critical approach to humorous translations of Aristophanes which will be rigorous enough to provide real insight, but flexible enough to account for the many twists and turns of Aristophanic comedy. Theorizing Translation In the past four decades translation studies has exploded into a field informed by and informing every conceivable subfield within the humanities and social sciences. This has resulted in a potentially baffling array of frameworks through which translations can be understood and criticized. 1 Although none of these frameworks need be mutually exclusive, the serious study of a translated text requires some basic parameters in order to be academically rigorous and meaningful. The formation of these parameters, however, is no simple task. In attempting to define universal translation laws in 1995, Gideon Toury had to clarify that his “ laws ” were hardly laws at all, as they came with built-in exceptions, and were, in fact, mere “ probabilistic explanations at different levels of language ” , which would of course be subject to the limiting powers of laws operating at other levels of language. 2 This type of equivocation is unfortunately typical of much of translation theory. It is, however, informative: in dismissing those who would call for more certain laws of translation, which would require no equivocation and admit of no exceptions, Toury was quick to brush aside such demands by pointing out, if not in so many words, that “ [n]o features of translation are ever ‘ universal ’ unless they are so general and bland as to be of little use (e. g. ‘ translation involves shifts ’ ) ” . 3 Although this universal is dismissed by Jeremy Munday as bordering on useless, I can see no good reason to do away with a true universal simply because it is “ general and bland ” , as universals tend to be. Therefore, because it is perhaps the only constant of every translation theory, the first of our parameters for theorizing translation will be as vague as universals require: translation involves shifts. In order to trace these shifts, to discern how they function and how they affect the meanings of texts, and the cultures that produce and receive them, the serious critic of translation must necessarily find some comparanda for the translated text being scrutinized. 1 Munday (2012) and Venuti (2004; 2012) offer excellent synchronic views of the development of the field, the former in the manner of a (very useful) introductory textbook, and the latter through a careful but expansive selection of seminal texts on translation theory. Pym (2010) provides an excellent diachronic introduction to the chief issues within the modern field, complete with a useful bibliography and helpful suggestions for critical analysis of various approaches to translation. 2 Munday (2012) 179. 3 ibid. Cf. Toury (1995) 208. 20 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation The second parameter for the study of a translated text provides these comparanda by assuming that the translator ’ s goal is to produce a target text (TT) that is in some way semantically equivalent to a pre-existing source text (ST), which was written in a different language and for a different culture. 4 This equivalence is not necessarily assumed to be natural or inherent to the faculty of language or the human experience of the world, as was understood by the early formulators of the “ natural equivalence “ translation theories discussed below; rather, it is a problematic construct of sometimes arbitrary and subjective notions of textual coherence and cohesion. These terms, central as they are to this chapter ’ s approaches to both translation theory and humor theory, require some explanation. Shoshana Blum-Kalka defines coherence “ as a covert potential meaning relationship among parts of a text, made overt by the reader or listener through processes of interpretation ” , while the term cohesion refers to “ an overt relationship holding between parts of the text, expressed by language specific markers ” . 5 Essentially, then, a text ’ s coherence includes every possible association, explicit and implicit, that the text calls to mind in a reader or listener with his or her own unique set of knowledge, expectations, and experience. 6 A text ’ s cohesion, on the other hand, “ is produced by the grammatical and lexical links which help a text hold together ” . 7 Maintaining the cohesion of a text, especially a humorous text, is a difficult enough task, but coherence is another matter entirely for the translator. This is because the coherence of a text in any given language/ culture will be based on a different reference network, “ the allusions to persons, places or other texts [which] may play a central role in building up the coherence of a given story ” . 8 Therefore, what makes a text coherent for one audience - or rather, for one culture - will make it only confusing for another culture which lacks the same reference network. This is, in a word, the typically Aristophanic problem of topicality. What makes a text coherent and cohesive will be determined anew by every translator before and during the translation process, and it is for the critic of translation and translated texts to determine what sort of coherence and cohesion the translator has understood to exist in the ST, and in what ways the TT exhibits equivalent relations of coherence and cohesion. The best way for the critic of translation to avoid the pitfalls of subjectivity that this process entails is to be aware of them and to evaluate and criticize any translation based on the goals that the translator explicitly establishes for himself/ herself, and based on the coherence and cohesion which the translator explicitly highlights as the most important in the text. These guiding goals of a translation are termed the “ commission ” by Hans J. Vermeer, whose 4 Cf. Toury (1995) 207. 5 Blum-Kulka (1986) 291. 6 Paraphrasing Baker (2011) 230, as quoted in Munday (2012) 148. 7 Munday (2012) 146. 8 Blum-Kulka (1986) 298. Theorizing Translation 21 skopos theory of translation analysis 9 essentially assumes that “ the translator should work to achieve the Skopos, the communicative purpose of the translation, rather than just follow the source text ” . 10 This theory, combined with the more flexible idea of non-natural, “ directional equivalence ” , forms the guiding principle of my evaluation of translation in the following chapter. Theories of directional equivalence have proven to be resilient, rigorous, and realistic means of understanding translations, and their very nature makes them ideal for criticising a translation, as defined above. Natural equivalence theories tended to assume, in marked reaction to theories of structural linguistics, that all languages have equal expressive capacity, that something said in one language can have the same value as something said in another, and that a relation of equivalence between source text and target text therefore always pre-exists the act of translation at some level of form or function. 11 Though foundational for the field of translation studies, paradigms of natural equivalence quickly met with a great deal of criticism, most of which essentially recapitulated the (fundamentally correct) objection that the natural symmetry between language systems and the cultures that use them proposed by the paradigms simply does not exist, and that attempts to claim it does are usually made in the service of some nefarious (or, at least, academically dishonest) goal. 12 In answer to these criticisms, theories of directional equivalence reognize that langauges do not, in fact, have equal expressive capabilities, nor do they construct equal worldviews; instead, the equivalence between ST and TT will be determined by the author, who will possess a unique understanding of a text ’ s coherence and cohesion, and whose choices and biases, as explicitly stated in the commission, are acknowledged to be central to the production of a TTwhich is inherently different from the ST. 13 At this point it must be said that the purpose of these parameters is to establish general guidelines for the useful and rigorous analysis of a translated text, but they will not be used to the exclusion of any other useful methodology which may contribute to a better understanding of the shifts entailed in the translation from ST to TT. Far from being a mere academic exercise, the use of these theories to analyze translation shifts in the humorous passages of these five plays holds forth the promise of unparalleled access to Frischlin ’ s audiences, particularly to their understanding of humor, and to the broader trends within the literary and educational culture(s) of those audiences that made such a translation 9 Vermeer (1989). 10 Pym (2010) 44. 11 The best introduction to this group of theories is Pym (2010) 6 - 24. See also Nida (1964). 12 See Pym (2010) 20 - 21. Venuti (2008) 1 - 34 presents one of the most resounding and polemical expositions of the hidden agendas of those translators and theorists who make use of these paradigms. 13 See Pym (2010) 24 - 41. 22 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation welcome and even necessary. Frischlin ’ s translations of these passages will be shown to highlight certain trends in his overall translation strategy. Examinations of these passages in translation will highlight especially Frischlin ’ s preoccupation with producing a text which is humorous and intelligible in the target language and to members of the target culture, while still imparting some information about the source culture to its readers, who will in turn be shown to be well-educated and capable of coping with the challenge of a translation that is, to use the terminology of Katharina Reiss, not only operative, but also partly informative and expressive as well. 14 That is, the TT not only induces in its audience and readers the same function, laughter, as the ST ( “ operative ” ), it also presents an equivalence of the aesthetic values of its ST ( “ expressive ” ), while managing to be reasonably informative about the cultural reference network which composes the ST ( “ informative ” ). 15 This understanding can only be reached through a careful evaluation of Frischlin ’ s commission, as he defines it himself. Fortunately, in Frischlin ’ s case this commission is detailed and comprehensive, taking the form of what shall be termed, for convenience ’ s sake, the primary and secondary introductory materials. The primary introductory materials deal with the entire translation project as a whole, and include a dedicatory letter to Emperor Rudolf II, a defense of Aristophanes against the attacks of Plutarch, a life of Aristophanes, several epigrams, and a description of the plot structure and act divisions of Old Comedy as understood by Frischlin. The secondary materials are limited in scope to the translations of the individual plays, and consist of a dedicatory letter, a summary of the circumstances of the play taken from other ancient sources, a summary of the plot, and an acrostic Latin hypothesis written by Frischlin himself. Within these materials Frischlin outlines the linguistic goals of his translation - that is, what shape he wishes the language itself to take - in only a few words. He initially writes on his title page only that he is presenting “ Nicodemi Frischlini Aristophanes repurgatus a mendis, et imitatione Plauti atque Terentii interpretatus, ita ut fere Carmen Carmini, numerus numero, pes pedi, modus modo, Latinismus Graecismo respondeat [Nicodemus Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes, purged of faults and translated in imitation of Plautus and Terence in such a way that poem will almost correspond to poem, meter to meter, foot to foot, and mode to mode] ” . This statement is vague and confusing, as Frischlin does not explain how he will make the various elements he names - from the fairly straightforward numerus, the classical term for rhythm or meter; to the more subjective modus, the means of 14 These terms will be supplemented later by Venuti ’ s more loaded “ domesticating ” and “ foreignizing. ” 15 See Reiss (1971); Robson (2008) 175. Theorizing Translation 23 advancing a dramatic plot in Donatus; 16 to the redundant Latinismus/ Graecismus - correspond (respondeat) to one another; or what exactly that should mean. Indeed, Frischlin ’ s use of the adverb fere, “ almost ” , serves to acknowledge and reinforce the vagueness of his claims for his translation ’ s goals. Thus this initial translator ’ s preface serves only to present Frischlin ’ s translation as meticulous, consistent, and systematic. Only the phrase “ imitatione Plauti atque Terentii interpretatus ” establishes the very basics of Frischlin ’ s translation: it is to be reminiscent of the language of Plautus and Terence. Those whose curiosity is piqued by this brief statement can read on to the slightly more detailed description of his translation method that he gives only a few pages later: Quantum vero ad meam attinet interpretationem, dedi hanch ego operam, ut e Plauto et Terentio, omnem fere afferrem Latinitatem, qua cum permutarem Graecum Poetae huius sermonem: idque exemplo ipsiusmet Terentii; qui intergras Comoedias Graecas fecit Latinas, et fecit suas; mutatus eas e Graecis: ut Heautontimorumenon a Diphilo, Eunuchum a Menandro, Phormionem ab Apollodoro. Etsi autem in Romanis hisce scenis, ad quas accommodavi ego Graeca colloquia, distribuendo singula in suos quinque Actus, more Latinae Comoediae, non retinui ego purum Iambum (nam hoc ne Plautus quidem et Terentius quidem praestitere) ne videlicet gratiam sermonis, et leporem orationis amittere: tamen in choris, ubi pleraque canuntur, observavi, ut non modo sensum sensu, et quidem perspicuo orationis genere, sed etiam numerum numero, pedem pede, et modum modo commutarem. 17 As concerns my own translation, I took care to ensure that I could bring to bear almost all the Latinity from Plautus and Terence in order to remodel the Greek speech of this poet. On that note I have Terence himself as an example, who took entire Greek comedies and made them Latin, and made them his own by borrowing them from the Greeks, such as he borrowed the Heautontimoroumenos from Diphilus, the Eunuch from Menander, and the Phormio from Apollodorus. Despite this, in the Roman plays to which I have accommodated the Greek plays by distributing them each into their five constituent acts after the custom of Latin Comedy, I have not retained the pure Iambus (for certainly Plautus and Terence were distinguished in this, as well), lest I should sacrifice the grace of the language and the charm of the speech. Nevertheless in the choroi, where there is much singing, I have taken care not only to exchange one sense for another, even in a famous type of speech, but even to change meter for meter, foot for foot, and mode for mode. This phrase clarifies Frischlin ’ s approach to this translation as both a technical and a polemical exercise. Frischlin ’ s stated concern here is to maintain the modus and sensus of the source language without sacrificing its lepus or gratia. Nowhere does he indicate that he is at all concerned with preserving the 16 Baldwin (1924) 190 - 191. 17 Frischlin (1586) Praefatio 4 recto. 24 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation precise verba or grammatical forms of the source text. Like most of his contemporaries in the art of translation, Frischlin is here aligning his theory of translation along an axis first established by Cicero in the De Optimo Genere Oratorum. In this work Cicero boasts of having created his own versions of speeches by Aeschines and Demonsthenes: . . . nec converti ut interpres, sed ut orator, sententiis isdem et earum formis tamquam figuris, verbis ad nostram consuetudinem aptis. In quibus non verbum pro verbo necesse habui reddere, sed genus omne verborum vimque servavi. Non enim ea me adnumerare lectori putavi oportere, sed tamquam appendere. (5.14) I did not translate like an interpreter, but like an orator, fitting the same ideas, sentiments, forms, words, and figures of the speeches to our own custom. In all of this, I did not consider it necessary to render the works word-for-word, but instead I maintained the essence and the force of the words intact. I did not think it necessary for me to count out words one by one for the reader, but rather to deal them out according to their weight, if you will. At Ars Poetica 133 Horace echoed Cicero ’ s aversion to verbum verbo translation in favor of a style of translation which would preserve a text ’ s more intangible qualities, such as vis, genus, modus, and sensus. Later authors from St. Jerome to Leonardo Bruni reaffirmed and simplified these statements into a distinction between the ad verbum, or literal style of translation; and the ad sensum, or literary style of translation; a binary opposition as problematic and mutable as it was tenacious in the Renaissance period. 18 By aligning his text with concerns of sensus and modus rather than verba, Frischlin is thus announcing that his translation is to be literary, rather than literal. This is an oversimplification, of course. The Ciceronian/ Horatian terms related to translation may have been ubiquitous in Renaissance theorizations of translation, but they were not blindly accepted without discussion or debate. In choosing to describe his method of translation in this way, Frischlin is not allying himself with an established and universally understood ideal of translation, but is actually defining his goals and methodology as a translator within an ongoing Humanist debate about translation. For example, Frischlin ’ s insistance on the translator ’ s prerogative to tremendous creative licence in the quest to make another author ’ s works truly “ his own ” (suus) reveals that he is following a reading of Cicero and Horace first put forth by Leonardo Bruni ’ s de Interpretatione recta (c.1426), the first treatise in the Renaissance to treat translation at any length, and the most powerful early voice insisting on a “ creative role ” for the translator in the Renaissance, which would be picked up and expanded by popular later authors, such as Étienne. 19 Insisting that a creative approach could help cement the rightful place of 18 See Borza (2007) 119; Botley (2004) 164 - 165; Munday (2012) 29 - 31; Norton (1984) 57 - 90; Worth-Stylianou (1999). St. Jerome (Ep. LVII.5), liberally quotes Cicero and gives perhaps the most definitive description of the two different translation styles. 19 Worth-Stylianou (1999) 128 - 129. Theorizing Translation 25 translation within high Renaissance literature of imitatio, this school of translators stood in stark contrast to the likes of Laurence Humphrey, whose Interpretatio Linguarum of 1559 “ provides the unique example of a Renaissance writer confident that a single, reductive method of translation can be described in detail ” . 20 Throughout this work, Humphrey repeatedly circumscribes the creative freedoms that Bruni and Dolet would make available to translators, and even seems to prefigure Walter Benjamin in writing, Huc enim officia omnia boni interpretis, quae ante descripsimus, huc imitatio, huc exercitatio, huc omnia denique redeunt ac recidunt, ut ad vivum exprimas autorem, sic in tuo veluti speculo aut tabula alii non te sed illum quasi in imagine viva conspiciant ac intueantur. 21 Hither do all the offices of the good translator, which we described above, finally return and fall back upon: hither the imitatio, hither the practice, hither everything, for the sole end that you might express the living author, as if in your own mirror or canvas, so that others may observe and inspect him, not you, as if in a living image. Although Bruni ’ s early, verbum verbo attempt at translating Plutus was (perhaps ironically) very different from Frischlin ’ s creative, Terentian version, 22 his later Latin translations, such as his attempt to turn Polybius into a Caesarian-style Commentarius, demonstrate a willingness creatively to alter the ST through deletions, additions, and radical changes to generic markers 23 which would never meet with the approval of Humphrey, but which are almost identical to the translation strategy later outlined by Frischlin ’ s stated effort to re-write the plays of Aristophanes “ imitatione Plauti atque Terentii ” (emphasis mine). As this chapter will demonstrate, this commission essentially states that, in modern parlance, Frischlin is announcing that his translation is oriented toward the Target Culture, rather than the Source Culture. 24 The motivations for the creative decision to make Aristophanic Old Comedy structurally and linguistically similar to Terentian New Comedy will be explored in detail in the following chapter. For the present chapter, however, it is worth noting that Frischlin himself foresees that this project will have many detractors, and therefore requires extensive justification. Although the aesthetic goals listed in the primary introductory materials will be important in its realization, the real contours of Frischlin ’ s skopos reveal themselves within the justifications included in the secondary introductory materials attached to each individual play. At the very beginning of his dedicatoria to the Acharnians, the final play in Frischlin ’ s edition and therefore something of a final statement on his approach in all the preceding 20 Worth-Stylianou (1999) 129. 21 Humphrey (1559) 403. Cf. Benjamin (1923). 22 Baier (2000). 23 Botley (2004) 27 ff. 24 Baier (2000) 140 - 141 recognizes this as well. 26 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation plays, Frischlin states what he believes are the most important criteria by which a translation of an Aristophanic comedy must be judged: Erunt multi qui dicent et credent, parvo constare labore et parvo sumptu Comoedias hasce Aristophanicas Graecolatinas. Nam sunt hodie etiam e numero literatorum, qui tametsi haud quaquam censent se natos in Vervecum patria, tamen de libris non aliter iudicant, quam Megaricus porculator in hac sequenti Comoedia de porcis suis. Mole enim et charatarum cassitie atque pinguedine ponderant libros, non bonitate et suavitate. 25 There will be many who will say and will believe that these Aristophanic, Grecolatin comedies are the product of very little labor and are worth very little expense. For there are today among the literati men who, even though they could hardly admit to being citizens of the land of the dolts, would nonetheless judge of books no differently than the Megarian swine merchant in the following comedy judges of his pigs: for they judge books by their mass, by the plumpness of their pages and their fat, not by their goodness and pleasantness. Here the usefulness of a skopos-based approach for evaluating Frischlin ’ s translations becomes abundantly clear, as he essentially strips Aristophanes ’ texts down to what Reiss would later term their “ predominate functions ” , and insists that his translation be judged by its ability to preserve those functions as he has understood them, namely their bonitas and suavitas. 26 In keeping with Reiss ’ s terminology, Frischlin has thus articulated a determination to produce an operative translation of an operative text. That is, his translation is to preserve the pleasantness (suavitas) and goodness (bonitas) of Aristophanes ’ text, but is not necessarily intended to present its audience with a detailed philological education in Aristophanes and the culture of fifth-century Athens. Suavitas and bonitas are not simple qualities. They ulitmatley have their roots in the most ancient traditions of Aristophanic appreciation, 27 and they embrace all of those qualities which might make (and have made) Aristophanes pleasant and good to his readers and his audience. The most salient of these qualities was (and is) humor, the ability to arouse laughter and cause delight in any who read or witnessed Aristophanes ’ plays, whatever the other motives or goals of those plays may have been. So Frischlin praises Aristophanes ’ ability to denounce society ’ s pests specifically because it is exercised “ dirissimis . . . modis ” ; 28 while later in the general introductory material, 25 Frischlin (1586) 306 verso. 26 See Munday (2012) 122 - 126; Pym (2010) 18. 27 Compare Quintilian ’ s invocation of Old Comedy as almost the only form to retain “ sinceram illam sermonis Attici gratiam ” (Inst. 10. 1. 65), and Pseudo-Plato ’ s famous praise of Aristophanes ’ mind as the secure temple of the Χάριτες (Kassel-Austin Testimonium 130). Compare also the Epigrams of Antipater and Diodorus (Kassel- Austin Testimonium 131 - 132), both of which Frischlin reproduces in his Vita Aristophanis. 28 Frischlin (1586) Praefatio 3 recto. Theorizing Translation 27 he devotes an entire essay, Defensio Aristophanis contra Plutarchi Criminationes, to rebutting Plutarch ’ s well-known and very damaging criticisms of Aristophanes, 29 unambiguously stating his opinion that the ultimate goal not only of a comedy, but specifically of a comic translator (interpres), is to be funny and provoke laughter: Postremo (ut omittam alia) vel finis poetam excusat. Nam, Caelio Rhodig. teste, Comoediae finis non fere alius erat Graecis, quam laetitia, et hilaritas. Quod adeo verum est, ut in libris observatum sit, est testis in Nebulis Aristophanes, interpretis item accedente calculo, risus gratia, plerunque scorta pudenda graphice expressa, et id genus alia non pauca produci consueuisse: adeo, ut Comicum risum proverbii vice usurpari quandoque compererim. 30 Finally (that I may omit mention of the other sources), even the poet ’ s end excuses him. For, as Caelius Rhodiginus will witness, the goal of comedy for the Greeks was nothing other than happiness and laughter. This is true enough to be apparent in the books, and Aristophanes himself is a witness to it in the Clouds (and his translator ’ s calculus reflects this), that for the sake of laughter, the genre grew accustomed to many shameful whores shamelessly given voice, and many other things being brought forth. It happened so often, in fact, that I have found comic laughter used as a proverb. Although Frischlin elsewhere adds many layers to his fairly simplistic translator ’ s calculus, this unambiguous statement holds true throughout his translations: suavitas and bonitas must be maintained in translating a comedy, and any comedy ’ s suavitas and bonitas originate largely in its humor. Frischlin ’ s Distillation of Humanist Theories of Humor The temptation to assume that we modern readers know precisely what Frischlin means when he emphasizes the importance of risus in his translator ’ s commission must be resisted. Frischlin was working within a long and complicated tradition of humanist theorizations of humor and its place in poetics, a context without which Frischlin ’ s conception of risus and its importance simply cannot be understood properly. The most obvious and most immediate influence on Frischlin from this tradition is the Poetices Libri Septem of Julius Caesar Scaliger, originally published posthumously in 1561 and quoted by Frischlin frequently throughout his introductory materials as the supreme authority on matters of poetics and, in paritcular, of comedy. The 29 As will be discussed in the final chapter, Plutarch ’ s comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, in which the latter is praised at the expense of the former, was already wellknown as a ready source for the dismissal of Aristophanes altogether in 1545, when he is mentioned as such by an interlocutor in Lilius ’ Giraldus ’ Historiae Poetarum tam Graecorum quam Latinorum libri decem. 30 Frischlin (1586) 8 verso. Emphasis mine. 28 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation powerful influence of Scaliger ’ s understanding of comic technique can be felt on every page of Frischlin ’ s translations, and it is especially apparent in Frischlin ’ s elevation of risus to the highest possible goal of a comedy and a comic translator. Breaking with then-traditional strictures about the necessity of close imitiation of Terence in every aspect of the plot, character, and even language of a comedy, Scaliger elevated the position of Aristophanes ’ more creative comic plots to that of a supreme comic model, proclaiming that “ [c]omoediae [. . .] ratio non una fuit. Quidam enim modo risum captarent, nihil cetera curabant [there is not only one type of comedy, for as long as they could elicit laughter, they cared not at all for anything else] ” . 31 This was truly original thinking on the part of Scaliger, and it is easy to see why Frischlin, in producing such an original and revolutionary work, would rely so heavily on this very revolutionary approach to the ends of comedy. However, although Scaliger ’ s endorsement of endless comic creativity in the pursuit of risus is striking, his silence on the finer points of how one produces that risus, or on the teleological ends of doing so, leads us to believe that, in these regards, at least, he was very much reliant on earlier theorizations of laughter and its uses. 32 Risus, for Frischlin ’ s contemporaries and predecessors, was as troublesome a concept as it is for scholars today, and there were a number of theories about how it could be produced, i. e. about what was truly ridiculum. 33 Frischlin ’ s reliance on these various theories in understanding, and capturing for his contemporary audience the humor of various passages will be noted in what follows. For the present, however, it will be useful to summarize the most prevalent trends in Renaissance theorizations of ridiculum. All of these, as Marvin Herrick demonstrates very well, 34 trace their origins to Cicero ’ s De Oratore, where the interlocutor Julius Caesar Strabo discusses laughter as ultimately originating in recognition of turpitudo, roughly understandable as a translation of the Greek τὸ αɩ ̓ σχρόν , and meaning “ ugliness ” or “ shamefulness ” . Quintilian largely repeated Cicero ’ s notions of ridiculum, rooted, as they were, in the Greek tradition of Plato and Aristotle, and following the reintroduction of the corpus of Aristotle into the Western European Renaissance, “ the Aristotelian conception of the ridiculous gradually came to share authority with the Ciceronian ” . 35 Perhaps the most widely read of all the treatises on humor which freely intermixed these various influences during the sixteenth century was Madius ’ (Vincenzo Maggi) De Ridiculis of 1550. 36 31 Herrick (1964) 85 - 86; Scaliger (1994) 3. 96. 147 a. 32 Herrick (1964) 85 goes so far as to say that Scaliger ’ s changes to theories of the comic were otherwise very minor and insignificant. 33 The best overall introduction to 16th-century theories of ridiculum is found in Herrick (1964) 37 - 57. 34 Herrick (1964) 37 - 38. 35 Herrick (1964) 38. 36 Attardo (1994) 37. Frischlin ’ s Distillation of Humanist Theories of Humor 29 This work specifically classifies the various forms of turpitudo from which laughter was traditionally accepted to originate, and adds to these classifications the flexible and appealing idea of admiratio, “ surprise ” or “ astonishment ” , as an absolute necessity for the production of laughter. 37 This latter addition was Madius ’ most original and meaningful contribution to the theory of ridiculum in the Renaissance, and its influence can be seen most plainly in the fact that all subsequent theorizations of humor would happily split hairs about the function or even necessity of turpitudo, but all agreed that admiratio was necessary for the production of risus. 38 For Madius, as for those who read and accepted his theory of risus, admiratio had a very specific and very important valence of meaning. As Madius noted, Aristotle ’ s Rhetoric maintained that surprise and astonishment caused the pleasure of risus precisely because they brought with them the recognition of something not previously known or recognized, normally understood to be the turpitudo of oneself or of others. 39 Laughter ’ s joy, then, was the result of the person laughing being led from ignorance to knowledge about himself and the people and society around him. Whatever else might cause it, then, laughter is desirable, at the very least, because it is clear evidence that ignorance has been replaced with knowledge, and a person has therefore been improved in some way. The exact contours of that hoped-for improvement will be explored in the following chapter. For now we must recognize that, according to the theories most prevalent in Frischlin ’ s lifetime, the comedy which makes its audience laugh the most is also the one which enlightens them the most. Knowing this, we can better understand Scaliger ’ s insistence that, so long as a comedy made its audience laugh, every other concern about form was almost meaningless. The reasons for the stated goal of Frischlin ’ s translation, then, the absolute necessity of maintaining Aristophanes ’ risus in Latin, also become astonishingly clear when read in this light. The ways he saw fit to ensure the transmission of that risus will be discussed in the translation analyses that follow in this chapter, but the principal motives, rooted in Madius ’ explanation of risus and Scaliger ’ s endorsement of it as the supreme necessity of all comic texts, should now be clear. Modern Theorizations of Humor One trend which can be perceived in the various theories of humor put forth in the sixteenth century is a drive toward flexibility and versatility in understanding what causes laughter. Only admiratio is universally recognized 37 Herrick (1964) 41 - 45. 38 Herrick (1964) 57. 39 Herrick (1964) 45. 30 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation as a necessity, and later theorists, such as Frischlin ’ s own favorite, Scaliger, maintain a silence on the technicalities of how to best produce the best kind of risus which almost seems to betray a certain exasperation with the hairsplitting analyses of different forms of turpitudo carried out by their contemporaries and predecessors. This apparent willingness to accept laughter, no matter the cause, invites us to seek the origin of laughter in more modern theories of textual humor. Though it may potentially be naive to insist that our own contemporary understanding of humor is inherently more reliable and better-tested than that of the Renaissance Humanists, the following section should serve to demonstrate that the humor theories developed by Attardo, Robson, et al. are thorough and flexible enough to be applied diachronically to any text in order to account for its ability to produce risus. The theories of Madius, Castelvetro, Trissino, et al. still have an important place in helping to determine what expectations Frischlin may have striven to meet in producing that laughter, but as long as laughter itself is recognized as the fundamental goal of his translation, the serious critic of the playful is best served by looking to modern theories of textual humor. Recent research has done a great deal to illustrate the workings of discourse, and especially the place of register within discourse, in the humor of Aristophanic comedies, so an examination of these elements in Frischlin ’ s target text is perhaps the best way to understand his approach to the humor of the Aristophanic source text. James Robson has very expertly (and, for my purposes, conveniently) analyzed the functions of discourse within the humorous passages of Aristophanes, using a model heavily indebted to the Frame Analysis theories of sociologist Erving Goffman. 40 My own understanding of how discourse functions in the humor of Aristophanes is therefore based on that of Robson, which I will adapt without change, other than the omission of minor details which I have judged unimportant for the present purposes. The very brief summary of discourse and register in the function of humorous passages given in the following paragraph can be found in a more full form in Robson ’ s Humour, Obscenity, and Aristophanes (2006). According to Robson, any text will generally be given the benefit of the doubt by listeners, and will be understood as a bona fide attempt to maintain what is known as “ unitary discourse “ , or “ discourse which the participants in any given dialogue perceive as sufficiently non-ambiguous and self-consistent to allow effective communication ” . 41 To determine whether discourse is unitary or not, Robson invokes a revised version of Grice ’ s maxims for cooperative speech, along with Mulkay ’ s notion of frames and frame maintenance. The “ frame ” of a discourse, also known as the “ script ” , 42 is, simply put, the social situation which establishes the expectations of behavior for that 40 See Goffman (1974). 41 Robson (2006) 16. 42 See Attardo (2002) 181 - 182. Modern Theorizations of Humor 31 particular discourse - e. g. buying a beer at a bar, meeting to discuss academic work, haggling for a better price at a market, etc. So long as a participant does not abuse a frame too much, e. g. by introducing an incompatible frame, such as attempting to purchase a beer from a bartender during an academic meeting; or by not observing the unwritten rules governing a particular frame, then unitary discourse is maintained. Frames are a naturally nebulous concept, and sometimes it can be difficult to judge by frames alone whether unitary discourse has been violated. Robson therefore combines the notion of frames (somewhat uneasily) with his own revised version of Grice ’ s maxims, which provide an auxiliary set of rules for judging whether unitary discourse has been maintained. These maxims, classified under the three Gricean headings of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner, are as follows: 1. Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange). 2. Do not say what you believe to be implausible. 3. Do not say that for which you clearly lack adequate evidence. 4. Be relevant. 5. Avoid obscurity of expression. 6. Avoid ambiguity. 7. Be orderly. 43 When participants in discourse fail to observe these maxims, or to maintain the frame, unitary discourse will be lost. This loss of unitary discourse will be termed humorous, or in the humorous mode (as opposed to the serious or paradoxical modes) “ when the speaker, whilst being perceived by the listener at that moment in time as being capable of maintaining unitary discourse, is perceived by the listener (who may be the speaker himself) as having failed to maintain unitary discourse ” . 44 While Robson ’ s theory of unitary discourse serves as an excellent means of detecting humorous passages from a discourse-based perspective, which is one of the primary goals of his study, it is often insufficient for describing the precise, semantic mechanims by which that humor functions, which will be a necessity for any analysis of translations of humorous passages in Aristophanes. Robson himself has recognized this, 45 and following his lead, this chapter will rely on Attardo and Raskin ’ s General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH) to analyze minutely the anatomy of Aristophanic humorous passages and their translations. The brief summary of this theory which appears in the following paragraph is based entirely on that found in its fullest form in Attardo ’ s Humorous Texts: A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis (2001), which Attardo has very helpfully adapted to the study of humorous texts in 43 Cf. Robson (2006) 19. 44 Robson (2006) 22. 45 See Robson (2008). 32 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation translation in an article 46 which has, in turn, been specifically applied to the translation of Aristophanes by Robson himself. 47 The GTVH presupposes that a humorous text operates on more than one “ script ” , a term meaning essentially the same thing as Robson ’ s/ Goffman ’ s “ frame “ , and for which this chapter will use the latter term. This text will be humorous when the multiple frames are made to oppose one-another in a pointed way. This frame opposition, however, is only one of the six “ knowledge resources “ of which any given humorous text must usually take advantage. Arranged in hierarchical order from most important to least important, the six knowledge resources of the GTVH are Frame Opposition > Logical Mechanism > Situation > Target > Narrative Strategy > Language. Briefly, Logical Mechanism, which is second only to to Frame Opposition in terms of its difficulty to define, describes the distorted “ local logic ” according to which the humorous text operates, but which does not necessarily hold outside the world of the joke - e. g. that a horse can walk into a bar and expect to be addressed by the bartender; or that the pope, a lawyer, and a duck would all be stuck in a canoe together and all eager to to eat the last potato chip. 48 Attardo names several potential Logical Mechanisms, and the list of them only continues to grow. The importance of this Knowledge Resource will become clearer throughout this chapter. After Logical Mechanism comes Situation, which simply refers to that which the joke is “ about ” , and as such “ can be thought of as the ‘ props ’ of the joke: the objects, participants, instruments, activities, etc. ” 49 Attardo notes that this Knowledge Resource is not unique to humorous texts, of course, and can vary in importance from mere background information to essential plot points. After this in importance comes Target, which, as its name implies, refers to the butt of the joke, either as an individual, a group, or an ideology/ institution. Attardo notes that in non-aggressive humor, this Knowledge Resource is optional. Narrative Strategy refers to the form or narrative organization which the joke takes - i. e. as an aside in conversation, a song, a dialogue, a riddle, etc. Attardo notes that, despite the temptation to do so, this Knowledge Resource is not to be confused with genre, and Aristophanes actually provides an excellent test case for why this is so: although the many humorous passages in his dramas all fall broadly within the genre of Old Comedy, at the micro-level, these passages entail a great many different 46 Attardo (2002). 47 Robson (2008). 48 The ubiquitous local logic of Aristophanic comedy (and of other forms of fundamentally “ anti-realist ” comedy) is one of its most salient and important features, whose complex semiotic and pragmatic functions have recently been given a detailed analysis by Ian Ruffell (2011). 49 Attardo (2001) 24. Modern Theorizations of Humor 33 Narrative Strategies, from supposed praise of the city, to praise of the poet, to dialogue between characters, to choral exodoi and eisodoi. 50 The final Knowledge Resource is Language, which “ contains all the information necessary for the verbalization of a text. It is responsible for the exact wording of the text and for the placement of the functional elements that constitute it ” . 51 Although this Knowledge Resource is of least importance in “ referential humor ” , Attardo cautions that this is clearly not so in cases of “ verbal humor ” , that is, humor in which Frame Opposition is brought about entirely by an ambiguous word opposing two potential senses in a given humorous text. This is a frequent phenomenon in Aristophanes, and so an important exception to keep in mind. In applying this theory to translation, Attardo cautions that “ the degree of perceived difference between jokes increases linearly with the height of the Knowledge Resource in which the two jokes differ ” 52 Despite these perceived differences, which are inevitable in translation anyway and will only become more marked as one ascends the ladder of Knowledge Resources, a joke in a TT can still remain fundamentally the same joke as that present in the ST, so long as the mechanism of Frame Opposition remains in place. 53 Where it does not, the translator must work to find solutions, normally producing an operative translation which succeeds on the “ perlocutionary ” level, but does not actually contain the same humorous text. 54 There are thus a great deal of strategies available to the translator of humor, and to the critic of humorous translations, and the remainder of this chapter will be dedicated to making full use of them. Applying Translation Theory and Humor Theory to Frischlin ’ s Translations of Aristophanic Humor Beginning by using this rough sketch as the foundation for a theory of how humor functions within a text, we can now proceed to examine how Frischlin approaches humorous passages, the same passages which he has deemed to be the most important elements of an Aristophanic play. This examination will begin at the beginning of Aristophanes ’ extant work and with one of the most deceptively simple to diagnose humorous passages in the corpus of 50 Once again, Ruffell (2011) provides an excellent analysis of the rapid shifts of narrative strategy inherent to Aristophanic comedy. 51 Attardo (2001) 22. 52 Attardo (2002) 183. 53 Attardo (2002) 188. 54 Attardo (2002) 189. 34 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation Aristophanes, the scene in which a Megarian merchant sells his daughters, disguised as pigs, to Dicaeopolis (763 - 782): 55 Δικαιόπολις Τί δαὶ φέρεις . Με . χοίρους ἐγώνγα μυστικάς . Δι . Καλῶς λέγεις . ἐπίδειξον . Με . ἀλλὰ μὰν καλαί . (765) Ἄντεινον αɩ ̓ λῇς . ὡς παχεῖαι καὶ καλαί . Δι. Τουτὶ τί ἦν τὸ πρᾶγμα . Με . χοῖρος ναὶ Δία . Δι . Τί λέγεις σύ . ποδαπὴ δή ´ στι χοῖρος ; Με . Μεγαρικά . Ἢ οὐ χοῖρός ἐσθ᾽ ἅδ᾽ . Δι . οὐκ ἔμοιγε φαίνεται . Με . οὐ δεινά ; θᾶσθε τοῦδε τὰς ἀπιστίας , (770) οὐ φατὶ τόνδε χοῖρον ἦμεν . ἀλλὰ μάν , Αἲ λῇς , περίδο νῦν μοι περὶ θυμιτιδᾶν ἁλῶν , Αἲ μή ´ στιν οὗτος χοῖρος Ἑλλάνων νόμῳ . Δι . Ἀλλ᾽ ἔστιν ἀνθρώπου γε . Με . ναὶ τὸν Διοκλέα Ἐμά γα . σὺ δέ νιν ἤμεναι τίνος δοκεῖς ; (775) Ἦ λῇς ἀκοῦσαι φθεγγομένας ; Δι . νὴ τοὺς θεοὺς ἔγωγε . Με . φώνει δὴ σὺ ταχέως χοιρίδιον . Οὐ χρῆσθα σιγῇς ὦ κάκιστ᾽ ἀπολουμένα , Πάλιν τύγ᾽ ἀποισῶ , ναὶ μὰ τὸν Ἑρμᾶν οἴκαδις . K όραι κοῒ κοΐ . (780) Με . Αὕτα ´ στὶ χοῖρος . Δι . νῦν γε χοῖρος φαίνεται . Ἀτὰρ ἐκτραφείς γε κύσθος ἔσται πέντ᾽ ἑτῶν . . . D I . Quid mercimonii igitur fers? M E . Porcas mecum apporto mysticas. D I . Pulcre dicis. Age ostende. M E . Sunt certe admodum Pulcrae: sustolle, si placet, ut quam corpore Obeso et pulcro sint videas. D I . Quid hoc rei? M E . Porca est, me Iuppiter. D I . Quid ais? Cuias est, cedo, Haec porca? M E . Megarica: annon porca est <? > D I . mihi secus Apparet. M E . Non indignum hoc est? videte quae Sit haec incredulitas, porcam non esse ait. At, si lubet, depone tu mecum sales Thymotrititos, an non porca haec siet, et quidem Graecorum lege. D I . Porca hominis? Me. Per Dioclem Mea est. Tu cuius illam esse putas? An cupis Audire grunnientes. D I . ita volo, per Deos. M E . Vocem porcella ede ocyus: cave sileas, Male perdita, aut, per Hermen, referam te domum. P UELLAE : Coi, Coi. M E . Haec porca est. D I . Apparet nunc porca scilicet: Sed adultus et quinqe annorum cunnus mihi ’ st. 56 55 In setting the standards by which comedy is to be judged, Frischlin himself refers to this scene as a typical example of foolishness and mistaken judgment. See above, p. 27. 56 Frischlin (1586) 347 - 349. I transcribe Greek texts exactly as they appear in Frischlin ’ s edition. Line numbers refer to the Oxford Classical Text edition of Wilson (2007 a), and are given only for convenience of reference to a modern edition. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 35 D I . What kind of wares are you bringing? M E . I ’ m carrying pigs for the sacred mysteries with me. D I . Wonderful! Go ahead and show them. M E . They ’ re certainly pretty enough. Only take them out of the bag, if you like, so that you can see how fat and beautiful their bodies are. D I . What the hell is this? M E . It ’ s a pig, by Juppiter! D I . What did you say? Tell me, what country is this pig from? M E . She ’ s Megarian. Are you telling me that ’ s not a pig? Di. It ’ s seems otherwise to me. M E . Is this not an indignity? Look at this man ’ s incredulity! He says it ’ s not a pig. But, if you like, make a wager of some salt seasoned with thyme on whether or not this is a pig, at least according to the Greek custom. D I . A pig of a human being? M E . By Diocles it ’ s mine! Whose did you think it was? Do you want to hear them grunting? D I . I do, by the gods! M E . Hey, piglet, make a noise for us, quickly! Don ’ t be silent, you wretch, or I swear by Hermes, I ’ ll take you back home. G IRLS : Oink oink! M E . Now, that ’ s a pig! D I . It certainly seems like a pig to me now. But once it ’ s fully grown, in another five years, it ’ ll just be a cunt! 763 - 782 Here the double-entendre in χοῖρος (pig/ pussy) renders the passage humorous by violating maxims 2 and 5. Χοῖρος is thus the “ locus “ or “ connector ” , the word or phrase which makes possible an alternate reading of the semantic meaning of the text. 57 This is pure verbal humor, and pure verbal humor is a rare and often difficult case in translation, precisely because the humor is bound up in the surface value - that is, the morphological and phonological structures - of the words themselves, and in order to maintain the humor of a passage such as this in translation, Frischlin needs to find a similar locus in the target language. 58 Fortunately the Latin language is very accommodating in this particular case, as the word porca / porcus contains almost precisely the same double meaning as the Greek χοῖρος . 59 In fact, Frischlin has even added a double entendre with the ambiguous secus. Translated as the adverb “ otherwise ” in the passage above, this word could also mean “ sex ” , and thus hint to a reader, who may be unable to follow the gestures implied by the performance text, that at this point Dicaeopolis is beong show the “ sex ” of the Megarian ’ s wares. The verbal humor of this passage, then, has remained completely intact despite the act of translation from Greek to Latin. This conclusion is naive and simplistic enough to be worthless, and we are almost forced to start over, as it would be ridiculous to assume that such fortuitous convergence of connectors will exist for every instance of verbal humor, and even more ridiculous to assume that all the humor in Aristophanes is verbal, as opposed to situational or visual. The frustration this entails can be fruitful, however, and so the difficulties exposed by this very 57 Robson (2006) 11 - 12. 58 Attardo (2002) 189 - 190, whose arguments are summarized well and restated in Robson (2008). 59 Adams (1982) 82 gives only the masculine, porcus. The TLLV.X, however, lists both forms appearing in the classical period. 36 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation rare example provide an excellent starting point for an analysis of Frischlin ’ s translations of humor. Frischlin ’ s commission indicates that the maintenance of humor is the essential guiding principal, or skopos, of his translation. At this point, however, it must be acknowledged that this passage consists of much more than mere humor - that is, the reference network upon which its coherence is built consists of several other factors which are entirely distinct from obscene punning. Taking “ translation necessarily involves shifts ” as our mantra, then, we are forced to ask what has been lost (or gained) in the shifts that have taken place in those parts of the reference network that do not contribute to the verbal humor of this passage. The most obvious change in this reference network lies in the Megarian dialect of the ST, which is completely lost in the unmarked Latin of Frischlin ’ s porculator Megaricus. Recent scholarship has demonstrated convincingly that the Megarian dialect reproduced here by Aristophanes, like other non-Attic Greek dialects in the Aristophanic corpus, is not in any way exaggerated or negatively stereotyped in the service of parody or comic pastiche, 60 but rather serves to integrate other Greek peoples and their dialects accurately into the discourse of Attic comedy. 61 This integration, however, is not without its violence. Although the Megarian is accurately represented in terms of language, he is also uglified as a stereotypically vulgar buffoon who takes tremendous pleasure in the cheap, tawdry, and typically “ Megarian ” jokes that his interaction with Dicaeopolis produces. 62 Although this uglification is a generic hallmark of Old Comedy, and is applied to all comic characters regardless of their provenance, it can be applied in varying degrees, 63 and thus can have a seriously negative effect on the unifying and integrative messages of a comedy. This is especially true when it is applied so liberally to characters linguistically marked as somehow “ other ” . Megarians and their dialect do not exist in the reference network on which the coherent discourse of Frischlin ’ s TT is built. Frischlin thus does not attempt to produce the linguistic differentiation present in the ST discourse. This deceptively astute decision actually preserves the integrative and unifying message of the ST without the complications that might arise from trying to linguistically or ethnically mark the more uglified character in a manner consistent with the TT reference network. There are no Bavarians, Saxons, Dutch, or Italians filling in for Aristophanes ’ Megarian, nor even an ignorant speaker of a form of the supposedly substandard, un-classical, or medieval Latin that Frischlin and his contemporaries loved to mock else- 60 Colvin (1999) 296 - 298. 61 Willi (2002 a) 127 - 132. 62 Olson (2002) 261. 63 Revermann (2006) 148 ff. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 37 where. 64 The end result of this decision is that no one people in Frischlin ’ s “ amplissimum theatrum Romani imperii ” 65 is uglified more than any other. By producing his TT in classical Latin, then, Frischlin has given his translation an ecumenical appeal that a colloquial language would not have had. 66 In order to certify this as an uniquely clever and humorous translation, however, we will have to compare it to its best-known predecessor and chief rival, the 1538 Latin translation of Andreas Divus: 67 D I . Quid igitur fers? M E . Porcas ego sacrificabiles. D I . Bene dicis. Ostende. M E . Sed quidem pulchrae. Eleva si vis quomodo pingues et bonae. D I . Haec quae est res? M E . Porca per Iovem. D I . Quid dicis tu? Cuias autem est porca? M E . Megarica. An non porca est haec? D I . Non mihi videtur. M E . Non gravis? Videtis huius incredulitates? Non dicunt hunc porcum esse? Sed quidem Si vis circumspice nunc mihi circa cepa mistos sales, Si non est hic porcus Graecorum lege. D I . Sed est hominis. M E . Per Diocleum. Me<i> 68 tu autem ipsum esse alicuius putas, An vis audire voces? D I . Per Deos Ego. M E . Clama iam tu citò porcella. Non utimini taciturnitate o pessime perdite. Iterum te auferam ita per Mercurium domum. F IL . Coi, coi. M E . Haec est porca. D I . Nunc porcus apparet, At nutritus virago erit quinque annorum. 69 D I . What are you bringing, then? M E . Sacrificial pigs. D I . You speak well. Show them. M E . They ’ re certainly beautiful. Pick them up, if you wish, how fat and good. D I . What is this thing? M E . A pig, by Jove. D I . What are you saying? From what land is this pig? M E . She ’ s Megarian. Is this not a pig? D I . Doesn ’ t seem to me. M E . [Is he] not rude? Do you see the incredulities of this man? Do they not say that this is a pig? But certainly, if you want, examine it with me over some salt mixed with onion, whether this is a pig according to the Greek custom. D I . But it is of a human being. M E . By Diocles, it ’ s <it ’ s mine>! Do you think it 64 Price (1990) 69 - 83. 65 Frischlin (1586) Praefatio 3 verso. 66 Compare Alan Sommerstein ’ s 1973 Penguin translation and B. B. Rogers ’ 1924 Loeb translation, both of which have the Megarian speaking an exaggeratedly Scottish dialect of English. 67 I cite an edition of Divus from 1542, but the various editions remained substantially unchanged. 68 Divus ’ text here has required some editing on my part, as the accusative case of the first person pronoun cannot be correct as a translation of Ἐμά . 69 Divus (1542) 239 - 240. 38 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation belongs to just anyone? But do you want to hear their voices? D I . I do, by the gods! M E . Now cry out quickly, piglet. Don ’ t make use of silence, you awful wretch. I will carry you right back home, by Mercury. D AUGHTERS . Oink oink! M E . That is a pig. D I . Now it looks like a pig, but when it ’ s matured another five years, it ’ ll be a virago. As Divus ’ translation illustrates, the wordplay in this passage is simply too obvious to pass up. Though translators working with other TLs, such as English, may not be so fortunate, 70 the Latin translator can maintain the humor of the double entendre in χοῖρος without any real problems, and would be a fool - or very prudish, even by Renaissance standards - not to. At this point, we must look to another source of humor in the TT in order to better compare the two translations. Whereas a skopos-based analysis of the discourse and reference network in the verbal humor of this scene in the ST and in Frischlin ’ s translation has revealed the latter to be at least a politically and dramatically astute translation which maintains the humor of the ST without reproducing any of its victims among the target audience, a register-based analysis of the two translations will complement these findings by revealing more specifically both Frischlin ’ s understanding of humor in the ST, and the erudition and background knowledge that would be required of the audience to appreciate this humor. That the coherence of a text, and hence any humor that is dependent on understanding and manipulating that coherence, is dependent on the background knowledge of the audience, is an assumption that needs some qualification. Mona Baker ’ s prescriptive guide to translation maintains that the background knowledge of the audience will indeed contribute to the coherence of any text, and that the translator will normally have to substitute appropriate lexical elements to make up for missing background knowledge in the target audience. 71 At the same time, however, she qualifies this statement, insisting that “ [r]eaders ’ versions of reality, their expectations and their preferences can be challenged without affecting the coherence of a text, provided the challenge is motivated and the reader is prepared for it ” . 72 So although this translation may not provide us with a sort of clear, precise, and unqualified diagram of its readers ’ worldview, erudition, and expectations, 73 it can, at the very least, provide knowledge about what potential 70 Kenneth Reckford (1987) 168, for example, tells of unsuccessfully attempting to stage a production of Acharnians as a protest against the Vietnam War, where the idea of “ pussy from Vietnam ” was used in place of the Megarian χοῖρος . 71 Baker (2011) 256 - 258. 72 Baker (2011) 259. 73 Walter Benjamin (1923) actually cautions against reader-oriented translations becoming precisely this sort of uninteresting map of the reader. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 39 challenges its readers might be motivated to face. This knowledge, combined with the signposting required to mark those challenges and prepare the readers to overcome them, can indeed provide some understanding of the audience, its background knowledge, and its overall expectations and outlook. 74 Register-based humor is itself a form of signposting, as the clashes in register which so often mark an Aristophanic joke are easily detectable to anyone with a knowledge of the language in which the joke is written, even if the humor of the joke is based on much more than a simple clash of registers. 75 Register clash is deemed humorous by the listener because it violates maxims 7 (be orderly) and 4 (be relevant) by producing a contribution to discourse that is in a register so radically different from that which precedes it that it is recognizable as deliberately un-orderly and irrelevant to the current frame, and therefore humorous. The passage quoted above ends with an excellent and typically Aristophanic example of register-based humor, 76 when Dicaepolis breaks completely with the register of his discourse with the Megarian, that of the double-entendre, and employs primary obscenities instead, 77 suddenly proclaiming that the young girl he is inspecting will be not a χοῖρος in five years ’ time, but a κύσθος , or “ cunt ” . Not shying away from this obscenity, Frischlin captures this abrupt shift well in his translation, using the equivalent Latin obscenity cunnus to translate κύσθος . 78 Divus, however, demonstrates much more hesitance in the use of a primary obscenity at this point, and consequently a lack of appreciation and understanding of the humorous value of Aristophanes ’ obscenities and register clashes. Virago means “ woman with the physical qualities of a man ” , 74 It is worth noting that the quote from Baker (above, p. 39) deals mostly with the abstract concept of “ worldview ” , in this particular context as it relates to religious outlooks or “ versions of reality ” and how they are challenged by translations of another religion ’ s holy writings. Background knowledge, the hard nuts-and-bolts information available to an individual, is more difficult to challenge than his or her “ preferences ” , as no amount of qualification or equivocation can make up for missing scientific, historical, or philological knowledge. The latter is the category most likely to be signposted lexically, while the former presents a more enduring, nuanced, and potentially rewarding challenge to our understanding of the translation of pagan classics throughout the Christian Renaissance. 75 I follow Attardo (1994) 230 ff. in defining register as, roughly, the particular type of language used in a specific genre or context. See also Willi (2003) 8 ff. 76 See Robson (2006) 53 - 54. 77 In differentiating between euphemisms, double-entendres, and slang on the one hand; and primary obscenities on the other, I follow Jeffrey Henderson (1991) 35. Henderson maintains that primary obscenities differ fundamentally from these other categories of obscene expression, since they are “ words that refer directly, without any intermediary associations or distancing, to the sexual organs, excrement, and the acts which involve them, and which are always improper ” . 78 Adams (1982) 80 - 81. 40 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation “ heroine ” , or “ female warrior ” . 79 As problematic as these concepts may be from a gendered perspective, this word is neither a primary obscenity nor a euphemism. Divus ’ use of it here is actually confusing, as it does not suggest, in any way, any of the connotations or humor present in the ST. Methods have always been available for the talented translator at least to signal the presence of obscenity, even when (s)he may feel that it cannot be translated. Many of these methods, such as leaving the obscenity in the SL, or using a cryptic circumlocution such as the English “ you know what ” , can even be desirable because of their ability to titillate the reader in much the same way that an obscenity does. 80 The humor of this passage is dependent on the clash of registers produced by the sudden shock of the obscenity. Frischlin has understood that and translated the passage effectively; Divus has not, though he was not hesitant about obscenity per se: only seven lines later, Diceopolis looks to the Megarian ’ s other daughter and exclaims, ὡς ξυγγενὴς ὁ κύσθος αὐτῆς θατέρᾳ [ “ how alike this one ’ s cunt is to the other ’ s! ” ]. At this point, the obscenity has lost its humorous value, as it serves only to highlight further Dicaeopolis ’ expectant joy at satisfying his carnal appetite, and to set up a joke based on the ignorant Megarian ’ s too-literal understanding of the word ξυγγενὴς . 81 Yet only here, once it is no longer serving a humorous purpose, does Divus translate this word using a primary obscenity in Latin: “ Valde affinis cunnus ipsius alteri [her cunt is indeed like the other] ” . 82 Divus ’ translation simply does not evince the same understanding and appreciation of the place of obscenity in Aristophanic comedy that Frischlin ’ s does. Divus ’ great accomplishment, as the translator who first made Aristophanes available to a wider, Latinate public, should never be belittled; his ability to understand and preserve the humor of his charge, however, leaves much to be desired. Frischlin ’ s own appreciation for the humorous power of obscenity, on the other hand, is one of the greatest selling points of his translations, and undoubtedly one of the principal reasons for their lasting popularity well beyond their own time. Before moving on to some more problematic humorous passages, it will be useful to examine successful translations of humor from Knights, a play whose positive political message, if ever there was one, has become unclear over the last 2,500 years, but whose humor nobody could ever doubt. 83 In shorter passages, it is easy to see the apparent facility with which Frischlin is able to capture the humor of the ST in his TT. For example, once the Sausage Seller has finally won his agon of shamelessness against the Paphlagonian, and been granted status as Demos ’ preferred 79 Oxford Latin Dictionary (1968) 2070. 80 For these notions, see Roberts (2008). 81 Olson (2002) 271. 82 Divus (1542) 240. 83 See the section on Knights in Chapter IV. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 41 servant, he coins a comic nonce-word in order to assure his master that he has nothing to fear (1261 - 1263): Καὶ μὴν ἐγώ σ᾽ ὦ δῆμε θεραπεύσω καλῶς : Ὥσθ᾽ ὁμολογεῖν σε , μηδέν᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἐμοῦ , Ἰδεῖν ἀμείνω τῇ Κεχηναίων πόλει . Equidem, mi popule, ego te curabo sedulo Ut tute fatearis, praeter me, neminem Vidisse, qui urbi Hiantiae melius velit. 84 Indeed, my dear People, I will take care of you so attentively That you will confess that you have seen nobody, other than myself, Who wishes better for Hiantia. This line entails a criticism of the Athenian audience, a form of humor which is central to Knights and requires some brief explanation. Modern Anglophone readers will be well familiar with the notion of “ laughing with someone ” as a generally acceptable form of humor, and one very different from “ laughing at someone ” . Perhaps the most famous contemporary example of this type of humor is to be found in the Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts of the 1970 s and -80 s (or their modern incarnation on the Comedy Central network), during which individual celebrities would sit down at a banquet table to be insulted and chided by their peers for the amusement of all. The butt of these jokes recognizes that they are said within the humorous mode, and so takes no serious offense at them. Psychologically, this may be because (s)he is genuinely aware that his/ her position is that of a successful individual privileged to be at the center of attention, as seems to be the case in the Dean Martin roasts; (s)he may even recognize that communal solidarity can be fostered by aggressive humor, and may wish to support such solidarity. 85 While these concepts would also have held true for the ancient Greeks, for them the real value of aggressive humor lay in religion, as insults before a group of peers performed an apotropaic function, turning the anger of the gods away from the victim(s) of comic mockery. 86 The mockery is further justified by comic licence, the licence of a social corrective and critic of his fellow-citizens and their leaders, which Aristophanes claims repeatedly throughout this and his other comedies. 87 This is the mockery that Aristophanes here heaps on his fellow Athenians, refering to them not by their proper name, Ἀθηναῖοι [Athenians], but instead as Κεχηναῖοι , a nonce-word formed by combining Ἀθηναῖοι with a participial form of the verb χαίνω , meaning “ to gape, yawn, stare with open mouth ” , and applied to the Athenians, as to others in Aristophanes, as an insult denoting 84 Frischlin (1586) 141 verso - 143 recto. 85 Morreall (2009) 27 - 39. 86 Robson (2006) 89. 87 See Knights 509 - 511 and the discussion of comic parrhesia in the following chapter. 42 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation stupidity, laziness, or simplicity. 88 Though this word may be said to produce humor by violating any varying combinatin of Grice ’ s maxims, its clearest stretching of the rules of unitary discourse seems to be its violation of the most nebulous rule, maxim 4 (Be orderly), as the insult is unexpected in a context when one expectes only a proper name. In this case, the logial mechanism which enables the frame opposition of this joke is one which Attardo refers to as a cratylism, more specifically a “ folk cratylism ” , which is the popular belief, however illogical or incorrect, that sound association is the same thing as semantic association. 89 According to this theory, proven by a number of psychological studies cited by Attardo, a rhyme is humorous because it prsents a word, Κεχηναῖοι , which sounds similar to another word, Ἀθηναῖοι , yet has a very different meaning. 90 These two frames of meaning are entirely semantic, and so, on one level at least, the humor here is verbal. Unlike the porca example from Acharnians, Frischlin is not able to translate this piece of verbal humor, as there is no similar rhyme and hence no similar locus or connector in Latin. Yet there is also a non verbal element to this joke. The logical mechanism of cratylism enables the reader to see that two different frames, on the one hand, that of praising the citizens of a city, or, at the very least, referring to them in a neutral way; and on the other hand, that of criticizing or insulting them, are opposed. This opposition creates the referential humor of the passage, which Frischlin ’ s translation picks up in a wonderfully clever way. Frischlin ’ s Hiantia is not a demonym, like the ST Ἀθηναῖοι or the nonce-word built to rhyme with it, but rather a toponym for a city itself, the urbs Hiantia, which is given as a sonically similar variant for a more regular and expected place name ending in -ia after urbs, such as Alexandria or Lutetia. This toponym is built using a participial stem of the Latin verb hio, which carries many of the same meanings as the etymologically related 91 Greek χαίνω , inasmuch as it, too, denotes a gaping or opening, particularly of the mouth, and with connotations of foolishness and laziness. Hio, however, also contains connotations not present in the ST, as demonstrated by Quintilian ’ s use of the word to indicate poorly composed oratory, as at Institutio Oratoria 8. 6. 62 and 9. 4. 33. Frischlin thus has the Sausage Seller criticize his new city not merely as occupied by dolts, but as a city characterized especially by its excess of bad oratory. As the following chapter will demonstrate, the importance of good and moral oratorical practice was a subject near and dear to Frischlin ’ s heart and one of his chief motivations for undertaking his translations. Without delving too deeply into a topic best reserved for the following chapter, it should be said here that Frischlin ’ s use of the toponym Hiantia here is used to shed light on the problem of poor 88 Sommerstein (1981) 157, 209. 89 Attardo (1994) 160 - 168; (2001) 27. 90 Attardo (1994) 161. 91 TLL ad loc. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 43 oratorical practice within the city: the Sausage Seller ’ s Athens is, after all, a city of easily fooled citizens who voted not for the best policies or the mostskilled leaders, but instead first for the sycophantic and demagogic Paphlagonian, then for the only man who could best him in debauchery. 92 It is a city, in other words, whose chief defect is its lack of citizens and leaders educated in righteous rhetorical practice. Finally, it should be noted that Frischlin ’ s TT maintains the referential humor of the passage by use of the same Logical Mechanism in almost the exact same way, namely the cratylism which insists that words which sound the same must mean the same thing, in this case taking the form of a nonceword combining different stems and playing on different sound-associations. However, by removing any potential for a sonic association with the city of Athens, Athenae in Latin, Frischlin has simply removed a significant part of the ST reference network by changing the Target knowledge resource. The passage no longer refers to Athens, in particular, but instead to a fictional city, potentially any city where rhetorical education is not sufficient, or where the people do not hold their leaders to high enough standards of moral oratorical practice. This is a significant accomplishment in terms of making a truly humorous and meaningful version of Aristophanes available to a wider European audience. This passage can be compared profitably with Divus ’ translation, which reads: Et equidem ego te o popule curabo bene, Ad fateri te, nullum hominum me Videre meliorem hac oscitatorum civitate. 93 I certainlly will take good care of you, o People, Up to you confess that you see no man better than me In this city of the yawners. There is no humor in this translation. There is no sonic association between “ Oscitatorum ” and any other word which might cause frame opposition, and no hint in terms of foreignizing or any kind of wordplay comparable to that in the ST which might suggest that this passage is deliberately not maintaining unitary discourse. As my own translation has taken pains to capture, even the Latinity of this passage is made awkward and stilted by Divus ’ effort to render the Greek verbum pro verbo. The fact that the passage is humorous at all would thus be lost on the reader of the translation, who would not understand why the city should be referred to as a city of “ yawners ” , and who, unless his/ her copy of Divus ’ translation had been bound together with a Greek text, would have no way of checking the ST to discover what these lines actually 92 See also the section in chapter V on Knights. 93 Divus (1542) 205. 44 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation mean. 94 Finally, the word oscitator conveys no criticism whatsoever of Sausage Seller ’ s fellow citizens, aside, perhaps, from the fact that they did not get enough sleep the previous night. Humor, then, is one of Frischlin ’ s greatest strengths. His is a wit that knows how to manage successfully humor of every variety. Yet there were times when, as Attardo foresees happening to any attempted translation of a humorous text by a culture that is unprepared to laugh at certain Situations, 95 the mores of Frischlin ’ s time would not allow him to translate every obscenity so unapologetically as he did κύσθος in the example above from Acharnians. His translations of those passages where he must qualify or censor obscenity, here by changing the Situation knowledge resource, are perhaps even more indicative of his abilities as a translator of humor than any others. A wonderful example of this occurs in his translation of the agon between Just Argument and Unjust Argument in Clouds (961 - 1023). After an initial introduction which generally praises the spirit of schoolboys in the olden days, Just Argument proceeds, describing the efforts that children made in his day to remain chaste and modest while decrying the licentious sexual vices of the present day “ in such lurid detail and with such obvious longing that we must feel there is something very attractive, not to say enjoyable, about them ” . 96 The sexually charged portion that follows, 972 - 979, reads as follows in the Greek and Latin of Frischlin ’ s edition: Ἐν παιδοτρίβου δὲ καθίζοντας , τὸν μηρὸν ἔδει προβαλέσθαι Τοὺς παῖδας , ὅπως τοῖς ἔξωθεν μηδὲν δείξειαν ἀπηνές . Εἶτ᾽ αὖ πάλιν αὖθις ἀνισταμενοὺς συμψῆσαι , καὶ προνοῆσαι Εἴδωλον τοῖσοιν ἐρασταῖς , τῆς ἥβης μὴ καταλείπειν γε . (975) Ἠλείψατο δ᾽ ἂν του ´ μφαλοῦ οὐδεὶς παῖς , ὑπένερθε τότ ἂν : ὥς τε Τοῖς αɩ ̓ δοίοισι δρόσος καὶ χνοῦς , ὥσπερ μήλοισιν , ἐπήνθει . Οὐδ᾽ ἂν μαλακὴν φυρσάμενος τὴν φωνὴν , πρὸς τὸν ἐραστὴν , Αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν προσαγωγεύων τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἐβάδιζεν . In ludo autem residentes, pueri objiciebant femur intus, Ne quid monstrarent turpe sui his, qui extrinsecus aspiciebant. Tum, quando iterum consurrexissent, omnem rursus arenam Converrebant: ne pubis vestigium amanti remaneret. Nullus tum puer infra umbilicum ungebatur, sed ibidem 94 New printings of Divus ’ translation were often made at Venice to coincide with the issuing of a new octavo Greek text, with which it could be bound. However, the lines of the Greek editions do not necessarily correspond with the lines translated on any given page of the Latin edition, and so, as the Gryphius (1548) edition held in the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto demonstrates, these pairings were done by placing the Latin text behind the Greek text, not by leafing them together to create a facing translation. 95 Attardo (2002) 187 - 188. 96 Henderson (1991) 76. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 45 Ros et lanugo pubetenus efflorescebat, ut agnis. Nec seipsum quisquam oculorum obtutu, incedens, prostituebat. 97 But sitting down in the school, the boys would cross their thighs inward, lest they display anything shameful of themselves to those who watched from the outside. Then, when they got up to leave again, they would go back and clean out the entire area, lest any vestige of their blossoming youth should be left behind for a lover. No boy in those days anointed himself with oil below the navel, but instead, dew and tender down flourished all the way up to their groin, like on agni. Nor did anyone ever prostitute himself with a wink of the eye as he walked past. Frischlin ’ s Latin largely elides the eroticism coursing beneath every word of these lines, replacing it instead with a Christian sense of chastity and shame in the face of sexual temptation. Ἀπηνές , for example, in line 973, is quite shocking in the Greek for what it reveals about the erotic desires of Just Argument. This word does not carry the sense of shame or indecorousness imparted by Frischlin ’ s turpe, a word Frischlin uses more accurately later in the same speech to translate the Greek αɩ ̓ σχρόν ; rather, it means “ painful ” or “ cruel ” , and refers to the teasingly cruel effect that desire will have on any who should see the young adolescent ’ s genitals. 98 Frischlin has removed that desire, making it merely indecorous or shameful, turpe, for adolescents to carelessly flash their genitals. This works very well for Frischlin ’ s contemporaries, since, as already noted, their understanding of what was ridiculum was essentially rooted in a recognition of something as turpe. When Frischlin thus translates ἀπηνές as turpe, he is telling his learned readers that, however mild his translation may seem, something is indeed very humorous about it. Not only is this (necessarily qua turpitudo) funny in and of itself, it is also in keeping with the moral strictures of a Christian audience. This type of playful interaction with contemporary humor theories is one of the most appealing and, still today, amusing aspects of Frischlin ’ s translations of the most obscene portions of Aristophanes. One other means of toning down this passage is the way in which Frischlin denies the adolescents any active role in the erotic relationship envisioned by Just Argument, who says that all children had to clean up their place of instruction and “ take care not to leave behind any vestige of their blossoming youth for their lovers [ προνοῆσαι / Εἴδωλον τοῖσοιν ἐρασταῖς , τῆς ἥβης μὴ καταλείπειν γε ] ” . Frischlin ’ s Latin adolescents, on the other hand, take care only that “ no vestige of their adolescence remains for a lover [ne pubis vestigium amanti remaneret ] ” . The homoerotic attraction between the lovers and the young boys is still present in Frischlin ’ s translation, but it is significantly chastened: no longer the defining tension of the ἀρχαία παίδευσις it is in the Greek, it has become an avoidable (but still threatening) temptation. Thus the Latin adolescents are not actively luring 97 Frischlin (1586) 202 verso - 204 recto. 98 Dover (1968) 216. 46 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation older lovers nor torturing them with their tantalizing nethers, but merely taking care that they don ’ t accidentally allow anything turpe to happen. This relatively mild censorship of the speech ’ s tenor is in keeping with the relatively restrained level of eroticism in Just Argument ’ s speech up to 975. At 976 - 7, however, Just Argument ’ s lust gets the better of him, and his speech about the righteous practices of times past turns into a graphic and sensual erotic fantasy about the alluring sexual charms of young boys. Just Argument begins these lines by decrying the practice of annointing beneath one ’ s navel, which quickly leads him to fantasize uncontrollably about what lies beneath the navel, which he describes in a vivid metaphor. In this metaphor, δρόσος , or “ dew ” , along with χνοῦς , or “ fine, soft down ” , are described as “ flourishing on the modest young men, as on apples/ apricots ” . The picture Just Argument draws with this metaphor is one of an erect young penis with a matt surface, dripping with pre-ejaculate and as tantalizing as ripe fruit. 99 To translate this passage, Frischlin reaches deep into the annals of Latin literature to find a term whose evocations could banish all eroticism from the metaphor. The μῆλα of Just Argument ’ s Greek metaphor become agni, an alternative name for the trees/ fruits that Pliny the Elder normally calls vitex. As Pliny explains, this plant is sometimes called the agnos, or Chaste Tree (from the Greek ἅγνος ), because Athenian women would cover their beds with them in order to maintain their chastity during the Thesmophoria (HN 24. 38. 59). This is an extremely rare word, used of plants only in Pliny, who describes it in terms echoed in Just Argument ’ s description of the (no longer quite so) alluring infra umbilicum: “ ramosa, foliis candidioribus, lanuginosis. [full of boughs, with rather bright leaves, covered in soft down] ” . Although the ros associated with the agnos in Just Argument ’ s fantasy is nowhere found in Pliny ’ s description of the plant, the use of the adjective lanuginosus in conjunction with the rare term agnos itself suggests that Frischlin is alluding to this passage of Pliny in composing his metaphor. Specifically, he is evoking the notions of chastity and purity that this term has in Pliny ’ s description. The young men ’ s genitals are no longer tantalizingly juicy, tender fruits, but the downy trees that “ ad venerem impetus inhibent [present a challenge to Venus] ” (HN 24. 38. 62). Although this is a significant change, it ultimately has only a minor affect on the overall structure of Frischlin ’ s Clouds. The pederastic lechery of Just Argument is toned down enough to make him acceptable to the Christian society of the European Renaissance, but he is still not a strong character or a good spokesman for his cause, 100 which is Frischlin ’ s chief point. Frischlin acknowledges the permanent value of the source text by placing an uncensored version of it alongside his translation, 101 so the reader with enough Greek to do so could look to the facing text to gain a better idea of the true 99 Dover (1968) 216 - 217. 100 Henderson (1991) 76. 101 Botley (2004) 173 - 174. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 47 depth of Just Argument ’ s lechery and shortcomings. What Frischlin privileges above all else in his translation is not these lurid and potentially offputting details, but the overall story of Just Argument ’ s complete failure to withstand and defeat the sophistic trickery of Unjust Argument. The reasons for this will be detailed in the following chapter. For those interested in how Frischlin accommodates the humor of his ST to the cultural expectations of his target audience, however, this passage is fascinating. It is likely that no audience member would miss the irony of a young boy ’ s infra umbilicum being compared to Pliny ’ s albus castus. Nor can it realistically be argued that the intertext would have been lost on Frischlin ’ s audience, who easily would have recognized the word agni as extremely rare, and would quickly have looked for the botanical reference in the summaria of any of the well-organized and popular editions of the Naturalis Historia available in the 16th century. 102 Furthermore, Frischlin ’ s ironic obfuscation of the pudenda reveals the deep complexity of his approach to obscene humor. In 1570 Ludovico Castelvetro ’ s popular Italian commentary on Aristotle ’ s Poetics recommended precisely this sort of approach to humor related to the unmentionables, writing that, “ [w]hen described to us in the presence of others, situations of this sort will please us and move us to laughter only if hidden under a veil that will make it possible to pretend that we laugh at something other than their lewdness ” . 103 Frischlin is thus not merely being decorous with this translation, he is translating according to the highest poetic standards set by his contemporaries throughout the Republic of Letters, standards which were concerned not merely with decorousness, but specifically with humor and how to produce it. It is likely, given his frequent voyages to Italy and contacts with Italian humanists and publishers, 104 that Frischlin may well have been familiar with Castelvetro ’ s Italian work. This passage alone does not prove that, of course, but it does at least demonstrate that he was aware of the general poetic sentiment which inspired it. Though the product he created with them was new and original, neither Frischlin ’ s translation ideology, nor his theory of humor, nor his poetics were formed in a vaccuum. From a more modern perspective, we can argue that in the ST, Just Argument ’ s speech produces humor because the two frames, that of praising the virtues of old-fashioned education and that of lusting after young boys, are wildly opposite, and the registers of speech involved in those two frames clash noticeably and hilariously. Here, once again, the pederastic lechery of Just Argument is toned down, but it is not eliminated. The humor produced by the opposition of competing registers is replaced by a humor of ironic 102 See Doody (2010) 92 - 131. 103 Castelvetro and Bongiorno (1984) IV [219]. On Castelvetro ’ s place in the Renaissance theorization of humor, see Attardo (1994) 42; Herrick (1964) 23 - 24. 104 Frischlin ’ s introduction to Acharnians recounts these voyages and exchanges in tremendous detail. 48 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation juxtaposition, 105 with the very different connotations of the infra umbilicum and the agni humorously opposed to one-another. 106 This opposition is subtle and skillful, highlighting Frischlin ’ s occasional but very artful use of what Lawrence Venuti would refer to as a “ foreignization “ , that is, broadly put, a translation strategy which draws attention to the act of translation so as to privilege the Source Text and Source Culture and acknowledged the dialogic and unequal relationship between the ST and TT; this is opposed in Venuti ’ s theory with a “ domestication “ , or a translating strategy which seeks to conceal the act of translation and thereby to privilege a(n implicitly hegemonic) Target Culture and Target Text. 107 Because the word agni is actually a Greek word, a rare hapax even in Pliny, it draws attention to the inescapably Greek reference network of the text, the fact that its Latinity is an incomplete illusion built on the works and words of another culture and another language. Ultimately it invites the reader to look to the facing Greek text to see why, exactly, one Greek word would be translated with another. In so doing it privileges the ST, highlights the act of translation, and places great trust in the reader to meet the discursive challenges formed by the reference network. Like any good irony, then, this translation functions on several different levels according to the varying levels of knowledge possessed by its reader: the reader with good Latin, a sense of irony, and access to a copy of Pliny will find the reference amusing. The reader lacking in the last of these qualities will, at very least, understand the language, and may even praise Frischlin for his chastity. The reader with mediocre Latin and no way to find the meaning of this word will come away only with the sense that something is wrong with the passage; he will be shocked out of the complacency often caused by reading a domesticating translation. Finally, the reader with Latin and Greek enough to appreciate this reference in both the ST and TTwill laugh heartily at Frischlin ’ s play with the three texts involved here, and will feel gratified to have been trusted to understand the witty game the translator plays with the expectations of his audience. This, then, is a very skillfully qualified foreignization. Other instances of humor, however, contain register clashes that are not focused in obscenity and innuendo, but in very dense topicality. These passages therefore provide more typical examples of Frischlin ’ s approach to the spectrum of foreignization and domestication in translation. The translation of Acharnians 105 See Attardo (2001) 110 - 125 on irony in humorous texts. 106 A similar sort of humor is produced in Frischlin ’ s translations of two different words for penis from two very different registers at Clouds 1009 - 1023 (Frischlin [1586] 204 verso - 206 recto). In this passage, Frischlin simply translates both words with the Latin penis, alienating his reader and forcing him/ her to wonder how the same word can have two such drastically different connotations. 107 Though their basic meanings are clear, Venuti is often slightly too capricious in applying these terms to various texts. The best introduction to his understanding of these terms is found in Venuti (2008) 1 - 34 and Munday (2012) 218 - 221. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 49 contains several excellent examples of this type of humor, but perhaps the best and most varied are to be found in part of the begging scene between Dicaeopolis and Euripides (395 - 431), whose humor is built on the pervasiveness of its paratragic register clashes, detectable only to an audience familiar with a reference network firmly rooted in the Athenian tragic canon: 108 Δι. Παῖ , παῖ . Κη. τὶς οὗτος Δι . ἔνδον ἔστ᾽ Εὐριπίδης ; (395) Κη. Οὐκ ἔνδον , ἔνδον ἐστίν , εɩ ̓ γνώμην ἔχεις . Δι. Πῶς ἔνδον , εἶτ ´ οὐκ ἔνδον . Κη. ὀρθῶς ὦ γέρον . Ὁ νοῦς μὲν ἔξω συλλέγων ἐπύλλια , Οὐκ ἔνδον , αὐτὸς δ ´ ἔνδον ἀναβάδην ποιεῖ Τρυγωιδίαν . Δι. ὦ τρισμακάρι᾽ Εὐριπίδη . (400) Ὅθ ´ ὁ δοῦλος ο ὑτωσὶ σαφῶς ἀπεκρίνατο . Ἐκκάλεσον αὐτόν . Κη. ἀλλ᾽ ἀδύνατον . Δι. ἀλλ ' ὅμὠς . Οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἀπέλθοιμ ´, ἀλλὰ κόψω τὴν θύραν . Εὐριπίδη , Εὐριπίδιον , Ὑπάκουσον , εἴπερ δή ποτ᾽ ἀνθρώπων τινί . (405) Δικαιόπολις καλεῖ σε , Χολλίδης ἐγώ . Εὐ. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐ σχολή . Δι. Ἀλλ ´ ἐκκυκλήθητ ´. Εὐ. ἀλλ ´ ἀδύνατον . Δι. ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως . Εὐ. Ἀλλ ´ ἐκκυκλήσομαι , καταβαίνειν δ᾽ ο ὐ σχολή . Δι. Εὐριπίδη Εὐ. τί λέλακας . Δι. ἀναβάδην ποιεῖς (410) Ἐξὸν καταβάδην , οὐκ ἐτὸς χωλοὺς ποιεῖς . Ἀτὰρ τί τὰ ῥάκι᾽ ἐκ τραγῳδίας ἔχεις ; Ἐσθῆτ ´ ἐλεεινὴν , οὐκ ἐτὸς πτωχοὺς ποιεῖς ; Ἀλλ᾽ ἀντιβολῶ πρὸς τῶν γονάτων σ ´ Εὐριπίδη , Δός μοι ῥάκιόν τι τοῦ παλαιοῦ δράματος : (415) Δεῖ γάρ με λέξαι τῷ χορῷ ῥῆσιν μακράν , Αὕτη δὲ θάνατον , ἢν κακῶς λέξω φέρει . Εὐ. Τὰ ποῖα τρύχη ; μῶν ἐν οἷς Οɩ ̓ νεὺς ὁδὶ , Ὁ δύσποτμος γεραιὸς ἠγωνίζετο ; Δι. Οὐκ Οɩ ̓ νέως ἦν , ἀλλ ´ ἔτ᾽ ἀθλιωτέρου . (420) Εὐ. Τὰ τοῦ τυφλοῦ Φοίνικ ος ; Δι. ο ὐ Φοίνικος οὔ . Ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερος ἦν Φοίνικος ἀθλιώτερος . Εὐ. Ποίας πότ᾽ ἁνὴρ λακίδας αɩ ̓ τεῖται πέπλων . Ἀλλ ´ ἦ Φιλοκτήτου τὰ τοῦ πτωχοῦ λέγεις ; Δι. Οὐκ, ἀλλὰ τούτου πολὺ πολὺ πτωχιστέρου. (425) Εὐ. Ἀλλ᾽ ἦ τὰ δυσπινῆ θέλεις πεπλώματα , Ἃ Βελλεροφόντης εἶχ᾽ ὁ χωλὸς οὑτοσί ; Δι. Οὐ Βελλεροφόντης , ἀλλὰ κἀκεῖνος μὲν ἦν 108 Robson (2006) 45 - 47 refers to this particular scene as a “ recreative high point ” . This distinction is made for this and other scenes solely in order to ensure that the frequent unpredictability of Aristophanic comedy need not mean the invalidation of Robson ’ s general model of text classification based upon frame maintenance and Grice ’ s revised maxims. This distinction is merely a theoretical necessity, and does not affect the humorous quality of register clashes within any “ recreative high point ” . 50 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation Χωλὸς , προσαιτῶν , στωμύλος , δεινὸς λέγειν . Εὐ. Οἶδ᾽ ἄνδρα Μυσὸν Τήλεφον . Δι. ναὶ Τήλεφον . (430) Τούτου δὸς ἀντιβολῶ σέ μοι τὰ σπάργανα . D I . Puer, puer. C EPHISOPHON . Quis hic? D I . Intusne est Euripides? C E . Non intus, intus est; si recte intelligas. D I . Quomodo sit intus, et non intus? C E . Commode. Nam animus quidem foris versiculos colligens Non intus est: intus resupinus facit Trygoediam. D E . O te ter beatum, Euripides: Quando tam perspicue respondit famulus hic: Age evoca ipsum. C E . At hoc fieri nequit. D I . Attamen. Quippe haud discessero: sed pulsabo ostium. Euripides, Euripidule, Audi hominem quempiam parumper, quaeso te: Dicaeopolis te vocat, e Chollide tribu. E U . Non otium est. C E . At huc evolvitor. E U . At fieri haud potest. C E . Potest. E U . Age evolvar: sed descendere non otium est. D I . Euripides. E U . Quid latras? D I . Utrumne pedibus Sursum porrectis, comminescere fabulam? At tibi deorsum demissis idem licet. Non temere est, quod claudos fingis homines. Sed quorsum haec trita vestimenta habes, tua ex Tragoedia: amictum sane lamentabilem? Non temere est quod claudos fingis homines. Verum oro te, per genua tua, mi Euripides, Da mihi pannosam vestem ex veteri fabula. Nam longam orationem recitare huic gregi Me oportet: quam si male dixero, mortem afferet. E U . Quales vestes pannosas? Utrum has, in quibus Senex aerumnosus certavit Oeneus? D I . Non Oenei erant: sed miserioris cuiuspiam. E U . Caecine Phoenicis? D I . Phoenicis non erant. Sed alius erat Phoenice illo aerumnosior. E U . Quae tandem hic expetit fragmenta vestium? Utrum Philoctetae mendici intelligis? D I . Non, sed longe mendicioris hominis. E U . Fortasse sordida vis velamina, Quae claudus hic Bellerophontes gestaverat? D I . Non Bellerophontis: sed et hic, cuius fragmina Peto, claudus erat mendicus, garrulus dicax. E U . Novi hominem, Mysum Telephum. D I . sic Telephum Huius da, qaeso mihi pannosa lintea. 109 Boy! Boy! C E . Who is this man? D I . Is Euripides inside? C E . Not inside, he is inside, if you understand correctly. 109 Frischlin (1586) 331 verso - 334 recto. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 51 D I . How could he be inside, and not inside? C E . Comfortobaly. For his spirit, indeed, gathering little verses outside, Is not inside: inside he ’ s making a tragedy with his feet up. D I . O thrice-blessed Euripides, when this servant of yours Responds so clearly. But go on. Call him out. C E . But this cannot be done. D I . All the same. I ’ m hardly going to be leaving, but I will pound at the door. Euripides! Euripididdles! Listen to a man, any old man, for just a little while, I beg you. Dicaeopolis, of the tribe of Chollis, calls upon you! E URIPIDES . There ’ s no time. D I . Just berollify yourself out. E U . But this can hardly be done. D I . It can. E U . Very well. I ’ ll berollify myself out. But there isn ’ t time to come down. D I . Euripides! E U . What are you barking? D I . Do you really contrive your tragedies with your feet up? But the same thing is possible for you to do, with them put down. It ’ s no wonder that you fashion crippled men. But why do you have these worn-out rags, those ones of yours from the tragedy? A pitiale raiment, indeed. No wonder you fashion crippled men. But I beg you by your knees, my Euripides, Give me the tattered garment from the old tragedy. For I have to recite a long oration for this crowd, which, if I speak it poorly, will bring me death. E U . What sort of “ tattered garments ” ? Do you mean these ones? In which the aged and bedevilled Oeneus competed? D I . No, they weren ’ t Oeneus ’ , but of someone even more wretched. E U . Those of blind Phoenix? D I . They weren ’ t Phoenix ’ s. Rather, it was another man even more bedevilled than that Phoenix. E U . What fragments of garments is this man seeking, anyway? Do you know those of the beggarly Philoctetes? D I . Not his, but those of someone much more beggarly. E U . Perhaps you want the shabby rags Which this crippled Bellerophon wore? D I . Not Bellerophon ’ s, but this man, whose tatters I seek Was also a cripple, a beggar, and a talkative chatterbox. E U . I know the man: the Mysian Telephus. D I . Yes! Telephus! Give me this man ’ s tattered linens, I beg you! Throughout this scene Aristophanes draws attention to (his own parodic mock-up of) the linguistic and staging conventions of Euripidean tragedy and thus, according to the logic of comedy, to the tragic and haughty affectations of Euripides himself. 110 These are in evidence in Euripides ’ initial refusal to walk downstairs, and insistence that he must instead be wheeled out on the tragic ekkyklema. This situation demands the invention of the ridiculous nonce-word ἐκκυκλέομαι , nicely paralleled by Frischlin ’ s equally ridiculous future passive imperative form of the verb evolvere, translated above as 110 Olson (2002) 180. 52 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation “ berollify ” . Here the humor of the nonce-word, which captures Euripides ’ arrogant refusal to move or interact in a normal, non-tragic manner, is maintained, although the precise tragic and mechanical connotations of the ekkyklema, inherent in the Greek verb, are lost. Euripides ’ affectations become more pronounced once he has finally been wheeled out and condescends to address Dicaeopolis with the phrase, τί λέλακας , “ what art thou ranting? ” The verb used here, λάσκω , is normally confined to the higher register of tragedy, and has no place in this comic and quotidian door-knocking scene. 111 The reference network attached to this word in the ST is further complicated by the perfect tense of the verb, which highlights Euripides ’ associations with the sophists and their particular brand of linguistic typicalization, of which the excessive use of the perfect tense was a common feature frequently parodied by Aristophanes. 112 Frischlin ’ s translation cannot draw on this same reference network, complete with sophistic linguistic innovations and Greek staging conventions. But by translating λέλακας with latras, an aggressive word used of the vocalizations of animals, Frischlin is able to capture the aggression and arrogance that is part of Euripides ’ particular tragic register, as well as the linguistic distance that this register places between Euripides and those over whom he looms on his ekkyklema. As the scene goes on, Frischlin continues with the translation strategy of maintaining humor by recreating clashes in register. This does not always necessitate completely sacrificing the ST reference network, however. In line 412 - 413, for example, Dicaeopolis, in pleading with Eurpides for some stage clothing, suddenly switches from the lower register of τὰ ῥάκι᾽ ἐκ τραγῳδίας , “ the rags from the tragedy ” , to the much higher, tragic register of ἐσθῆτ᾽ ἐλεεινήν , “ pitiable raiment ” . As Olson notes, this latter term is possibly an allusion to a tragic line by Euripides, which would have been familiar to Aristophanes ’ audience. 113 If that is the case, however, Frischlin is no better able to detect what tragedy it might be sourced from than are modern scholars. This does not cause the line to lose all humor in translation, however, as the shift in register which made the discourse humorous has been maintained in Frischlin ’ s translation. Although the evocative differences between vestimentum and amictus are slight - the former occasionally having an entirely metaphorical meaning in the Latin poets, whereas the latter is only a general term for clothing - , 114 Frischlin ensures that the stark difference in register is maintained by supplying the necessary background knowledge lexically. Specifically, although the adjective pannosus, “ tattered ” , has no equivalent in the ST, it functions perfectly opposite lamentabilis, “ pitiable, 111 Olson (2002) 181. 112 See below and Willi (2003) 126 - 133. 113 Olson (2002) 182. 114 Oxford Latin Dictionary (1968). Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 53 lamentable ” . Not only does this lexical addition capture the sudden shift in registers, it also captures and presents vividly to the audience the dramatic criticism implied in that shift, which is that Euripides frequently relies on nothing more than cheap (pannosus) props to make his heroes pitiable (lamentabilis) and sympathetic. 115 Frischlin ’ s translation further emphasizes this critical aspect of the paired adjectives by using another piece of lexical background knowledge in the form of the adverb sane, which adds an ironic qualification to the adjective lamentabilis: “ pitiable indeed ” . This passage illustrates well that a skilled and dramatically attuned translator of ancient comedy need not necessarily choose between the opposite poles of operative and informative in producing a TT. 116 As it proceeds, however, this scene also demonstrates the limits of a register-based approach to translating referential humor, as well as the limited audience that a translation such as this might be able to gain. Having established the parameters of the text ’ s criticism of Euripides ’ dramatic art, the ST goes on to list several characters who supposedly embody his most typically tawdry shortcut for the production of pathos, including Oeneus, Phoenix, Philoctetes, Bellerephon, and finally Telephus. No extra lexical information is provided to flesh out this reference network for the target audience. There is no clash of register here to be elaborated, and no violation of frames that would indicate a lack of unitary discourse. Any humor present is dependent not on verbal cues, but on the reference network itself, on the audience ’ s knowledge of Euripides ’ works and characters. That Frischlin makes no attempt to fill out that knowledge with further lexical aides is telling of his audience, whom he expects to be well-read and well-educated enough to do their part in the cooperative act of communication by meeting the discursive challenge posed by these names. Another, even more difficult example of a dense ST reference network is found in the (in)famous poetic agon between Euripides and Aeschylus in Frogs, which features the two dead poets competing to be named best tragedian and thereby win a chance to return to the realm of the living with Dionysus, who employs a series of complex metaphorical metrics in order to determine whose tragedy is better. All of these various metrics are tightly bound in with the reference network of a source culture deeply familiar with the works, language, and reputations of the two tragedians and their Athens. The language of this agon is so specific, the reference network so thick and impenetrable to anyone not born and raised in fifth-century Athens, that this passage has been called “ the most untranslatable passage in the most untranslatable of books ” . 117 For this reason, the best and most popular modern stage translation of this play, that of Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove, 115 Olson (2002) 181. 116 As proposed by Robson (2008) 176. 117 J. G. Lockhart as quoted in Walsh (2008) 112. 54 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation opted for a drastic domestication, replacing Aeschylus and Euripides entirely with Shakespeare and Shaw, respectively. 118 Though the reference network is complex throughout, the real crucible of this agon in translation begins at 1200, when Aeschylus announces that he will destroy ( διαφθερῶ ) all of Euripides ’ prologues with a single flask of oil ( ληκύθιον ). At this point Euripides is invited to begin singing iambic trimeter verses from his prologues. When he reaches a point in the prologue which fills out up to the anceps of the second metron - i. e., when he has sung ˟ˉˇˉ˟ , Aeschylus completes the line with a phrase, ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν [lost a little bottle of oil], scanned ˉ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˇ ˉ ˇ ˉ , which fills out the remainder of the line. There are many potential layers of humor here, 119 but the most basic problem that the translator must face before attempting to address these is deciding how to incorporate the metrical mechanics of the lecythion, the oil flask. This is an opportune moment to discuss the complexities of Frischlin ’ s choices of meter for the TT. His stated goal in using meters is to translate Aristophanes ’ Greek meters into meters sourced from the New Comedies of Plautus and Terence. Broadly considered, then, Frischlin ’ s translation takes what James Holmes has termed an “ analogical form ” of verse translations. That is, Frischlin has avoided using a verse form metrically identical to that of the source text, and instead translated Aristophanes ’ verses using a verse form with a function determined to be roughly parallel to it in the target language and culture. 120 This tactic is especially useful in a situation such as this, as the form analagous to the Greek iambic trimeter, the normal verse of spoken passages in Greek drama, is the iambic senarius, the normal verse of a Latin New Comic diverbium. These two meters are essentially the same, inasmuch as they are both built around the basic unit ˇ ˉ , though these units are employed and understood differently in the two languages. 121 Frischlin is thus easily able to translate this passage (Frogs 1206 - 1208) without losing the most basic element which makes it sensible: Εὐ . Αἴγυπτος , ὡς ὁ πλεῖστος ἔσπαρται λόγος , Ξὺν παισὶ πεντήκοντα , ναυτίλῳ πλάτῃ Ἄργος κατασχών— Αɩ ̓ . ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν . E U . Aegyptus, ut fama huius rei percrebuit, Cum liberis quinquaginta, rate nautica Argos prehendens. A ES . Lecythulum deperdidit. 122 118 See Gamel (2007). 119 For a good introduction to the considerable bibliography treating the basic issues surrounding these lines, see Dover (1993) 337 - 339. 120 Holmes (1970). 121 See Halporn et al. (1980) 72 - 76. The literature on metrical practice in New Comedy, and especially in Terence, is vast. See Moore (2013) for an excellent introduction and bibliography on the subject. 122 Frischlin (1586) 290 verso - 292 recto. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 55 Aegyptus, as the man ’ s fame has rung out, Made toward Argos with his fifty children In his nautical raft - A ES . And lost his little bottle of oil. Here Frischlin uses the phrase “ Lecythulum deperdidit ” , “ Lost his little bottle of oil ” , scanned ˉ ˇ ˇ ˉ ˉ ˉ ˇ ˉ , to fill out a verse sung up to the first syllable of the third foot, i. e. up to ˇ ˉ ˇ ˉ ˇ . Thus Frischlin ’ s TL phrase does not scan exactly the same as the SL phrase it translates, though it does serve the same purpose metrically, inasmuch as it metrically completes every line in a repetitive and bathos-inducing manner. This is something of a translation coup for Frischlin, and one almost impossible to compare to a similar feat in any modern English translation. 123 Before praising it too highly, however, we should remind ourselves that the similarities in the meter and vocabulary of the two languages makes this feat considerably easier for the Latin translator than it is for the translator working with a modern, vernacular TL with a completely different metrical and poetic structure. It is therefore useful to compare Frischlin ’ s translation, once again, to that of Andreas Divus, who was working in the same language and therefore should have been able to produce a similar metrical translation. Divus ’ translation of these lines reads as follows: E U . Aegyptus (ut plurimus seminatus est sermo) cum filiis quinquaginta nautico remo Argos possidens. A ES . Lecythulum perdidit. 124 E U . Aegyptus (as is the most widely-seeded story) Heading toward Argos with his fify children And his nautical oar - A ES . Lost his little bottle of oil. Because Divus ’ translation is unmetrical here, as elsewhere, the mechanism behind the most basic level of humor in these lines is completely lost in his translation. As they do for the reader of a modern English translation without a facing text or good footnotes, 125 these lines seem little better than gibberish, despite the fact that they function, at least, as an informative crib translation of the lexical denotata of the ST. This is the real difference between Frischlin ’ s translation and that of Divus: Divus ’ translation is part of an immense, and immensely profitable, trade in ad verbum cribs produced in droves for neophyte students of Greek throughout the Renaissance. 126 These early 123 Barrett (1968) 200 - 201 is exceptional in this, as he does an excellent job of capturing this passage in English by putting the prologues in iambic pentameters, the traditional verse of English tragedy, which the tag “ lost his bottle of oil ” rounds out awkwardly with an anaepestic final foot. The attentive reader thus notices the metrical oddity and repetition, but the rest of the reference network is still lost and left unexplained. 124 Divus (1542) 149. 125 e. g. Paul Roche ’ s 2005 translation, pp.593 - 596, where the lines are not fit into any metrical structure, and no explanation at all is given for the recurring “ cruet of oil. ” 126 See Botley (2004) 173 - 174; Grafton and Jardine (1986) 111. 56 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation pedagogical translations were considered largely disposable, 127 and in keeping with the theories of translation championed by Manuel Chrysoloras and Leonardo Bruni, they were to be, whenever possible, literal (ad verbum) enough to make the translated text a useful aid for the learner, but not if maintaining the wording and structure of the source text meant sacrificing its sense (sensus) or elegance. 128 Thus, although it is perhaps unfair to judge Divus ’ translation against Frischlin ’ s, it is nonetheless important to note the very real differences between the two approaches, as these shed light on the very real appeal of a translation method for Aristophanes that was as witty and carefully considered as it was untested in 1586. Yet Frischlin met with serious limitations in contending with all the (potential) connotata of these lines. The first, and perhaps most simple to capture, if only because of the context in which the lines appear, is a criticism of the metrical practices of Euripides, the iambs of whose later plays noticeably relied on frequent resolution into trysyllabic feet, especially ˇ ˇ ˇ ; and substitution of anaepests ( ˇ ˇ ˉ ) for true iambs ( ˇ ˉ ), 129 metrical oddities all on display in the phrase ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν and the series of substitute diminutives suggested by Aeschylus at 1203. 130 It is unlikely that Frischlin had to hand the same precise statistics concerning the frequency of resolution and anaepestic lines in the Greek tragedians as did E. Harrison when composing his own analysis of this scene in 1923, and accordingly his translation of lines 1202 - 4, key to understanding much of the criticism made by this exchange, fail to capture at least one of their connotative meanings. At 1203 Aeschylus suggests his three separate diminutive nouns, each resolving a metron into a tribrach, as potential space-fillers in Euripidean iambics. Frischlin ’ s translation of these lines, forced to bend to the metric rules of Latin verse, almost inevitably loses this element of Aristophanes ’ poetic criticism of Euripides ’ often-resolved iambics, but it also demonstrates Frischlin ’ s skillful use of foreignization in translation: Ποιεῖς γὰρ οὕτως , ὥστ᾽ ἐναρμόττειν ἅπαν Καὶ κῳδάριον , καὶ ληκύθιον , καὶ θύλακιον , Ἐν τοῖς ɩ ̓ αμβείοισι , δείξω δ᾽ αὐτίκα . Nam ita prologos facis, ut cuius voci applicem Pelliculam, vel culeolum, vel Lecythion In Iambicis: atque hoc nunc ostendam illico. 131 127 Botley (2004) ibid. 128 Wilson (1992) 11 - 12. 129 See Cropp and Fick (1985). 130 Dover (1993) 339; Harrison (1923). 131 Frischlin (1586) 290 verso - 291 recto. Cf. Divus ’ (1542: 149) unmetrical, “ Facis enim sic usquam ad congregare omne / Et pelliculam et lecythulum, et sacculum, / In iambeis ostendam autem cito. ” Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 57 For you make youre prologues in such a way That I could add to anyone ’ s speach A little sack, a little hide, or a little bottle of oil [lecythion]. In these lines, Frischlin ’ s use of the word Lecythion immediately stands out as different from the Lecythulum that he has Aeschylus use to sabotage every sample prologue Euripides begins to sing. 132 He employs this transliterated form of the word only here, where it is especially marked by the fact that its second syllable, though composed of the same letter combination (-cyth-) as that in the alternative lecythulum, is now being treated as metrically long, rather than metrically short, as is necessary to round out the iambic senarius. As both words contain the same number of vowels, the reading here is dependent only on shifting the value of the second syllable, and Frischlin could easily have used the same word, lecythulum, to achieve this same effect simply by treating the second syllable as long. This, too, would have called attention to the oddity of the entire passage in translation, but not without the risk of confusing a reader, and not as well as does the transliterated lecythion. As he did with agnos, Frischlin uses a transliterated Greek word to call attention to the act of translation and to the thoroughly Greek reference network underlying this passage. As it did in the example from Clouds, this foreign word turns the reader ’ s attention once again to the facing Greek text, where answers must be sought for the question inevitably raised by the utterly alien reference network behind the utterly alien word, lecythion. Here, as elsewhere, it is largely necessary for Frischlin to foreignize, as his TT simply cannot convey the huge amounts of information potentially available in the ST. Frischlin ’ s diminutives for everyday items, like those of Divus, suffice to capture at least the sordid, petty, and bathetic nature of Euripidean verse, as understood by Aristophanes ’ Aeschylus. 133 Frischlin ’ s translations may also succeed partially in suggesting some of the potential double entendres in κῳδάριον , ληκύθιον , and θύλακιον , all of which may allude in varying degrees to different parts and aspects of the male genitals, 134 but they do so almost incidentally. That is, pellicula had been noted as a term for foreskin by a scholiast on Juvenal, 135 although here it is being used to translate a term which, according to Dover, would likely have had connotations of pubic hair for a Greek audience; while “ culleolum ” can be taken to suggest a diminutive of coleus, the testicles or scrotum, 136 more easily than can Divus ’ dry “ sacculum ” . These innuendos, if present, are like their ST counterparts in being almost too subtle for a modern audience to detect, even if they are not exactly high-brow. Lecythion, on the other hand, is completely without sexual 132 Frischlin (1586) 292 recto - 293 recto. 133 Harrison (1923) 11 - 12. 134 Dover (1993) 337 - 339. 135 Adams (1982) 73. 136 Adams (1982) 66 - 67. 58 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation connotations in Latin, but it does help to arouse curiosity about the passage in which it appears, and thus to alienate the reader and force him/ her to acknowledge the permanent value and primacy of the facing ST. Finally, it is worth noting that, as in the previous example from Acharnians, Frischlin does not provide any extra lexical information to inform his TT audience about the thick reference network behind the numerous and very specific references to the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides in this scene. He once again expects his readers to be willing to accept, with the aid of the scene ’ s context, the challenge presented by the play ’ s foreign reference network. The fact that his own words fit the metrical structure he has chosen while calling attention to its function in the ST and also supplying a steady stream of amusing sexual innuendo, makes the challenge all the more welcome to Frischlin ’ s readers. Alongside these various foreignizations, however, there exist many instances of domestication, as well. The complexity of the ST and, as will be demonstrated, the complexity of Frischlin ’ s message, do not easily allow for a simplistic approach, and innumerable compromises and creative solutions are required for the varying degrees of topicality and obscenity scattered throughout the plays. Turning again to the agon between Just Argument and Unjust Argument in Clouds as a veritable treasure trove of all those features which made Aristophanes problematic, we will find several examples where Frischlin felt that his audience was not prepared to deal with the discursive challenges of a foreignization, and therefore made use of a domestication. After discussing the alluring qualities of young boys ’ genitals in the passage discussed above, Just Argument continues his indictment - cum - rant by lambasting the table manners and eating habits of contemporary children. Frischlin ’ s translation of these lines remains fairly unremarkable until Unjust Argument interjects at 984: Οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἑλέσθαι δειπνοῦντ ´ ἐξῆν κεφάλαιον τῆς ῥαφανῖδος , Οὐδ᾽ ἀν ἄνηθον τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ἁρπάζειν , οὐδὲ σέλινον , Οὐδ᾽ ὀψοφαγεῖν , οὐδὲ κιχλίζειν , οὐδ . ἴσχειν τὼ ποδ ´ ἐναλλάξ . Ἀδ . Ἀρχαῖὰ γε , καὶ διιπολιώδη , καὶ τεττίγων ἀνέμεστα , Καὶ κηκείδου καὶ βουφονίων . Δι . ἀλλ᾽ οὖν ταῦτ ´ ἐστὶν ἐκεῖνα (985) Ἒξ ὧν ἄνδρας μαραθωνομάχ ους , ἡ ´ μὴ παίδευσις ἔθρεψεν . Σὺ δὲ τοὺς νῦν εὐθὺς ἐν ἱματίοισι διδάσκεις ἐντετυλίχθαι , Ὥστε μ᾽ ἀπάγχεσθ᾽ , ὅταν ὀρχεῖσθαι Παναθηναίοις δέον αὐτοὺς : Τὴν δ᾽ ἀσπίδα τῆς κωλῆς προέχων ἀμελῇ τῆς Τριτογενείας . Nulli raphano vesci licitum in coena: nulli vel anethum, Vel apium, herbas seniorum, fas praeripere: obsonia nulli Edere, aut deliciari, neque pedes alternare licebat. I N . Prisca haec sunt, et Iovialia et annis obsita, plena cicadis, Nugae Cecidae et Buphoniorum. I U . atque haec scilicet illa, Quibus in Marathone viros pugnaces mea doctrina fidesque Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 59 Produxit: tu vero nostros homines illico tegumentis Involui perdoces: ut ego suffocer, sicubi oportet Illos saltare chorum in Panathenaeis; clypeumque uti peni Praetendendo, negligat saltationem. Proin ’ o adolescens. 137 Nobody was permitted to feast on radish at dinner: nor was it acceptable for anyone to seize the dill or the parsley or the herbs of their elders: It was permitted to nobody to eat relish, nor to live lavishly, nor to relax their feet. I N . These are the ancient Iovialia, covered in years, and full of crickets - the trifles of Ceceides and the Buphonia. I U . And they are also the things with which my learning and faith produced those hard-fighting men at Marathon: you, however, teach our men there to cover themselves up with garments. And, just to make sure I ’ m choked off, when it ’ s time for them to dance the chorus in the Panathenaea, you teach them to neglect their dancing by holding their shield out in front of their penis. These lines present a number of difficulties for the translator, and Unjust Argument ’ s dismissive reference to the Διπωλίεια at 985 is perhaps the most troubling. This archaic festival in honor of Zeus Polieus, as well as all of the ancient rituals and customs associated with it and evoked by Unjust Argument, are uniquely tied to an obscure Athenian civic and religious context that has no real equivalent in ancient Roman religion or literature. 138 Because Frischlin cannot assume that a German audience, even one well-read in Latin literature, will be familiar with the ritual, he names it the Iovialia, as if it were a Roman festival in honor Jove and along the lines of the Lupercalia, the Saturnalia, or the Vinalia. This is a domesticating translation tactic, and while it is perfectly in keeping with Frischlin ’ s stated goal of assimilating Aristophanes to the language and culture of Plautine and Terentian Rome, in this case, it threatens to leave his readers somewhat mystified. Because this invented festival will not have the associations of archaic, dated ritual attached to the Διπωλίεια , 139 Frischlin must insert his own description, “ annis obsita [covered in years] ” , to help his readers understand these associations. With this description given as a guide, Frischlin can then abandon the more jarring domestication tactics and lead his readers to assume that the foreign elements remaining in the text, the cicadae and “ nugae Cecidae et Buphoniorum ” , must be somehow incarnations of whatever makes the Iovialia both prisca and obsita annis. Frischlin has found a necessary middle ground here between foreignization and domestication. His domesticated Aristophanes does contain foreign elements, but they are never given without some assurance that his readers will fully understand and appreciate them as educated German humanists. 140 137 Frischlin (1586) 203 verso - 204 recto. 138 Burkert (1985) 230 - 231. 139 Dover (1968) 218. 140 It is worth noting that contemporary target-language oriented translations, as so defined by their own prefaces, also feel the necessity to provide similar (and even more explicit) guides to understanding these references. As examples I give Jeffrey Henderson ’ s Focus 60 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation Where this understanding and partial domestication cannot be imparted by such explanatory descriptions, Frischlin domesticates the text more radically by completely eliminating foreign terms. This tactic can be observed only a few lines later, when Just Argument chides Unjust Argument for teaching the youth at the Panathenaea - a festival very specifically linked to the source culture - to dance in a manner that supposedly shows “ disregard for the Thrice-born Goddess [ ἀμελῇ τῆς Τριτογενείας ] ” , using a very foreign Greek cultic title of Athena. Rather than attempting to capture the meaning of this cultic title, Frischlin ’ s Just Argument simply complains that Unjust Argument teaches the chorus to “ neglect its dancing [negligat saltationem] ” . Ultimately, Frischlin is interested in challenging his audience, but not in driving them away. Old Comedy must not shoot over its audience ’ s head, even in translation, and so when met with a challenge that seems too great, Frischlin relies on the safety of domestication always to preserve the reading pleasure of his TT and the risus which he has determined to be its paramount function. Aside from topical references drawn from Athenian culture, this overarching strategy is also in evidence in Frischlin ’ s translations of certain Aristophanic words and phrases which simply cannot be foreignized if the text is to remain an enjoyable read for an audience familiar with Roman New Comedy. Continuing directly with the central agon of Clouds, Just Argument returns to praise the righteous life lived in accordance with the strictures of the ἀρχαία παίδευσις . He is interrupted again by Unjust Argument, whose heckling Just Argument answers only with still more idealization of a modest and traditional upbringing: Πρὸς ταῦτ ´, ὦ μειράκιον , θαρρῶν ἐμὲ τὸν κρείττω λόγον αἱροῦ . (990) Κᾀπιστήσει μισεῖν ἀγορὰν , καὶ βαλανείων ἀπέχεσθαι , Καὶ τοῖς αɩ ̓ σχροῖς αɩ ̓ σχύνεσθαι , κᾂν σκώπτηι τίς σε , φλέγεσθαι · Καὶ τῶν θάκων τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις ὑπανίστασθαι προσιοῦσι . Καὶ μὴ περὶ τοὺς σαυτοῦ γονέας κακοεργεῖν , ἄλλο τε μηδὲν Αɩ ̓ σχρὸν ποιεῖν : ὅτι τῆς αɩ ̓ δοῦς μέλλεις τἄγαλμ᾽ ἀναπλήσειν . (995) Μηδ᾽ εɩ ̓ ς ὀ ρχηστρίδος εɩ ̓ σιέναι , ἵνα μὴ πρὸς ταῦτα κεχηνὼς , Μήλῳ βληθεὶς ὑπὸ πορνιδίου τῆς εὐκλείας ἀποθραυσθῇς . Μηδ᾽ ἀντειπεῖν τῷ πατρὶ μηδέν , μηδ᾽ Ἰαπετὸν καλέσαντα Μνησικακῆσαι τὴν ἡλικίαν ἐξ ἧς ἐνεοττοτροφήθης . Ἄδ. Εɩ ̓ ταῦτ ´ ὦ μειράκιον πείσει τούτωι , νὴ τὸν Διόνυσον , (1000) Τοῖς Ἱπποκράτους ὑεσιν εἴξεις : καλέσουσί τέ σε βλιτομάμαν . Δι. Ἀλλ ´ οὖν λιπαρός γε , καὶ εὐανθὴς ἐν γυμνασίοις διατρίψεις , Οὐ στωμύλλων κατὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν τριβολεκτράπελ ´, οἷάπερ οἱ νῦν ; Οὐ ἑλκόμενος περὶ πραγματίου γλισχραντιλογεξεπιτρίπτου : Classical Library translation, which reads: “ Antiquated rubbish, full of / crickets and prehistoric rites, / moldy tunes and sacred oxen! ” ; and Peter Meineck ’ s Hackett translation: “ What a load of archaic claptrap! Your speech, sir, reeks of rotten old sacrificial beef, / it is crawling with grasshoppers and hums to the antiquated strains of Cedeides! ” Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 61 Ἀλλ᾽ εɩ ̓ ς ἀκαδημίαν κατιὼν , ὑπὸ ταῖς μορίαις ἀποθρέξεις , (1005) Στεφανωσάμενος καλάμῳ λευκῷ μετὰ σώφρονος ἡλικιώτου , Μίλακος ὄζων , καὶ ἀπραγμοσύνης , καὶ λεύκης φυλλοβαλούσης , Ἦρος ἐν ὥρᾳ χαίρων , ὁπότ , ἂν πλάτανος πτελέα ψιθυρίξῃ . Bono animo es, meque tibi elige sermonem multo potiorem. Etenim sic disces odisse forum: et balnea nunquam intrare, Suffundique pudore ob turpia: tum si quis crimine laedat, Exardere: et senioribus assurgere, quando ingrediuntur. Neque male facere parentibus, et nihil usquam admittere turpe: Adeoque pudoris vivum exemplum in te dare: sed neque lectum Intrabis saltatricis, ne, dum istis inhias, meretrix te Malo petat: et exinde bona de fama tu excutiaris. Neque patri responsabis quicquam: neque vetulum, Iapetumque Dices, nec senium exprob<r>abis ei, qui te eduxit alumnum. I N . At tu, si huic morigerere, adolescens: tum sane, per Iacchum Similis eris Hippocratis filiis stupidis: bardumque vocabunt. I U . Imo nitidus versaberis in ludis, et floridus usque: Nec prostitues nugacissima verba foro: qualia nostri: Neque trahere in ius, propter miserolitgiosomalignum Parvumque negotiolum: sed enim in Academia sub olivis Sacris spatiaberis, inter coaequales, calamo redimitus: Milacemque redolebis, et ocium et indita populna capillis Folia, Vere novo gaudens, cum platanus ulmusque susurrant. 141 Be of good cheer, and pick me out as a speech much more useful to you. For truly you will thus learn to hate the forum, and to never enter the baths, and to be suffused with shame because of foul things. Should anyone harm you with a misdeed, you will learn to burn with indignity. You will learn to rise up for your elders when they enter a room, to do no harm to your parents, and never to give licence to anything foul. What ’ s more, you will learn to give, within your very self, an example of modesty. You will learn not to enter a dancing girl ’ s bed, lest a prostitute should go after you with an apple while you rasp after all those things, and lest you be struck of your good fame. Nor will you ever talk back at all to your father, nor will you call him a little old man or a Iapetus. Nor will you accuse of Senility him who raised you up from a child. I N . But if you humor this man, young man, then indeed, by Iacchus, you ’ ll be like the stupid sons of Hippocrates, and they will call you bardus. I U . In truth you will turn about in the wrestling schools, shining and blooming all the way. You won ’ t whore out the most triflingest words in the forum, like our young ones do. Nor will you be dragged into court on account of some miserolitigiosomalignum and stupid little affair: that ’ s because you ’ ll be spending your time in the Academy under the sacred olives, among your agemates, wreathed in reeds. You will be redolent of yew and, your hair garnished with poplar leaves, you will rejoice in the new spring, when the plane and the elm whisper in the breeze. 141 Frischlin (1586) 204 verso - 205 recto. 62 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation In addition to obscure topical references, the translator of this exchange has to deal with two inventive Aristophanic hapax legomena: τριβολεκτράπελος and γλισχραντιλογεξεπιτρίπτος . These are actual words inasmuch as the various recombined elements in them would be perfectly understandable to an Athenian audience. However, the inventive nature - that is, the free combination of very different semantic units to create a completely original meaning - and (especially in the case of the latter example) the length of these compounds make the humor in them significantly easier to capture in translation than some of the more subtle associations evoked by Aristophanes ’ other verbal compounds, such as the sophistic innovations analyzed in the following chapter. For this reason, Frischlin is able to translate them both in amusing and inventive ways that are faithful both to the verbal humor attached to the words in the source text and to the expectations of his stated target culture. Τριβολεκτράπελος , formed from a combination of τρίβολος (burr; witticism) and ἐκτράπελος (strange, far-fetched) and meaning something like “ subtlety, verbal trickery ” , 142 becomes “ nugacissima ” , the unattested adjective based on a superlative adverb found only in Plautus (Trinummus 819), and translated above as “ the most triflingest ” . The second of these, an adjective formed from γλίσχρος (greedy, sticky), ἀντιλογέω (argue/ debate/ pettifog), and ἐπιτρίπτος (rogue, nuisance) and meaning something not translatable into English with anything less than four hyphens and an exclamation point, is rendered in Latin with Frischlin ’ s own inventive hapax, “ miserolitigiosomalignum ” , taken from miser (wretched), litigiosus (litigious, quarrelsome/ lawsuit), and malignum (poor, spiteful, harmful). These translations confirm two trends in Frischlin ’ s translation practice: his preeminent concern for denouncing sophistic legal and rhetorical abuses, and his strong preference for a target language-oriented and domesticating style of translation. The first of these aspects will be discussed at greater length in the following chapter. For now it must suffice to say that Nugacissima immediately evokes the nugae Sophisticae that Frischlin makes the target of this translation, in particular, and of his academic career, in general. It is thus only natural that nugacissma verba should be decried by Frischlin ’ s Just Argument as something that only a depraved follower of Unjust Argument would “ whore out (prostitues) ” in the forum. What really recommends this word to Frischlin, however, is its Plautine pedigree. This word does not accurately represent and inform the reader about the two different recombined elements of the word in the source text, but it does accurately transmit the humor of them using an outlandish word that also manages to domesticate the text by placing it firmly within the literary and verbal tradition of the target language and culture. In the terminology of Reiss, this is an operative translation, not an informative translation. That is, this is a translation which 142 Green (1868) 114. Applying Theory to Frischlin's Translations 63 seeks to make the reader laugh in the target language rather than to convey the sense of the joke in the source language. The method of joke translation has shifted greatly toward the middle of the operative/ informative and foreignizing/ domesticating spectra in Frischlin ’ s miserolitigiosomalignum. This is a fairly informative translation of γλισχραντιλογεξεπιτρίπτος , as it conveys the meanings of two of its constituent elements, ἀντιλογέω and ἐπιτρίπτος , with litigosus and malignum, respectively. Here Frischlin ’ s concerns seem more practical than anything. If a foreignization does nothing to harm the sense of the text in the target language, if it can be explained or understood within context, and most importantly, if it is funny, there is no reason it should not be kept. Nugacissima has already established that verbal inventiveness is not only funny, but a tradition very much compatible with Frischlin ’ s Roman New Comic target culture. Miserolitigatiosomalignum merely enlarges upon this tradition. Frischlin ’ s translation of Just Argument ’ s obscure topical reference to the children of Hippocrates evinces this same concern with practicality, and uses the same translation technique used for Just Argument ’ s earlier topical interjection. Frischlin does not domesticate the reference in Latin by making it a reference to a proverbially stupid family of Romans or contemporary Germans, but leaves it as is, only qualified by the adjective stupidus. Βλιτομάμα , a thoroughly foreign term with no equivalent in Latin, 143 presents the same difficulty as did Τριτογενείας , and Frischlin deals with it in the same way, completely domesticating it by using a different phrase entirely: bardus. This straightforward term of abuse imparts nothing of the vegetable or diminutive connotations of the Greek word, but it is a clear insult that can finally remove any ambiguity that may remain among modern readers about just what sort of people the sons of Hippocrates might be. Conclusion This same pattern of compromised foreignization and varying degrees of domestication recurs again and again, and examples could be cited ad nauseam. The basic patterns of Frischlin ’ s approach should, however, already be clear: where an intelligent reader can be trusted to use context to work through a dense reference network, Frischlin generally foreignizes. This foreignization occurs along a spectrum: on one end are instances where Frischlin leaves a foreign reference network in place, without bothering to replace its numerous ancient referents with referents which would be entirely coherent to his 16th-century audience. On the other end are instances where Frischlin radically disrupts the coherence of his TT, thereby forcing his reader to recognize and consider the ST and Source Culture. More generally, 143 See Dover (1968) 221. 64 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation however, Frischlin prefers to domesticate his text to the standards of a Christian Target Culture familiar with the conventions of Roman New Comedy and, more broadly, with Latin literature. This can ultimately be called a qualified Target Language-oriented and domesticating translation. Where culture-specific references in the source text cannot be domesticated or explained easily with helpful adjectives in translation, they are eliminated. Likewise, those cultural norms and practices that had helped initially make Aristophanes so abhorrent to the European Renaissance are elided and toned down. Pederastic lust is made into shameful temptation, while obscenities that (according to Frischlin) serve no purpose are softened or deleted. Yet this translation is not a hegemonic devaluation of the source text and source culture. Not only does Frischlin keep foreign elements whenever he can provide an adequate explanation of them, he everywhere juxtaposes his Latin target text with the unadulterated Greek source text of Aristophanes, making the latter more widely available to European audiences while acknowledging its permanent value as a source of information. 144 The ill repute Aristophanes suffered in the Renaissance, made abundantly clear in Frischlin ’ s own introductory matter, meant that his texts required some domestication in order to be appreciated at all by Frischlin ’ s contemporaries, a situation that Frischlin understood perfectly. His Aristophanes, whether in Latin or Greek, successfully met the expectations of his European audience while at the same time bringing them closer to the real Aristophanes, warts and all, than they had come in a millennium. For Frischlin ’ s readers, this meant being amused, but it also meant being challenged by dense networks of Greek references that were likely to be completely unfamiliar. At least in the passages analyzed above, that challenge was not generally tremendous, given the context provided by the scenes themselves. But this translation strategy is still a choice, and not the only one available to Frischlin. His dramatic career had already shown a willingness to make use of Aristophanic humor without slavishly keeping the names and reference networks intact. 145 Theoretically, if he were only interested in producing a domesticated and operative translation, he could have replaced Euripides with Seneca or another dramatist, either Latin or colloquial, better known to his contemporaries, 146 and done the same with the Megarians, the Athenians, and all their festivals, gods, and holidays. He did not, and so his translation must be taken as intended for an audience who wanted to know more about the Greek source culture and the reference network forming the discourse of the ST. Frischlin ’ s TT meets this demand, while at the same time managing to retain much of the lively humor that made the ST so appealing in the first place. 144 Botley (2004) 173 - 174. 145 See Price (1990), especially chapters 4 and 5. 146 For Seneca ’ s enormous popularity during this period, see Boyle (1997) 141 ff. Conclusion 65 Although this is a nicely sanitized summary of the goals and accomplishments of Frischlin ’ s translations, it is, of course, incomplete. No study of any translation, however theoretically complex and rigorous, is ever complete until it acknowledges what it has not, and perhaps cannot, say. Lawrence Venuti cautions that a domesticating translation always risks becoming nothing more than a narcissistic and hegemonic devaluation of the source culture in favor of something comfortable and familiar to the target audience. 147 Based on its retention of the humorous discourse of Aristophanes, and its refusal to find domestic “ equivalents ” for explicitly foreign elements such as Greek tragedians and tragic characters, it has been tempting for me, as an admirer of Frischlin, to declare that Frischlin ’ s translations of Aristophanes have avoided this pitfall and admirably chosen a middle path between Venuti ’ s poles of foreignization and domestication. The complete loss of the Megarian dialect in the passage from Acharnians quoted above casts serious doubt upon this conclusion, however. The reference network behind the discourse of this passage, intricately interwoven with a budding panhellenism and the cultural politics of language in 5th-century Athens, is simply not made available to the reader of the TT. It is available immediately to the left of the TT, however, in the facing Greek text printed as part of Frischlin ’ s translation. Is this facing translation, then, a sign of deference to the ST, and an admission that some things cannot be translated? 148 or is it merely a means of lending greater authority to the TT? If the latter, then why does the TT need such tremendous authority? Other than risus, what meanings and messages might be included as part of the suavitas and bonitas that Frischlin wishes to impart to his contemporaries? These questions will be answered in the following chapters. 147 See Venuti (2008) chapter 1 and passim. 148 For this view, see Botley (2004) 173 - 174. Benjamin (1923) even goes so far as to say that interlinear translations, specifically of the Bible, are the ideal and model of all translations. 66 Chapter II - Translation Theory and Translation as Interpretation Chapter III Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations The previous chapter established Frischlin ’ s radical departure from earlier translation practice, particularly as exercised by the writers of “ crib ” translations for novice students of Greek, such as Andreas Divus. Establishing this departure, however, cannot be an end in itself, as it raises far more questions than it answers. Specifically, why did Frischlin believe his texts needed the authority his facing translations gave them? Frischlin goes into tremendous detail concerning the personal risks, expenses, and frustrations he encountered in trying to get his translation published, and the numerous struggles he had to fight against institutionalized opposition to an author such as Aristophanes, and a project such as his translation. 1 Why would he take such risks involved in the publication of such an obscure text if its only goal was to reproduce the risus of the ST in Latin? The answer to these questions brings us full-circle back to the issue of education in the Holy Roman Empire. Frischlin himself was deeply interested in the reform of rhetorical education his entire life, and this interest is reflected in nearly all of his works. His translations of Aristophanes are no exception. For Frischlin the bonitas of Aristophanes, the important message made palatable by the great suavitas with which it is presented, and leant authority by the facing Greek text, lies almost entirely in Aristophanes ’ problematization of the use and abuse of rhetoric. As this chapter will demonstrate, Frischlin uses his translations in large part to shed light on the rhetorical aspects of Aristophanes ’ plays, and thence to conscript Aristophanes as an ally in his longstanding fight for improved, conscientious rhetorical and legal education and practice among the lesser nobility of the Holy Roman Empire. In chapter II echoes of Cicero in Frischlin ’ s own statements about the goals of his translation and his approach to the art of translation 2 were analyzed to determine the orientation of his translation with regards to the source and target cultures. This analysis demonstrated that Frischlin ’ s translations are meant to be broadly target language-oriented, like those of Cicero and many of Frischlin ’ s contemporaries. As our previous analysis has hopefully demonstrated, however, this simple declaration does not do justice to the complexity 1 Frischlin (1586) 306 verso - 308 recto details Frischlin ’ s expensive journeys around publishing centers in Europe in an attempt to find publishers, typographers, patrons, and purchasers who are not too cowardly to publish his translations, nor too dull-witted to appreciate Aristophanes or see the (non-monetary) value in his work. 2 Praefatio 4 recto. of Frischlin ’ s theory or practice of translation, and we must look elsewhere for the real reasons behind his invocation of Cicero. Turning again to Frischlin ’ s statements about his translation method, his only specifically stated goal, aside from reproducing the language and meter of Plautus and Terence, is to avoid the purus iambus supposedly found in Aristophanes. This has a double meaning. As Thomas Baier recognizes, this statement alludes to the fact that Frischlin has exchanged the iambic trimeter typical of Aristophanic spoken verse with the iambic senarius typical of a Plautine or Terentian diverbium. 3 But by purus iambus Frischlin also signals that he will use his discretion to eliminate from his translation the sort of vulgarities and obscenities that the most slavishly respected Roman rhetoricians - especially Quintilian - of the period considered typical of verse written in that meter. 4 Frischlin wants to make sure that his version of Aristophanes will be free of all elements of which he does not personally approve, that it will be in keeping with the best-respected rhetorical theories of his day, and that it will be truly Nicodemi Frischlini Aristophanes, just as (so he thought) Terence ’ s translations of the integrae comoediae of Menander rendered them truly suae. Like many of his contemporaries, Frischlin ’ s own respect for the rhetorical theories of Cicero and Quintilian was tremendous. He cites them both frequently as authorities and models (to say nothing of using the latter as the inspiration for his title) in his own posthumously published Rhetorica seu Institutionum Oratoriarum Libri duo of 1604, and also in his Quaestionum Grammaticarum Libri IIX of 1584. When he explicitly invokes the strategies and guidelines of Cicero and Quintilian for the production of his translation, he is not merely using them as a means to excuse a rather free ad sensum translation. Given the zeal with which he relied upon and spread the gospel of these two rhetoricians ’ theories during his years as an educator and pedagogical theorist, his invocation of them in the introductory material of his translation functions as an early and firm declaration that he is aligning his translation with an agenda rooted in rhetorical theorizing and education. This agenda also helps clarify Frischlin ’ s strict adherence to a Terentian/ Plautine metrical and linguistic structure for his translations. This structure immediately invites the sixteenth-century reader to associate this text with rhetorical education, with which Terence had a long association, stretching from Ancient Rome to the educational reforms of the German Reformation. Before describing this association in any great depth, we must first say a few words about the role of Plautus, who is also named as a model on Frischlin ’ s title page. Although the primary place of Terence in educational curricula from the ancient world to the 16th century is indisputable, that of Plautus is not so. After all, Plautus ’ language, metrics, and plot structures differ 3 Baier (2000) 141. 4 See Quintilian, Inst. 10.1.9, 10. 1. 96. 68 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations noticeably from those of Terence; 5 nor had Plautus ’ plays been praised and parsed by an eminent doctor who could match the ancient grammatical and/ or Christian credentials of a Donatus. Nonetheless, Melanchthon recommended the “ Lustspiele ” of both Plautus and Terence as reading for students in the Latin schools of Saxony, “ soweit sie sittlich rein sind [inasmuch as they are morally pure] ” , 6 and Frischlin apparently never feels it necessary to defend the invocation of Plautus as a model for the form of his translation. Indeed Plautine references, though less conspicuous than Terentian references, are invoked at certain key points in the translation in such a way as to demonstrate that Frischlin could not very well have translated an author as fanciful, creative, and mutable as Aristophanes while still sticking to the (comparatively) rigid boundaries of a classical Terentian drama. These “ Plautinisms ” will be discussed in greater detail as they occur throughout my analysis of Frischlin ’ s translations, but at this point it should also be said that, from a theoretical perspective, there was not necessarily any reason in the late 16th century that a humanist would feel obliged slavishly to imitate the Latinity of only one particular author. Although Terence was generally preferred to Plautus in the German Renaissance for the “ purity ” of his Latin and the everyday linguistic comfort it could generate in students, 7 the star of Plautus had been steadily on the rise since the late 15th century, reaching an apex roughly contemporary with Frischlin ’ s translations. 8 Though Plautus ’ language was more difficult than that of Terence, Erasmus and Thomas More had long since explored the possibilities of ideal Latinity in translation being sourced from multiple ancient authors, 9 and Erasmus ’ own qualified recommendation of select plays by Plautus, only after those of Terence and provided they are free of obscenity ( “ quae vacent obscoenitate ” ), even seems to have been the inspiration for Melanchthon ’ s qualified endorsement. 10 It would therefore be unremarkable for Frischlin to follow their example by evoking in passing a slightly more troublesome, but no less classical author from the same genre, given that his entire translation project functions largely as a rehabilitation of a playwright much more obscure, difficult, and vulgar than Plautus. Still, the most conspicuous parallels, even at first glance, are to Terence, whose place in the educational curricula of Germany had remained strong throughout the middle ages, and had only been strengthened by the 5 For the many differences between Terence and all other Roman comic poets, see Wright (1974). For a more specific treatment of Terence ’ s music and meters within the corpus of Roman palliatae, see Moore (2007). 6 As quoted in Weimar (1992) 54. 7 Barner (1970) 310 - 311; Kühlmann (1993) 273. 8 See Hardin (2007) for an excellent introduction to the competing reputations of Plautus and Terence in this period. 9 Botley (2004) 152 - 158. 10 De Ratione Studii LB 521. Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations 69 Renaissance and Reformation. Cicero had often referred to Terence ’ s plays as rhetorical masterworks, worthy of emulation by the would-be rhetorician. 11 Quintilian followed suit, and the ideas of both men were transformed in the middle ages into anadoration for the Latin of Terence as both a practical aid to Latin acquisition, and a propaedeutic to more advanced studies requiring grammatical and rhetorical precision. 12 Phillip Melanchthon, perhaps the greatest figure among Northern Protestant humanists and a tremendous influence on Frischlin and other German educators, had attempted to institute a system of primary education whose grammatical component was based largely on Roman New Comedies and later Latin comedies written in imitation of them, 13 such as those undertaken by Hrotsvit of Gandersheim in the tenth century, and those for which Frischlin is best known today. 14 For the more advanced stages of a rhetorical education, Melanchthon had taken care to label every different speech in Terence ’ s plays as deliberative, juridical, or demonstrative rhetoric, 15 offering a ready guide to students eager to mine the classics for inspiration in composing their own rhetorical pieces. This was a continuation of the same practice of rhetorically analyzing Terence ’ s plays that had been popular among classical rhetoricians; the later inheritors of their tradition, especially Donatus, whose commentary on Terence ’ s plays was a major inspiration for Melanchthon ’ s work; and among the other educators and rhetorical theorists of the medieval and Renaissance periods, such as Willichius, all of whom “ took for granted that a good comedy is constructed upon sound rhetorical principles, and that the practice of Terence naturally harmonizes with the theory of Cicero and Quintilian ” . 16 The Latin New Comedy of Terence was thus already seen as rhetorically valuable for humanist students and scholars. Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes, based on Ciceronian rhetorical translation ideals and made to resemble Terence in almost every way, is to be seen the same way. Not only do the language and meter of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes echo that of Terence, Frischlin has even fitted it into a five-act structure in order to make it reminiscent of Terence. Though he admits that this division is somewhat arbitrary and inexact, 17 it was nonetheless considered an important part of the rhetorical evaluation of Terence. Horace had recommended five acts for every 11 E. G. De Or. 2. 80. 327. Quoted by Herrick (1964) 215. 12 For a concise history of Terence ’ s place in educational curricula from the ancient world to the Renaissance see Herrick (1964) 1 - 18. Melancththon ’ s instructions for those making school visitations in Saxony in 1528, cited above, specifically insists on Plautus, Terence, and the regular sharpening of Latin that they provide, as necessary preliminary steps for those wishing to make an Abschluss in rhetoric and dialectic. 13 Price (1990) 11; Strauss (1978) 143, 176 - 201. 14 Price (1990) 38. 15 Price (1990) 51. 16 Herrick (1964) 13. 17 Frischlin (1586) 16 verso - 17 recto. 70 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations play, and Donatus, Willichius, Wagnerus, and Scaliger, though also finding the division arbitrary, had maintained it and eventually codified it by dividing the parts of the ideal rhetorical/ poetical plot onto it: thus the five acts would between them contain the Aristotelian poetic divisions of prologue, protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe, which were believed to correspond to the rhetorical divisions of exordium, narratio, probatio, and conclusio. 18 This correspondence between the rhetorical and the poetic is central to Frischlin ’ s introductory materials, where he frequently invokes the Poetices Libri Septem of Julius Caesar Scaliger as the basis for his understanding of plot structure and the purpose of poetry. 19 Scaliger ’ s work can be seen as the culmination of Renaissance poetic theory ’ s tendency to view poetry and rhetoric as serving essentially the same didactic end and being capable of being critiqued and understood in the same way. Early in his Poetices Libri Septem Scaliger neatly summarizes the end of all speaking well [bene dicere]: “ An vero omnibus his, philosophicae, civili, theatrali, unus demum finis propositus sit? Ita sane est. Unus enim idemque omnium finis persuasio [Can it really be that for all these types of speech - civil, philosophical, theatrical - there is but one end? Indeed it is so. For there is one and the same end for all of them, and it is persuasion] ” . 20 Scaliger certainly was not the first to equate poetry and persuasive rhetoric so closely, 21 but his frankness and Frischlin ’ s explicit invocation of his poetic ideals contribute a great deal to the reader ’ s perception of the already pronounced rhetorical bent of the translations. All of this begs the questions, why and how? What of value does Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes contribute to discussions concerning rhetorical usage and education, and how is this made accessible and acceptable to readers for whom Aristophanes was often too obscurus, topical, and obscene to be an object of serious study? 22 This chapter will seek to answer both of these questions, and in so doing, necessarily complicate the oversimplified view of Aristophanes ’ reception in the Renaissance implied by oft-touted terms such as “ obscene ” and “ obscurus ” . It is necessary to note at the outset that Frischlin ’ s own introductory materials acknowledge that the levels of scurrility, difficulty, and obscenity of Aristophanes ’ corpus differ dramatically from play to play, and do not always require apology: “ Nam multa in Aristophanis Comedia occurrunt verba obscoena, multa geruntur scurrilia, multa dicuntur sordida. Sed quia tamen ista non in omnibus Comoediis, neque in iisdem semper aut crebro obvia sunt [For many things occur in Aristophanes ’ comedy which are obscene, many 18 Herrick (1964) 106 - 109. 19 Price (1990) 51 - 52. 20 Julius Caesar Scaliger (1994) 1.1/ 2 a For a useful summary of the differences between Scaliger and Aristotle, see Weinberg (1942); Halliwell (1998) 294 ff; and especially Deitz (1995). 21 Herrick (1964) 6 ff. 22 Wilson (2007 b) 11. Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations 71 things are done which are scurriloous, and many things are said which are sordid. But even those things do not happen in every comedy, nor are they frequent or gratuitous] ” . 23 This is not simply an attempt to excuse Aristophanes ’ obscenity by claiming that it is infrequent. Rather, it is an accurate reflection of views widely held of Aristophanes ’ plays by the late 16th century. The Paleologan dynasty, in particular, had by the 13th century already codified the trio of Plutus, Clouds, and Frogs as standard and very popular reading for the would-be civil servant or clergyman of the Byzantine Empire. 24 Aside from their shared relative lack of dense topical and political references unintelligible to the medieval students, each of these plays would easily have had its own unique value in the eyes of the Byzantine educators who reintroduced them to Italy in the early 15th century, although today that value is immediately apparent to us only in the case of Plutus. This play ’ s comparatively simple plot structure, lack of explicit topical references, and allegory of the blind god of wealth regaining his sight to set right a world in which only the unworthy enjoy the blessings of prosperity, provided an easily adaptable moral tale that never fell out of favor with Christians, either western or eastern. 25 Frogs could easily have found readers throughout the ancient and medieval world because of its critical evaluation of the language and plot techniques of Euripides, who has not fallen from favor with readers, audiences, and educators since his first performances in 5th-century Athens. 26 Clouds, however, would have presented a unique set of challenges to Frischlin. Although this play would not have been seen as particularly dangerous or harmful in the school curricula of Byzantium, where the church regularly pronounced anathema on Platonic philosophy and religious orthodoxy was as jealously guarded as Atticism was treasured, 27 the Renaissance republic of letters tended to view Socrates with much greater sympathy, and Clouds was shunned even by those who otherwise gladly attempted to claim for themselves the mantle of Aristophanes. 28 Frischlin was therefore working within a well-established tradition when he presented these three plays to a 23 Frischlin (1586) 8 rectoverso. 24 See Dover (1972) 4; Markopoulos (2008) 788; Reynolds and Wilson (1974) 69; Solomos (1974) 252 - 254. 25 In Leonardo Bruni ’ s hands Plutus became the first Aristophanic play, and one of the first Greek works of any genre, to be translated into Latin in the Italian Renaissance. On this and the overall positive reception of the Plutus in the Renaissance, see Baier (2000); Giannopoulou (2007) 309 - 310; Hall (2007); Steggle (2007); Walton (2011) 274; Wyles (2007). 26 See, for example, Quintilian, Inst. 10. 1. 67 - 68 for the attitude of Roman educators and rhetorical theorists towards Euripides. For a much less reverent take on the ubiquity of Euripides in ancient Greek schools, see Callimachus ’ epigram 48. See also Reynolds and Wilson (1974) 54 on Euripides in the Middle Ages. 27 See Wilson (1970). 28 See for example Steggle (2007) 58, who cites the case of Frischlin ’ s contemporary, Thomas Nashe. 72 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations reading public interested in rhetoric and education, and it was only by positioning his own translations in relation to this tradition that he was able to gain acceptance for his broader readings of Aristophanes. An examination of his means of doing so in each of these three plays will thus provide an excellent introduction to the methods and polemics of Frischlin ’ s translations. Plutus The task of gaining acceptance for his translations was easiest to accomplish in the case of Plutus, which is the first play in Frischlin ’ s edition. This ease is reflected by the fact that it is also the only play in the collection that is not preceded by a lengthy occasio fabulae culled creatively and selectively from as many ancient authorities as possible. As will be demonstrated, these occasaiones serve in the other four plays both to introduce the Athenian historical and political context in which the play is set, and to excuse and account for any material in the play which might offend 16th-century sensibilities. Apparently Frischlin did not believe that the play was topical or obscene enough to require any introduction or excuse beyond a brief acrostic Latin hypothesis. Instead his dedicatory letter focuses on the universality of the play ’ s supposed message, explaining how the situation described by the play, in which only the unworthy are rewarded with wealth and those who have money do not know how properly to use it, still exists in his own day. His demonstration of the ubiquity of this “ perversitas ” finally culminates in the proverb which it has engendered: “ Vulgo enim dici solet: Quo quis deterior, eo etiam fortunatior [for it is often said by the common people: the worse a person is, the more fortunate he is] ” . 29 There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Naturally the dedicatee of this particular play, the generosus et illustris Baron Adam von Dietrichstein, is one of them. To prove this point, Frischlin lists three of the baron ’ s most worthy and generous uses of his money: “ Nam egenis et pauperibus prompta et dapsili manu succurris: tum inprimis quae ad gloriam divini nominis, ad cultum religionis, ad studia literarum promovenda faciunt, in iis nulli tu parcis sumptui, nullis impensis [For you succor the poor and the needy promptly and with a ready hand: and especially as regards those works which they make for the glory of the divine name, for the cultivation of religion, or to promote the study of literature: in these you spare no expense or luxury] ” . 30 In truly rhetorical fashion, Frischlin has listed these items in a tricolon crescens, with the longest and most important reserved for the end. Apparently the best way to earn the baron ’ s patronage for work of this sort is to label it as a traditional part of the studia literarum. Frischlin thus invites a close association 29 Frischlin (1586) 19 verso. 30 ibidem. Plutus 73 between his Aristophanes translation and the studia literarum pursued and supported by an erudite legal scholar, such as Dietrichstein. So far this treatment of the Plutus is fairly free of polemic. If anything, it is conciliatory: Plutus is here nothing but a school text to be read by men of letters. There is nothing in need of excuse or explanation here, just as there was not when Melanchthon himself issued an edition of Plutus together with an edition of Clouds in 1528. Like Frischlin, Melanchthon included no occasio or marginalia for the play, although there were a detailed essay and copious marginal notes attached to explain and polemicize Clouds, with which it was printed. The Plutus, it would seem, was more or less unproblematic as a scholarly text already in 1528, and that had not changed by 1586. There were no obvious problems in its being read either by learned legal scholars, such as Baron von Dietrichstein, or by a general and less-advanced audience, such as the Graeci sermonis studiosi for whose use Melancthon ’ s edition is explicitly intended. From this perspective, then, Frischlin was very prudent to begin his translations with an edition of the Plutus, a play unlikely to raise hackles or cause controversy. Perhaps because it was so uncontroversial, however, the play also served as the perfect vehicle for Frischlin very gently to introduce some of the themes raised by his translation project. The most important and prevalent of these is highlighted by the association, drawn through the person of Baron von Dietrichstein, between Aristophanes, Frischlin, and the studia literarum in the Holy Roman Empire. Through the course of Frischlin ’ s work, these studia will become the stage of an increasingly heated conflict between Frischlin and the system he wishes to criticize and reform with his translation. Although Plutus itself provides us with few if any details about Frischlin ’ s criticisms and proposed reforms for these studia, it does provide hints as to their purpose and their necessity. While these hints seem subtle to readers today, their political import would have been far more obvious to Frischlin ’ s audience in 1586, and they would have thus served as a fairly clear early warning that Frischlin was using his translation to repoliticize Aristophanes for the late German Renaissance. For example, the one and only introduction that Frischlin provides to Plutus comes in the form of an acrostic Latin hypothesis written in imitation of the similar hypotheses attached to the plays of Plautus and Terence. Although these hypotheses need only give a truncated version of the plot of the play, Frischlin uses his to introduce a reading of the text that is not to be found in the Byzantine hypotheses or argumenta. Frischlin ’ s hypothesis reads as follows: Plutum admonet vir pauper visum recipere. Laboriosos simul accersit agricolas. Ubi Blepsidemus accessit socius, venit Tum Pauperies: repellitur. Caeco deo Visum dat Aesculapius: gaudent boni Saeviunt mali: Pluto etiam cedit Iupiter. 74 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations Pathetic Plutus must be made to see. And he is helped by his impoverished guide To bring the aid of struggling farmers, who Rejoice when Blepsidemus comes, as well. Unseeing Wealth then has his sight restored. Let Poverty go straight to Hell, they say. Events then make the truly good rejoice. So much for Zeus: let Plutus reign supreme. Here the reading introduced by Frischlin is contained in the two seemingly innocent words, laboriosi agricolae, “ struggling farmers ” . Any reader acquainted with Frischlin and his work in 1586 would have immediately seen in these words an allusion to his (in)famous Oratio de Vita Rustica (hereafter Oratio), which was delivered in 1578 and printed in 1580, and in which the hearty, hard-working agricolae of Germany were favorably compared to the irresponsible nobiles who constantly took advantage of them. Because this oration casts such a tremendous shadow over everything Frischlin did thereafter, and especially as it forms so much of the reference network in his translations of Aristophanes, it is worthwhile here to provide a brief introduction to its themes, content, and background. In the Oratio Frischlin ostensibly set out to lecture on Vergil and, by way of doing so, to deliver a fairly typical praise of the bucolic life. This praise, however, quickly gives way to a forcible denunciation of the abuses suffered by the rural peasants of Germany at the hands of a noble class that could not be held accountable for its actions in courts. 31 Frischlin raged against the fact that the majority of peasants in the Holy Roman Empire lacked the education to defend their own interests in court; and, even where this may not have been the case, many peasants were legally incapable of bringing mediated nobility before the imperial courts, as many of these nobles enjoyed privilegium de non appellando, which prevented their subjects from appealing to courts outside their own jurisdiction. 32 Frischlin therefore used the Oratio to push for greater education, responsibility, and legal accountability among the nobility, and the empowerment of learned men to defend public welfare and the interests of the oppressed. 33 Despite much later mythologizing of the significance of Frischlin ’ s stance against the nobility, most notably at the hands of David Friedrich Strauss, the most revolutionary and dangerous aspect of Frischlin ’ s Oratio was actually his insistence on the right of learned men, poets such as himself, to take part in public discourse and defend the interests of their communities by offering criticism and advice. Although a crusade against noble abuses of the judiciary and the lower classes was a longstanding part of Frischlin ’ s polemical 31 My own summary and understanding of this work and its import are based largely on Kühlmann (1993) and (1999); and Price (1988) 531 and (1990) 2 - 3. 32 Wilson (2004) 178 ff. 33 Kühlmann (1993) 284. Plutus 75 program, and one which figures prominently in his translations, his chastisement of the nobility per se was not enough to incur the wrath of the ruling house of Württemberg, which was itself striving to curtail the powers of the duchy ’ s lesser nobility. Rather, as this chapter intends to demonstrate, Frischlin ’ s Oratio drew the ire of the duke because it suggested fundamental alterations to the practice of politics and the administration of justice in the increasingly authoritarian duchy. Defense of the peasants, especially by means of denouncing those who harm them, served as convenient grounds on which to call for these fundamental alterations to the duchy ’ s political discourse. They therefore became lightening rods for criticism of Frischlin, who continued to insist on their urgency and legitimacy throughout his translations. This criticism took the form of an immediate backlash against Frischlin from all quarters, and especially from the nobility. Denouncing the lesser nobility was one matter, but in 1578 it was still impossible to speak openly, let alone critically and specifically, about the relationship between the peasants and the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire without calling to mind the frightening spectre of the peasants ’ rebellion of 1524/ 5. 34 Seizing on Frischlin ’ s audaciously accurate description of the long-simmering tensions between these two classes, members of the clergy, the nobility, and the Tübingen University faculty, drawing explicit connections between Frischlin ’ s speech and the rebellion of 1525, openly threatened Frischlin, attacked his home, and denounced his supposed agitation of the peasants in a vicious pamphlet campaign. However, it was only after Frischlin furthered his calls for reforms to political discourse, calling upon the emperor as the real font of power, rather than the duke himself, that Duke Ludwig rescinded his patronage and the so-called “ zweiter Thomas Münzer [sic] ” was forced to leave Tübingen to become head of a Latin grammar school at Laibach in Slovenia. 35 Although he was not able to see it to a publisher until 1586, Frischlin wrote his translation of Aristophanes and its introductory materials (excluding the dedicatory epistles for the individual plays) at the same time that he was dealing with the immediate fallout of the Oratio. 36 Given such a tense environment, his passing references in Plutus ’ hypothesis to the laboriosi agricolae at the very beginning of his translation, and to the varying reactions of the mali and the boni to the recovery of the god ’ s sight and consequent ability to administer rewards fairly, cannot but be pointed. Although Frischlin inherited in Plutus an uncontroversial and didactically useful play, he quickly transformed it into a politically engaged part of a broader and very controversial agenda. In Frischlin ’ s hands the play calls attention not only to 34 Kühlmann (1993) 281. 35 Kühlmann (1993) 284 - 285; Kühlmann (1999) 441; Strauss (1856) 168 - 246. 36 Strauss (1856) 225 - 226. 76 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations general injustice or the futility of material wealth, but to injustices done specifically to laboriosi agricolae, and to the efforts of certain learned and morally responsible nobles serving directly under the emperor, such as Adam von Dietrichstein, to alleviate these injustices through charitable works and the generous promotion of studia literarum. The introductory materials to the play have also thus established an intertext with Frischlin ’ s Oratio and its controversial call for reform, which will be of central importance to understanding the remaining translations. Given its acrostic argument and its dedication, Frischlin ’ s translation of Plutus would have been meaningful and politically problematic even if the plot seemed too politically neutral to lend itself to a polemical reading. 37 Yet, despite its reputation for detachedness from the political sphere, Plutus actually provides a wealth, so to speak, of opportunities for the translator interested in highlighting the plight of the downtrodden, the abuses of the privileged, and the necessity of moral rhetorical practice. A brief examination of certain key passages of Frischlin ’ s translation of Plutus will demonstrate that, as a talented and perceptive dramatist, Frischlin was more than eager to make use of these opportunities. Perhaps the most important of these passages occurs at the very beginning of the Plutus, and helps answer the first question posed by Frischlin ’ s translation: why translate Aristophanes in a manner that highlights his rhetorical qualities? What does the student or society at large have to gain from such a work? After an initial monologue on the miseries of life as a slave delivered by Karion, Chremylus, the protagonist of the play, begins speaking by decrying the situation that common, just, and poor people, like himself, are stuck in, compared to that of less scrupulous people (26 - 31). 38 The terms used by Chremylus to describe these less scrupulous people are part of a larger trend in the linguistic structure of Plutus, as demonstrated by Andreas Willi in an excellent study. 39 This trend amounts to a shift away from the public sphere and into the private sphere, and involves several layers of linguistic change which, taken together, emphasize the speaker and call attention to his position as a downtrodden, lower-class Athenian working to assert his position and protect his rights, privileges, and possessions. While this emphasis on the individual and on his domestic sphere is precisely what supposedly made this play more acceptable to succeeding generations, many of the characterizations which result, both of the play ’ s protagonists and antagonists, stem from “ a new economic mentality which presumably resulted from an ‘ across-the- 37 Wyles (2007) provides the useful comparandum of Henry Burnell ’ s 1659 translation of Plutus, whose title page and introductory materials established the work as a stinging criticism of Oliver Cromwell, despite the absence of overt political references in the translation itself. 38 Frischlin (1586) 24 verso - 25 recto. 39 Willi (2003 a). Plutus 77 board decrease in fortunes ’ in the early fourth century and led to growing tensions between the rich and the poor ” . 40 Whether or not Frischlin noted all the linguistic subtleties associated with this tension in the Plutus, he certainly understood the play to enact a conflict between abusive haves and the downtrodden laboriosi agricolae. The parallels between this conflict and that of his Oratio are difficult to miss. Despite this fact, however, the language used by Chremylus to denounce his society ’ s villains presents Frischlin with a major problem, and one which helps clarify for the modern reader the goals and methods of his translation: Χρ . Ἀλλ᾽ οὔ σε κρύψω . τῶν ἐμῶν γὰρ οɩ ̓ κετῶν , Πιστότατον ἡγοῦμαί σε καὶ κλεπτίστατον . Ἐγὼ θεοσεβὴς καὶ δίκαιος ὢν ἀνὴρ , Κακῶς ἔπραττον καὶ πένης ἦν . Κα . οἶδά τοι . Χρ . Ἕτεροι δ᾽ ἐπλούτουν ἱερόσυλοι , ῥήτορες , Καὶ συκοφάνται , καὶ πονηροί . C H . . . . agedum, iam non celabo te amplius. Nam ex omnibus servis te uti fidelissimum Mihi, sic et furacissimum credo omnium. Ego, cum vir essem iustus, integer et pius: Hactenus in egestate, et summa penuria Aestatem egi, inopem ac miseram. C A . isthuc scio. C H .Alii vero nequam homines, scelerati, improbi, Sacrilegi, sycophantae, rabulae, interim Ditescebant. C H . . . . Alright, I won ’ t hide it from you any longer, For of all my slaves, I believe that you are the most faithful And the most thieving of all to me. Although I am a just man, pious and upright, I have thus far lived my poor and wretched life In poverty and utmost need. C A . I know that much. C H . other men, worthless, wicked, perverse, Sacrilegious, sycophants, rabble Have all grown wealthy in the meanwhile. Translating ῥήτορες as improbi reveals a great deal about Frischlin ’ s attitude toward the problems raised by the text, and especially toward the solutions he would propose for them. Frischlin ’ s own Rhetorica sive Institutionum Oratoriarum Libri Duo treats the term orator as the equivalent of the Greek term ῥήτωρ , a usage based on that found in Cicero, Quintilian, and the other rhetoricians with whom Frischlin shows any familiarity. In the hands of Cicero and Quintilian, however, the term orator took on a valence of meaning that was never attached to its Greek counterpart, ῥήτωρ , or the Latin 40 Willi (2003 a) 66. 78 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations transliteration thereof. 41 Frischlin cannot translate with the word orator here because his agenda will not allow him to concede that the term orator could be used as an insult, as could the Greek term. In defining an orator, fundamentally, as a “ vir bonus, dicendi peritus [a good man, skilled in speaking] ” , 42 Frischlin further announces his allegiance to a very Roman and republican ideal of the engaged orator-citizen with roots in the rhetorical theory of Quintilian, in whose work the phrase actually appears as a quote attributed to Cato the Elder; and especially Cicero, to whom Frischlin mistakenly attributes the quote. For Frischlin, then, any man who would qualify as an orator would necessarily be the solution to the problems posed by improbi and sacrilegi, and could not be part of the problem. This belief is not groundbreaking at all. It is, in fact, very naive, as it takes Cicero ’ s praise of the true orator ’ s moral probity and civic virtues at face value, without even allowing for the scepticism or the shades of difference between the bonus orator and the odiosus ac loquax orator that Cicero himself recognized as a reality. 43 This Ciceronian ideal of the virtuous and patriotic orator remained undisputed as the chief goal of educational theories in Frischlin ’ s Germany. Most of these theories, including those which were dearest to Frischlin himself, 44 took their inspiration from the writings of Johannes Sturm, who summarized the better part of earlier Humanist and late-medieval educational theories in establishing as gospel for his contemporaries that a well-ordered society required well-educated teachers, clergy, civil servants, and laypersons. 45 For Sturm there was no doubt that “ well-educated ” meant educated in the art of rhetoric, of speaking publicly in the convincing, morally sound, and logically consistent manner best exemplified by Cicero. 46 By Frischlin ’ s time this had become dogma, and consequently meaningless. In a religious and civic system built on a foundation of patient and pious acceptance of temporal authorities, 47 rhetorically educated individuals were usually kept at a great distance from discussions of public importance, and praise of their art and their active and patriotic citizenship began to ring hollow. 48 Frischlin, however, is able to reinvigorate these hackneyed ideals with renewed relevance by relating them to the serious contemporary problems 41 For example, see Frischlin ’ s own use of the transliterated term to refer to an ignoble public speaker at 103 verso - 104 recto (Knights 425). This usage is analogous to the other foreignizing uses of transliterations documented in Chapter II, inasmuch as it highlights that the word so used can only be understood as part of a foreign reference network. 42 Frischlin (1604) 3. Cf. Quintilian, Inst. 12.1.1. 43 E.g. at Mur. 13. 44 Price (1990) 88 - 89. 45 See Schindling (1999), especially 81 - 93. 46 Schindling (1999) 96 - 98. 47 See Strauss (1978), especially 135 - 150; Whitford (2003). 48 See Kühlmann (1999). This will be discussed in greater detail below with relation to the Frogs. Plutus 79 raised by his Oratio and now alluded to in his Plutus. This exercise, in turn, forces Frischlin ’ s readers to view Aristophanes with renewed respect not only as a newly “ rhetoricized ” curiosity, but as an author whose Ciceronian pedigree helped assure his position as an authority of tremendous gravity and relevance with regard to current problems. Frischlin ’ s refusal to translate ῥήτορες with oratores at the opening to the Plutus only ensures that this particular play will be read in light of this Ciceronian program, which is elaborated in greater detail throughout the entire work. This program is first alluded to on the title page of Frischlin ’ s translation, where Aristophanes is referred to as “ poeta longe facetissimus et eloquentissimus [a poet by far the most polished and eloquent “ . Though understated, Frischlin ’ s choice of adjectives here is revealing. In preparing his own translation of the New Testament, Erasmus had foresworn eloquentia in favor of elegantia as a guiding principle of his translation, maintaining with Cicero that “ eloquence is the capacity to persuade, and it is the province of the rhetor. Elegance is the careful use of language to distinguish between fine shades of meaning, and it belongs to the grammaticus “ . 49 Frischlin ’ s own rhetorical writings demonstrate that he shared the opinion of Cicero and Erasmus concerning the central place of eloquentia within rhetorical training. 50 By labeling his Aristophanes as eloquentissimus, instead of elegantissimae (comoediae), as did Melanchthon, Frischlin thus immediately declares his preoccupation with Ciceronian rhetorical concerns, and with persuasion. More to the point, by producing his own version of Aristophanes specifically designed to echo the rhetorical theories of Cicero, Frischlin is taking Cicero as a model not only for his translation practice, but for his cultural and political agenda of using translations of Greek works to improve his own Roman nation, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. 51 De Optimo Genere Oratorum 5.14, quoted above, gives only one example of Cicero ’ s frequent endorsement of the utility of translation for would-be orators and statesmen. 52 In the De Oratore, a work which repeatedly emphasizes the importance to Rome of well-educated orators to act as statesmen and leaders, Cicero ’ s interlocutor, Crassus, explains that he improved as an orator by memorizing works in Greek in order to rework them in Latin (1.155). Cicero ’ s Crassus turned to this practice only after he had benefitted all he could from memorizing and then reworking the Latin dramas of Ennius (1.154), which Cicero himself regarded as ad verbum translations worthy of being read by any patriotic Roman (Fin. 1.4). By translating Greek works and by appreciating Latin translations of Greek works, Cicero believed that an individual could become a better orator and a man better equipped to render 49 Botley (2004) 131 - 133. 50 Frischlin (1604) 3. For Frischlin ’ s general reverence for Erasmus, see Price (1990) 69 - 83. 51 The analogy between ancient Rome and the Holy Roman Empire will be explored in greater detail in the following chapter. 52 Fantham (2004) 1 - 25. 80 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations services to Rome. On the larger scale, Cicero called for all valuable Greek works to be translated and made into truly new Roman versions, which would both eliminate the need for Greek libraries and glorify the Roman state: Quam ob rem hortor omnis, qui facere id possunt, ut huius quoque generis laudem iam languenti Graeciae eripiant et transferant in hanc urbem, sicut reliquas omnis, quae quidem erant expetendae, studio atque industria sua maiores nostri transtulerunt . . .. Quodsi haec studia traducta erunt ad nostros, ne bibliothecis quidem Graecis egebimus, in quibus multitudo infinita librorum propter eorum est multitudinem, qui scripserunt (Tusc. 2.5 - 6). 53 Wherefore I urge all who can to steal away praises of this sort from Greece, which entered decline some time ago, and bring them into this, our city, just as our ancestors, by their efforts and zeal, brought thence all those relics which were worth seeking out. If these studies are brought in among us, truly we will lack even Greek libraries, in which today is found the vast majority of books, owing to the multitude of those who wrote [in Greek] Frischlin ’ s statement on his approach to translation is thus a means of aligning the larger educational and cultural goals for his translation with those of Cicero, a figure with whom he was in the habit of comparing himself, 54 and according to whose standards he measured the success of his own Ciceronian project of Greek and Latin education. Thus in the Julius Redivivus, first performed in 1582 and published in a modified form in 1585, Frischlin has Cicero proclaim that their enormous and well-edited libraries of Greek and Latin literature, combined with their masterful command of the Greek and Latin languages, has made the “ Romans ” of the Holy Roman Empire into worthy successors, and even superiors, of their ancient namesake. 55 Frischlin ’ s Cicero summarizes his amazement at the accomplishments of the German Humanists by announcing that the grand project he had recommended for his Rome in the Tusculan Disputations has finally been realized in Frischlin ’ s Germany: “ Athenae huc in Germaniam commigrasse mihi videntur [It seems to me that Athens has moved here to Germany] ” . 56 After this outburst, Cicero and his guide in the play, Eobanus Hesse, proceed to discuss the rhetorical accomplishments and styles of the German Humanists who use these resources, particularly Melanchthon. Thus the real importance of these libraries, these translations, and this learning for Frischlin, as for Cicero, lies in their ability to help create better orators who can improve their beloved Rome. 53 Quoted in Botley (2004) 165. 54 Wheelis (1968) 88 - 111 discusses in some detail Frischlin ’ s sympathies for the figure of Cicero and the many ways in which he used the character of Cicero, particularly in the Julius Redivivus, as a stand-in for his contemporary German humanists. 55 Whaley (2011) 305. 56 Frischlin (2003) III.1 [p. 516: v. 1263 - 4]. Plutus 81 Frischlin ’ s translation of Aristophanes serves this Ciceronian program by adding to the canon of rhetorically valuable work available in Latin, and it indicates the very real problems which these newly trained oratores should be solving by beginning the work with a Plutus laden with references to the social injustices he had devoted much of his career to decrying. For example, Frischlin ’ s first two comedies, Rebecca (1575) and Susanna (1577), both contained depictions of the pointed distinctions between the good wrought by a well-educated nobility and the evil wrought by an uneducated and/ or fundamentally selfish nobility, the latter in the form of a pair of juridical speeches in a set trial scene, in which the innocent title character is condemned by an unscrupulous but rhetorically gifted prosecutor because she lacks eloquent and conscientious defenders among the nobility. 57 Thus like Cicero, Frischlin had long insisted that, for the good of Rome, “ the nobility must be educated to meet the political responsibilities of its birthright ” . 58 The unscrupulous villains of Rebecca and Susanna are not oratores, but improbi, abusing the judicial system for their own personal gain just like the noble villains of Frischlin ’ s Oratio. 59 A work of real educational value produced oratorio more and in the spirit of Cicero must necessarily take a political stance. It must do more than make a Greek work available in ad verbum Latin, as had Andreas Divus ’ translation: 60 it must denounce improbi as incapable of being oratores and thus incapable of leading their communities. Frischlin ’ s Plutus thus forces the reader to re-situate the play in relation to the educational curricula in which it had previously circulated; and furthermore, to re-evaluate the goals and methods of those very educational curricula, which had clearly failed to live up to their high ideals. 61 It forces upon the reader a new and very strongly politicized reading of a work which had been depoliticized for centuries. This was a striking accomplishment, and a dangerous one. When the Plutus was a simple moral tale, there was little if any controversy in it. Now that it had become a contentious piece of political allegory, the meaning of that allegory had to be negotiated and qualified carefully in order to avoid alienating potential members of its wider audience, and thereby placing the entire project in jeopardy by making Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes as unwelcome in the Holy Roman Empire as its author had become. As is the case with the other four translations included in Frischlin ’ s edition, the most extensive negotiation and qualification of the meaning of Plutus can be found in the general introductory materials preceding the translations. Frischlin notes in the essay, De Veteri Comoedia eiusque Partibus, 57 Price (1988) 534 - 535 and (1990) 41 - 42. 58 Price (1988) 535. 59 See Frischlin (1580) 93 - 94 and on the wanton litigiousness of the German nobility. 60 Divus (1542) 8 simply and logically translates ῥήτορες as oratores, though the language of his translation in most other regards is very similar to that of Frischlin. 61 See Strauss (1978) 249 ff. on contemporary perceptions of this failure. 82 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations that Plutus, like Clouds, Birds, Peace, et alii, has a multiplex catastrophe. That is, according to Frischlin ’ s understanding of Scaliger ’ s poetics, an ending or fulfilment of the comic plot (within either an individual and artificial act division or within a play as a whole) which results in both positive and negative consequences meted out in turn to characters who had not previously entered the action of the play. 62 So in Plutus the probi and iusti receive the benefits of the recently healed god of wealth, while the sycophantae and lascientes vetuli are made to suffer. The real complication arises, however, from the further consequences of the god ’ s restored vision: according to Frischlin, the loss of incentive caused by an automatic redistribution of wealth based on merit has resulted in serious damage to cultus religionis and studium virtutis. 63 Although both the language in which Frischlin describes these consequences and the logical structure of the multiplex catastrophe leave little doubt that these latter consequences are portrayed as negative and undesirable, Frischlin adds an extra explanatory note in his dedicatory letter to the play, clarifying that the scenario described is in the play is a fantasy based on ignorance: Detestanda vero est et illa res, et ordo ille praeposterus, quod in hac naturae caligine, opes non obtingunt semper bonis et iustis, sed saepenumero malis et improbis. Quae sane perversitas locum etiam fecit Proverbio. Vulgo enim dici solet: Quo quis deterior, eo etiam fortunatior. Huius confusionis causam qui ignorant, illi accusant fortunam, eanquam caecam, et nullo consilio administrantem res hominum. Itaque etiam Plutum fingunt, Deum quendam divitiarum, qui caecus sit, et qui inter bonos et malos not possit discernere. 64 It is truly to be regretted that, according to the perverted order of things in nature, wealth does not accrue to the good and just, but more often to the evil reprobates. This perversity has given rise to the modern colloquial proverb: “ the worse the man, the better off he is ” . Those who don ’ t understand the cause of this confusion are usually wont to lay the blame at fortune ’ s feet, as she is blind, and administers men ’ s affairs according to no real plan. And they have also thus come to give shape to the god Plutus, some god of riches who is blind and cannot distinguish between good and bad people. Radical redistribution of wealth is thus portrayed by Frischlin as fundamentally endangering social stability, a dream sought only by those who do not understand the real causes of their hardships, and therefore a goal not to be pursued. By forswearing this radical action and social disruption, Frischlin also demonstrates, or at least attempts to demonstrate, that one can be opposed to the injustices inflicted upon the peasants without being a rabble-rousing zweiter Thomas Münzer. The phrase “ huius confusionis causam qui ignorant [those who don ’ t understand the cause of this confusion] ” 62 Frischlin (1586) 16 verso - 17 recto. 63 ibidem. 64 Frischlin (1586) 19 recto - verso. Plutus 83 implies that there is, in fact, a real cause for this perversitas, and that there must therefore be a real solution. In the case of the Plutus, this solution is adumbrated within the play ’ s introductory material. Here we see that the scenario demonstrated by the play is a worst-case scenario, a redistribution of wealth at the hands of the ignorant which would bring in its wake the destruction of virtue and religion, the very foundations of Christian society in Germany. A better solution presents itself in the generous (and generously praised) redistribution of wealth undertaken by Adam von Dietrichstein, whose financial support of needy people and studia literarum is specifically hailed for improving cultus religionis. There are few if any specifics provided at this point, but the outlines of Frischlin ’ s program and the objects of his polemics are clear by the first scene of the Plutus. Although the educational system of Frischlin ’ s native Württemberg was naturally distinct from the other educational systems of the Holy Roman Empire, whether Protestant or Catholic, it was like them in at least one regard: it was designed to produce obedient subjects, not active citizens, and was dangerously underfunded and neglected by those in positions of authority and influence within the duchy. 65 Frischlin ’ s point, then, is that the studia literarum are failing. Only by supporting them through serious financial outlay and the conscientious application of noble authority can the state of the peasants be improved and the foundations of society, cultus religionis and studium virtutis, be maintained. The ultimate goal of that outlay, the production of politically engaged citizens, remains only in the background in Plutus, though it comes to the fore later in the translations, and especially in the Frogs. Clouds The only other play of his selection acknowledged by Frischlin to contain the inherent problems of a multiplex catastrophe, Clouds re-examines many of these same themes, displaying in much greater detail the dangers posed by the current state of affairs and the desperation of its victims. Whereas Plutus, however, largely became problematic only because of Frischlin ’ s efforts to politicize its message by analogy to current affairs, the problems posed by Clouds were much more deeply seeded in its reception tradition. The process of carefully negotiating and qualifying the meaning of Clouds as a politically relevant and pedagogically useful text for a 16th-century audience therefore presented Frischlin with the most significant challenges of his entire translation project. By meeting these challenges successfully, Frischlin was able to produce the most radical and far-reaching re-evaluation of the Clouds to date, 65 Strauss (1978) 180 - 187. 84 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations and one which would have a lasting impact on the reception history of the Clouds in particular, and of Aristophanes ’ corpus as a whole. As the Plutus demonstrates, drawing analogies between Aristophanes ’ plays and the 16th-century Holy Roman Empire is an exercise fraught with difficulty, especially when the heroes and villains of Aristophanes ’ stage Athens could not be so easily mapped onto the heroes and villains of the 16 th century Holy Roman Empire. This type of incompatibility is abundantly evident in Clouds, where a caricatured version of Socrates serves as the villain in a play riddled with sexual and scatological language. Frischlin was certainly not unaware of the difficulties of making such a potentially insulting work acceptable to his audience, and as with the Plutus, many of the principles he applied in meeting them can be found in the extensive introductory essays he appended to his translation as a warning and propaedeutic to any student who may pick it up. Within these materials, the issues raised by the Oratio play an even more important role, where they are used to explain and justify the play ’ s central conflict. For protestant humanist readers of Clouds in 1586 there was actually no reason why the play should be considered troublesome at all. Provided readers were mature enough to handle the play ’ s obscenity, its content and anti-Socratic agenda had already been approved as most useful for the educational curricula of Lutheran schools by Lutheran humanism ’ s brightest light, Philip Melanchthon. Bound together with Melanchthon ’ s bare-bones Plutus of 1528 was a heavily annotated edition of Clouds, to which the stern and authoritative theologian had attached an extensive introduction of his own. Unlike many contemporaries who despised the Clouds for its harsh treatment of Socrates and (supposed) ridicule of his philosophy, Melanchthon actually praised the play for precisely these elements. In his introduction to the play, Melanchthon states that the application of philosophy to theological questions is a direct threat to the good civic order established and maintained by the men just beginning to train in theology and sacred scripture in the emerging Lutheran school system. He thus recommends Clouds to Nikolaus von Amsdorf as a protestant theologian in a position to influence emerging humanist studies at the time when the very first steps were being taken in the Holy Roman Empire to found a protestant school system, 66 to which Melanchthon refers as efflorescentia melioria studia. This suspicion of philosophy, and of anything which may induce people to question civic and religious authorities too strenuously, was very typical of the frightened and defensive Lutheran reaction to the bloodshed of the Peasants ’ Rebellion. More than anything else, this rebellion convinced Luther and Melanchthon of the necessity of good civil order and obedience to secular authorities, and of the necessity of producing an educational system which would raise pious 66 Strauss (1978) 1 - 24. Clouds 85 and peaceful Christians to support those authorities and enforce that obedience. 67 Although Melanchthon ’ s reading of Clouds may have reached a small circle of learned protestant humanists, it did absolutely nothing to broaden its appeal to a wider audience of European humanists. Melanchthon ’ s essentially Byzantine endorsement of the play ’ s anti-philosophical sentiments would have made the play seem even more unpalatable to the growing international ranks of Renaissance humanists who, as Frischlin terms it in his own introduction to the play, “ admire the very name of Socrates “ . 68 At the same time, because Melanchthon meant his text only for a small, elite circle, 69 he does not make any effort to explain or excuse the thickly-falling obscenity that prevented the play from gaining acceptance among the same large audience that readily devoured editions, translations, performances, and adaptations of Plutus. Despite the fact that it responded to similar circumstances and dealt with similar issues, Melanchthon ’ s narrowly-focused edition of Clouds actually provided more hindrance than help to Frischlin ’ s efforts at reintroducing the play to a wider humanist audience. As Frischlin ’ s substantially different approach to the issues of philosophy and obscenity throughout his translation will demonstrate, he produced his Clouds in part to counter that of Melanchthon, in the same way that he wrote grammars intended to replace those of Melanchthon then in use in many German schools. This academic rivalry, combined with the historical and thematic background shared by both texts, places in sharp contrast Frischlin ’ s polemic against the social injustices perpetuated by the deeply flawed educational system established by Melanchthon. In using the Clouds as a reference work about the life of the historical Socrates, Melanchthon was in fact reviving a classical tradition with roots going back at least as far as Plato ’ s Symposium and Apology, and its fullest and most influential instantiation in Aelian ’ s Varia Historia (2.13). 70 This tradition only grew in popularity throughout the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, 71 and it remains today a popular and profitable means of introducing students 67 See Strauss (1978) 31 - 48. Whitford (2003) is right to question the common assumption that Luther favored blind obedience to authority. Yet however much he may have been willing to defend his own beliefs against outside figures of authority, such as the emperor and the pope, not even Whitford questions Luther ’ s insistence that open and armed rebellion and dissension, especially against protestant authorities, are out of keeping with true Christian obedience to God ’ s laws. 68 Frischlin (1586) 14 verso. 69 Although it is by no means exhaustive or authoritative, Moss ’ Manual of Classical Bibliography (1825) makes no mention at all of Melanchthon ’ s edition. 70 Walsh (2008) 15. 71 See Hall (2008) 325; Van Steen (2000) 16 - 17. 86 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations to the play. 72 Frischlin, too, found it necessary to reckon with this biographical/ historical reading of Clouds. He adapted the popular Ciceronian (via Donatus) 73 image of New Comedy as a speculum vitae, in which the individual could observe his own flaws and strengths reflected in a comedy ’ s characters, and thereby better himself. In Frischlin ’ s hands this became a veritable speculum civitatis, in which an entire society could look to recognize and hopefully improve its ills. This image re-politicized the de-politicized and therefore neatly and stylishly summarized the change from Old Comedy to politically engaged New Comedy which Frischlin ’ s translation represented, 74 but it also forced upon Frischlin and his audience a very literal reading of the plays of Aristophanes, in which everything in them must be made to reflect some factual event, situation, or person in the history of Athens. The Socrates of Clouds, then, is not a composite character drawn from every vein of misunderstood pseudoscientific quackery prevalent in the Greek world, 75 but, as in Melanchthon ’ s understanding, a reflection of the real Socrates and the dangers that he and people like him supposedly posed to the city of Athens. Frischlin does not back away from this view. Unlike Melanchthon, however, he goes to great lengths to justify and excuse it, effectively removing it as an obstacle to the play ’ s appreciation among those who did not share Melanchthon ’ s hatred of philosophy. In his letter of dedication to the emperor Rudolf II, Frischlin praises the political function of Aristophanes ’ biting attacks, writing: Omitto hoc loco dicere, quam severus iste fuerit censor, in castigandis forensibus rabulis, et nugis ac nebulis sophisticis; quibus non modo civitas pervertebatur, sed etiam pueritia, in ludis literariis, tum gravabatur, tum etiam corrumpebatur. Qua in re etsi Socratem atque Euripidem, inimicos suos et superciliosos contemtores, aliqua affecit iniuria: tamen caeteros sycophantas et sophistas, pro illorum in Rempubl. meritis, non inique tractavit. 76 I will not say here how stern a censor Aristophanes was in chiding the mob at the courts and the trifles and clouds of the sophistics, by which not only was the city being perverted, but even its very boyhood, in the literary schools, was first being weighed down and then crushed entirely. In pursuing this goal he even did harm to Socrates and Euripides, foes of his and his haughty despisers; but he did not treat the other sophists and sycophants unequally, each according to his misdeeds against the republic. Announcing it with the word nebulae, Frischlin here gives essentially the same justification given in the Clouds for the violent attack on Socrates and his school: the obscure lines of inquiry followed by Socrates and his companions 72 For example, see West and West (1998). 73 Herrick (1964) 20. 74 Price (1990) 54. 75 For which view of Socrates see Willi (2003) 96 - 117 and Revermann (2006) 187 ff. 76 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 3 verso. Emphasis mine. Clouds 87 are of little use to anyone, while the new doctrines and learning espoused by Socrates (and other sophists) corrupt youth and pose a serious threat to the civic order. 77 Frischlin ’ s negative judgment of Socrates, and his association of Socrates with the corrosive influence of the sophists, are troubling for their apparent contradictions. Nowhere in Clouds or elsewhere in the corpus of Aristophanes do we find Socrates expressing a negative judgment of the comic poet that would justify Frischlin calling him inimicus et superciliosus contemtor, which can be nothing more than Frischlin ’ s conjectural recreation, perhaps based on Platonic sources such as the Symposium, of a likely reason for the vicious treatment Socrates received at Aristophanes ’ hands. Frischlin supports the veracity of this creative justification by citing Aelian ’ s own creative claims that Aristophanes wrote the Clouds in exchange for a bribe from Anytus and Meletus, the malicious accusers of Socrates named in the Apology. 78 Frischlin does not pretend that this story clears Aristophanes of any wrongdoing, but it does help him to substitute legitimate personal enmity for the wretched greed that motivated Aelian ’ s feckless Aristophanes and cast a long, disreputable shadow on his works. 79 Perhaps acknowledging that his own historical soap opera is every bit as ludicrous as Aelian ’ s conspiracy theories, Frischlin finally admits that Aristophanes may have done wrong in slandering Socrates, though he maintains that such a misdeed (if indeed it was) is more than counterbalanced by his fully justified and necessary attacks on demagogues and warmongers such as Cleon, Brasidas, Lamachus, and Pericles. 80 The key to understanding Frischlin ’ s qualification-cum-acceptance of Aristophanes ’ attacks on Socrates in this play lies in his use of the phrase ludi literarii. Although the general enemies of Aristophanes in the quotation above are largely the same as those of Chremylus at the beginning of Plutus, with sycophantae and rabulae occurring in both lists of common reprobates, the sphere of malignity assigned to these reprobates is much more specifically delimited in Clouds than it was in Plutus. The rabulae are not merely rabulae, but forenses rabulae allied to all those who (mis)use education (ludi literarii) to corrupt youth (pueritia), and consequently society as a whole (civitas). This specificity focuses the reader ’ s attention squarely on the issue of education and its (mis)uses, both on its role in the play, and on its role in the society that is meant to use that play as a speculum civitatis. It is on this latter role that Frischlin concentrates most strongly, developing a pervasive analogy between the enemies of Aristophanes and Athens, and himself and his own Res Publica that would be difficult for a contemporary reader not to notice. 77 Revermann (2006) 226 - 235. 78 Frischlin (1586) 14 verso. 79 Walsh (2008) 15. 80 Frischlin (1586) 15 recto. 88 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations One major cause of friction between Frischlin and the academic establishment at Tübingen had been Frischlin ’ s insistence that the educational materials and methods then being used in the grammar schools and gymnasia were completely inadequate to the task of educating children and thus preserving a Christian society. His reformative zeal in this regard was as persistent as it was impolitic: he issued his own grammars and rhetorical guides specifically designed to compete with those of Philip Melanchthon, the ever-revered father of Lutheran Humanism; and Martin Crusius, Frischlin ’ s former instructor, future bitter enemy, and the most influential professor in the arts faculty at Tübingen University. In addition to publishing his own grammars, Frischlin had also circulated numerous tracts viciously ridiculing the grammars of his colleagues and their most respected predecessors. 81 When Frischlin ’ s Oratio fully politicized and publicized the agenda behind these pedagogical works, Crusius and Frischlin ’ s other embittered colleagues on the university senate had already decided that his dangerous attempts to “ fingiren novas artes [sic] ” were disturbing to the public peace, and they were more than happy to add the political title of “ zweiter Thomas Münzer “ to a man whom they had already come to think of academically as a new Cornelius Agrippa. 82 The comparison to Cornelius Agrippa, the alchemist and astrologer, suggests that Crusius wished to present Frischlin not only as a dangerous innovator, but as an incompetent dilettante with little interest in serious scholarship. 83 Frischlin early anticipates and counters objections of this variety which might be raised against his translations: Vellem autem fuisse mihi exemplar correctius, unde meam instituere potuissem conversionem. Nam existunt hodie recentiores quidam, viri caetera satis docti, addo etiam satis arguti, qui laboribus aliorum tum libenter insidiantur, tum frequenter eorundem laudibus obtrectant. Si enim diversam alicubi inveniant lectionem in manuscriptis exemplaribus, Deus bone, quantum ipsi exultant, et quanto cum supercilio bonas aliorum interpretum operas despiciunt? Quasi vero vel alii, vel nos hoc ipsum praestare non potuissemus, quod illi, si nobis libri idonei non defuissent. 84 I would, however, like there to have been a more correct copy for me, upon which I could have based my own translation. For there are today more recent examples of men who, learned enough in other matters, and even sagacious enough, will gladly wait to ambush the works of others, and who frequently detract from the praise they receive. If, then, they should find any different reading anywhere in the exemplar manuscripts, good God, how they rejoice and look down on the good works of other translators, and with what great arrogance! As if others or we 81 Kühlmann (1993) 268 - 269; Brendle (2001) 146. 82 Strauss (1856) 240. 83 For an excellent introduction to the reputation of Agrippa in the decades after his death, see van der Poel (1997), especially pp. 1 - 14. 84 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 4 recto-verso. Clouds 89 ourselves could not have been outstanding in this endeavor if we had not lacked the suitable books. Aside from this brief and dismissive apology, Frischlin provides us with no explicit statement about the Greek text upon which he based his own edition. This in itself is interesting as an editorial statement, as it implies that Frischlin did not care to make extensive editorial corrections and revisions, and simply followed the text that he had at hand. As this work aims to prove, this is largely because Frischlin felt his edition of Aristophanes had more important things to contribute to his contemporaries than a closely edited text of a play that few could read. For Frischlin, philology was not an end in itself, nor was the production fine editions designed to gather dust on the bookshelves of the wealthy. Nonetheless, the question of Frischlin ’ s textual source is not unimportant. It is, however, unanswerable at this point. Despite Frischlin ’ s editorial conservatism and likely fidelity to a single text, determining precisely which text he had to hand is a difficult matter, as I have yet to find a passage where his text differs from the readings found in the Aldine editio princeps at any of the more notable cruces, nor any passage where the subsequent editions up to 1580 of any of the five plays he translated differ from the readings of the Aldine in said cruces, even in minor matters such as line assignation. 85 Barring persuasive evidence to the contrary, it seems Kenneth Dover ’ s observation that “ [s]ixteenth-century editions of Clouds do not represent any significant advance on the editio princeps ” 86 can be extended to include the other plays, as well. Although I cannot now say which Greek text Frischlin was using, scholars can take some comfort in the knowledge that Frischlin himself would find interest in this question to be laughable, at best, and would be well-pleased to know that we are dumbfounded. This is because, as he hints in this passage, Frischlin believes that a work of real value must serve a higher purpose, while at the same time helping his readers to form the contours of that higher purpose. Although the particular brand of pedantry offered by Frischlin ’ s critics in this passage is that of careful humanist textual critics such as Lorenzo Valla or Erasmus, what truly makes these recentiores villainous and analogous to Frischlin ’ s conception of the sophists of Aristophanes ’ Clouds is their inability to recognize this higher purpose, and to engage instead in endless, biting, textual criticism of his work as a moral poet on a mission to set his republic on the right path. Frischlin himself thus becomes the Aristophanes figure locked in a feud with Socrates and the sophists just like the one he himself imagined. These sophists and rabulae, for Frischlin, stand in for the collective academic and civil authorities whose narrow-minded objections might corrupt youth in the ludi literarii by preventing those most in need of his 85 See the example of Knights 1363 ff. discussed in Chapter IV. 86 Dover (1968) cxxv. 90 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations grammars, translations, and other novae artes from reading and appreciating them, the damaging effects of which he feared and acknowledged: Est enim vulgo hodie ita comparatum inter homines caeteros, ut quae imperiti et iniqui rerum arbitri non intelligunt, ea negligant: et quae negligunt, eadem vituperent: et quae vituperant, eadem ab aliis omnibus negligi et vituperari expetant. 87 For truly it has come to pass by and large today among other men, that whatever inexperienced and unjust arbiters do not understand, they neglect; and what they neglect, they defame; and what they neglect and defame, they wish to be neglected and defamed by others. Having established this analogy, Frischlin then dedicates the remainder of Clouds and its introductory material to expanding upon it. Not only does Clouds present Frischlin an opportunity to rebuke the pedantic and dangerously short-sighted critics who chased him and his reforms out of Württemberg ’ s educational institutions; it also presents the example par excellence both of misused rhetoric in the debate between δίκαιος λόγος and ἄδικος λόγος , and of rhetorical education taken up purely for selfish, anti-civic reasons in Strepsiades ’ desire to evade his creditors. By dedicating his version of Clouds to Johannes Cobenzl and Johannes Achilles Ilsingius, two well-known and well-respected lawyers and alumni of the Imperial civil service sourced from the lesser nobility, Frischlin keeps his didactic analogy trained sharply on the courts, the lawyers, and the nobles of his contemporary Germany, the people who most need the lessons his Clouds has to offer. His dedicatees have proven their value to him personally by defending him against his malicious accusers, 88 and in doing so they have proven themselves to be among the few well-educated and conscientious members of the nobility who embrace Frischlin ’ s proposed reforms of rhetorical education and practice. 89 Frischlin ’ s praise of the two men for their judgment and the services they have rendered the Holy Roman Empire by the conscientious application of their rhetorical education is worth quoting at some length: Nam, ut nihil dicam de literarum studiis, nihil de cognitione multarum linguarum, nihil de doctrina legum et iuris, quid, quaeso, possit maius esse in vobis, quid pulcrius, quid praeclarius, quam est illa vestra humanitas, remota ab omni fastu Cyclopico? Aut quid laudabilius, quam sermones vestri in convivio, docti, graves, sobrii, non spurci, non leves, non turpi vino madidi? Equidem ista ego sic probo, et sic probanda esse censeo, ut digna esse iudicem, quae etiam ad posterorum nostrorum, si qui erunt, memoriam dovolvantur. Obiistis hactenus legationes quam plurimas, functi publicis muneribus, sub tribus Imperatoribus: et obiistis eas cum foenore et utilitate huius Imperii, cum salute multorum civium, cum laude vestra singulari. Nam non solum apud Imperii Septemviros, apud Reges exteros, 87 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 2 verso. 88 Frischlin (1586) 151 recto. 89 Price (1988) 531 and (1990) 2 - 3. Clouds 91 apud Duces, apud Principes, tam Ecclesiasticos quam Politicos, gravissima et plane indubia expedivistis negotia: alter e vobis etiam ad Turcicum tyrannum pericolosissima legatione defunctus: sed nunc quoque VVormatiensem conventum, Caesariae Maiestatis nomine, laudabiliter egistis. Merito igitur vos magnifacit Romanus Imperator: merito vos suspicit Aula Caesaria: merito vos amant omnes boni, et quicunque virtutem amant, quique nondum indixere bellum literis, legibus, honestis moribus. Ego sane, cum nihil habeam nunc aliud, quo meam erga vos observantiam, meumque amorem faciam testatum, praeter has Nubes, sed eas tamen minime nubilas, neque cito evanidas (durarunt enim ultra duo millia annorum) mitto eas vobis legendas. Cum enim Sophisticas Rhetorum, et Philosophicas argutias nihili facere soleatis, ut certe nihili sunt faciendae, non dubito, quin harum Nubium lectio, id est, omnium Sophisticarum nugarum reprehensio pergrata sit vobis futura. 90 That I might say nothing about your study of literature, nothing about your knowledge of many languages or learning in law and legal practice, what, I beg you, could be better in you, what more beautiful, what more celebrated than your humanity, so removed from that Cyclopean arrogance? What could be more laudable than those speeches of yours in the symposium - learned, sober, without vulgarity, without levity, and unsoaked in vile wine? Therefore I definitely approve of those matters, and I judge them so worthy of approval that I would judge them worthy of being passed down to the memory of our children. You have already met so many obligations, undertaken so many public benefaction in the service of three emperors, and you have fulfilled all these obligations to the benefit and utility of this empire, to the well-being of many citizens, and to your own singular praise. For not only did you plainly set very serious matters straight among the Septemviri of the Empire, among foreign kings, among dukes and princes both ecclesiastical and temporal; not only have you even undertaken a most dangerous mission with the Turkish tyrant; both of you have also now led the conference at Worms in the name of his Caesarian majesty in a most laudable manner. It is therefore most deservedly that the Roman emperor magnifies you, and deservedly that the Caesarian palace looks up to you; deservedly do all good men love you who have not yet declared war on literature, laws, and good morals. Certainly I, since I have no other means of making clear my love and respect for you beside these Clouds - which are hardly insubstantial or quickly passing, having lasted over 2,000 years - will send them to you to read. Since you normally think very little of the sophistic and philosophic quibbling of the rhetores, and indeed since they deserve to be thought nothing of, I have no doubt that you will find the reading of these Clouds most welcome, since they are a castigation of all sophistic trifling. We have already seen how Frischlin made his personal enemies analogous to the sophistic jurists he creatively made the bitter personal enemies of Aristophanes. Here he finally clarifies their second, more important identity, both in Aristophanes ’ Athens and in his Germany: they are not simply those philosophic and sophistic pedants who devote themselves to quibbling, but those dangerous, so-called rhetores who have attempted to use their sophisticae 90 Frischlin (1586) 151 recto-verso. 92 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations et philosophicae argutiae to oppose the humanitas of Frischlin and his allies in favor of Cyclopicus fastus. Specifically for Frischlin ’ s time, they are the corrupt nobles of Germany, the same men who brought actions against him after he denounced them and their selfish abuses of the legal system and exploitation of the peasants so forcefully in his Oratio. In this work Frischlin praises those German rulers, both ancient and modern, who stood up against such men, writing, “ Voluerunt sapientissimi Reges ac principes hoc modo Cyclopicam quorundam barbariem refrenare [The wisest kings and princes wished, in this way, to rein in the Cyclopian barbarity of certain men] ” . 91 We can thus recognize in Frischlin ’ s description of his opponents ’ Cyclopicus fastus an allusion to the same enemies he had been denouncing for years. These men are the same as the forenses rabulae plaguing both Aristophanes ’ Athens and the urban law courts of his contemporary Germany: Quid de iustitia dicam: cuius hodie sedem ac domicilium in urbibus fixerunt causidici et forenses quidam rabulae. Ego certe hanc virtutem, si qua est in terris, iamdudum ex urbibus et arcibus, ubi pessime tractata fuit hactenus, in agros recessisse: ac pristinum illic locum occupasse firmiter statuo. 92 What shall I say of justice, whose seat and dwelling the lawyers and some forensic rabble established in the cities? I certainly think that this virtue, if it exists anywhere in the world, has long since receded from the urban citadels, where it has thus far been treated terribly, and removed itself to the farms and fields; and I assert that it has firmly taken up a pristine residene there. Frischlin ’ s analogy is thus complete. The enemies of Aristophanes/ Athens and Frischlin/ Germany are neatly united in the corrupt nobility who exploit the peasants and abuse the legal system for their own gain. Such men, forenses rabulae that they are, would require an education in oratory, but as in the Plutus, they are specifically not oratores. Frischlin ’ s highly qualified apology for Socrates ’ treatment at the hands of Aristophanes is also dependent upon this reading for its meaning. So long as Frischlin takes the sophistic Socrates of Clouds and his feckless pupils at face value, they represent a real and imminent threat to Athens and Germany alike. In reality, however, his admission that by excoriating Socrates, Aristophanes “ potuit . . . male fecisse ” 93 is an acknowledgment that this Socrates is completely distinct from Socrates the philosopher and the tradition attached to him by those who 91 Frischlin (1580) 74. At 102 - 103 he reiterates his equation of abusive nobility with the Cyclopes. Here, after conceding that there do exist virtuous men among the nobility, he writes, “ Qui igitur tales sunt Nobiles ac patricii, quamlibet numero exigui, ad illos nihil mea pertinet oratio: sed tantum ad nobiles Centauros, ad nobiles Cyclopas, ad Nobiles Polyphemos, ad Nobiles Lapythas [Therefore, my speech has nothing to do with those nobles and patricians of this sort, although they are few in number, but rather pertains to the ‘ noble ’ Centaurs, the ‘ noble ’ Cyclopes, the ‘ noble ’ Polyphemoi, and the ‘ noble ’ Lapyths]. . . ” 92 Frischlin (1580) 92 - 93. 93 Frischlin (1586) 14 verso - 15 recto. Clouds 93 “ admire the very name of Socrates ” , and whom Frischlin himself admires and quotes copiously. It is therefore possible both to denounce the sophistic Socrates without doing harm to the reputation of Socrates the philosopher, and to understand and appreciate Aristophanes ’ Clouds as something other than Melanchthon ’ s blanket rejection of philosophy per se. This understanding and appreciation were dependent in large part upon how well Frischlin was able to encode his polemics not just into his introductory materials, but into his translation of Clouds itself. This he does well, using his Oratio and its polemics throughout his translation as a means of grounding and contextualizing his translation decisions for his readers. This is especially evident in the case of Frischlin ’ s translations of Greek language understood to be in the register of Sophistic jargon. Taking one of the most visible phenomena of this register as an example will demonstrate how Frischlin ’ s translation favors a simplified and clear denunciation of these abuses over the complex, technical pastiche of sophistic terminology that characterizes Socrates and his students in Aristophanes ’ Greek. Andreas Willi has carefully documented Sophistic terminology in Clouds, demonstrating that a range of nominalizing and typicalizing/ generalizing linguistic practices common to Attic Greek of the fifth century are especially frequent in the dialogue of Socrates and his followers in Clouds, where they are mocked and parodied as “ sophistic innovations ” . 94 One especially prominent such sophistic innovation is the frequent use of verbal compounds ending in -έω and -άω , such as those describing the activities of the first students Strepsiades sees in the φροντιστήριον , ἐρεβοδιφάω and ἀστρονομέω (192 - 194). 95 The parodic effect of these thickly falling - but otherwise unmarked - verbal compounds is lost in Frischlin ’ s accurate-but-dry Latin translations, which renders ἐρεβοδιφάω as “ Erebum isti inquirunt ” , and διδάσκεται ἀστρονομεῖν as “ addiscit . . . contemplari sydera ” . Perhaps Frischlin could have chosen to use arcane Latin sourced from medieval scholasticism to achieve the same sense of detached pomposity attached to these compound verbs (though I do not pretend to know which terms, exactly, he might have used); however, like most translators of Clouds, he has decided to sacrifice the contribution that these particular terms make to that sense. 96 Unlike in other 94 Willi (2003) 118 - 156. 95 Willi (2003) 124. 96 The intricate and rather subtle connection between sophists and these compound verbs presents a tremendous obstacle to the translator who would attempt to domesticate them by making them dependent on references to a canon of shared values and experiences in the target language and culture. This is especially true when that target culture lacks the infinitely recombinant verbal stems and the omnipresent linguistic influence of the sophists that render the passage humorous in Greek. Such an attempt at domestication in English could read “ astrophysicistifying ” for ἀστρονομέω and “ hypogaeously investigating ” for ἐρεβοδιφάω . Such translations would do well at capturing the 94 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations modern translations, this sacrifice is not in vain: what Frischlin loses in humor with these dry renditions, he makes up with a polemical contribution to his chosen rhetorical crusade. As Willi has noted, Strepsiades appropriates Socrates ’ sophistic jargon in voicing his motivations for undertaking a sophistic education: he wants to learn to λεπτολογεῖν (320), στενολεσχεῖν (320), γλωττοστροφεῖν (792), and στρεψοδικεῖν (433). 97 Frischlin ’ s translations of these verbal compounds eschew Aristophanic parody of sophistic jargon in favor of highlighting the serious attack on sophistic rhetorical abuses that he has made his life ’ s work. Thus λεπτολογεῖν , στενολεσχεῖν and γλωττοστροφεῖν become “ subtilia rerum evolvere, nugari de fumo ” , and “ versare volubilem linguam ” respectively, recalling the verbal tricks and the sophisticae nugae that Frischlin has praised the play for denouncing, but abandoning the parody of sophistic jargon. 98 Frischlin ’ s translation of στρεψοδικεῖν is even more forceful, echoing the language in which he first denounced the unscrupulous abuse of the legal system by gifted orators, and to which he refers constantly in Clouds ’ dedicatory epistle. In his Oratio Frishlin borrows a phrase from the Vulgate version of the Book of Amos to ask, ubi enim maior est iniquitas, quam in mercatura et negociationibus illorum hominum, qui se a ruris laboribus ad vitae genus Danasticum contulerunt; ubi maior est crudelitas quam illis ipsis in locis, ubi ius ab iniquis et indoctis iudicibus in absynthium vertitur? 99 For where is there greater inequality than in the dealings and exchanges of those men who have removed themselves from the labors of the countryside to take up the lifestyle of the Danistae? Where is there greater cruelty than in those very places where justice is turned into wormwood by unfair and unlearned judges? At Clouds 433 - 434 Strepsiades, growing impatient with the obtuse chorus, simplifies and restates his goal: Μή μοι λέγειν γνώμας μεγάλας · Οὐ γάρ τούτων ἐπιθυμῶ / Ἀλλ . ὅς ´ ἐμαυτῶι στρεψοδικῆσαι καὶ τοὺς χρήστας διολισθεῖν . Frischlin renders this with language sourced almost directly from the Oratio: “ Nihil dicatis de magnis sententiis: neque enim expeto nosse; / Sed quantum ad me, facite, ut ius invertam, perdamque Danistas [Don ’ t say anything about great ideas, for I have no desire to know about them. Only make me into such a man, that I will be able to overturn justice, and destroy the Danistae] ” . 100 pomposity that helps makes the Greek terms humorous, but the invented and ridiculous words would overstate the case, making the subtly humorous completely farcical. The Greek compounds, after all, are real words, perfectly understandable if invented, strange, and unnecessary. Perhaps this is the reason that most translators have kept these passages fairly straightforward: Sommerstein ’ s Penguin translation renders them “ learning to do astronomy ” and “ investigating the lowest reaches of the underworld. ” 97 Willi (2003) 123. 98 Frischlin (1586) 151 verso. 99 Frischlin (1580) 94. Cf. Amos 6.13. 100 Frischlin (1586) 178 verso - 179 recto. Clouds 95 In the Oratio inverting justice is typical of the genus vitae Danasticum. In his Clouds, Frischlin makes it the last resort of one who wishes to best the Danistae, and a skill learned from the sophists. It is, I hope, clear by now that there is no parody in this presentation, and very little humor. The language of Frischlin ’ s sophists and their would-be student does not invoke innovative or esoteric technical jargon in a manner designed to provoke laughter in the audience. Rather, Frischlin ’ s translations of this jargon highlight the very real dangers associated with sophistic rhetoric, which threatens to overturn justice and corrupt the simple, just and specifically Aristophanic farmers, as Frischlin characterizes them in the Oratio, 101 into the perverse and unscrupulous Danistae who have, in that same work, driven the virtue of justice from her urban citadels. Frischlin ’ s translation thus presents Socrates much as he is presented in the Aristophanic source, as a truly menacing character, a dangerous villain who steals clothing and encourages children to beat their fathers, and therefore must be stopped. 102 Most modern editions of Clouds translate these passages much as Frischlin did, sacrificing the humor of the compound verbs in much the same manner but failing to clarify or enlarge upon the genuinely villainous nature of the Socrates character and his teachings. 103 This characterization, however, is absolutely essential to understanding and appreciating the play, as it helps to explain its generically atypical violent ending. 104 Although maintaining this characterization is a great testament to Frischlin ’ s appreciation of the dramatic structure of the play, his reliance on the Oratio to do so also reveals the weaknesses inherent to Old Comedy in reception. Scholars, translators, and every manner of modern reader often have difficulty pinpointing what, exactly, is the positive advice given by Aristophanes in any given play, even when the target of his negative criticism is perfectly clear. 105 By thematically and verbally tying his translation so 101 Frischlin (1580) 113, 117. 102 Revermann (2006) 231. 103 As a representative sample of translations of 433 - 434 I give Dickinson (1970): “ No, no great measures, I don ’ t want that at all. Just little ones, to pervert the course of justice enough for me to escape my creditors. ” ; Hickie (1858): “ Grant me not to deliver important opinions; for I do not desire these, but only to pervert the right for my own advantage, and to evade my creditors. ” ; and Sommerstein (1973): “ Not big political speeches, that ’ s not what I ’ m after. I just want to be able to twist and turn my way through the thickets of the law and give my creditors the slip. ” McLeish (1979) departs significantly, eliding entirely the evils of the education Socrates offers and instead making Strepsiades into a simple, impoverished man who yearns for a return to his simple life: “ No, no, no. I ’ m not interested in politics. It ’ s little talk I want: to wriggle out of debt. ” 104 Revermann (2006) 228 - 235. 105 E. g. Revermann (2006) 235. Ruffell (2011) makes significant headway in solving this problem, establishing comic performance itself as a means of criticising civic dialogue and the performativity of Athenian governing structures. 96 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations closely to his Oratio, Frischlin has shown that Old Comedy can certainly make a positive point, but one that may require intertext, explanation, and careful contextualization. In Frischlin ’ s case, that point is clear: fructus et voluptates, quas [agricultura] ad communem vitae usum profert, non ad ocium et luxum, sed ad Dei gloriam, studiorum vestrorum incrementa, et animarum vestrarum salutem convertite: denique ipsos agrorum et vinearum cultores, nulla iniuria afficite, nullis verborum contumeliis laedite. 106 Turn not the fruits and pleasures, which [agricultura] brings forth for the shared benefit of life, toward leisure and luxury, but to the glory of God, to the betterment of your studies, and to the health of your souls. Finally, do not afflict the very cultivators of those vines and fields with injury, nor harm them with any insulting words. Aristophanes ’ Strepsiades is characterized, much like Dicaeopolis, as a country bumpkin forced to inhabit the city by the vicissitudes of war. 107 Frischlin seizes upon this characterization, explicitly calling Strepsiades a homo rusticus in his argumentum for the play, 108 and everywhere aligning him with the agrorum et vinearum cultores who are the victims of Socrates and all others who would use contumeliae verborum to harm defenceless farmers. Frischlin ’ s reliance on his Oratio thus not only helps him maintain and justify the villainous Socrates character, it also helps him to make an even greater hero out of the otherwise selfish and dishonest Strepsiades character. 109 This method of translation is truly adaptation and reception of Clouds, not merely interpretatio. Frischlin enhances and alters much of the character dynamics that had become lost or meaningless through the centuries since Clouds ’ first performance, making them relevant to a contemporary audience by relating them to contemporary concerns along (deceptively) clear-cut lines of good - the homo rusticus, Strepsiades, the laboriosi agricolae - opposed to the tempting and corrosive influence of evil - the twisted homo sophisticus, Socrates. By doing so, Frischlin rehabilitates Clouds as a text of tremendous vitality and importance, one that could be read shamelessly by scholars of antiquity and one that should be read by anyone with an interest in correcting society ’ s ills. This successful rehabilitation and revitalization of Aristophanes stands out as one of the finest achievements of classical scholarship in the Renaissance, finding the rare middle path between rigidly philological scholarship that sought only to investigate texts as artifacts of the classical world, and classical scholarship which sought only to mine ancient texts for lessons of use to modern readers. 110 106 Frischlin (1580) 138. 107 Henderson (1991) 73 - 74. 108 Frischlin (1586) 154 verso. 109 See Henderson (1991) 70. 110 On this binary in the Renaissance see Grafton (1991) 24 ff. Clouds 97 Frogs One major contention of Frischlin ’ s Oratio, and of everything he later wrote in defense of it, was to break what Wilhelm Kühlmann has termed the “ monopoly ” of public speech enjoyed by the church/ state apparatus in the confessional period of the Holy Roman Empire; and to assert, on the contrary, that anyone with the proper training in the Latin language and the ability to use it as an orator rather than an imbrobus, had not only a right, but a duty to bring their expertise to bear outside of the schoolhouse and to speak up on matters of public importance. 111 This contention is alluded to in Plutus and Clouds, but it is not until the final play of the Byzantine triad adapted by Frischlin, Frogs, that it is voiced most fully. This play augments the largely negative criticisms of the previous two plays by serving as an extended positive argument for the active civic role Frischlin wishes poets, playwrights, and other rhetorically educated citizens to assume. In this way, it helps to lend legitimacy and an ancient pedigree to the parting advice of Frischlin ’ s Mercurius in the prologue of the Julius Redivivus. Here the god begs his audience to remember that reasonable people can accept constructive criticism from a poet, from whom good people have nothing to fear: Nunc quid poetae nomine oratos velim, Attendite: si quem ille vel in fabulis vel in Orationibus laesit malum, hunc monet, Si malus est, ut tandem malus esse desinat; Si bonus, ut quod dictum in homines fuit malos, Id ad se pertinere non credat. Equidem Reprehensiones ferre possunt, qui boni Sunt, qui mali, non posssunt. 112 Now please listen to why I would like you Bid here in the name of the poet. If he has harmed anyone either in his plays Or in his speeches, he warns this victim, If he is a bad person, that he should stop being bad; 111 Kühlmann (1999) 428 - 430. 112 Frischlin (2003) Prologus [p. 326: v. 58 - 65]. Although Whaley (2011) 312 mistakenly attributes this sentiment to the end of the play, he correctly recognizes that this injunction is leant weight by the emphasis Mercurius gives to the newfound friendship and cooperation between Cicero, the humanist critic; and Caesar, the powerful leader. Compare also the lines Frischlin gives at V.1 [p. 600 - 602: v.1791 - 1852] to his play ’ s villain, Pluto, who in the same breath manages to curse “παρρἡσιάζοντες poetae ” (sic) and forbid them a place in his court, while also announcing his complete opposition to and contempt for the most revered Biblical prophets and lawgivers, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Solomon. 98 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations If he is good, however, then he warns him against believing That what was said against bad people pertains to him. Indeed, those who are truly good can bear their censures, Those who are bad, cannot. As mentioned in Chapter II, the very Athenianness of the poetic agon in Frogs - that is, its reliance upon a reference network built entirely on two fifth-century tragic poets and the numerous specific and culturally-bound ideas that they invoke in an audience familiar with their work and the time and place in which it was written, made this passage one of the most difficult for translators and adapters to deal with. It is nonetheless extremely useful for Frischlin ’ s purposes, as the contest between the two poets is fundamentally less concerned with poetics per se than with the moral and political benefits that either poet can potentially bring to his society. 113 Both Euripides and Aeschylus insist in the agon that it is incumbent upon the poet to improve his city and to offer it good advice, 114 and this contention is unequivocally maintained by the authorial voice of the parabasis, which summarizes the main thrust of the play ’ s strong and ubiquitous insistence on the poet ’ s political rights and responsibilities in a line early quoted by Frischlin as the programmatic statement of Old Comedy: Τὸν ἱερὸν χορὸν δίκαιόν ἐστι χρηστὰ τῇ πόλει / Ξυμπαραινεῖν καὶ διδάσκειν [It is just for the holy chorus to teach and advise useful things to the city] (687 - 688). 115 In explaining and adapting the political shades of meaning inherent in the competition between Euripides and Aeschylus, Frischlin takes full advantage of the sophistic associations he had attached to the Aristophanic character of Socrates in Clouds. Quickly identifying the topical similarities between the two plays, and using many of the same techniques he used to form the carefully qualified character of Socrates in the earlier play, Frischlin is able to cast the Euripides of Frogs in essentially the same role in which he had cast the Socrates of Clouds, that of the dangerous and unprincipled sophist with a skill for manipulating words. Given the political context of the competition, and especially given its results, this characterization forcefully asserts that poets and educated speakers should be granted a place in political discourse, while clearly describing which characteristics those poets and speakers should and should not possess. Frischlin explicitly establishes the connection between the characters of Euripides and Socrates in his vita Aristophanis, where the two are described as inseparable and like-minded enemies of Aristophanes in particular and of comedy in general. The circular logic inherent in this description, which 113 The literature on this is immense. For a very good recent introduction, see Csapo (2010) 120 ff. 114 Sommerstein (1996) 216. 115 Frischlin (1586) 4 recto, 265 verso. Compare also the evocation of Horace ’ s Ars Poetica 333 - 334, discussed in chapter V. Frogs 99 draws again on Aelian and more fully on Diogenes Laertius, who quotes Aristophanes ’ and other comedians ’ insistence on a collaborative relationship between the two men, is never called into question. 116 Rather, Frischlin simply proceeds from describing the conspiratorial origins of Clouds to stating: Simili odio adductus Aristophanes, Euripidem in aliis omnibus Comoediis traduxit, praecipue autem in Ranis, Acharnensibus, Thesmophoriazusis, ut conceptam de illo opinionem ex animis hominum eveleret: quando optimus ille et sapientissimus habebatur Tragicus. Itaque Ranas confinxit, in quo dramate Bacchum introducit, solicite quaerentem in terris poetam Tragicum, et quod nullum reperiret, ad inferos descendentem, ut Euripidem e campis Elysiis reducat. Sed cum Aeschylus et Sophocles, gravitate Tragica superiores Euripide haberi vellent, oritur in ea fabula certamen: in quo ab Aeschylo vincitur Euripides. Hac ratione in magnum contemtum perductus fuit Euripides, et reliquis Tragicis longe posthabitus. 117 Aristophanes was led on by a similar hatred to malign Euripides in all his other comedies, but especially in the Frogs, Acharnians, and Thesmophoriazusae, so as to relieve people of their preconceived notions about Euripides, who was then thought to be the best and wisest of tragedians. Thus he wrote the Frogs, in which he brings Bacchus on stage busily searching for a tragic poet somewhere on earth. Finding none, he then descends to the underworld in order to lead Euripides back from the Elysian Fields. The conflict of the play arises when Aeschylus and Sophocles wish to be regarded as superior in tragic gravity than Euripides, who is then beaten by Aeschylus. According to this scheme, Euripides was led into great shame, and was placed far behind the other poets. In the dedication and occasio attached to the play itself, Frischlin gives precise details about Euripides ’ shortcomings, as they can be understood in Frogs. Given the associations between Euripides and Socrates, these are not surprising: “ illi alias blandiloquum verborum lenocinium, et sophisticum dicendi genus, atque inanem orationis pompam, alias rerum ipsarum, quas tractat, nescio quam absurditatem et ineptitudinem, non citra odii, obiiciens [At one point he throws in his face his shameless pimping of words, his sophistic type of speaking, and the empty pomp of his speech; at another point he objects to some sort of absurdity in the very matters that he treats, and to their ineptitude, and to their suspiciousness, which is nothing short of hatred] ” . 118 Here Aristophanes is said to decry Euripides ’ use of empty, sophistic rhetoric, the “ pimping of words ” that is as immoral as it is tempting and persuasive. Variations and permutations of the word sophista thus reoccur in all three 116 Frischlin ’ s Vita also repeats Diogenes ’ story (2.44) that Euripides ’ Palamedes was a clear allegory about the unjust prosecution and execution of Socrates, and asserts on his own authority that Aristophanes was particularly incensed by this provocation. Frischlin does not make any attempt to deal with the obvious chronological problems this raises, and prefers to ignore completely Diogenes ’ own skepticism about it. 117 Frsichlin (1586) 3 recto. 118 Frischlin (1586) 231 recto. 100 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations plays as the chief target of Aristophanes ’ satire. Here this target is finally defined as one who practices the genus sophisticum dicendi - a skilled speaker, but certainly not an orator. This struggle to define and promote the characteristics of the true orator, as opposed to those of mere sophistae, danistae, and improbi, thus occurs in all three plays of the Byzantine triad as one of the most pervasive trends of Frischlin ’ s translations. Though Frischlin asserts throughout his introductory materials and in the first lines of Plutus that the Orator must be a Ciceronian “ vir bonus, dicendi peritus ” , he nowhere pretends that this assertion is unproblematic or realistic. Toward the end of the agon between Just Argument and Unjust Argument analyzed in chapter II, Frischlin places in the mouth of Unjust Argument a seductive effort to redefine the true Orator as a venerable disciple of sophistic trickery (Clouds 1055 - 1057): Εἶτ᾽ ἐν ἀγορᾷ τὴν διατριβὴν ψέγεις ; ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐπαινῶ . Εἰ γὰρ πονηρὸν ἦν , Ὅμηρος οὐδέποτ ´ ἂν ἐποίει Τὸν Νέστορ ´ ἀγορητὴν ἄν , οὐδὲ τοὺς σοφοὺς ἅπαντας . Vituperas deinde hanc versandi in foro consuetudinem: ego vero laudo. Nam si mala esset, nunquam fecisset sapiens Poeta Homerus Oratorem ex Nestore, neque e sapientibus universis. 119 You then castigate this custom of speaking in the forum; I, on the other hand, praise it. For if it were evil, the wise poet Homer would never have made an orator of Nestor, nor of all the other wise men. Clouds can give no answer but violence to this radically immoral attempt to appropriate oratory for selfish ends. In that regard it is similar to the threatening spectacle of radical social upheaval presented by Plutus. With Frogs Frischlin finally prevents a definitive rebuttal of the troubling assertion, about the nature of oratory and the role of the orator, which haunts the previous two plays. Frogs ’ dedication to Imperial Vice Chancellor Sigmund Vieheuser insists that such a poet as Euripides, the embodiment of Unjust Argument ’ s anti- Orator, should under no circumstances be given the ear of the government or receive support from governmental authorities. The dedicatee ’ s own experience attests to the reasons for this, and finally to the benefits that Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes can confer upon his society. This dedication, providing perhaps the most complete picture of Frischlin ’ s conception of his translation and its place in his society, is worth quoting at length: Est enim valde iniquum, conferre honorem, decus, divitias, indoctis: quae res solis debentur doctis, et docta poemata sribentibus. Nam bonus et prudens non ignorabit, quid distent aera lupinis. Multi enim hodie sunt Thyrsigeri, si numerum respicias Poetarum et Poetastrorum: at pauci Bacchi, si videas bonitatem operum. Quorsum vero ista? Inquies, vir Magnifice et nobilissime: eo nimirum ut intelligas, 119 Frischlin (1586) 206 verso - 208 recto. Frogs 101 in vulgi iudicio non esse semper acquiescendum, quando de Poetis pronunciant, qui ipsi aut non sunt Poetae, aut alias in literis non multum excellunt. Vulgus enim interdum recte videt: est, ubi peccat. Quod ipsum tamen in eo commemoro, quod ego iudicii tui aequitati diffidam. Novi enim qui et quantus vir sis, et quam paucos tui similes habeas, in discernendis bonis scriptoribus a malis. nam et optimarum literarum studiis a prima adolescentia fuisti deditus, et Graecas literas cum Latinis utiliter coniunxisti. Quibus rebus postea confirmatus ad studium Iuris et Legum te mature contulisti, in quo non modo summum eruditionis et dignitatis Iuridicae gradum es consecutus: sed pro tua quoque singulari doctrina et sapientia, locum inter supremi Imperii Assessores meruisti: ita ut tandem etiam Aulae Caesariae gubernaculis, et clavo Consistorii Imperialis sis admotus. Nec sane immerito, quando ad has ingenii dotes, etiam accedit animi tui aequitas et singularis quaedam bonitas, qua tu literarum humaniorum studia promovere summopere gaudes. 120 For it is truly unjust to confer an honor, a privilege, or riches on the unjust. These things ought to be given only to the learned, and to those who write learned poetry. For the good and prudent man will not be unable to tell how different lupini are from real bronze. For there are many Thyrsigeri today, if you look at the number of poets and poetasters. But there are few Bacchi, if you look at the bonitas of their work. But why would I do that? , you might ask, my noble and magnificent lord. To which I would respond, you would do so in order to clearly understand that they needn ’ t always be content with the vulgar judgment when they make pronunciations about the poets but are not poets themselves, nor outstanding in other areas of literature. For the common man occasionally sees straight, but there are times when he errs. But I don ’ t say this here because I take issue with the equity of your judgment. For I know how great of a man you are, and how few there are like you in being able to discriminate between good and bad poets. For in the beginning of your adolescence you were dedicated to the study of the best literature, and you usefully joined Greek literature with Latin. Once you had mastered these matters, you turned yourself in good time to the study of law and the courts, in which studies you not only completed a degree of Jurdical erudition and dignity, you even earned, by your singular wisdom and learning, a place among the assessores of the supreme Empire. At long last you have also been promoted to the helm of the Caesarian Palace, and to the regal tunic of the Imperial Consistory. And you certainly deserved it, since in addition to your mental gifts we can add also the equity and singular goodness of your spirit, with which you rejoice to promote the study of literae humaniores with all your strength. Here Vieheuser is called upon as a man of outstanding judgment and virtue to promote the same type of writing and the same type of writer whose study has brought him such success. In this context, and especially in light of Vieheuser ’ s previous willingness to patronize Frischlin ’ s more audacious literary pursuits, including the Oratio de Vita Rustica, 121 the double meaning in the phrase “ Graecas literas cum Latinis utiliter coniunxisti [you usefully joined 120 Frischlin (1586) 230 recto-verso. Emphasis mine. Cf. Horace, Epistles 1. 7. 23. 121 Strauss (1856) 236. 102 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations Greek literature with Latin] ” is difficult to miss. The truly best means of studying, the studia optimarum literarum, is one which combines Latin writing with Greek, such as an edition of Aristophanes with a facing Latin translation. The product of such useful literary studies will be able, like Bacchus, to scorn both the “ vulgar ” opinion and the opinions of the wise but immoral who, as Frischlin asserts in the occasio, held the shameless sophistry of Euripides in such high regard. 122 More importantly, and much more grounded in realworld concerns than the idealistic and clichéd praise of the bonitas and aequitas supposedly in evidence in one capable of a true appreciation of poetry, a student who has made use of the sort of literature that Frischlin produces can ultimately turn his keenly trained judgment and oratorical skills to the study of Law. If in doing so he should rise to the position of Assessor in the imperial high courts; or to the chancellery of the Emperor himself, to whose authority Frischlin dangerously suggested the lesser nobles and lesser courts of the empire should be subjected; then he will be like Vieheuser, whose justice, wisdom, and morally righteous use of his oratorical skills Frischlin praises in his elegiac poetry: Nam nihil hinc iuris, nihil hinc deficit aequi Ipsa cor alma viri fertur habere Themis. Caesaris hinc decorat procancellarius aulam: Caesareo orator dans pia iura foro. 123 For he lacks nothing of justice, nothing of equity. Nurturing Themis herself is said to possess the man ’ s heart. He thus adorns Caesar ’ s palace as Vice Chancellor: Giving pious justice in the Caesarian forum. Such a man as this will be in a position to accomplish real good for the people who most need it, the vulgus whose judgment is so easily swayed by a sophistic Euripides or Socrates. Frischlin ’ s means of translating the complex foreign reference network of the poetic agon was treated extensively in the previous chapter. Here these broader questions of translation technique must take a second place to an investigation of Frischlin ’ s translation of the political/ poetic ideology advanced by the agon, which promises to clarify what, exactly, Frischlin ’ s useful combination of Greek and Latin literature offers the future guarantors of justice and enemies of sophistry. This examination will begin by analyzing those passages of Frogs in which the supposed sophistry of Euripides is most fully on display. As recognized by modern critics, this sophistry assumes largely the same dangerously innovative outlines as that practiced and preached by Unjust Argument in Clouds, and the most consistent and pervasive accusation leveled against the offending parties is some permuta- 122 Frischlin (1586) 231 recto. 123 Frischlin (1601) Elegia VII.3. Frogs 103 tion of the Greek base λαλ -, “ chatter, babble ” . 124 This root readily suggests itself to a man concerned with decrying the inanis orationis pompa of the genus sophisticum dicendi, and the contours of the agon in Frischlin ’ s translation quickly take shape around the ability, or lack thereof, of a poet to demonstrate and teach the art of the true orator. In Frogs, Euripides ’ babbling is contrasted throughout to Aeschylus ’ taciturnity, as is neatly summarized in the first and extended attack made by the former against the latter (911 - 917), 125 which reads as following in Frischlin ’ s translation: Πρώτιστα μὲν γὰρ δή γ᾽ ἕνα τινὰ καθῖσεν ἐγκαλύψας , Ἀχιλλέα τιν ´, ἢ Νιόβην , τὸ πρόσωπον οὐχὶ δεικνύς , Πρόσχημα τῆς τραγῳδίας , γρύζοντας οὐδὲ τουτί . Δι . Μὰ τὸν Δί ´, οὐ δῆθ ´. Ευ . ὁ δὲ χορός γ . ἤρειδεν ὁρμαθοὺς ἂν Μελῶν ἐφεξῆς , τέτταρας ξυνεχῶς ἄν : οἱ δ ´ ἐσίγων . Δι . Ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἔχαιρον τῇ σιωπῇ : καί με τοῦτ᾽ ἔτερπεν Οὐχ ἧττον , ἢ νῦν οἱ λαλοῦντες . Ac initio unum quempiam constituit involutum, Achillem quendam, aut Nioben: faciem neutiquam revelans: Speciem quandam Tragoediae: tantillum haud mussitantes. B A . Non est ita per Iovem. E U . at Chorus interea pronunciasset Continue quatuor ordines versuum: at ipsi tacebant. B A . At ego voluptatem ex illo silentio hauriebam: Neque id me oblectabat minus, quam si qui hodie loquuntur. 126 And in the beginning he ’ s set up someone, someone covered, Maybe some Achilles or Niobe, revealing their face not at all - Such is his sort of tragedy - and then they hardly so much as grumble. B A . It ’ s not so, by Jove! E U . But meanwhile the chorus has pronounced Four continous rounds of verses, while the characters themselves are silent. B A . I myself drew a certain pleasure from that silence: It certainly didn ’ t bother me any less than those today who simply talk. Frischlin ’ s rendering of λαλοῦντες with the very general and unmarked “ loquuntur ” , a rendition maintained throughout the agon, 127 is in keeping with his assertions about the empty nature of Euripides ’ oratory. Bacchus will not concede to the representative of unprincipled education and linguistic display any means of “ oratory ” ; it is merely talk. For Frischlin ’ s purposes it is not Euripides ’ loquacity per se which disqualifies him as an orator and hence a worthy poet, but rather his unwillingness or inability to use to use his speech for morally righteous ends, as befits a true vir bonus, dicendi peritus. Like Unjust Argument, the sophistic anti-orator Euripides can indeed use his speech effectively to 124 See Csapo (2010) 120 - 121; Dover (1993) 22. 125 Csapo (2010) 120. 126 Frischlin (1586) 276 verso - 277 recto. 127 Cf. 954, Frischlin (1586) 279 verso - 280 recto. 104 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations persuade. When the famous weighing scene begins, in which Dionysus uses a prop scale to “ weigh ” the content of verses by Aeschylus and Euripides, Euripides ’ second contribution is laden only with the deified Peitho, the embodiment of persuasion, and by extension of the sophistically persuasive nature of his poetry: οὐκ ἔστι Πειθοῦς ἱερὸν ἄλλο , πλὴν λόγος (1391). Frischlin ’ s translation of this verse, “ Non est fanum Saudae, nisi bona oratio [Persuasion has no shrine aside from good speech] ” , 128 highlights Euripides ’ attempt, like Unust Argument, to lay claim to the province of an orator, bona oratio, despite the fact that the only quality of his speech is persuasion, and not the careful and conscientious application of that persuasion for patriotic ends. Bacchus ’ immediate and scornful dismissal of Suada, “ Res levicula est suadela, et mentem non habet, Πειθὼ δὲ κοῦφόν ἐστι , καὶ νοῦν οὐκ ἔχον [little persuasion is a negligible thing, and does not have a mind] ” , forcefully and finally dismisses these attempts, which had been lurking in the background since Plutus, and demands that the true poet and the true orator be judged according to standards other than a feckless ability to persuade. The deliberate and considered moral orientation of Aeschylus ’ poetry stands in stark contrast to the mindless and insignificant persuasion typical of Euripides ’ art. As Aeschylus says in defending the folksy, kitharodic elements in his lyric passages (1298 - 1299), “ At ego ex bono traduxi haec in aliud bonum, Ἀλλ᾽ οὖν ἐγὼ μὲν ἐς τὸ καλὸν ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦ / Ἤνεγκον αὔθ᾽ [but I took them from one good and turned them to another] ” . 129 Frischlin ’ s use of the word “ aliud ” in this passage has no equivalent in the Greek text. This word reorients the competition in the translation away from the strictly poetic, and towards the “ other ” good, the bonitas which poetry can accomplish in the political sphere. As Dionysus quickly tires of the poetic debate, he finally demands that the two poets justify their works according to this aliud bonum. By the end of the play Dionysus has chosen Aeschylus and left no room for doubt that he has agreed with Aeschylus ’ own estimation of his poetry ’ s worth, its orientation toward aliud bonum. It is telling that, in translating the passages of political advice which ultimately lead Dionysus to choose Aeschylus over Euripides, Frischlin does not attempt any noteworthy domestications or explications which might make the particulars of that political advice somehow relevant and important to his contemporary Holy Roman Empire. Alcibiades is left as Alcibiades, with no explanatory enlargements in the translation: Δι . Πρῶτον μὲν οὖν περὶ Ἀλκιβιάδου τίν᾽ ἔχετον Γνώμην ἑκάτερος ; ἡ πόλις γὰρ δυστοκεῖ . Αɩ ̓ . Ἔχει δὲ περὶ αὐτοῦ τίνα γνώμην . Δι . τίνα ; Ποθεῖ μέν , ἐχθαίρει δὲ , βούλεται δ᾽ ἔχειν . (1425) 128 Frischlin (1586) 299 verso - 300 recto. 129 Frischlin (1586) 294 verso - 295 recto. For the kitharodic elements in this passage, see Dover (1993) 347 - 349. Frogs 105 Ἀλλ᾽ ὅ , τι νοεῖτον εἴπατον τούτου πέρι . Εὐ . Μισῶ πολίτην , ὅστις ὠφελεῖν πάτραν Βραδὺς πέφυκε , μάλα δὲ γε βλάπτειν ταχὺς : Καὶ πόριμον αὑτῷ , τῇ πόλει δ᾽ ἀμήχανον . Δι . Εὖ γ᾽ ὦ Πόσειδον , σὺ δὲ τίνα γνώμην ἔχεις ; (1430) Αɩ ̓ . Ο . χρὴ λέοντος σκύμνον ἐν πόλει τρέφειν . Μάλιστα μὲν λέοντα μὴν᾽ πόλει τρέφειν , Ἢν δ᾽ ἐκτραφῇ τις , τοῖς τρόποις ὑπηρετεῖν . Δι . Νὴ τὸν Δία τὸ ν σωτῆρα , δυσκρίτως γ᾽ ἔχω : Ὁ μὲν σοφῶς γὰρ εἶπεν , ὁ δ᾽ ἕτερος σαφῶς . (1435) B A . Primum de Alcibiade, quae nam sententia Alterutri est? Nam male perit nostra civitas. Æ S . Quid autem de illo sentit civitas? B A . quid? Hoc: Cupit quidem, sed odit tamen, et habere vult. Sed quid vos de illo sentiatis, dicite. E V . Civem hunc ego odi, qui in servanda patria Fit tardus, in laedenda eadem fit celer: Sat commodus sibi, civitati incommodus. B A . Euge, o Neptune et quae tua est sententia? Æ S . Catulum Leonis alere in urbe non decet, Sed maxime ipsum ne Leonem nutrias: Sin alueris aliquem, obsecunda moribus. B A . Ego per Iovem servatorem aegre iudico: Nam luculenter ille, prudenter hic ait. 130 B A . First off, concerning Alcibiades, what sentiment Does Either of you have of him? For our society is really doomed. A ES . But what does the city feel about him? B A . What? This: it desires him, but it hates him, and wants to have him. But tell me both what you think of him. E U . I hate this citizen, who becomes slow to help his country And fast in hurting it; who is boon enough to himself, But a baine to his society. B A . Well done, by Neptune. And what is your opinion? A ES . It is not fitting to raise a lion ’ s whelp in the city, It is especially wrong to nourish the lion himself. But should you raise one, be accommodating to its ways. B A . By Jove, I can judge our savior only with difficulty: The one spoke brilliantly, the other prudently. Frischlin ’ s silence on the meaning of the reference to Alcibiades is reflected also in the play ’ s introductory material, where a tight connection between Euripides and Socrates is carefully drawn, but no effort is made at all to clarify the historical circumstances of the play or its many topical allusions. The political and historical context of the Greek play has thus been eliminated entirely, and replaced with a polemic about the necessity of including the 130 Frischlin (1586) 300 verso - 302 recto. 106 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations right kind of poets/ orators in the political process, while at the same time excluding the corrosive influences of the unprincipled sophists. For these sophists, Euripides and Socrates, Frischlin has been careful to assign analogues in his contemporary world, particularly in the legal practices and in education. Because these sophists are also the very same men who, making a play on Frischlin ’ s last name, derided him as “ Ranula [little frog] ” , or “ ein quackend Fröschlein [a croaking little froglet] ” , 131 Frischlin ’ s use of Aristophanes ’ Frogs to reclaim the rightful place of poets in political discourse humorously turns that insult into a mark of distinction, and leaves no doubt in the reader ’ s mind about just who is to be considered the right kind of poet/ orator. Rhetoric and Reality Viewing Frischlin ’ s polemic in light of the historical evidence adumbrates a number of interesting and revealing contradictions. One of the most important of these is to be seen in Frischlin ’ s criticisms of legal practice in the Holy Roman Empire. Although specific details must be set aside in the interest of brevity, all current research indicates that, contrary to Frischlin ’ s condemnations of corruption and inefficiency, the legal system of the Holy Roman Empire was a tremendous success, ensuring responsible government throughout the Reich for hundreds of years while providing a nonviolent legal framework which dealt with precisely the sorts of tensions and conflicts that had led to the peasants ’ rebellion of 1524/ 5. 132 In particular, the privilegium de non appellando, which prevented subjects from appealing rulings to courts outside the jurisdiction of a territorial lord, never applied to Frischlin ’ s Württemberg. Theoretically, then, the legal system that Frischlin knew functioned very well, and Frischlin himself seems to be aware of this: nowhere does he suggest specific structural reform of the legal system, either in the Oratio or in his translations. True to Lutheran (and specifically Melanchthonian) ideals of obedience to the god-given secular authorities, Frischlin criticizes and seeks to improve only non-specific notions of corruption and immorality as potentially practiced by individuals in an otherwise heavenly-ordained system. 133 In his translations Frischlin readily identifies these individuals as the lesser nobles of the Empire, and their victims as the downtrodden peasants. Yet this simple binary of good versus bad, educated versus unprivileged, does not correspond to the realities of Frischlin ’ s Württemberg. Frischlin ’ s patrons in the house of Württemberg, Dukes Christoph (r. 1550 - 1568) and Ludwig 131 Süss (1911) 44. 132 See Wilson (2004) 175 - 183, and the works he cites. 133 Price (1990) 87. Rhetoric and Reality 107 (r. 1568 - 1593) seriously mistrusted their lesser nobility and were very successful in establishing religious, political, and educational bureaucracies and institutions designed specifically to marginalize them. 134 One such institution was the Tübinger Stift, in which Frischlin and several other students from underprivileged backgrounds received, at government expense, an education that would enable them to replace the nobility in the civil and ecclesiastical services of the Duchy of Württemberg. 135 How do we reconcile these inconsistencies with Frischlin ’ s polemics, and with the facts of his life? That is, why would Frischlin ’ s denunciation of the lesser nobility have had such a negative effect on his relationship with Duke Ludwig if it was, in fact, very much in keeping with the Duke ’ s own policy of marginalizing the same nobility? Why would Frischlin then continue to demonize the nobility in his translations once he had already fallen out of favor with the Duke? Two trends evident in the translations can account for both of these difficulties. The first is that which was brought to the fore in the examination of Frischlin ’ s Frogs: his insistence on the political involvement of the poet. When Jacob Andreas, speaking on behalf of the senate of Tübingen University, explained to Frischlin the decision not to allow him to return to his post at the university, he was less concerned with denouncing Frischlin ’ s dangerously “ revolutionary ” ideas about peasants and nobility than he was with denouncing the pretensions of a poet who thought he deserved a voice in politics: Ihr seid ein Poet, kein Prophet . . . Ihr habt euch nicht in fremde Dinge zu mischen, über Höfe und Adel zu richten, sondern euch in den Grenzen eurer Vocation zu halten. Die Mängel und Laster der verschiedenen Stände zu rühmen, ist Sache der Prophete, d. h. der Prediger, nicht der Poeten. 136 You are a poet, not a prophet . . . You must not mix yourself in external business nor give judgment over courts and nobility, but rather keep yourself within the boundaries of your vocation. To discuss the deficiencies and vices of different classes is a matter for prophets, i. e. pastors, not poets. Behind Andreas ’ words stands the ideology of over a half century of Lutheran theology and pedagogy as manifested in the increasingly absolutist government bureaucracy of Duke Ludwig. The insistence of Luther and Melanchthon on the sanctity of the secular authorities was happily seized upon by the dukes of Württemberg, who gave massive support to educational “ reforms ” designed to instill loyalty and quiet, patient obedience in their subjects. By the time Duke Ludwig reached his majority in 1578, these reforms, and especially the tremendous support given to the theological faculty at Tübingen University, had made Württemberg the pre-eminent authority on Lutheran Orthodoxy in the Reich, and had also given its Duke a rigidly regulated 134 See Press (1999) 23 - 33; Rudersdorf (1999) 62. 135 Press (1999) 33; Ruderdorf (1999) 68. 136 As quoted in Rudersdorf (1999) 51, n.5. 108 Chapter III - Education and Rhetoric in Frischlin ’ s Translations and fiercely loyal religious and social bureaucracy of such power and uniformity that contemporary critics referred to it as a “ Lutheran Spain ” . 137 Whatever elbow room may have existed for the questioning of authority in Luther ’ s own writings was completely and gleefully obliterated by this protoabsolutist system. By 1580 even suggesting that political opinions could legitimately be voiced by poets from outside the confessionalized authority system was enough to earn Frischlin branding as a zweiter Thomas Münzer, even if the general outlines of the opinions he might voice were largely in keeping with those of the Duke. Eliminating a man who was hated and mistrusted by the besieged nobility, and thereby seeming slightly amenable to their demands, was only a bonus for Duke Ludwig. Frischlin ’ s call for political involvement outside of the confessional state establishment of Württemberg is thus actually an attempt to re-evaluate and redefine the ideal temporal authority as it was supposed to exist in the Holy Roman Empire. Rather than suggesting radical, revolutionary, and hence heretical changes to this temporal authority, Frischlin ’ s attempt at redefinition is, in fact, reactionary. In the Oratio and the war of letters that ensued, Frischlin called upon the emperor to guarantee both the rights of peasants to justice and security, and the rights of poets to a share in the political discourse. Although this trend of deference to the emperor as a secular leader and guarantor of liberties was popular among Irenist Protestant humanists in Frischlin ’ s time, 138 it has been suggested in recent scholarship as the ultimate cause of Frischlin ’ s falling out of favor with Duke Ludwig, who was not likely to share these sentiments. 139 It is maintained and strengthened in his translations of Aristophanes, which are dedicated and entrusted to the emperor and the powerful circle of advisors and legal scholars at his court. The reciprocal effects of this trend ’ s manifestation in Frischlin ’ s translations of Aristophanes will be the subject of the following chapter, which will seek to clarify both the new readings and interpretations Frischlin ’ s deference to the emperor forces upon his Aristophanes, and the commentaries and criticisms his translations implicitly make about the government of the Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II. 137 Rudersdorf (1999) 65; Press (1999). 138 Whaley (2011) 318. 139 Kühlmann (1999) 441. Rhetoric and Reality 109 Chapter IV Nationalism and the Politics of the Holy Roman Empire in Frischlin ’ s Translations Frischlin ’ s deference to the emperor, and his conception of a more inclusive and open political system to replace the repressively confessionalized bureaucracy of Württemberg, come to the fore in his introductory materials to the translations. Here the idealized system he has envisioned for the empire is spelled out in nuce. In describing the nation and the political system that stand to benefit from his speculum civitatis, Frischlin necessarily also elaborates on his conception of his translations ’ audience, and on its complex relationship to the audience of the Aristophanic source text. As the previous chapter has hopefully demonstrated, Frischlin ’ s translation ideology is informed by the rhetorical ideals of Cicero, for whom translation into Latin was a useful means of doing service to one ’ s nation and society. For Cicero and his contemporaries, this idea is less problematic than for Frischlin. The benefactors of Cicero ’ s translation are his Roman countrymen, all of whom share Latin as a native language. The same is not true of Frischlin, whose adaptation of Cicero ’ s translation ideology casts in sharp relief the problems inherent in producing a “ domesticating ” translation in Latin in the Renaissance. For although Frischlin and his fellow humanists had a true mastery of the Latin language to rival that of the ancient Romans, the republic of letters was not a single political unit inhabited by people who spoke Latin as a native language, and so the efficacy of Latin translation as a tool for improving one ’ s nation and society will remain unclear until Frischlin defines what that society and nation are, and why they should feel a particular connection to the Latin language. In establishing that nation as the Holy Roman Empire, Frischlin was able to build on a rich tradition of national sentiment in Germany in which the Latin Language and the heritage of Roman arts and letters had long played a central role. The notion of a translatio imperii from ancient Rome to the Holy Roman Empire was near and dear to Frischlin ’ s heart, as indeed it was for many of his contemporary countrymen, who yearned for a strong, assertive, and unified German nation replete with the glory and artistic accomplishment of ancient Rome. 1 The glorification of his Germany as the new Rome neatly entwines Frischlin ’ s various reasons for undertaking his Aristophanes translation with a thread that leads back through Melanchthon and Luther to the earliest and 1 The literature on this is immense. For good introductions, see Price (1990) 60 - 61, Silver (1998), and Whaley (2011). most revered steps toward a German nationalist humanism taken by Conrad Celtis. In 1491 Celtis gave his now-famous Oratio at the University of Ingolstadt, during which he urged his fellow Germans to turn to the study of Greek and Roman literature in order to become the poetae et oratores that his beloved Holy Roman Empire needed to live up to its potential: Aemulamini, nobiles viri, priscam nobilitatem Romanam, quae accepto Graecorum imperio ita omnem sapientiam et eloquentiam eorum iunxerunt, ut dubium sit, an aequasse aut superasse omnem Graecam inventionem et doctrinae supellectilem videantur. Ita et vos accepto Italorum imperio exuta foeda barbarie Romanarum artium affectatores esse debebitis. 2 Emulate, my noble gentlemen, that pristine Roman nobility, which, having received rule of the Greeks, so joined together all of their eloquence and wisdom, that it became a question of whether they would seem to have equalled or surpassed all Greek creativity and ornaments of learning. And so you, having received rule of the Italians, but with their shameful barbarity stripped away, will have to be zealous proponents of the Roman arts. Frischlin ’ s call for improved classical education in Germany in many ways echoes that made by Celtis. Aside from its invocation of a translatio imperii justified and sustained by a translatio artium, 3 Frischlin also takes up Celtis ’ conviction that a thorough education in these artes was truly necessary for any well-run state. 4 In this same speech Celtis presented the publica spectacula as one of the chief ways the ancient Romans maintained their education and the glories of their state, and hence one of the chief means by which the Holy Roman Empire might do the same; Luther and Melanchthon shared his opinion, insisting that the spectacula referred to were the same ancient comedies whose careful study could glorify the Germans. 5 Much of Frischlin ’ s nationalism is thus conventional already by 1586. Frischlin ’ s approach is unique, however, both for its ecumenical appeal in a time of deep divisions, and for its realistic approach to the multitude of problems facing Germany. Celtis idealized the greatness of the German state as an abstract concept practically embodied in the person of the emperor and detached from any of the harsher political realities of his contemporary Germany. 6 Frischlin ’ s view is no less idealistic, but its idealism is focused not solely on the Emperor as embodiment of the Reich and its glory; rather, Frischlin presents the complicated constitution, the power sharing mechanisms inherent in the Reich, and the system of checks on the emperor ’ s authority as some of its greatest attributes and closest connections to the glory of its ancient Roman predecessor. 2 Oratio in Gymnasio in Ingelstadio Publice Recitata 28 - 29. 3 For this in Celtis ’ thought see Gruber (2003) LI. 4 Forster (1948) 109. 5 Price (1990) 11. 6 Forster (1948) 109. 112 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations These ideas are all neatly, succinctly, and entertainingly embodied in the Julius Redivivus of 1585, in which the spirits of Cicero and Julius Caesar receive shore leave, so to speak, for a number of months to visit the German lands. While Cicero marvels at the fact that Latin and Greek learning have moved across the Alps into Germany, Caesar is astounded to learn about the transfer of Roman Imperium to his empire ’ s former German subjects: C AESAR . Dic, obsecro, quomodo Romani in potestatem devenerint Germanorum! H ERMANNUS . Anni ab eo tempore, quo magnus ille Carolus Imperii dignitatem ad nos Germanos armis transtulit Victo rebelli Desiderio, rege quondam Insubriae, Anni, inquam, elapsi sunt septingenti octoginta quattuor. P A . Papae, tot annis imperium terrarum Germani obtinent! H E . Haud paucioribus, nam qui nunc rerum summa in Germania Potitur, quintus et quadragesimus hic imperator est. Ad hunc enim summa voluntate omnium septemvirum Imperii dignitas adhuc patre vivo dovoluta fuit. C A . Hominum fidem, quae tanta rerum facta est commutatio! H E . Fatales sunt, Caesar, conversiones imperiorum. 7 C AESAR . I beg you, tell me how the Romans came to be in the power of the Germans! H ERMANUS . It has been years since the time when Charlemagne Conveyed by arms to us Germans the dignity of empire By conquering the rebel Desiderius, the onetime king of Lombardy. In fact, 784 years have passed since then. C A . Egads! For so many years the Germans have had command of the world! H E . And no less, for the man who now rules In the highest position in Germany is the 45 th emperor. To this man, by the supreme will of all the septemviri, The dignity of rule was devolved while his father still lived. C A . By men ’ s faith, what a great change of affairs has been made! H E . The changes of empires are decreed by fate, Caesar. Once the historical mechanisms of this fated transfer have been explained, Hermannus makes certain to explain to Caesar the checks on the emperor ’ s authority, which have bolstered and ennobled the Imperium Romanum with the traditions of teutsche Freiheit: 8 C A . Olim Germani regem ex nobilitate sumebant. H E . Scio. C A . Ducem ex virtute. H E . Scio. C A . Neque infinita quondam regibus Aut libera potestas erat. H E . Scio, neque hodie libera est. C A . Regem observabant principes. H E . Scio. C A . Principem comites. H E . Scio. C A . Ut quisque princeps genere atque copiis amplissimus, Ita plurimos circum se ambactos et clientes nobiles Habebat. H E . Idem hoc etiam nostris hodie usitatu est hominibus. 9 7 Frischlin (2003) II.3 [p. 454: 911 - 922]. Emphasis mine. 8 For this notion see Schmidt (2011). 9 Frischlin (2003) II.3 [pp. 460 - 462: v. 955 - 961]. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 113 C A . It used to be that the Germans chose their king for his nobility. H E . I know. C A . And their leader for his virtue. H E . I know. C A . And the kings did not have free or unlimited power then. H E . I know. Nor is it free today. C A . The princes watched over the king. H E . I know. C A . And the counts watched over the prince. H E . I know. C A . As each prince was most well appointed in wealth and lineage, So he kept around him the most vassals and noble clients. H E . Our people today have this very same custom in use. In the first sentence of his letter of introduction to emperor Rudolf II Frischlin immediately recapitulates all these ideas, announcing his intentions to translate Aristophanes into Latin and Aristophanes ’ Athens into a German Rome: “ Etsi vereor, Dive Caesar, ne munus afferam Maiestate tua Imperatoria indignum, qui hasce Aristophanis Comoedias, ex illa veteri Graecia in Romanum Theatrum a me productas, ante serenissimos oculos tuos statuo [Even if I am afraid, Divine Caesar, lest I should bring a gift unworthy of your Imperial Majesty, as I now place these Comedies of Aristophanes, brought by me from Ancient Greece into the Roman Theater, before your most serene eyes] ” . 10 Frischlin does not here oppose vetus Graecia to Roma. In keeping with the notions of the translatio imperii established by Celtis, Rome was for Frischlin nothing but a physical location on the Italian peninsula with which German humanists, especially Protestants, had long believed they were in direct competition for secular authority and cultural pre-eminence, and which popular sentiment in Germany among both Catholics and Protestants often held responsible for the weakened state of the Holy Roman Empire. 11 The “ Romanum Theatrum ” , on the other hand, can signify both the theater of Rome as defined by the language and stylistic practices of Plautus and Terence; and the theater of the entire Roman civilization, recognizable in the Holy Roman Empire especially by its preservation of high Roman arts and learning, the translatio artium with which Frischlin, like Celtis, supplemented the notion of a translatio imperii. 12 Frischlin emphasizes this latter meaning with an important rewording of the same phrase only a few sentences later, writing: “ . . . non dubito, quin meus hic Aristophanes, in hoc Romani Imperii amplissimo theatro, aequissimum sit habiturus, si alium neminem vel te solum atque unum specatatorem ac iudicem [I do not doubt that this, my Aristophanes, will be received most graciously, if he should have no other spectator and judge in this most ample theater of the Roman Empire than you yourself ” . 13 Here the genitive of description Romani Imperii is used to define the theater specifically not just as a Roman theater, but as the Roman Empire itself with Rudolf II, as named in the dedication page and several 10 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 2 recto. 11 Silver (1998). 12 Price (1990) 60 - 61; Gruber (2003) LI; Whaley (2011) 306 - 307. 13 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 2 verso. 114 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations times within the letter, as Imperator Romanus, supreme spectator, and ultimate iudex passing judgment on Frischlin ’ s rhetorical arguments. This title and the emphasis placed on the emperor seem perfectly concordant with Celtis ’ idealization of the Empire and its ruler, but they are troublingly out of keeping with the democratic principles inherent to Aristophanic Greek Comedy or to the Republican system in which Plautine and Terentian comedy flourished. For this reason Frischlin ’ s language carefully emphasizes the supposedly republican ideals of the Holy Roman Empire. For example, in describing how Rudolf came to be so fortunate as to be receiving his Aristophanes, Frischlin writes, . . . iampridem omnes mortales omnium generum, aetatum, ordinum ita iudicarunt, ut propter summam tuam sapientiam, iustitiam, et aequitatem unanimi consensu affirment omnes, nulli potuisse clavum Imperii Romani, in his procellis ac tempestatibus negotiorum melius, quam Sacratissimae tuae Maiestati, a Septemviris commendari. 14 . . . already all mortals of every race, class, and age have judged that, because of your wisdom, justice, and prudence, all men affirm unanimously that the helm of the Roman Empire could have been entrusted by the Septemviri to nobody better than your Most Holy Majesty during this time of storms and violent upheavals. Here the seven electores of the emperor named by the Golden Bull of 1356 have become the very Roman and republican college of the septemviri. 15 As Frischlin ’ s own use of the term in the Julius Redivivus suggests, the use of the term septemvir as an alternative translation of the German Kurfürst was not unheard of at this time, but its use here is strongly marked by the constitutional power assigned to the seven electors, which serves to transform the feudal elements of the imperial monarchy into well-functioning elements of a republican institution - the Respublica Germaniae, as Frischlin later calls it. 16 This understanding is necessary for Frischlin ’ s poetics, since his own arguments for the usefulness of Aristophanic comedy for a society presuppose that society to be a republic with lively and open political debate where arguments can be weighed, good advice appreciated, and rhetorical expertise put to use in promoting the greater good. When he defends Aristophanes, he defends him as an author qui magna cum libertate homines seditosos ac turbulentos in scenam producit, eosque nominatim perstringit: qui principum in Republica virorum dissensiones acerbe insectatur: qui temeritatem imperitae multitudinis, et licentiam plebis severiter castigat: qui denique nulli ordini, nulli aetati, nulli generi nisi solis innocentibus atque immeritis sua libertate parcit. 17 14 Frischlin (1586), Praefatio 2 verso. 15 On the Septemviri Epulones see Beard et. al. (1998) 100 - 101. 16 Frischlin (1586) 80 verso. 17 Frischlin (1586) 2 verso - 3 recto. Frischlin also refers to Athens as a republic at 3 recto - verso, 4 recto, 9 verso, 14 recto, and 15 verso. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 115 who brings troublesome and seditious individuals onto the stage with great freedom and then lampoons them by name; who mercilessly pursues discord among the princely men in a republic; who severely castigates the heedlessness of the inexperienced mob and the lawlessness of the rabble; finally, he is the sort of author who spares no class, generation, or race except the truly innocent and undeserving of his liberalitas. The Septemviri, then, are not the medieval electors of a feudal monarch, but seven principes viri in Republica, although they do not appear again anywhere in the translations. Here they simply help Frischlin depict the Empire as a republican institution characterized by collaborative decision-making and rule by consensus, and by an ancient and venerable tradition of republican government that integrates and improves upon the greatest accomplishments of the Greeks and Romans. 18 The consensus of that institution is ultimately built not only on the decision of the electors alone, but explicitly on the collective will of omnes mortales. Rudolf thus only becomes supreme spectator through universal consensus, and Frischlin takes great pains to clarify that, despite the responsibilities so entrusted to him, Rudolf is still not the only spectator in the theatrum Romani Imperii. Having already invoked the Septemviri who selected him and the universal population of mortals who approved of their decision to do so, he uses the individual plays to name a further, second-tier group of dedicatees composed of a close-knit circle of men at the imperial court in Prague who will share Rudolf ’ s responsibilities as fellow spectators/ governors of the Theatrum Romani Imperii. The fact that Frischlin has been so explicit concerning the governmental responsibilities of the audience he chooses for his plays is but another very strong indication that his translation is meant to be operative, rather than informative. This audience is similar to what Jeffrey Henderson has termed the “ notional audience “ of Aristophanes ’ own plays, inasmuch as it consists of a group of privileged men in control of state affairs. 19 In Aristophanes, however, this group is too large, and Frischlin cannot hope for his own translations to take on a political meaning purely through the Aristophanic notional audience evoked by the text itself. Therefore the numerous moments when Aristophanes or one of his characters addresses the audience, either by name or by a plural pronoun, are completely foreignized in Frischlin ’ s translation. There is no attempt to replace particular names with the names of figures better fitted to a German, Roman, or broadly Humanist reference network, and the second-person plural masculine that composes the demos and controls the polis community is simply changed from ὑμεῖς to vos. 20 18 See Whaley (2011) 304 - 6, who discuses Frischlin ’ s use of the alternative term Ephores to describe the electors in the Julius Redivivus. 19 Henderson (1991 a). 20 For the former, see the examples of foreignization given in chapter II. For the latter, see e. g. Clouds 575 - 6 (Frischlin 1586: 185 verso - 186 recto), Frogs 697 (Frischlin 1586: 266 verso - 267 recto), and passim. 116 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Aristophanes ’ “ actual audience “ , potentially embracing everyone from women and slaves to foreigners and every other element that might potentially exist in a theater with a capacity of at least 6,000 21 in a city as cosmopolitan as Athens, is also largely removed from Frischlin ’ s translations of the play scripts. However, whereas Aristophanes ’ notional audience was eliminated using the scalpel of academic foreignization and carefully replaced through the dedications made possible and even necessary by the printed medium, Aristophanes ’ actual audience is completely and crudely chopped out of the translations through the wholesale deletion of six entire plays containing, to paraphrase Jeffrey Henderson, rare shifts from the notional to the actual audience. 22 One of the most important examples of this type of deletion is of the passage found at Peace 962 - 967: Τρ. καὶ τοῖς θεαταῖς ῥῖπτε τῶν κριθῶν . Οɩ ̓ . ɩ ̓ δού . Τρ. ἔδωκας ἤδη ; Οɩ ̓ . νὴ τὸν Ἑρμῆν ὥστε γε τούτων ὅσοιπέρ εɩ ̓ σι τῶν θεωμένων οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεὶς ὅστις οὐ κριθὴν ἔχει . Τρ. οὐχ αἱ γυναῖκές γ᾽ ἔλαβον . Οɩ ̓ . ἀλλ᾽ εɩ ̓ ς ἑσπέραν δώσουσιν αὐταῖς ἅνδρες . T R . . . . and throw the spectators some of the barley pips. S L . There. T R . You ’ ve tossed them already? S L . By Hermes I have; there isn ’ t a one of these spectators who hasn ’ t got a pip. T R . The women haven ’ t got any. S L . Well, their husbands will give it to them tonight! 23 Henderson ’ s explanation of these lines, the only explanation to demonstrate an understanding of the function of the lines as both humorous and bound to the performance context of ancient drama, maintains that unless women are in the audience somewhere, there is no point in joking that they did not get any barleyseeds ( κριθή = penis). 24 They are just barely acknowledged as existing at the edges of the audience because, in reality, they sat at the very edges of the theater, away from the privileged male spectators and out of range of those throwing barleyseeds. 25 Though I do not wish to wade too deeply into the absurdly contentious debate concerning women ’ s attendance 21 Henderson (1991 a) gives the number as 16,000. This estimate, as Roselli (2011) 64 ff. notes, is not tenable for the 5th-century Theater of Dionysus. According to Roselli, the theatron at Aristophanes ’ time could have held up to 6,000, with a significant amount of additional, unofficial seating. 22 Henderson (1991 a) 140. 23 Translated of Henderson (1998), with some modifications. 24 See also Olson (1998) 254 - 5. 25 Henderson (1991 a) 141 - 2. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 117 at the Athenian dramatic festivals, it is beyond arguing that this passage, at very least, suggests the potential presence of women as spectators, or at least as part of the community whose expectations helped shape the reference network of the comedy. The possibility, however slight, of an actual audience enlarged to such a degree was untranslatable for Frischlin. These lines, along with all the other glimpses at Aristophanes ’ actual audience listed by Henderson, are omitted entirely. 26 Despite his openly stated (if horrifically misogynist) acceptance of Aristophanes ’ use of complex female characters, 27 Frischlin does not dare go near the women plays, which he explicitly reads as portraying civically active women and dealing directly with the problematic notion of women ’ s participation in the public affairs of the theatrum Romani Imperii. 28 Aristophanes ’ actual audience is thus, to all appearances, gone. If this is so, then with it is gone also the open-ended nature of a dramatic performance text, a polyphonic piece whose meaning is constantly destabilized by the interaction and competition of the various voices and reactions of the author, the characters, and the receiving public, and which could not be assigned anything like a certain reading or meaning until the final, performative dimension, and with it the audience ’ s voice and subsequent action, were added. 29 Such a text would necessarily invite multiple readings, and would demand to be interpreted and performed anew by a broad public. Frischlin ’ s translation, on the other hand, with its complete denial of a performative audience and rigid prescription of its intended recipients, has ostensibly replaced the publicly performative with the privately dialogical, becoming another instantiation of the dialogue literature that was so salient a part of the literary culture of the Renaissance. Yet this transformation is incomplete. Either by design or incidentally, Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes breathes new life into dialogue while at the same time demonstrating the permanent vitality of Old Comedy, even when it is nothing more than a printed text. Virginia Cox has drawn attention to the decline of true aporia and polyphony in the dialogues of the late Renaissance, in which the voice and opinion of the author alone began to dominate as 26 Another example, not taken from the women plays, is the references to metics in the beginning of Peace, for which see Roselli (2011) 122. 27 Frischlin (1586) 14 recto: “ Deinde simplicitatem in mulierum orationibus recte neglexit Aristophanes, cum foeminae natura non sint simplices: sed duplices, callidae et versutissimae. Quod vero in concionatricibus orationes Rhetoricas attribuit foeminis sicut etiam in Thesmophoriazusis et Lysistrata, id sua quadam ratione facit, transmutatis foeminis in viros, et adhibitis in scena iustis cautelis, ut iure non possit ob hanc rem obiurgari. ” 28 Frischlin (1586) 3 verso. Frischlin ’ s relation to longstanding debates about gender politics in Aristophanes will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter. 29 Walton (2008) 263. 118 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Socratic dialogue gradually gave way to a stylized form of essay. 30 As Frischlin ’ s example amply demonstrates, this type of narrow didacticism is not possible when dealing with a dramatic text. Though careful selection, commentary, and bowdlerization can direct the reader to particular conclusions, Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes, qua drama, accurately transmits the polyphony of voices present in the source text. At the same time, Frischlin ’ s attempts to restrict Aristophanes ’ audience to an elite group of readers with access to the texts and time and education enough to understand them, though drastically curtailing and altering the performance text ’ s potential for creating meaning, is actually significantly less elitist and more open than the tradition of reading Greek poetry with which Frischlin was familiar. Aristotle ’ s Poetics had long since radically redefined dramatic scripts as texts intended for the elite, private reader, and the revised text of Aristophanes ’ Clouds, as we have it, shows perhaps the first signs of an effort to direct the written text of an unperformed play to a very particular audience endowed with a certain level of taste and education. 31 Frischlin ’ s attempt at audience redefinition is ultimately closer to the careful direction of Aristophanes ’ Clouds than the radical alteration of Aristotle ’ s Poetics, however, in that it does contain at least one important reference to a wider audience approaching something like that of Jeffrey Henderson ’ s actual audience. In naming his supreme spectator in the quote from the initial dedication above, Frischlin is careful to note that Rudolf II has only become fortunate enough to be receiving his Aristophanes because omnes mortales had unanimously deemed him worthy of presiding as spectator et iudex. So, although the number of named recipients among the notional audience is cut down tremendously from what existed in the source text through a careful process of selection and foreignization, the actual audience still exists conspicuously on the margins as an important factor deciding the success of the drama being presented, and in whose interests the official judges are expected to vote in approval or disapproval of a drama. 32 This conception of audience as implicit judges is actually in keeping with the spectator politics of the ancient Greek theater, inasmuch as they can be gleaned from the performance texts of Aristophanes. David Roselli notes that Aristophanes ’ attempts to subsume wider audiences into a smaller class of individuals who implicitly embody the entire receiving public, conspicuous in Clouds and readily embraced by Frischlin, reaches its natural limit in Frogs, where the character of Dionysus stands in for the generic spectator, and must make his judgments on behalf of the broader collective audience whose will he embodies. 33 This is essentially the position explicitly occupied by Rudolf II 30 Cox (1992) 99 - 113. 31 Revermann (2006) 13; Roselli (2011) 54. 32 Roselli (2011) 28. 33 Roselli (2011) 29 ff. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 119 in Frischlin ’ s conception of his audience, which is carefully constructed and made to receive and judge only those plays whose own conception of audience and its responsibilities is most compatible with Frischlin ’ s. This understanding of audience is thus at the same time representative of the most narrow and refined understanding of audience presented in the ST, while still being considerably less elitist and more aporetic than either the conditions of dramatic reception endorsed by Aristotle ’ s Poetics and the tradition it spawned, or the closed and didactic brand of dialogue that had taken hold in Frischlin ’ s Europe. Frischlin ’ s audience is depicted in this way because it is, like Dionysus, ultimately directly responsible, in a very real and practical way, for the welfare of the people on whose behalf it must judge the plays and discuss the issues they raise. In case there were any doubt left that his system of dedications and conception of audience was designed to idealize open and consensus-based government at the imperial level, Frischlin stresses this point one last time in his introduction to Plutus. Here he both explains the otherwise shameless practice of dedicating his work to different people (and thereby soliciting the financial support of many different patrons at once), and clarifies that his work is meant for a group of people who together hold responsibility for the Reich and its citizens: Neque est, ut aliquis vitio mihi vertat, quod singulas Comoedias consecro singulis: universas uni. Quae enim a me Caesari debentur universa, eadem debentur singulis aliis singula. Volo enim ut posteritas, si quae est futura, nunc olim videat, quorum hominum consiliis hic imperator sit usus, et quales in pace et bello negotiorum socios atque comites habuerit. 34 And it is not a vice, as another might reproach me with it, that I dedicate individual comedies to individuals, but the collected works to one man. For what I owe to Caesar as a collection, I owe the same things individually to individuals. For I would like posterity to see, if there is any to be, whose councils this emperor made use of, and what sort of allies and comrades he had in the businesses of peace and war. This statement, articulating the belief that these translations will demonstrate to future readers the political responsibilities and actions of those mentioned within its pages, attests to Frischlin ’ s conception of his translations as political documents designed to provoke dialogue about particular issues of importance to his nation. Before those particular issues are discussed at any great length, it is best to be acquainted with the participants in that dialogue, Frischlin ’ s notional audience. Frischlin ’ s dedicatees include many of the most important people connected to the Reichshofrat, the advisory body-cum supreme court which served the emperor in his capacity as emperor, and which gradually took on more of the responsibility for governing the empire in the years leading up 34 Frischlin (1586) 20 recto. 120 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations to the Thirty Years War. 35 The members of this body were likely chosen as dedicatees both for their very real and visible every day authority in matters concerning the governance of the empire, and especially for their collective importance, in cooperation with the emperor, in matters concerning the administration of imperial justice. This is in evidence from the very beginning of Frischlin ’ s translation, for when Frischlin refers to Rudolf II as the single most important iudex within the theatrum Romanii Imperii, he is, among other things, alluding to the emperor ’ s very real constitutional role as “ chief justice ” of the Holy Roman Empire. In fact it was partially to assert and strengthen the emperor ’ s judicial prerogatives with regard to this role that the Reichshofrat became more rigidly structured and forceful beginning in 1497. 36 Therefore many of Frischlin ’ s dedicatees, even those who are not officially members of the Reichshofrat, are explicitly singled out as legal scholars. This allows Frischlin to demonstrate the cooperative and consensus-based nature of imperial justice as a model to stand in opposition to the (supposedly) inbred corruption of the lesser, territorial courts that he had decried in the Oratio de Vita Rustica. 37 Such has already been noted in the case of Siegmund Vieheuser (Sigismundus Viheuser), the dedicatee of Frogs. Vieheuser had studied law and served both in the emperor ’ s Reichshofrat and in the Reichskammergericht, the complementary (and sometimes competing) imperial supreme court which answered to the Reichstag, 38 before being called upon to serve as Imperial Vice- Chancellor. As such, he was the man responsible for promulgating imperial laws, keeping records, and managing relationships and correspondences with both foreign powers and the emperor ’ s various fiefdoms. 39 Eager to gain the patronage of one of those “ qui a Poetis hodie accipiunt libros et carmina, et qui praemia illis iubentur decernere ab Imperatoribus, a Regibus, a summis Principibus [who today receive books and poems from poets, and who are commanded by Emperors, kings, and the highest princes to decree prizes to them] ” , Frischlin exhaustively lists Vieheuser ’ s judicial credentials and extensive legal training before praising him for his current good service in the private and imperial counsels of the emperor. 40 In this one dedication 35 The best and most succinct introduction to the constitutional role of the Reichshofrat and its evolution over time is Auer (2011). 36 Auer (2011) 65. 37 This, too, is explicitly singled out by Frischlin at Julius Redivivus II.4 [969 - 975] as one of the greatest aspects of the Empire, when Hermannus explains to Cicero that the disputes of the principes are now all settled by the communis judex at Speyer, i. e. the Reichskammergericht. 38 For a brief and useful introduction to the comparative roles of the two courts and their relationships with one-another, see Wilson (2004) 175 - 183. For more detailed analyses, see the articles in Sellert (1999). 39 Ehrenpreis (2006) 315. 40 Frischlin (1586) 229 verso - 230 verso. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 121 alone the imperial government is presented as composed of men possessed of education, good judgment, and experience in the imperial legal system on which Frischlin, like many others, was relying to secure his livelihood and proclaim his innocence in the face of (what he considered) aggressive and unjust persecution at the hands of the lesser territorial courts, particularly that of Württemberg. 41 This presentation is maintained in the other dedications. Acharnians is dedicated to Dr. Peter Obernburger and Dr. Andreas Erstenberger (D. Petrus Obernbergius, D. Andreas Erstembergius), whom Frischlin praises for their “ Iuris Legumque cognitio, cum longo rerum usu coniuncta [knowledge of the laws and of rights, joined together with ample experience of real issues] ” . 42 Both men served as highly-placed secretaries in the Reichshofkanzlei under Vieheuser, and both were destined within the year simultaneously to take up their official posts in the Reichshofrat. 43 As the logic of his system of multiple dedications already requires, this inclusion of two other legal experts reveals that the imperial government and its judicial organs, in addition to being just, learned, and experienced, is also necessarily collaborative. There is no doubt, however, that Vieheuser is more highly placed than the members of his staff Erstenberger and Obernburger. Not only did Vieheuser ’ s position as Vice Chancellor came also with ex officio membership in the Reichshofrat; in addition, he was also a member of the Geheimer Rat, the emperor ’ s Privy Council. This council, essentially a body of trusted experts gathered informally to advise the emperor personally, review the actions of the Reichshofrat, and recommend further actions and legal measures for issues of importance to the emperor and his various governments, quickly established itself as the real center of power and information at Rudolf ’ s court. 44 This body too, though small, elite, and possessed of tremendous supraconstitutional power, is carefully portrayed by Frischlin as a collaborative and democratic institution. The quotation from the dedication of the Plutus given above (n. 34), which details the collaborative nature of the imperial government as the reason for Frischlin ’ s scheme of multiple dedications, is not placed at the beginning of the translations by coincidence. Baron von Dietrichstein, the dedicatee of Plutus, wielded his substantial power, perhaps second only to that of the emperor, not through any of these more inclusive and constitutional bodies, but through his official post as head of the emperor ’ s personal court (Obersthofmeister) and president of the Privy Council. 45 The first of the individual dedications thus serves to minimize the tremendous personal authority of Dietrichstein by characterizing it as exercised in collaboration with many different people, all of whom ultimately 41 Strauss (1856) 239. 42 Frischlin (1586) 308 recto. 43 Ehrenpreis (2006) 111. 44 Hausenblasová (2002) 78 - 81. 45 Evans (1973) 40. 122 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations serve an emperor wise and just enough to rely on them rather than ruling autocratically. Although Frischlin ’ s portrayal of a round table-style government led by an Arthurian Rudolf II is almost certainly idealized, his insistence here on Dietrichstein ’ s collaborative work is, at least in some regards, true. As the later dedications demonstrate, Dietrichstein did not work alone on the Privy Council; rather, his position as its president required him to manage and interact closely and frequently not only with the members of that body, but with every aspect of the Reichshofrat and the other bureaucratic and administrative organs of the imperial court. 46 Ferdinand Hoffmann (D. Ferdinandus Hoffmanus), the dedicatee of Knights, held the title of Hoffkammerratspräsident, or President of the Exchequer. He stood outside of the collaborative councils, both public and private, but controlled the purse strings of many other government organs, and was tasked with managing and coordinating all of the emperor ’ s finances and expenses. Aside from the considerable influence that this position gave Hoffmann, and the considerable ability to help Frischlin financially, Hoffmann has another tremendous advantage as a dedicatee that more than compensates for his absence from the more powerful and collaborative councils of state on which the other dedicatees so far have had an important place. Unique among all the dedicatees, Hoffman was a protestant, and the scion of a proudly protestant family. 47 Hoffmann ’ s presence among Frischlin ’ s inner circle of viri principes Republicae thus portrays it as an open and religiously tolerant organization, willing to accommodate the personal religious views of anyone capable of serving his nation, and necessarily distinct from the rigidly orthodox Lutheranism of the court at Württemberg. This appeal to peaceful religious coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, provided they remained loyal servants of the emperor and the empire, is central to Frischlin ’ s attempt to walk a fine religious line between three very tense camps throughout his translations. This line was most difficult to maintain in the case of Clouds, whose particular violence against Socrates is justified largely by his dangerous and revolutionary kainotheism, his attempt to replace the old gods and the old religion of Athens with his own. In the confessional period in Germany, particularly after the violence of the St. Bartholomew ’ s Day Massacre, this message would be nearly impossible to detach from polemic against religious innovation. The dedication to Vieheuser, combined with Frischlin ’ s own status as a strict and devout Lutheran in public (if an utterly uncommitted layman in private), 48 urges us to read Clouds more cautiously. Frischlin was writing, after all, for an intellectual and religious milieu which, by and large, sought to avoid religious 46 Ehrenpreis (2006) 80 - 81; Hausenblasová (2002) 78 - 81. 47 Evans (1973) 153. 48 See Price (1990) 88 ff on the violent religious polemics of Frischlin ’ s Phasma, from which he struggled to distance himself later in his career, and which he made every effort to keep from reaching a wider public. Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations 123 conflict and tended toward the Irenist ideals of Frischlin ’ s own hero, Melanchthon. Most mainstream religious and political thought in the Reich up to roughly 1590, especially at the imperial court, wished for co-existence and sought to avoid religious polemic and religious violence whenever possible. 49 Clouds, then, is not a statement for or against any one religious sect, but against the sort of violent religious upheaval practiced by its villain, Socrates, whose insistence on conversion and the mockery of other belief systems represent the polar opposite of Melanchthonian Irenism. Of course, this state of affairs would not last forever. Within four years of this dedication Rudolf would turn hard toward dogmatic Catholicism as a test of loyalty and Hoffmann would be dismissed from court. 50 Nonetheless, there is no hint of any religious tension in Frischlin ’ s idealized picture of the imperial government in Prague. Not only does this suggest that there may be room for more Protestants at court; as an added benefit, this dedication to a well-known Protestant would also have helped Frischlin turn away the (ultimately justified) suspicions at home about his own dedication to Lutheran orthodoxy that were rising in the wake of his fairly overt attempts to win the emperor ’ s patronage. 51 Like Hoffman, the dedicatees of Clouds serve an immediate and practical, financial purpose for Frischlin, while still reflecting positively on the Imperial government and its functionaries, in this case both far and wide. Hans Cobenzl (Ioannes Cobenzelius) had a distinguished diplomatic career serving the imperial government as the single most important and powerful secretary in the Reichsvizkanzlei under Ferdinand I. 52 Johann Ilsing (Ioannes Achilles Ilsingius) likewise served as a trusted and loyal diplomat representing imperial Habsburg interests under Ferdinand ’ s successors, Maximilian II and Rudolf II. 53 Frischlin ’ s dedication to the two concentrates on these, the public services they have undertaken “ sub tribus Imperatoribus ” : he lists and obsequiously praises their work as ambassadors, legal counsels, and representatives of the Emperor to various government organs at home and abroad, including a dangerous diplomatic stint “ ad Turcicum tyrannum ” . 54 This allusion to the Turkish threat comes with good reason at the crescendo of a list of diplomatic missions undertaken by the two: the Ottoman threat was the single most pressing diplomatic issue faced by the Reich during these 49 Evans (1973) 82 - 113. 50 Evans (1973) 68. 51 Wheelis (1974) 43, 46 - 48. As Wheelis relates, Frischlin ’ s lack of especially rigid Lutheran conviction would ultimately be his undoing when in 1590, the same year in which Hoffmann was dismissed, a letter of his suggesting his willingness to convert to Catholicism in exchange for the support of the Imperial court was intercepted by the Protestant court at Stuttgart. 52 Gross (1933) 359. 53 Allgeimeine deutsche Biographie under “ Ilsing, Johann Achilles ” . 54 Frischlin (1586) 150 verso - 152 recto. 124 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations years. It fascinated and terrified the public and had professionally occupied both Cobenzl and Ilsing, the former even as an ambassador to Ivan IV ’ s Russia, which held out tremendous hope (and not a little curiosity) to the Habsburgs as a potential ally in the fight against the Ottomans. 55 The point of all of this is to highlight these men ’ s active participation in the most important and noticeable work undertaken on behalf of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century, to demonstrate their quality and their worth through their unflinching service to the idealized political entities of the Empire and the Emperor, the utopian Reichsidee 56 at whose service Frischlin wished to place himself and his translations. What is elided in Frischlin ’ s fulsome encomium of these two men ’ s imperial patriotism are their current positions. At the time of Frischlin ’ s dedication, only Ilsing was still serving the government of the empire, working as an imperial tax official, or Reichspfennigmeister, in Augsburg, a post which placed him in a very good position to help Frischlin financially. Hans Cobenzl was himself no longer even officially serving the imperial government in 1586. He had long since moved to Graz to work as Hofkammerpräsident for Rudolf II ’ s uncle, the archduke Charles II of Inner Austria (father of the future Emperor Ferdinand II). Frischlin is nearly silent on this one point, saying only in his initial listing of Charles ’ titles and responsibilities that he is “ S. Caesariae Maiestati, et Archiduci Austriae Carolo a secretioribus consiliis, in<t>eriorisque Austriae Praesidi iudiciario [Judicial Protector to His Caesarian Majesty, and to the Archduke Charles by his Private Councils and by those of Inner Austria] ” . 57 The potential financial benefits that this man can bring, as exchequer to one of the most important administrative divisions of the Habsburg lands, are passed over in silence. His service to one of the other branches of the Austrian Habsburgs here are mentioned in passing and only after his services to the Emperor. The unitary Reichsidee thus remains in place, and the mercenary motives of the dedications are carefully concealed. Knights By dedicating his translations to the most powerful people in the Empire, Frischlin is painting an idealized picture of the imperial government and its servants. He uses the individual plays to explore specific ways in which the different organs of that government can and should function to best serve the Respublica Germaniae, but he never attaches a deeply detailed and rigidly allegorical reading to any one play. This is best demonstrated by Knights, 55 Evans (1973) 75 - 6; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie under “ Cobenzl “ . 56 Evans (1973) 10 - 15. 57 Frischlin (1586) 150 verso. The printed reading “ inferiorisque ” , surely a typographical error, has here been corrected to “ interiorisque ” . Knights 125 whose very title would seem to lend itself all too readily to allegorical reflections on the place in Frischlin ’ s society of the often troublesome knights, a label applied broadly to the lesser (i. e. non-princely, owing fealty either to a territorial prince or to the Emperor himself) nobles of the Reich, 58 including those whom Frischlin was infamous for supposedly denouncing. However, as is so common in the topical allusions to be found elsewhere in the translations, Frischlin ’ s use of the knights as an allegory for the Ritter and lesser nobility of his own nation is perfectly clear, but largely devoid of specifics. He does not call for the abolition of the knights, nor does he at any point question their usefulness or right to exist as a social class with distinctive privileges and responsibilities. Rather, he calls them to action and, true to the spirit of the Oratio de Vita Rustica, he enjoins them, to paraphrase David Price, to live up to the patriotic and Christian responsibilities of their birthright by supporting the clearly stable and just government of their emperor, while at the same time commending the Emperor himself for pacifying his knights into a reliable bulwark of his rule. This is most clearly on display in a loaded passage in Frischlin ’ s dedication to the Emperor himself: Qui autem adversebantur ei [Aristophani], valebant ii quidem in senatu multum, sed civibus iucundi non erant; idque propter studium contentionis, et propter dissidia, quae ipsi movebant in Repub. Plebs enim perfuncta gravissimis seditionibus atque discordiis, otium malebat: et ordo equester novarum rerum non erat cupidus, sed sua tranquillitate, et dignitate optimi cuiusque, et universae Reipub. gloria delectabantur: sicut hoc videre est in Equitibus Aristophanicis. 59 However, those who opposed [Aristophanes] were very strong in the senate, though they were not agreeable to the citizens because of their zeal for contention and because of the discord that they sowed within the Republic. For the plebs had undergone a great deal of sedition and discord, and they hated the business. The knights, meanwhile, were not desirous of revolution, but instead took pleasure in their own tranquility, the dignity of the upper classes, and the glory of the universal Republic: so it can be seen in Arisophanes ’ Knights. Frischlin ’ s praise of the knights here as the enemies of Aristophanes ’ dangerous and rabble-rousing detractors is clearly directed only at a particular group of knights, the “ optimi ” , defined as those who value peace and the glory of their universal Republic, while despising violence, revolution, and their agents. Just in case there were any doubt about it, Frischlin makes the analogy between the knights of Aristophanes ’ universa Republica and those of his contemporary Respublica Germaniae as explicit as possible in his dedication of the Knights to Ferdinand Hoffmann, which is worth quoting at some length: 58 On the Knights and their position in the Reich, see LeGates (1970), Whaley (2012) 209 - 220, and Zmora (2011). 59 Frischlin (1586) 3 recto-verso. 126 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Equites ad te mitto, Generose et Illustris Baro. Nam tu ex illustrium Equitum familia es natus, et re equestri non minus clares quam re forensi: tu socerum quoque habes aurei velleris Equitem, Generosum illum et Illustrem Baronem, D. Leonhardum ab Harrach, Baronem in Rorau et Piecchenstein, S. Caesareae Maiestati a consiliis secretioribus: nec non fratrem Ioannem illum Fridericum Hofmannum, cuius fama universum prope terrarum orbem praeclaris in Ecclesiam et Rempubl. meritis nunc olim implevit. Sed quosnam equites? Athenienses, Generose Domine, viros nobiles, osores Cleonum et turbulentorum civium, amatores pacis et tranquilitatis, custodes salutis publicae, ac omnino tui perquam similes. Tu enim unus es, si quisquam alius, μύθων τε ῥητῆρ ἀγαθὸς πρηκτῆρ δὲ καὶ ἔργων , ut qui summis ornatus eloquentiae studiis, et varia multarum linguarum cognitione praeditus, tum iuris et legum peritia mirifice instructus, totum aulae Imperialis forum cum laude administras gubernasque. Nam iniuste oppressis opem fers legum praesidio, et improborum hominum conatus iuris et aequi habenis coerces ac remoraris. Itaque multorum hominum oculi in te solum nunc respiciunt, teque observant, et suas in te spes atque fiducias collocant: ii praesertim, quibus tu iam ante aliquod signum tuae pietatis, virtutis et sapientiae extulisti. Cum enim non desint hodie, qui nihil nisi de pernicie Reipubl. cogitent, tu certe is es, cuius consilia non turbarum et armorum, sed pacis et publicae tranquillitatis sunt socia. Quo etiam accedit animi tui magnitudo atque alacritas: ut qui non modo considerate et sapienter agas, quicquid agis, sed etiam animose et fortiter. Quapropter a me accipe, Baro Illustris, hosce Aristophanicos Equites, et contemplare in illis, quid Equestrem ordinem deceat in reprimendis, et legum repagulo cohibendis nostrae aetatis Cleonibus. Sed accipies isthaec aequo animo, et eodem, quo a me vides e Scenis Graecorum produci in Romana theatra. Nam invenies hic (nisi valde animi fallor) quam plurima, quae te de statu Reipubl. de praesidibus, de ordine Equestri, deque aliis rebus aut utiliter poterunt commonefacere, aut certe suaviter oblectare. 60 I am sending the Knights to you, my generous and illustrious baron. For you are the scion of a family of illustrious knights, and no less skilled for your equestrian skill than for your forensic skill. Your father in law is also a knight of the Golden Fleece, the generous and illustrious Baron Leonhardt von Harrach, Baron in Rorau and Piechestein, and member of His Caesarian Majesty ’ s Privy Council. And there is also your brother, Frederick Hoffman, whose fame, on account of his services to the Republic and the church, has spread across almost the entire world. But what knights am I sending you? Athenian knights, my generous Lord, despisers of Cleons and of restless citizens, lovers of peace and tranquility, guardians of the public welfare, and in every way similar to yourself. For you alone, more than anybody else, are truly μύθων τε ῥητῆρ ἀγαθὸς πρηκτῆρ δὲ καὶ ἔργων [ “ a good speeker of speeches and a doer of deeds ” ,Paraphrasing Iliad 9.443], since you are resplendent with the highest studies of eloquence, endowed with the knowledge of many languages, and also marvelously instructed in the knowledge of laws and justice, and you govern and administer the forum of the Imperial Court to great praise. For you bear the hope of the law ’ s protection to those who have been unjustly oppressed, and you check and rein in the schemes of unjust men with the restraints 60 Frischlin (1586) 79 verso - 80 verso. Knights 127 of justice and the law. And so many men now look upon you, they observe you, and they place their hope and their faith in you, especially those to whom you have already given some sign of your piety, virtue, and wisdom. For today we are not lacking in people who think only on the destruction of the Republic, but you are a man who takes to the council not of violent mobs, but of peace and public tranquility. To these praises should also be added the greatness and alacrity of your mind, since you do what you do not only in a wise and considered manner, but also strongly and with a sense of purpose. Wherefore I hope that you will accept these Aristophanic knights from me, my illustrious Baron, and that you will contemplate among them what it is appropriate for the equestrian order to do in order to check those Cleons of our time, hinder them, and close the doors to them. But you will receive these things from me with a fair spirit, and in the same spirit in which you see them being taken from the Greek scenes and brought forward by me onto the Roman stage. For you will find here, unless I am totally mistaken, many things which will be able to profitably warn you about the situation of the Republic, about its guardians, about the equestrian order, and about other matters; if not, they will at least be able to amuse you. What makes Hoffmann here an ideal knight in Frischlin ’ s eyes, and analogous to the knights of Aristophanes, is hopefully unsurprising by this point: he is learned in the law, and is able to use his legal training for the betterment of his Republica. Here, however, the dedication at least has a decidedly more specific, political, and for Frischlin, dangerous valence than the encomia of legal training and its benefits we have met in his work so far. By emphasizing both Hoffmann ’ s legal training and his direct subservience to the Emperor and the Imperial government as qualities ensuring tranquilitas and preventing dangerous res novae, Frischlin is praising the Emperor as the font and guarantor of justice for the entire Respublica Germaniae. As noted in the previous chapter, this deference to the Emperor as legal guardian has been suggested as the most likely reason that Frischlin ’ s reaction to the uproar surrounding the Oratio de Vita Rustica eventually cost him the support of the Duke of Württemberg. It was also the reason why, in the speech ’ s wake, Frischlin and his family were made unsafe at home because of frequent threats made by the nobility of every corner of the Empire: throughout the sixteenth century, the greatest danger posed to the lesser nobility of the Holy Roman Empire was the loss of status, power, and income threatened by the process of state-building and territorialisation. As realized by the dukes of Württemberg when they founded the Tübinger Stift in which Frischlin himself was educated, one of the surest ways to marginalize the restless and powerful nobles was to replace the traditional Germanic customs, which governed their relationships with one-another and with their feudal overlords, with a codified system of Roman Civil Law administered by trained professionals from every class rather than blue-blooded nobles with the sense of chivalry required to properly administer justice. Not only did this system successfully remove nobles from the legal decision-making process of the Empire and its various territories, it also threatened to regulate more strictly 128 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations their own feudal possessions, especially serfs, and their right to use them however they wished. 61 When Frischlin spoke up for tighter control of the lesser nobility by the Emperor, the knights who were to be subject to that control had just as much reason to feel threatened as did the princes who could potentially lose jurisdiction over their vassals and subjects. Ultimately, as the Knights ’ Rebellion of 1522 - 3 demonstrated, the lesser nobles of the Empire simply lacked the strength to maintain the teutsche Freiheit on which they insisted, and they eventually became subject to the jurisdiction either of the Emperor or of the various territorial princes. By Frischlin ’ s time the difference between these two groups was clear: the Reichsritter or Imperial Knights were immediately subject to the emperor as a feudal lord and were required to obey his laws above all others, whereas the landsässiger Adel or territorial nobility owed fealty to a territorial prince and the courts of his realm. 62 Once Charles V elevated them to Reichsunmittelbarkeit in 1529, the former would remain an important and unflinching source of financial and political support for the Emperor and the imperial constitution, and one which cost him almost no political capital, as the weakened status of the knights following the uprising left them in no position to insist on a voice in the Reichstag or the other organs of the Imperial government. 63 By dedicating his work to an Imperial Knight, then, Frischlin is endorsing the imperial constitution which maintained them, and which they unflinchingly supported. By emphasizing the good this knight in particular has done for the iniuste oppressi with his legal training and loyal service to the Emperor, Frischlin is concentrating his readers once again on the issues raised by his Oratio de Vita Rustica and by the other translations. The chief difference between this and the broad praises of legal learning to be found in the Oratio and in the other translations, is that here the justice in question, the ability to help the oppressed and maintain peace and order, are located exclusively in the organs of the imperial government, and not in the duces ac principes Germaniae, ipseque Caesar, whom Frischlin together evoked as authorities in 1578. 64 With this translation Frischlin crossed an important threshold he had been approaching for some time, and beyond which he could not expect to enjoy the patronage of any ruler other than the Emperor. The latter ’ s unwillingness to offer his protection after this obsequious step practically sealed Frischlin ’ s fate. What, then, are Hoffmann or other knights to do with this text? Frischlin ’ s dedicatoria carefully depict the play as valuable for the lessons it can teach people like Hoffmann about how to restrain the wickedness of the Cleones nostrae aetatis. In reality, however, it is largely pointless to ask who, exactly, 61 See Strauss (1986), Whaley (2012) 212, Zmora (2011) 290 - 291. 62 Whaley (2012) 210. 63 Whaley (2012) 218 - 219. 64 Frischlin (1580) 97. Knights 129 these Cleons are. Frischlin ’ s allegory does not go so far as naming names, and the supposed existence of Cleones nostrae aetatis seems to do little more than reiterate, in a frustratingly circular manner, the necessity of παρῥησιάζοντες poetae 65 to keep said Cleons in check. This is made evident also in the Occasio Fabulae, in which, in stark contrast to other translations, such as Frogs, the historical circumstances of the play are described in great detail, and the opportunity to domesticate the Cleon character with a referent sourced from the tumultuous political world of the Holy Roman Empire or the Habsburg lands is passed over in favor of careful historical explanation and an informative translation. 66 Cleon thus remains Cleon, and the reader is given to know only that as a demagogue, he could well stand in for any demagogue, ancient or modern. If not, as Frischlin ’ s dedication reminds Hoffmann, the play is at least amusing. In fact, Frischlin ’ s choice to translate Knights at all may seem somewhat baffling, if only because the play ’ s protagonist, the irredeemably corrupt and explicitly urban Sausage Seller, is the polar opposite of the Aristophanic Athenian farmer as the rural ideal of justice and temperance praised so fulsomely by Frischlin in the Oratio de Vita Rustica. 67 This is perhaps why his Occasio and dedication make no mention at all of the Sausage Seller, and focus instead on the Knights as the heroes of the play. This subtly skillful substitution allows Frischlin to maintain his insistence on the Imperial government and its functionaries as the true guarantors of justice, while at the same time backing away from the reputation he had already earned as an extremist rabble rouser, a zweiter Thomas Münzer in the same vein as Cleon. As it turns out, the title chorus itself is in no way unsympathetic to Frischlin ’ s broader concerns about the preservation and administration of justice, nor is it an exclusive or oppressive body. As Kenneth Dover has noted, part of the parabasis of the play (551 - 564) has Aristophanes ’ chorus of knights balancing carefully between praising the elite and aristocratic elements of the city population, and praising the demotic classes who manned the benches on the city ’ s triremes: hence they are careful to invoke Dionysus both as god of horses and chariot-racing, the traditional domains of the aristocracy; and as god of the ocean and those who sail upon it, the urban poor of Athens. 68 This single-minded concentration on the Knights as ideal citizens is ultimately untenable, as the role of the chorus is to support and encourage the efforts of the deplorable Sausage Seller, enemy of Cleon. Frischlin had to translate even those passages where the Sausage Seller is at his worst - namely, any scene involving him - and where the Knights were supporting him. Although his translation does make efforts to maintain the dignity of the 65 See the treatment of Frogs in Chapter III.. 66 Frischlin (1586) 81 recto - 82 recto. 67 On the characterization of the Sausage Seller, see Henderson (1991) 66 ff. 68 Dover (1972) 99. 130 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Knights and the unity of his messages concerning education and rhetoric, the very nature of the play ultimately renders these efforts futile. It is therefore instructive to take a close look at a passage from Frischlin ’ s translation of the agon between Cleon and the Sausage Seller, in which the two reprobates compete to prove who is the more rude, shameless, and despicable. This competition begins with a round of jeering and intimidation by the chorus of Knights (322 - 334), who summarize their opinion of Cleon and his opponent using words of tremendous weight and tremendous difficulty for Frischlin: ἆρα δῆτ᾽ οὐκ ἀπ᾽ ἀρ χῆς ἐδήλους ἀναί δειαν : ἥπερ μόνη προστατεῖ τῶν ῥητόρων ; ᾗ σὺ πιστεύων ἀμέλγεις τῶν ξένων τοὺς καρπίμους , πρῶτος ὤν : ὁ δ᾽ Ἱπποδάμου λείβεται θεώμενος . ἀλλ᾽ ἐφάνη γὰρ ἀνὴρ ἕτερος πολὺ σοῦ μιαρώτερος , ὥστε με χαίρειν , ὅς σε παύσει , καὶ πάρεση , δῆλός ἐστιν αὐτόθεν , ἐν πανουργίᾳ , τε καὶ θράσει καὶ κοβαλικεύμασιν . ἀλλ᾽ ὦ τραφεὶς , ὅθενπέρ εɩ ̓ σιν ἄνδρες , ο ἵπερ εɩ ̓ σί : νῦν δεῖξον , ὡς οὐδὲν λέγει , τὸ σωφρόνως τραφῆναι . Nonne primo statim Impudentiam tuam ex- -ercuisti, quae unica Omnium est dux rhetorum? Hac tu fretus, fructuosos decerpis nunc hospites, Cum sis praetor: Hippodami vero filius tuam Insolentiam videns, fere liquescit lacrymis. Verum equidem modo vir sceleratior Te, subito exoriens, refecit me, Qui te compescet, et adest: et hic praeclarus autor est In dolis, audacia, atque in assentationibus. Age tu, qui illic nutritus es, unde viri sunt, qui quidem sunt, Nunc ostende ut pro nihilo hic ducat, esse probe educatum. 69 Did you not, immediately, from the very start, Exercise shamelessness, which is the only Leader of all the rhetores? Trusting in this, you now pluck out fertile strangers As praetor; but the son of Hippadamus, Seeing your insolence, almost melted away with the tears. But just now a man even more loathsome than you, Arising suddenly, has remade me. He will restrain you, and now he is arrived: This man is an outstanding author in tricks, in audaciousness, and in flattery. Go on, you, who were nourished in the place 69 Frischlin (1586) 98 verso - 100 recto. Knights 131 Whence come the men who are men indeed. Demonstrate now that he can count it for nothing To be properly educated. Just as it did so frequently in the Byzantine Triad, Aristophanes ’ use of the word ῥήτωρ as a contemptuous catch-all for the corrupt and manipulative politicians and pleaders in the city of Athens presents Frischlin with a major dilemma. As demonstrated in Chapter III, Frischlin ’ s conception of rhetorical education and its uses will not allow him to concede that an orator, the most common and expected translation of the Greek ῥήτωρ , could be immoral or anti-civic. If the Knights are thus to be the perfect examples of educated and responsible nobility, then they cannot refer to a wretch like Cleon as an orator. Whereas elsewhere Frischlin chose to translate this word with a general term of reproach, such as improbus, here he has taken an alternative tack. Like the chief antagonist and protagonist, the word here is completely foreignized. An orator is a noble statesman, educated in the arts of rhetoric and eager to use them for the good of his country. A rhetor, however, just like Hippodamus and Cleon himself, is a phenomenon closely bound to a foreign culture. By simply transliterating the word, Frischlin has skilfully denied it and the dangerously anti-civic ideals it represents any equivalence for his modern audience. Although the term rhetor does appear alongside orator in the works of Cicero and Quintilian that inform Frischlin ’ s own conception of the art of rhetoric, it is the decidedly more Greek and foreignizing term. Cicero uses it of Greek speakers; 70 while Quintilian uses it in describing the origins of the current profession of rhetor, as a teacher of rhetoric at Rome, 71 and and then in describing the ars rhetorica, and how these two institutions differ from their earliest Greek predecessors. 72 When Cicero uses the term of a Roman, it is as a term of reproach for an immoral man who uses his rhetorical training to take advantage of others. 73 Frischlin has thus taken a further page out of the book of his ancient idols by using foreignization to place the term firmly in a Greek setting. He thereby removes any notion that an orator could be anything other than a vir bonus, dicendi peritus, or that the ideal noble of the Respublica Germaniae should praise the abuse of rhetoric as a desirable trait. The force of this careful foreignization is immediately negated in the final two lines of the Chorus ’ introduction. When the Knights encourage the Sausage Seller to force Cleon to realize the worthlessness of being welleducated, “ probe educatum ” , they have demonstrated the ultimate weakness of the play, whether for Frischlin ’ s purposes or Aristophanes ’ . The criticism of the play is entirely negative. As Jeffrey Henderson has noted in studying the uses of invective and obscenity in this play, the contest between the Sausage 70 See e. g. Tusc. 1116. 71 For this understanding of Rhetor in ancient Rome, see also Fantham (2004) 81. 72 Inst. 2.1. 73 See e. g. Flac. 20. 132 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Seller and Cleon within the play is nothing but a contest between two thoroughly reprehensible people with zero redeeming qualities. The task of the comic hero in this play is nothing more than to insult the figure of Cleon and his immoral corruption of political discourse using a figure even more foul and disgusting than Cleon himself. Although the contours of the argument are largely the same as those found in Clouds and Frogs - old versus new, traditional education versus rhetorical corruption and its negative effects on the city - the solutions found for those negative effects in Clouds and Frogs are completely lacking in Knights, and the rejuvenation of Demos at the end of the play is tacked on unconvincingly following the victory of a character whose sole virtue is a complete lack of virtue. 74 Because this surprising rejuvenation scene is the only part of the play with a truly positive political message, it will be necessary to examine its treatment in Frischlin ’ s translation before moving on. The most humorous example to be found in this passage at the play ’ s conclusion is also perhaps the most loaded with criticisms of Athenian rhetores and their sophistic corruptions. At 1373 the newly rejuvenated Demos briefly states that he will keep beardless (i. e. effeminate) 75 people from working in the agora. This stricture is met by a witty rejoinder from the Sausage Seller, who takes it as an opportunity to mock two of Athens ’ most infamous smooth-cheeked males. Following this interjection, Demos then takes six lines to clarify who he means, describing one important group who will be affected by his reforms, namely the wealthy and sophistic- (ated) young men who are enamoured of fine speaking and the sophistic analysis of rhetorical technique then supposedly corrupting the city. In parodying the haughty sociolect of these youths, Demos uses a markedly high number of adjectives in ικός , a sophistic innovation with a typicalizing and nominalizing affect much like that of the compound verbs in έω άω used by Socrates and his students in Clouds. 76 The effect of this is a humorous mockery of the detached and ostentatious language of the sophists and their followers at Athens, and a clear indication that the character Demos will not tolerate them any further, but will instead insist on meaningful discourse in important matters. This, of course, only holds true if the lines are given to Demos. As widely recognized today, this is indeed the preferable assignment of these lines, as it allows Demos to demonstrate his newfound vitality by clarifying what sort of person he will not tolerate, while still allowing Paphlagon to have a humorous line of interjection to mock some well-known contemporary figures. Frischlin, following the reading of the Aldine Editio Princeps and all subsequent editions up until Richard Brunck first suggested the correct assignation in 1783, 77 assigns these lines instead to the Sausage 74 Henderson (1991) 66 - 70. 75 Henderson (1991) 219 - 220. 76 Willi (2003) 139 - 145. See Chapter III on Clouds. 77 Brunck ’ s suggestion would not receive wide acceptance until the 1901 edition of J. Van Leeuwen. Knights 133 Seller, giving the closing shot, with its inventive and comic neologisms in ικός , to the chorus: Δῆ . οὐδ᾽ ἀγοράσει γ᾽ ἀγένειος οὐδεὶς ἐν ἀγορᾷ . Ἀλ . ποῦ δῆτα Κλεισθένης ἀγοράσει καὶ Στράτων ; τὰ μειράκια ταυτὶ λέγω τὰ ´ ν τῷ μύρῳ , (1375) ἃ στωμυλεῖται τοιαδὶ , καθήμενα : σοφός γ᾽ ὁ Φαίαξ , δεξιῶς τ᾽ οὐκ ἀπέθανε . συνερτικὸς γάρ ἐστι , καὶ περαντικός , καὶ γνωμοτυπικὸς καὶ σαφὴς καὶ κρουστικός , καταληπτικός τ᾽ ἄριστα τοῦ θορυβητικοῦ . (1380) Χο . οὔκουν καταδακτυλικὸς σὺ τοῦ λαλητικ ο ῦ ; Δῆ . μὰ Δί᾽ : ἀλλ᾽ ἀναγκάσω κυνηγετεῖν ἐγὼ τούτους ἅπαντας , παυσαμένους ψηφισμάτων . P O . Nemo imberbis post in foro versabitur. A G . Ubi ergo Clisthenes manebit et Strato? Hos dico adolescentes, unguentis illitos. Qui considentes haec verba assidue crepant: Sapiens est Phaeax, sed mortem non prospere Obivit: nam et membra apte scit connectere, Et terminare, formareque sententias, Et perspicuus est, atque in dicendo vehemens, Et adversus tumultuantem quam optime Praeoccupare animos auditorum potest. C H . Non tu hominem garrulum digitis praeoccupes? P O . Non per Iovem: sed hos omnes venerarier Cogam, et Senatus consulta intermittere. 78 P O . Afterward, nobody without a beard will go mincing about in the forum. A G . Where, then, will Cleisthenes and Strato stay? I mean these wee little annointed youths, Who sit together and constantly rattle off words like this: Phaeax is a clever one, but he did not, fortunately, meet with death. For he knows how to join clauses together well, How to end them, and how to formulate sententiae. He is clear and impetuous, and nobody knows as well as he How to take posession of his listeners ’ very souls. C H . Will you not cut that talkative man short with your fingers? P O . No, by Jove! But I will compel all these men to go hunting And to leave behind the conusltative decrees of the senate. By following a tradition which assigned these key lines to the Sausage Seller, Frischlin has provided ample testimony to the lack of importance or real gravity attached to this rebirth within the play ’ s structure. These are some of the new Demos ’ clearest pronouncements against the sophistic foolishness that Frischlin himself despised, yet they are not given to the character whose 78 Frischlin (1586) 147 verso - 149 recto. 134 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations change in attitude is supposed to embody the positive results of the comedy ’ s cutting criticism. Because he was only following the current texts in assigning these lines as he did, this cannot truly be called a meaningful editorial decision on Frischlin ’ s part. It is, however, indicative of the relative lack of importance that multiple generations had placed on the rebirth of Demos at the end of the play. Despite his undisguised interest in the political meanings of the play, Frischlin never mentions this miraculous ending as a vindicating feature of the play anywhere in his introductory materials, and he makes no effort to correct the textual tradition that had helped marginalize it. He, just like other scholars as far back at least as Marcus Musurus and Aldus Manutius, seem to have located the comedy ’ s appeal, political or otherwise, elsewhere. Where, exactly, Frischlin located this appeal, and hence his reasons for including the play in his translations, is not at first easy to identify. Given everything observed so far about Frischlin ’ s approach to this borderline nihilistic parody of Athenian politics, his inclusion of this text in his collection of translations is troubling, to say the least. It is, however, ultimately justified on two grounds. The first was detailed in Chapter I: the play is hilarious, even in translation. This is especially in evidence in the passage quoted above, where Frischlin goes to great lengths to produce an operative, humorous translation despite the near-complete destruction of sense caused by the line assignations and Frischlin ’ s apparent misunderstanding, or perhaps simple Bowdlerization, of the precise meaning of the final joke. The currently accepted assignation of lines has the Sausuage Seller round off the ridiculously bloated (and therefore humorous) list of sophistic rhetorical-critical adjectives in ικός by making use of his own inventive neologism to ask Demos if he isn ’ t καταδακτυλικὸς , or “ finger-downative ” to that “ bletherative lot ” , τοῦ λαλητικοῦ . The implied joke is deceptively simple and crass: the Sausage Seller is parodying the pointlessly obscure sophistic linguistic innovations to ask Demos if he wouldn ’ t just as soon prefer to extend his middle finger to men who use that sort of language - pathics deserving a pathic gesture. 79 Demos then responds that he will not, but will instead force them to engage in activities that will render them less malakos, such as hunting; and will remove their voting rights. Frischlin, on the other hand, completely removes the obscenity of the joke and places it in the mouth of the Chorus, who, in his translation, ask Demos if he will not please cut that “ talkative man - i. e. the Sausage Seller - short with [his] fingers ” . 80 This translation is perhaps a Bowdlerization, but it is no less humorous. The mechanism of the joke is maintained by the usage of language from the 79 Henderson (1991) 213. Compare Sommerstein ’ s (1981) brilliant translations of this exchange, which I have generously cribbed in my own explanation above: “ SAUSAGE- SELLER: So I suppose you ’ re give-the-finger-ative to that bletherative lot? ” 80 I am indebted to Prof. Martin Korenjaak for his help in explaining the meaning of this passage in translation. Knights 135 register of sophistic rhetorical criticism, particularly the rhetorically marked adjectives vehens, tumultuans, and perspicuus. 81 The expression which caps this sequence makes use of the verb praeoccupare as a connector in the high-register phrase “ preoccupare animos auditorum potest [he can take possession of his listeners ’ very souls] ” , which is quickly turned into something more like “ take possession of his very vocal chords, already! ” The humour of the passage is thus maintained, if softened and rid of obscenity; while the knights, Frischlin ’ s only real heroes, are briefly and slightly ennobled as a voice of reason trying to put a gag on the offensive Sausage Seller. This humor serves as the chief reason why, despite its lack of a coherent and positive political message to be found even by those desperately searching for one, the play took first place at the Lenaia of 424 B. C. E. Provided the audience is willing to laugh at its own faults, this play provides an abundance of the suavitas Frischlin cites as vindicating Old Comedy. That very willingness of Aristophanes ’ audience to laugh at itself is also, in and of itself, the bonitas which this play embodies. As Mercurius reminds his audience at the beginning of the Julius Redivuvs, faultless citizens and rulers need fear nothing from even the most acerbic poetic mockery, and “παρῥη σιάζοντες poetae [sic] ” will do nothing but good in a fairly-governed society. This is the one point on which Frischlin ’ s Knights stay true to his message, in his translation of the opening lines of the parabasis (507 - 511): εɩ ̓ μέν τις ἀνὴρ τῶν ἀρχαίων κωμῳδοδιδάσκαλος ἡμᾶς ἠνάγκαζεν , ἔπη λέξοντας γ᾽ ἐς τὸ θέατρον παραβῆναι : οὐκ ἂν φαύλως ἔτυχε τούτου : νῦν δ᾽ ἄξιός ἐσθ᾽ ὁ ποιητής : ὅτι τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν μισεῖ , τολμᾷ τε λέγειν τὰ δίκαια : καὶ γενναίως πρὸς τὸν τυφῶ χωρεῖ , καὶ τὴν ἐριώλην . Si quis veterum scriptorum, Comicus autor nos voluisset Isthaec carmina recitare, atque in vestrum prodire theatrum: Haud facile impetrasset: nunc noster dignus amore Poeta est: Quod eosdem nobiscum odit: et audet, quae sunt iusta, profari. Et forti animo vento venit advorsum, rapidaeque procellae. 82 If any comic author of the old writers had wished us To come forward into your theater and recite this song, He would hardly have gotten his wish. Now, however, Our poet is worthy of love, since he hates the same people as you And he dares to shout out all those things that are just. And so, with his mind, he goes head to head with a strong wind and blowing gale. 81 Perspicuus is especially frequent as a desired trait for an orator in training in the works of Cicero and Quintilian. See De Or. 2.329; Inst. 4.2, 8.1. An exhaustive list of vehemens as a literary critical term in Cicero and Quintilian would be almost impossible to provide, given the frequency with which the term appears. Typical examples of its use can be found at De Or. 2.73; Inst. 5.10. Likewise membrum: De Or. 3.190; Inst. 9.3. Finally, for tumultuans as a trait to be avoided, see Inst. 2.12, 7 pr., and 10.7. 82 Frischlin (1586) 106 verso - 108 recto. 136 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations Here the vestrum theatrum, with its possessive pronoun finding no equivalent in the facing Greek text, brings to mind Frischlin ’ s invocation of the Theatrum Romani Imperii, responsibility for which is collectively held by his dedicatees, and onto whose stage he is daring to bring his translations. At the same time, the procellae with which our brave poet is struggling bring to mind the procellae et tempestates through which Rudolf II was credited with steering the theatrum Romani Imperii. Frischlin ’ s translation is otherwise quite revealing of the limitations of Aristophanic comedy, and in particular of Knights. Aristophanes ’ political topicality is, at best, a stumbling block to later adaptation. In the case of Knights, where the political message is entirely negative and serves as little more than a platform for a nearly endless barrage of obscene jokes, that topicality itself is actually damning. Only by taking Aristophanes ’ chorus at its word, by believing and then repeating the tired line that the poet himself is somehow doing a great service to his society by bringing forth such a play, can the political validity of the play be maintained. The fact that Cleon was reelected as strategos immediately after Knights was produced should demonstrate well enough the limitations of this sort of extreme satire as serious political comment, as does the fact that Frischlin must grossly distort the character of the eponymous chorus in his politically charged dedications. Ultimately Aristophanes ’ knights simply cannot live up to Frischlin ’ s ideal, but they do not need to. The political context of the play itself is foreignized into irrelevance by Frischlin ’ s introductory materials and by his translation techniques. What is left intact, however, is an image of the Knights of Frischlin ’ s own nation as the sure foundation of justice and of a political order open and secure enough to welcome the biting criticism of a comic poet. The success of the play itself will depend on the ability of the comic poet to cause laughter, which Frischlin has proven himself capable of doing, in this play as elsewhere. Acharnians The same lack of specificity regarding current political issues is to be found in Frischlin ’ s treatment of Acharnians. As noted in previous chapters, the dedication to Acharnians is perhaps Frischlin ’ s most shameless attempt to gain money from his patrons. His dedication details the costs and the efforts involved in every step of bringing his book to the printer, and decries literary tastes that cannot appreciate a book as refined as his translations of Aristophanes. 83 When it comes to describing the context of the play in the Occasio, Frischlin is as painstakingly detailed as he is embarrassingly incorrect: after repeating Aristophanes ’ own humorous account of the origins of the Pelo- 83 Frischlin (1586) 306 verso - 308 recto. Acharnians 137 ponnesian War (wherein the kidnapping of Megarian prostitutes by the Athenians is met in kind by the kidnapping of Athenian prostitutes by the Megarians until the situation escalates beyond control), 84 he moves forward a number of years and reports that Acharnians was brought on Stage at the high point of the war as a satirical attack on the foolhardy Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 B. C. E. 85 Anyone searching for clues to a Sicilian allegory in Aristophanes ’ Acharnians may be somewhat confused by Frischlin ’ s insistence on it, as the island is not mentioned anywhere in the Greek text, nor are there any references, such as those often identified in Birds, to grandiose societal ambitions on a scale with those of the invasion of Sicily. Perhaps recognizing this, and undoubtedly knowing from Thucydides that Lamachus was to die during the Sicilian Campaign, Frischlin locates the allegory entirely in Aristophanes ’ mockery of the figure of Lamachus. This is most clearly stated in Frischlin ’ s Vita Aristophanis: Acharnenses post mortem Periclis, et cladem Siculam scripsit, cuius in eo dramate stultam pertinaciam, et insecuta mala proponit, ut hoc exemplo malos et plebem terreat, ne stultis ducibus, qualis fuerat Lamachus, belli summam et Reipublicae salutem committant. Quantam vero noxam Reipublicae dederit Lamachus, amisso exercitu in Sicilia, docuit exitus, stultorum omnium magister. 86 He wrote the Acharnians after the Sicilian disaster and the death of Pericles, whose foolish obstinance and evil consequences he brings on stage in that drama in order to terrify evil men and the common people with an example, so that they might never again entrust the supreme welfare of the Republic and of war to foolish leaders such as Lamachus. The end of the play shows what a great poison Lamachus, the master of all fools, gave the Republic when he lost the army in Sicily. If nothing else, Frischlin ’ s allegorical reading here points to a genuine need for caution in reading Aristophanes allegorically. When allegory is meant, Aristophanes will announce it plainly, as in Knights, where even an uninformed reader, and every single audience member, quickly realizes that Paphlagon is Cleon, or at least something more than a mere character named Paphlagon. By contrast, there is nothing more of the Sicilian Campaign in a play from 425 B. C. E. than there is in Birds, where Frischlin, putting his own spin on a great number of far-fetched modern ideas about the supposed allegory of the play, insists that Nephelokokuggia is a stand-in for the city of Dekeleia, which Aristophanes was supposedly urging his compatriots to fortify as the only remaining hope of victory following the disaster in Sicily. 87 84 Acharnians 524 - 534. 85 Frischlin (1586) 308 verso - 310 recto. 86 Frischlin (1586) 3 verso. 87 Frischlin (1586) 3 verso. For a brief introduction to modern allegorical readings of Birds, see Dover (1972) 145 - 6; Dunbar (1995) 3 - 4. 138 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations In the Occasio attached to the play itself, however, Frischlin tempers this allegory significantly, making Lamachus less of a stand-in for one particular military disaster at one particular time than a representative of the wickedness of war in general, and as opposed to the commoda pacis: In hoc enim bello duo duces Nicias et Lamachus, amissis quadraginta millibus hominum perierunt: sicut historiam huius belli recitat Thucydides lib. 6. Hinc occasionem traxit Aristophanes, ut praesentem scriberet Comoediam: in qua stulta Atheniensium consilia, et plebisciti Megarici immanitatem, ideoque totius belli incommoda proposito Lamachi interitu demonstrat, pacemque cum Lacedaemoniis ineundam suadet: commonstratis omnibus, quae pacem comitari solent, operibus et commodis. 88 In this war the two leaders, Nicias and Lamachus, having lost 40,000 men, died: thus Thucydides relates the history of this war in book 6. Aristophanes took from this an opportunity to write the present comedy, in which he demonstrates the foolish councils of the Athenians, the savagery of the Megarian decree, and, by displaying the fall of Lamachus, he also clearly shows the general calamity of the whole war and recommends peace with the Lacedaemonians. Once he has put all of this on display, he also shows the usual benefits of peace in its works and creature comforts. This reveals another, much more deft appreciation of Aristophanes ’ satire. The real strength of Aristophanic allegory lies in its adaptability. If every single play were tied to one, and only one, person, place, and time, then they truly would be too topical to be of any use to later readers or audiences. As an Athenian general known especially for his bravery, the emblem on his shield, and his participation in the Sicilian Campaign, Lamachus would quickly lose his appeal as a comic character once the real Lamachus had died in battle. This would be especially true in Athens, where, as Aristophanes himself realized, 89 audiences would likely not feel very inclined to laugh at the memory of the departed general or the troops who served under him. As nothing more than a stultus dux and a representative of arrogant, militaristic violence in general, however, Lamachus is a figure of near-universal currency. It is as such that Frischlin makes use of him, quickly drawing parallels between the destruction wrought by men like Lamachus on the hapless Athenian farmers, and the destruction brought by similar men on the hapless farmers of his own time and place. These parallels are once again heavily dependent on the Oratio de Vita Rustica. Whereas a reliance on Thucydides and Plutarch can place Aristophanes ’ play in a (false) historical context, Frischlin ’ s own frequent allusions to the farmers as the guardians of tradition and ultimately the party of peace is another excellent example of his astute ability both to understand the works of 88 Frischlin (1586) 310 recto. 89 Compare Aristophanes ’ portrayal of Lamachus after his death at Thesmophoriazusae 839 - 841, Frogs 1039. Acharnians 139 Aristophanes in their own context, and to adapt their content to an entirely new context. As the previous studies of Clouds and Frogs have hopefully helped demonstrate, Aristophanes always represents his farmers, whether Dicaeopolis, Chremes, Trygaios, or even Strepsiades, as citizens fighting for sensibility, fairness, and peace in a world corrupted by urban sophistry and torn apart by war. 90 Frischlin himself cites Aristophanes ’ most uncomplicated and flattering views of farming and farmers in the Oratio de Vita Rustica, summarizing the agricultural life succinctly with a Latin translation of a fragment from Aristophanes ’ second Peace extant in the Florilegium of Stobaeus: “ Qua de causa Aristophanes in veteri comoedia Agriculturam pacis nutriculam, promam, administram, filiam sororemque nominat [Wherefore Aristophanes, in Old Comedy, calls Agriculture the wet nurse of peace, the steward, servant, sister, and daughter of peace] ” . 91 Despite this uncomplicated view of the rustic life, those who live it in Aristophanes are nevertheless slightly more difficult to pin down with unequivocal praise. After all, the Aristophanic corpus contains both the simple and noble farmers of Peace, who want nothing but tranquility and a return to their rural demes; but also the scheming Dicaeopolis and Strepsiades, as well as the stubborn and initially belligerent Acharnians. When he cites the Athenian farmers in the Oratio, he does not mention the farmers of Peace or any desire for the peace supposedly attendant upon rural life. Instead he alludes specifically to the farmers of Acharnians, whose longing for their rural existence is tinged with a certain bitterness about the demands of the urban life that has been forced upon them: Hinc est, quod in veteri Comoedia rusticus affirmat, urbem se odisse, quoties agrum intueatur: semperque rus suum se expetere: propterea, quod nunquam ei dicat: I carbones emtum, acetum, obsonium, oleum: sed isthaec omnia producat ut agricolae nihil emendum sit. 92 This is why in Old Comedy the farmer affirms that he hates the city whenever he looks out at the field, that he always longs after his countryside, since it never would say to him, ‘ go and buy charcoal, vinegar, vegetables, and olive oil ’ ; rather, it would produce all of these things itself, so that the farmer would have to buy nothing. 90 For a good introduction to the farmers in Aristophanes ’ picture of Athenian society, see Ehrenberg (1951) 73 - 94. 91 Frischlin (1580) 112; Aristophanes fr. 294. The Florilegium of Stobaeus, which was incredibly popular and went through multiple different editions in the sixteenth century, is the obvious source for this quotation. In writing his speech about the rustic life, Frischlin would certainly have looked under the heading “ agricultura ” in Stobaeus to find easily both this quote and that given below in N. 87. The 1543 dual-language edition of Conrad Gessner is given in the Bibliography, though Frischlin could have used any number of reprints and new editions in circulation up to 1578. 92 Frischlin (1580) 108. Compare Dicaeopolis ’ opening monologue in Acharnians 28 - 36. 140 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations This bitterness is enlarged upon, and the complicated view of the belligerent farmers of Acharnians as, at best, a mixed blessing for the cause of peace is given full due in the Occasio attached to the play. After describing the destruction of their land and crops as a particularly cruel and deliberate move on the part of the Spartans, and the restlessness and anger it caused in Athens, Frischlin goes on to describe how, even years later and despite yearning for a return to their fields, the Acharnians still could not easily be won over to the pacifist camp: Cum autem multis ultro citroque cladibus illatis bellum in tam longum duceretur, multi cives desiderio agrorum et tranquillitatis publicae, arma detestabantur: quanquam plures initio, inter quos erant Acharnenses praecipui, vindictam expectant, ut acceptas clades in hostibus ulciscerentur. Senatus vana spe populum lactabat: de pace nihil consultabat: sed tantummodo magnificis promissis, de affuturis Regum auxiliis plebem deliniebat. 93 But when the war had gone on for a very long time with many disasters on every front, many citizens began to despise warfare and to long for their fields and for a common peace. Still there were some in the beginning, and among them the Acharnians featured prominently, who wanted vengeance so they could avenge the damage the enemy had inflicted on them. The senate cajoled the people with this vain hope and took no council for peace, but they kept making the people think about the magnificent promises, about the kings ’ help, which was sure to come. In the view Frischlin presents to his notional audience and to his wider circles of readers, the Acharnians are not simple, pure-hearted examples of the idyllic rural life to be admired. They are rather, like Strepsiades and the downtrodden vulgus of the Plutus, victims of circumstances imposed upon them by unequivocally unscrupulous military and political leaders. The point of this depiction is that, although the mindless hawks and the representatives of urban corruption can be drawn in broad, uncomplicated strokes, for Frischlin, the farmers of Aristophanes cannot. Trygaeus and his chorus of Greek farmers would be of little use for a man on a mission to describe how difficult circumstances and unfair situations had made fair ends nearly impossible for the humble to accomplish without the use of foul means. These means were threatened in the Plutus as a sudden outbreak of sedition and a loss of cultus religionis. These means were demonstrated in Clouds in Strepsiades ’ scheming and violent solution to the anti-civic tendencies of Socrates. They are threatened again in Acharnians, where only radical, imaginative actions can win over a populace of bitter farmers betrayed by their leaders. The humorous aspects of these actions were treated extensively in Chapter II, which focused on Frischlin ’ s ability to create functional translations of humorous passages in such a way as to maintain the appealing aspects - the 93 Frischlin (1586) 310 recto. Acharnians 141 suavitas - of the plays. This is especially evident in the scene in which Dicaeopolis borrows props from Euripides, becoming himself the playwright, actor and director in a play designed to bring the Acharnian farmers over to his side. This scene demonstrates the most vital aspect of Frischlin ’ s complicated farmer characters, in that it is only one of many scenes in the play that establish Dicaeopolis as the internal playwright, an identity central to Frischlin ’ s efforts to validate the comic criticism of “παρῥησιάζοντες poetae “ . Even when not acting in a clearly metatheatrical manner, Dicaeopolis maintains an identity throughout as a critical comic voice deflating the pretentions of a dysfunctional system and its agents. This identity, central as it is to the identity of any comic hero, is ubiquitous in the play. For example, in the very beginning of the play, Dicaeopolis ’ loud objections and crass bodily noises disrupt and deny cooperation to a completely dysfunctional meeting of the Athenian ekklesia, much the same way that Aristophanes ’ own hiccupping and sneezing disrupts and denies cooperation to the pretentious and self-aggrandizing speech of Eryximachus in Plato ’ s Symposium. At two different points Dicaeopolis even has the distinction of being the only Aristophanic character (i. e. not a member of the chorus) to speak in the authorial voice as Aristophanes himself, a distinction which has led many modern critics to believe that the character was, in fact, played by Aristophanes. 94 This close and consistent authorial/ metatheatrical identity is not lost on Frischlin, who takes note of Dicaeopolis ’ musings against Cleon as if they were all the musings of Aristophanes himself, 95 and who consequently understands the character of Dicaeopolis as the very embodiment of a “παρῥησιάζων poeta ” . This identity of Dicaeopolis allows us to understand the real utility of this play for Frischlin. There are no clues provided as to how we might allegorically read the character of Cleon onto Frischlin ’ s own time, no statements about the Peloponnesian War that can be easily read onto the military situation of the Holy Roman Empire at this time. In this sense Acharnians is very much akin to Knights in Frischlin ’ s understanding. The play deals almost entirely with the broad concepts that concern Frischlin, but not at all with the specifics. The occasio presents the play as another good example of the injustices inflicted upon just farmers by military leaders and corrupt politicians. The dedicatoria, rather than aligning these issues allegorically with more specific contemporary issues, as in Knights, focus instead very broadly on the worth - both literal and metaphorical - of literature, and especially of comedy. Both of these issues are prominently on display throughout the play, but there is very little by way of politics for the translator to highlight within the play itself. There was also very little need at this point, 94 For an excellent summary of these scenes, see Slater (2002) 55 ff. 95 Frischlin (1586) 1verso - 2recto. 142 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations as Frischlin had already specifically politicized the farmers of Acharnians in the Oratio de Vita Rutica in 1578. What was lacking in Frischlin ’ s evocation of the play in 1578, however, was any real context, any real understanding of the situation of these peasants or the lengths to which they were willing to go. With the whole play now Latinized, that context was finally made available. The complex and difficult situation of the peasants and the turbulence brought upon the entire civic body by their mistreatment are not cut short in this presentation, but neither is the single most hopeful solution to the problems facing that society. In their desperation the peasants have created a comic poet brave enough to speak the terrible truth (497 - 501): μή μοι φθονήσητ᾽ ἄνδρες οἱ θεώμενοι , εɩ ̓ πτωχὸς ὢν , ἔπειτ᾽ ἐν Ἀθηναίοις λέγειν μέλλω περὶ τῆς πόλεως , τρυγῳδίαν ποιῶν : τὸ γὰρ δίκαιον οἶδε καὶ τρυγῳδία . ἐγὼ δὲ λέξω δεινὰ μὲν , δίκαια δέ : Ne invideatis mihi spectatores optimi Quod mendicus cum sim, apud Atheniensium Populum dicturus, de statu Reipublicae Trygoediam facio. Nam justum quid siet Et fas homini novit etiam Trygoedia, Ego quidem gravia dicam, sed justa hic tamen. 96 Don ’ t look down on me, wonderful spectators, Although I am a begger, about to speak In the presence of the Athenian people On the state of the Republic, and I am making a Trygedy. For Trygedy, too, knows what is just and lawful for man, And I will speak here serious matters, to be sure; but just, all the same. In Frischlin ’ s translation of these lines the position of the finite verbs and the participles are switched to great effect, creating a change in emphasis that is subtle but important. In the ST it is Dicaeopolis ’ speech which concerns the state of his audience ’ s (both internal and external) city. In the TT it is the trygoedia itself which is being made de statu reipubliae by the internal playwright and stand-in for Aristophanes/ Frischlin. The power to speak about public matters is thus taken away from speakers addressing an audience, reliant as they are on deceptive sophistic rhetoric and the ridiculous tricks of Euripides ’ prop department, 97 and placed firmly in the hands of comic poets. 96 Frischlin (1586) 335 verso - 337 recto. 97 Slater (2002) 42 - 67 provides an excellent treatment of Aristophanes ’ / Dicaeopolis ’ denunciation of sophistic rhetorical tricks through the person of Euripides. Acharnians 143 Frischlin ’ s Approach to the Politics of Dramatic Reception Simply put, there are very few specifics to Frischlin ’ s political polemics in his translations of Aristophanes. The message he encodes is done at the macrolevel, not the micro. It is omnipresent, as this chapter has hopefully demonstrated, but it does not include clear one-to-one analogies or calls for any particular legislation or reform that are detectable in any way today. Without Frischlin ’ s introductory materials, his translations are mostly just that: translations. Good translations with a healthy dose of humor and a slight bias in favor of certain readings, but translations. With their introductory materials, the dedications, occasiones, vita, etc., they articulate an idealized method of reading Aristophanes and putting his plays to use. This method is closed to a small group of important men, and as such is representative of the very closed nature of dialogue literature in general. However, neither this strict circumscription of the notional audience nor the lack of political allegory obviously present in the translated play texts render the translations politically meaningless. Frischlin is careful to describe why, exactly, he has chosen the dedicatees he has, and he is careful to assign them a hierarchy of importance. This hierarchy leads always back to the emperor, and to a close circle of men on whom he relies for help in the cooperative and open process of governing the Respublica Germaniae. Once again we find that a great deal of the meaning of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes depends heavily on a particular intertextual relationship: a proper understanding of the importance of these dedications is, like much of the political force of Frischlin ’ s translations, dependent on the audience having some familiarity with the polemics of the Oratio de Vita Rustica, specifically with its call for more centralized imperial oversight of judicial processes throughout the Holy Roman Empire, and with its call for the inclusion of poets and playwrights as a critical check on the power of these governmental organs. It goes without saying that the more immediate reason for Frischlin ’ s dedications to this particular group of people was his hope of gaining imperial patronage, and thereby of serving as court Aristophanes to Rudolf II. Frischlin was not misguided in believing this was possible, given the readiness with which Rudolf II extended his patronage to every manner of accomplished Latin poet, and the rate at which the ever-expanding Imperial administration was taking on new staff educated in the humanities. 98 Ultimately, however, the naivety of Frischlin ’ s ideals doomed his attempt to gain a seat at the Imperial Court. This can be seen in several different aspects of his translations. For one, his dedication of Knights to Ferdinand Hoffmann, a staunch Protestant, represents a serious misunderstanding of the rapidly shifting religious situation at the Imperial Court. As noted above, Hoffmann would be dismissed from his position within four years as Rudolf II took a 98 See Evans (1973) 147 - 8; Whaley (2011) 312. 144 Nationalism and Politics in Frischlin ’ s Translations hard turn toward Tridentine Catholicism as a test of loyalty. The tensions which would lead to the Thirty Years War were seething beneath the surface in Prague, and by idealizing a Protestant as a true and loyal servant of the Emperor, Frischlin found himself expressing views which were rapidly becoming unpopular, and even treasonous. The dedicatee of Frogs, Frischlin ’ s strongest supporter and initial connection to the Imperial Court, Sigmund Vieheuser, 99 would die within a year of the publication of the translations. Once he was dead he was vilified as a tyrant and inept leader by his former staff at the Reichsvizkanzlei, including Andreas Erstenberger, one of the dedicatees of Acharnians. 100 This was another change in the political winds which Frischlin could not have foreseen when he wrote his fulsome dedication to Vieheuser in 1586. Unbeknownst to Frischlin, Erstenberger himself would also never have found his idealization of a religiously tolerant and open government appealing. In 1586 Erstenberger anonymously published his own tract, the De Autonomia, in which he viciously attacked protestant claims on individual religious freedom, and denounced the supposed Protestant attempt to usurp Catholic authority in the Empire. 101 Ultimately, the collaborative government which Frischlin presents for us is simply unrealistic. Rudolf II was becoming more autocratic and more dogmatically Catholic with each passing day, and the power of those councils and bodies which did not answer directly to him was quickly being eroded by this trend. At the close of the 16th century, especially after the death of Vieheuser, Frischlin ’ s dedications, with their insistence on the image of Rudolf II as a politique presiding over an open and democratic government, came dangerously close to looking like satire themselves, and his bid for Imperial patronage was doomed to be unsuccessful. His translations, on the other hand, could be successfully detached from the already rather broad political polemics of his edition of Aristophanes. Separated from their dedications and occasionally from their introductory materials, they remained popular at European presses well into the 18th century. The following chapter will examine the lasting impact of these translations in the further reception history of Aristophanes once they, like their ST, had been divorced from the immediate temporal and political context in which they had been produced. 99 Strauss (1856) 236. 100 Gross (1933) 23. 101 See Ehrenpreis (2006) 34 - 5; Fuchs (2012) 73 - 4; Schulze (1998) 129 - 137. Frischlin ’ s Approach to the Politics of Dramatic Reception 145 Chapter V The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes Frischlin ’ s translations had a lasting impact on several aspects of the reception of Aristophanes long after all of his own dedicatees, supporters, and enemies had died. This is largely due to the success of Frischlin ’ s translations in foreseeing and understanding the expectations of a new generation of readers and audience members. This chapter will therefore focus on four aspects of Frischlin ’ s approach to Aristophanes, which have been singled out for study as being the most important for securing the lasting impact of his translations in the reception history of Aristophanes. In particular, these are Frischlin ’ s ability to meet the requirements of a new breed of European academics, his ability to understand and embrace the political nature of Aristophanic comedy in a timely way, his ability to find a middle path for the measured appreciation of Aristophanic obscenity, and finally, his ability to combine all of these current trends in a manner that could easily be made accessible to a widening audience of non-academics eager to appreciate the didactic and entertaining qualities of Aristophanic comedy. Frischlin and the Developing Academic Aristophanes There is enough evidence for us to say with some certainty that Frischlin ’ s translations had a lasting impact on perceptions of Aristophanes, at least among an academic public: while other editions of Aristophanes, such as those of Lambertus Hortensius, were never reprinted or show up only rarely in subsequent library catalogues or bookshop registers, Frischlin ’ s translations were reprinted by the same press only eleven years after the initial run, in 1597. Given the tremendous financial outlay required to print a book in the first place, no publisher in the sixteenth century would risk financial ruin by printing a second edition of a work that had proven impossible to sell, and so this second edition is perhaps the best indication we have that Frischlin ’ s translations were popular with the book-buying public. 1 This conclusion is borne out by all other available evidence. While the translations were frequently reprinted in various editions and collections at least as late as Ludolf Küster ’ s 1710 edition of Aristophanes ’ complete works, copies of Frischlin ’ s 1586, 1597, and eventual 1625 edition circulated widely throughout Europe, remaining particularly popular in Germany, where they are frequently to be found in many university catalogues today, often alongside the 1 See Pettegree (2010) 65 - 90 and passim. Olms facsimile reprint used during the writing of this book. They remained readily available and comparatively accessible, and copies can still be found as far flung as North America, New Zealand, and Waseda University, Japan. Naturally the instantly accessible global library catalogues of the information age may give the mistaken impression that nearly any work is popular and beloved worldwide, yet this impression is borne out in Frischlin ’ s case by nearly every other witness of every previous age. Thus, although Joseph Moss could, by 1825, call the 1586 and 1597 editions “ rare ” finds for the collector or “ Tyro in Bibliography ” , he quotes other collectors on the frequent availability of the 1625 reprint, and is able to list a number of more affordable and available later editions of Aristophanes and collections of classical scholarship which either make use of Frischlin ’ s translations in their entirety, or gladly excerpt different portions of his introductory material. 2 In short, Frischlin created an approach to Aristophanes that remained popular well into the 18th century, and one whose impact is in need of careful and serious consideration. Only three years after Frischlin ’ s translations were first published, a Huguenot humanist named Florent Chrestien (Florens Christianus) produced a copiously annotated interpretatio of Peace “ latinorum comicorum stylum imitata et eodem genere versuum cum graecis conscripta [in imitation of the style of the Latin comics, and with the same type of verses, written together with the Greek] ” . 3 Though he nowhere alludes to Frischlin as an inspiration for this work, the similarities between the two approaches to Aristophanes in translation are difficult to miss, not least of all in Chrestien ’ s adaptation of Frischlin ’ s unprecedented metrical structure and act/ scene divisions. 4 Furthermore, in producing what would ultimately amount to three such Latin translations, Chrestien never attempted to translate a play already translated by Frischlin, choosing instead to produce similar new versions of Wasps and Lysistrata to complement his Peace and the previous translations of Frischlin, with which they would be paired in popular composite editions in 1607, 1624, 1670, and 1710. 5 All of these editions provide valuable insights into the position of Frischlin ’ s translations within the reception history of Aristophanes. The first of them, the 1607 bilingual Geneva edition of Aemilius Portus and Edouard Bizet de Charlais, demonstrates the immediate impact that Frischlin ’ s translations had within less than twenty years of their publication. In addition to using Frischlin ’ s translations and the similar translations of Chrestien, the version also includes in toto Frischlin ’ s own vita Aristophanis, his Defensio Aristophanis contra Plutarchi Criminationes, his translation of the 2 Moss (1825) vi, 93 - 94. 3 Chrestien (1589) title page. 4 For an overview of Chrestien ’ s translations in their historical context, see Jacobsen (1973) 153 - 156. 5 For a list of the collected translations, see Giannopoulou (2007). 148 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes compendium of Plutarch ’ s comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, his essay De veteri comoedia eiusque partibus, his acrostic hypotheses, and his occasiones for the various plays. Thus not only had Frischlin ’ s means of translating Aristophanes caught on with humanist audiences, his means of reading, understanding, and where necessary, excusing Aristophanes were also still seen as valuable to succeeding generations of scholars. These editions also contain important witnesses to the fact that Frischlin, though clearly an important milestone in the reception of Aristophanes, was not the only critical voice guiding readers ’ understanding of the plays in the decades after he translated them. Rather, his own radically new and thorough means of rehabilitating Old Comedy was only made possible by the work of a number of scholars, many now almost forgotten, who had laid the groundwork for an ethically and poetically acceptable means of appreciating the works of Aristophanes. One of these scholars was the Italian humanist Lilius Giraldus (Lilio Gregorio Giraldi, 1479 - 1552), well-known to contemporaries and later humanists, especially for his Historiae Poetarum tam Graecorum quam Latinorum Dialogi Decem, printed in 1545 and possibly begun as early as 1503. 6 The portion of this work dealing with Aristophanes was appended to the 1670 dual-language edition of Aristophanes “ ne sequentes pagellae frustra vacarent [lest the following pages be blank for no reason] ” . Giraldus ’ statements about Aristophanes in this dialogue prefigure those of Frischlin in many ways, demonstrating an important and developing shift in opinion from the same time immediately after Andreas Divus ’ 1538 edition first whetted the ever-growing appetite of a Latinate public for the complete plays of Aristophanes, and precisely coincident with the 1545 Italian translations of the entire Aristophanic corpus by Bartolomeo and Pietro Rositini. Though Giraldus does not attempt any kind of systematic defense of Aristophanes, such as that undertaken by Frischlin, he does find many grounds on which to praise the comedian in terms familiar from Frischlin ’ s introductory materials. For example, Giraldus is insistent on portraying Aristophanes as an author determined to use his comic criticism against his society ’ s reprobates, those whom Frischlin labels, in a passage similar enough to seem a paraphrase, the seditiosi ac turbulenti: “ vir vero factus malos adeo est insectatus, ut nec proceribus ac reipublicae principibus pepercerit, nec Cleoni ipsi, qui ea tempestate tribunus plebis patriam suppilare dicebatur [but he became a man who pursued the wicked to such an extent that he spared neither the princes nor the nobles of the republic, nor even Cleon himself, who at that time, as tribunus plebis, was said to be fleecing his country] . . . ” . 7 The benefits of this criticism of Athenian mali are clearly spelled out by Giraldus in a way seemingly calculated to respond to Plutarchan 6 Grant (2011) xiii - xv. 7 Giraldus (1545) 812. Cf. Frischlin (1586) Praef. 2 verso - 3 recto. Frischlin and the Developing Academic Aristophanes 149 criticisms that Aristophanes ’ lewd comedies are aimed only at philistines lacking in the aristocratic virtue of μετριότης : 8 Hinc adeo Aristophanes ab iis qui Rempub. administrabant timebatur, ut mediam quandam vivendi viam sectarentur, ne in eos videlicet ille styli aciem verteret (nam hoc ipso tempore legem promulgavit Alcibiades, ne comici proprio quemquam nomine in fabulis insectarent) in Comoediis. 9 For this reason Aristophanes was so feared by those who administered the Republic, that they sought to follow a sort of golden mean of living, lest he turn the barb of his stylus, as it were, against them with his plays (for at this very time Aclibiades promulgated a law forbidding comedians to attack anyone by name in their plays). When it comes to explicitly refuting Plutarch ’ s damning criticisms of Aristophanes, however, Giraldus is winkingly silent. His interlocutor, also named Lilius, mentions Plutarch ’ s compendium directly only as an excellent place to find a listing of some of Aristophanes ’ funniest jokes: “ Quales vero illius sint sales et argutiae, nullibi melius est legere quam in libello Plutarchi, qui inscribitur epitome seu compendium comparationis Aristophanis et Menandri, in quo de utriusque differentia multa [The quality of his wit and sagacity can be read nowhere any better than in Plutarch ’ s booklet, which is called ‘ an epitome or summary of the comparison of Aristophanes and Menander ’ , in which many things about the difference between either author] . . . ” . At this point the subordinate clause is left incomplete. The reader is teased into believing that Lilius is about to clarify much of what Plutarch actually said, and, in the process, is going to say many unequivocally negative things about Aristophanes. Instead, Lilius is interrupted by another interlocutor, Piso, who cuts right past the criticism and praises that most important aspect of Aristophanes which is wantonly ignored (or perhaps simply misunderstood) by Plutarch, namely the great pleasure he provides his reader: “ Ego vero, inquit Piso, aliquas istius poetae fabulas praelegentem Demetrium audivi: mirum est quantum sim ea lectione delectatus [ ‘ Indeed ’ , said Piso, ‘ I heard Demetrius reading through some plays of that poet. It was amazing how much I was pleased by that reading ’ ] ” . 10 Here Giraldus forcibly reorients the discussion away from Plutarch ’ s narrow, elitist definition of what is appropriate in comic diction, and toward the end of that radically mixed diction itself, the production of risus and the ability to bring pleasure to a listener. This, even more than Frischlin ’ s case-by-case refutation of Plutarch ’ s criticisms, represents a major dethroning of Plutarch as an authority in this issue. More importantly, it tells us that when Frischlin went on to make a case for suavitas itself as one of Aristophanic comedy ’ s chief goals and greatest virtues, he was preaching to the choir, for he was doing so for an audience that was 8 Moralia 854D. 9 Giraldus (1545) 813. 10 Ibid. 150 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes already prepared to reach the same conclusion some forty years earlier. As translations of Aristophanes became more popular, it was simply becoming impossible to pretend that his comedies had to be appreciated according to the strictures of a critic such as Plutarch. In one important area, however, Giraldus falls well short of Frischlin ’ s defense of Aristophanes. In discussing Clouds, Giraldus laments Aristophanes ’ abuse of Socrates, citing it ultimately as the one and only reason that he cannot give an unqualified recommendation of Aristophanes ’ work. He does, however, at least realize that this is an issue, and one which needs addressing if praise of Aristophanes is to stand up to the most obvious and predictable scrutiny. Rather than disowning the Clouds altogether and simply letting the question lie there, Giraldus goes on to assert that, despite impudentissime slandering Socrates in the Clouds, Aristophanes is still worthwhile. In support of this idea he is able to cite none other than Plato himself, first by repeating the story found only in one of the later Byzantine vitae concerning Plato ’ s recommendation of the texts to Dionysius of Syracuse as a guide to Athenian political life, 11 and then by drawing his own conclusions from this anecdote: “ Platonem ego certe crediderim poematis perfectionem, non autoris crimina commendasse [I certainly believed that Plato approved of the poem ’ s perfection, but not the crimes of the authors] ” . 12 This full admission of Aristophanes ’ guilt is a far cry from Frischlin ’ s detailed, qualified, and carefully explained concession that Aristophanes potuit male fecisse in Clouds. By paying such attention to the problem, and by making this early attempt to sidestep it in the name of the greater good, the perfectio poematis, Giraldus does demonstrate an important change in attitude that accompanied the early spike in interest in the plays of Aristophanes and paved the way for Frischlin ’ s more sweeping rehabilitation of Clouds. Nonetheless, it is brief and incomplete. Giraldus does not clear the stigma from Clouds, as his invocation of the play ’ s perfectio is lacking both in a full exposition of that perfectio and its utility to society, and in a full explanation and appreciation of the villainous Socrates character within Clouds itself. It is thus safe to say that, inasmuch as it cleared the way for the appreciation of Clouds as-is and without the anti-philosophic stigma, Frischlin ’ s work truly was groundbreaking in a way unparalleled by any of his contemporaries or predecessors. Much has already been made in this work about Frischlin ’ s revolutionary approach to Clouds and its difficult, anti-Socratic reputation. Giraldus and Thomas Nashe 13 followed the example of Plutarch and Aelian in distancing themselves from the Socrates trauma caused by Clouds; Phillip Melanchthon, on the other hand, was more in line with the traditions of the Byzantine 11 On this anecdote and its pedigree, see Riginos (1976) 176 - 178. 12 Giraldus (1545) 815. 13 Steggle (2007) 58. Frischlin and the Developing Academic Aristophanes 151 Orthodox scholars when he specifically praised the play for its supposed denunciation of Socrates and philosophy. Frischlin alone seems to have found a middle path between these two alternatives, which allowed him to rehabilitate the play. The success of this rehabilitation is immediately evident in the 1613 Strasbourg production of Clouds in a German translation by Isaac Fröreisen. As Wilhelm Süss notes, Fröreisen made clear use of Frischlin ’ s translation, act divisions, and Occasio in bringing his own colloquial version of the play before a popular audience. 14 Thus Frischlin ’ s influence can be shown to have extended quickly beyond the comparatively isolated confines of the Republic of Letters and onto a popular stage made, by degrees, more and more eager to appreciate the humor of a play which had been finally cleared of wrongdoing 27 years earlier in an edition which was continuing to enjoy multiple reprints and a wide reading audience. Although a more detailed exploration of this theme will have to wait until the section below, it should also be noted here that Fröreisen ’ s production demonstrates very well the dramatic performability of the form which Frischlin gave his translations, both in terms of the act and scene divisions he imposed upon the play(s), and in terms of the astute characterization his introductory materials give its protagonist and antagonist. Giraldus ’ own damnation of Clouds ’ attack on Socrates is disappointing when compared to Frischlin ’ s treatment of the play, but largely unsurprising for its time. In damning this aspect of the play, however, Giraldus does, at least, reveal a much more interesting and resilient positive trend in the reception of Aristophanes, and one which would ultimately take precedence over concerns about the moral purity of the plays: “ totus est tibi ediscendus, quando in eo sunt omnia linguae Atticae ornamenta, et nisi Socratem hic mihi impudentissime suis Nebulis proscidisset, parentem scilicet morum et philosophiae, in primis fuerat colendus [you must learn him thoroughly, since in him are all the ornaments of the Attic language, and, in my opinion, if he had not most impudently lashed out at Socrates, the veritable father of morals and philosophy, in his Clouds, he would be worthy of being honored among the very first order ” . 15 These “ ornaments of the Attic language ” are the same which led Theodore Gaza to recommend Aristophanes, and only Aristophanes, to students of Greek in the famous quote given at the beginning of this book and first printed in Aldus Manutius ’ dedication to his Editio Princeps of 1498, where it follows after a long catalogue of reasons why students should seek to improve their Greek. The quote had very quickly become dogma, and the use of Aristophanes as an excellent source for the student of language was endorsed by Erasmus and many other humanists, so that anyone searching for further praise of Aristophanes ’ language and utility for the student of 14 Süss (1911) 50 - 51. 15 Giraldus (1545) 814 - 5. 152 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes Greek needed not look far in the Adagia or other handbooks and collections of sententiae. 16 There is a particular valence to Giraldus ’ s praise of Aristophanes ’ qualities in this regard with clear echoes in Frischlin ’ s translations. If, like Erasmus and Aldus Manutius, 17 one insists that Aristophanes is the Greek equivalent of Terence in nearly every way, then it is inevitable that one will begin viewing Aristophanes as a source not only of the Greek language, but of the higher orders of rhetorical perfection required of more advanced students. Thus Giraldus praises him as “ eloquentissimus ” , specifying his exceptional command of the orator ’ s skill set of inventio, an excellent combination of ars and ingenium, and a good stock of sententiae: 18 “ Atheniensium eloquentissimus habitus est, ingenio maxime excellenti: in sententiis creber, inventione varia et iucunda, arte summa et praecipua [he was considered the most eloquent of the Athenians, endowed with an outstanding talent: ready with sententiae, of varied and pleasing inventio, and endowed with supreme and outstanding skill] ” . 19 Given how rapidly the appreciation of Aristophanes developed from simple praise of his language as a Greek version of Terence for beginning students, to detailed appreciation of his rhetorical qualities as a Greek version of Terence ’ s rhetorical perfection, the only surprise in Frischlin ’ s Terentianized and rhetoricized translations is that they took as long as they did to appear. Terentian translations of Aristophanes seem almost inevitable in light of this trend, and it is little surprise that, once they were published by Frischlin, they found an eager market and ready imitators in the republic of letters. Frischlin and the Developing Political Aristophanes All of these witnesses, from Manutius to Frischlin, indicate that audiences both academic and popular - or, at very least, colloquial - were actually very eager to appreciate Aristophanes as both a funny and a serious poet, and that Frischlin ’ s efforts to integrate and expand upon the various strands of scholarship and understanding which contributed to the broader appreciation of Aristophanes were very well-received by the wider academic public. Yet in the standard histories of Aristophanic reception, Frischlin and all his contemporaries and predecessors, if they are mentioned at all, are quickly dismissed as “ moralists ” who lack a true appreciation or proper application of 16 Steggle (2007) 53 - 57. 17 Erasmus, De Ratione Studii LB 521. 18 A wealth of references to all these qualities in the ancient authorities on rhetoric can be found under their respective headings in Lausberg (1960), and I will not bother re-listing them all here. 19 Giraldus (1545) 814. Frischlin and the Developing Political Aristophanes 153 Aristophanes ’ uniquely political brand of comedy, and who consequently attempt to reduce his political statements to little more than moral instruction. This narrow understanding of the “ political ” allows histories of Aristophanes ’ modern reception to begin with the European Enlightenment and the bitter rejection of Aristophanes ’ excesses which began in 17th-century France and culminated in the oft-quoted denunciations of Voltaire and Rousseau. 20 Thus Martin Holtermann, in an otherwise exceptional work on the history of Aristophanic reception in Germany with an otherwise very broad definition of the “ political ” , only briefly cites Frischlin as one more example of the (implicitly very boring) Ethisierung of Aristophanes, which supposedly prevented any truly political understanding or use of the poet until the rediscovery [Wiederentdeckung] of his political elements at the hands of the German romantics. This, despite the overtly political dedicatory works of Frischlin ’ s translations, particularly that of Knights, which Holtermann is quick specifically to dismiss as nothing more than a vain effort gain a rich patron. 21 Hopefully the previous chapters will already have demonstrated the dangerous short-sightedness of this dismissal. Nothing about Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes was divorced from the complicated politics of his contemporary society, and there was simply no way that any intelligent critic reading Aristophanes at the end of the 16th century would understand the author to be devoid of political meaning. When Erasmus, Giraldus, Scaliger, and Frischlin praised Aristophanes ’ ability to chastise men in power by forcing them and others to examine their actions ethically and morally, the political import of their comments was not missed by contemporaries, and it did not have to be revived ex nihilo by those who read Voltaire 200 years later. As a test case, let us turn at long last to the difficult issue of so-called “ feminist ” readings of Aristophanes. As noted in Chapter IV, Frischlin is initially most notable in this regard for his silence. His utter unwillingness to deal with the Women Plays is only slightly less disappointing to the modern democrat than his supposed defense of Aristophanic female characters as “ natura non . . . simplices: sed duplices, callidae et versutissimae [not . . . simple by nature, but duplicitous, cunning, and most crafty] ” . 22 Yet buried within this silence and misogyny is a very real and striking acknowledgement of the political valence of the play and, in particular, of the potential political power of women, both ancient and contemporary. For example, as Frischlin himself readily acknowledges elsewhere in his introductory materials, the 20 For example, Holtermann (2004) 49 - 60; Van Steen (2000) 16 - 42. In the case of Van Steen ’ s work, the use of Voltaire as a starting point is perhaps more understandable, as she stresses the tremendous shadow that the writers of the French enlightenment cast on the earliest attempts at a national Greek literature during and immediately before the Greek struggle for independence. 21 Holtermann (2004) 50 - 51. 22 Frischlin (1586) 14 recto. 154 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes women of Aristophanes ’ women plays, and specifically of Lysistrata, are, in fact, politically empowered and taking real and immediate action for the safety of their Republica: Periculosissimis autem temporibus, cum tota Graecia in armis esset, Lysistratam composuit, in qua mulieres de Rep. et pace deliberant: facta coniuratione, quod suis maritis concubitum denegare, et in arcem munitissimam se tantisper recipere velint dum illi pacis negocium suscipiant. 23 During those most dangerous times during which the whole of Greece was at arms, he composed Lysistrata, in which women take action for the Republic and for peace. They agree to deny sex to their husbands, and to remove themselves to the heavily fortified citadel while the men take up the business of peace. This represents a genuinely powerful misreading of the play, and one with a long and storied tradition in Western Reception, which Martin Revermann has referred to as the play ’ s “ productive misunderstanding ” . 24 Lysistrata is essentially a play about a group of theatrically feminized and hypersexualized objects of the male gaze who willingly surrender any pretense to power and gladly return all political prerogatives to the (rightfully) ruling men of Athens after entertaining their lusts and confirming all their stereotypes about female duplicity, drunkenness, and lecherousness. 25 Despite this fact, unmistakable as it would have been to any Greek reader or audience member in the fifth century BCE, at some point in the late nineteenth century CE, as drives toward universal suffrage and social equality came to the fore in the western world, Lysistrata came to be used by both sides of a cultural debate as an allegory about female solidarity and liberation, and as such it has remained popular to this day. 26 This would not have been possible without some initial reading which insisted on the real political relevance and importance of the women ’ s actions as something other than a sexualized male fantasy. Still, Frischlin did not actually translate Lysistrata, and so his brief statements about the play may seem well short of revolutionary. However, considering that Aldus Manutius and Marcus Musurus found the play too obscene even to print in their editio princeps, Frischlin ’ s ability to recognize something other than obscenity and sexual fantasy in it was actually nothing short of revolutionary. Given Frischlin ’ s insistence on the political relevance of the rest of the Aristophanic corpus, his approach to Lysistrata should not be surprising. Nor should it be surprising that within a few years of Frischlin ’ s defense of Aristophanes ’ politically active women, Florent Chrestien would feel free to issue his own translation of a highly politicized Lysistrata, in which direct 23 Frischlin (1586) 3 verso. 24 Revermann (2010). 25 Taaffe (1993) 48 - 73. 26 See Hall (2007) 86 - 88; Holtermann (2004) 263 - 4; Revermannn (2010); Van Steen (2000) 119 - 123. Frischlin and the Developing Political Aristophanes 155 parallels were drawn between the Spartan character Lampito, and Queen Margaret of France, a protestant and well-beloved among her co-religionists, such as Chrestien, in the Wars of Religion then ravaging France. 27 Despite these explicit parallels, Chrestien felt it necessary to add a cautionary note to his translation, lamenting the fact that his society differed from that of Ancient Athens only inasmuch as it lacked the freedom to criticize which typified the latter and, according to the classic trajectory of Greek Comedy, made Old Comedy possible and powerful. 28 This trajectory, which insists that Old Comedy died along with democracy in Athens, finds its origins ultimately in the peripatetic school ’ s understanding of the evolution of Comedy as a genre, 29 but it has a much more immediate and important source right in the middle of the initial upsurge of interest in Aristophanes which inspired Frischlin and Chrestien. This source was Julius Caesar Scaliger ’ s Poetices Libri Septem of 1561, readily identifiable as the most prominent influence on Frischlin ’ s own approach to Aristophanes, given the frequency with which he quotes and references it in formulating his own understanding of the form and purpose of comedy. In this work Scaliger explicitly states that Old Comedy could only exist “ quo tempore summum imperium penes populum fuit [at that time when the highest political authority was in the hands of the people] ” , and that the subsequent shift to the supposed Middle Comedy occurred because “ ad tyrannicam paucorum libidinem continuit poetas metus potentiorum in officio benedicendi [in accordance with the tyrannical will of the few, fear constrained the poets to the task of praising those in power] ” . 30 The former comment comes immediately before Scaliger ’ s description of the ethical qualities of Aristophanes ’ personal attacks, and so the connection between a healthy political system and these attacks is made explicit already in 1561. Scaliger is intriguingly silent about the political circumstances which influenced the creation of New Comedy, but his insistence, also firmly rooted in the peripatetic writings on comedy and unquestioningly repeated in Frischlin ’ s Vita Aristophanis, that Aristophanes ’ own writings helped pave the way for New Comedy ’ s development, 31 indicates that he did not find the political spirit of Old Comedy to be necessarily incompatible with that of New Comedy. This, of course, is not to say that he viewed democratic government as necessarily superior, and a projection of modern Western and Liberal political ideology onto the elite circles of the 16th century would be utterly counterproductive. However, it is essentially true, as the previous chapters have demonstrated in great detail, that at least one of Scaliger ’ s keenest 27 Jacobsen (1973) 154; Holt (2005) 177. 28 Jacobsen (1973) 155. 29 See Csapo (2000). The most frequently cited source is the anonymous Prolegomena de Comoedia. 30 Scaliger (1994) 1. 7. 12 a - b. 31 Scaliger (1994) 1. 7. 13 a; Cf. Frischlin (1586) 1 verso. 156 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes students, Nicodemus Frischlin, did view collaborative, democratic decisionmaking and open debate as the hallmarks of good government. This same line of thinking is visible in Chrestien ’ s lament for the loss of democracy, and hence the supposed loss of Old Comedy ’ s political relevance. I would like to posit that this similarity in thinking, a mere handful of years after Frischlin ’ s work reached the public, is no coincidence. That Chrestien ’ s lament must be taken with a grain of salt need hardly be said. Lack of a representative democracy did not prevent him from politicizing Aristophanic comedy any more than it had Frischlin, and in the successful attempts of both humanists to bring political issues to the fore through their translations, we can see another trend in the Early Modern reception of Aristophanes that has apparently been wilfully ignored by critics and historians. By publishing a translation of Aristophanes with such an explicitly political allegory, Chrestien was doing much more than defending the ethical benefits of Aristophanes ’ character criticisms, cited by Holtermann and others as the only approach to Aristophanes allowed in the authoritarian kingdoms of the European Renaissance. 32 By adding on top of that allegory an insistence that his society must improve and become more democratic in order properly to appreciate Old Comedy, Chrestien, like Frischlin, was not only demonstrating his acquaintance with one of the most important works of literary criticism; he was making an even more dangerous and fundamental criticism about the political situation of the society in which he lived. So long as the Republic of Letters insisted that Aristophanes could only be politically meaningful in an open and democratic republic, the publication of a politicized Aristophanes in any polity which did not correspond to that description would necessarily be a political statement, especially when, as in Frischlin ’ s case, the contours of the ideal society are (almost ironically) sketched within that publication, where it is also unambiguously stated that, Imprimis vero ob hoc laudatus atque amatus est [Aristophanes] a civibus, quod fabulis suis Rempubl. Atheniensium liberam, neque ullius domini tyrannidi subiectam esse, sed ne ipsum quidem populum in statu Reipublicae populari, et per se libero, sibimetipsi imperitare voluit. 33 He was foremost praised and loved by the people for the fact that in his plays the Republic of the Athenians was free and not subject to any tyrant; indeed he wanted for the people themselves, in the democratic state of a Republic, which is, of necessity, free, to have free rule over themselves. Contrary to what is claimed by Holtermann, Steggle, and others, Aristophanes never has required democracy in order to flourish and be meaningful. On the contrary, he has always been appreciated, and feared, as something much more than a morally instructive critic of personal excess. Performance 32 See also Steggle (2007). 33 Frischlin (1586) 4 recto. Frischlin and the Developing Political Aristophanes 157 theorists have documented convincingly the means by which the political significance and impact of theater actually become greater as its performance and reading become more restricted to a smaller, yet more powerful audience - usually one located within the palace halls of a ruling oligarchy or monarchy. 34 This is the situation we see presented in Giraldus ’ account of his two wealthy friends reading Aristophanes aloud to one-another in their idle time, and it is also one of the means by which Frischlin ’ s translations, and those of his contemporaries, gained their political impact in a society radically different from that of fifth-century Athens. At the risk of overstatement, we can conclude from this that Frischlin was the first to politicize the so-called “ women plays ” of Aristophanes. This is, of course, not to say that he was a feminist, or even that he necessarily inspired those who would later stage feminist productions of these plays. Rather, it is to say that there was a precedent for doing so. Frischlin wrote his translations for a society which had grown gradually more accustomed to Aristophanes, gradually more willing to accept his more troubling aspects, and finally willing to embrace him as a political author of tremendous contemporary relevance. The political Aristophanes did not have to be “ rediscovered ” by anyone in the 19th century. Frischlin and the Evolving Place of Obscenity Knowledge of the political circumstances behind Frischlin ’ s own translation, though clearly important, can have the adverse side-effect of overstating Frischlin ’ s influence on political readings of Aristophanes. In order to counter this tendency, it will be well worthwhile to remember at this point that Frischlin himself praises Aristophanes both for his Bonitas and his Suavitas. Frischlin ’ s insistence on this approach seems to be predicated on two different strands of influence, one explicit and the other implicit. Explicit is a rejection of Plutarch ’ s insistence on well-measured comic language and well-defined characters suited to an educated and elite young male audience/ reader. As Philip Walsh has noted, in rejecting Plutarch ’ s criticisms of Aristophanes ’ “ excesses ” in forming his characters and assigning them dialogue, Frischlin “ upends Plutarch ’ s thinking and makes a case for the realism of Aristophanes ’ plays ” . 35 Implicit in this rejection of Plutarch is a reliance instead on the Ars Poetica of Horace, an author and work quoted extensively by Frischlin in his own introductory materials, and one in which Horace famously described the ideal goals of the poet by writing, “ Aut prodesse uolunt aut delectare poetae / aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere uitae [poets seek either to be useful or to be pleasing / or to say at the same time fitting and 34 Csapo (2010) 169 - 170. 35 Walsh (2008) 28. 158 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes pleasent things] ” (333 - 334). Horace ’ s injunction that poets should either entertain or educate while maintaining verisimilitude is clearly repeated within the contours of Frischlin ’ s own defense of Aristophanes, where the former ’ s repeated aut has been replaced with an emphatic et. This in itself represents a significant and complex negotiation of several trends in Aristophanic reception still troubling the study of Old Comedy today. The Latin and Greek editions of Aristophanes prior to Frischlin ’ s own lay heavy emphasis on his usefulness as an aid to students of Greek and rhetoric, but they have almost nothing to say about the humorous value of his works. In fact, what we normally think of as the “ humor “ of Aristophanes ’ plays is usually displaced into the realm of satire in these works and in the numerous references to them found in the works of Erasmus and others. This manner of reading allows the useful, political implications of the works to be brought to the fore, but its unfortunate corollary is an undervaluing, and even misunderstanding of the obscenities and verbal tricks which give that “ satire ” its form and its humor. Thus Gaza, Erasmus, Manutius, Divus, Scaliger and the others were all perfectly content to praise the language and even the didactic elements of Aristophanes ’ plays, but the blistering obscenity and difficult wordplay which often gave voice to these elements, if they were mentioned at all, were dismissed as an unfortunate bit of honey on the brim of Old Comedy ’ s curative cup of wormwood, necessary to make his good advice palpable to an ancient and unsophisticated culture, but absolutely not a fundamental part of what made Aristophanes Aristophanes. 36 Thus also Divus apparently felt no need to make his own translations humorous in any way, and the numerous instances where his dry translations completely destroy a joke in the ST have been demonstrated abundantly in the second chapter. It would seem that, despite the oft-repeated maxim of Horace ’ s Ars Poetica, this narrow conception of Aristophanes ’ worth as a poet would not find its rebuttal until 1545 and the remark of Giraldus ’ interlocutor, Piso, at the tremendous pleasure he took in hearing the works of Aristophanes, which used the same verb, delectare, which Horace cites as the poet ’ s goal. By successfully integrating humor so completely into translations which were, at the same time, so heavily politicized, Frischlin is therefore the first person actually to put in action Horace ’ s ideal combination of Aristophanic humor and Aristophanic political criticism. 37 Investigation of Frischlin ’ s importance in this area cannot stop at such a broad and misleadingly satisfying statement, however. First, it must be recognized that in combining the political with the genuinely humorous, Frischlin was following the same popular cues he was following when he decided to compose his translations in the first place. That is, Giraldus had 36 On this trend in Aristophanes ’ reception, see Steggle (2007) and Walsh (2008) 22. 37 The first, at least, in a Latin translation. A thorough study of the complete Italian translations of the Rositini brothers (1545) is still badly needed. Frischlin and the Evolving Place of Obscenity 159 already articulated the need for such an appreciation of Aristophanes, and he himself was likely not the first to conceive of it. This does not lessen Frischlin ’ s accomplishment; rather, it tells us once again that the place of Aristophanes in the European Republic of Letters was changing deeply and rapidly, and that Frischlin kept well abreast of these changes. Secondly, however, we must acknowledge that, although Frischlin ’ s translations do maintain a great deal of humor present in the ST, they are not nearly as successful at maintaining all of the course vulgarity and obscenity which elicits much of the play ’ s laughter. Rather, the translations of many obscene elements analyzed in the second chapter have indicated that, like his more dismissive contemporaries, Frischlin compromised on allowing obscenity to have a place in a play of serious political import. However, while his own allusions to the subject may represent a fairly conservative majority opinion on the issue of the plays ’ obscenity, they also demonstrate how very completely he understood the humor of the plays to be bound in with their political import, even to such an extent that the humor itself requires the existence of a certain political reality in order to function. The first of these allusions comes immediately after his insistence, given at the beginning of chapter II, that laughter was and is one of the most important goals of both the comic and his translator: Idem ergo finis nostro poetae fuit propositus, ut spectatores in risum solutos excitaret, et de sapientibus dictis, atque occultis in Comoedia consiliis admoneret, ipsosque de corrigenda Rep. et emenandis moribus quasi praepararet. Quid enim vetat et ridentem dicere verum? Certe illis temporibus adeo pruriebant aures populi, ut Cratinum cum suo grege loco moveret, propterea quod nihil obscoeni admiscuisset. Neque enim Comoedias vel audiebant, vel spectabant, quae non obscoenos haberent iocos: sicut alibi queritur de hac re ipsemet Aristophanes. Quo autem consilio ipse obscoenos homines et spurcos in scenam introducat: et quo animo dicta illorum velit accipi, idem non obscure docet, cum ait: σμικρὸν δ᾽ ὑποθέσθαι τοῖς κριταῖσι βούλομαι · τοῖς σοφοῖς μὲν τῶν σοφῶν μεμνημένοις κρίνειν ἐμέ , τοῖς γελῶσι δ ´ ἡδέως διὰ τὸ γελᾶν κρίνειν ἐμέ . 38 Our poet, therefore, had the same end in sight, namely that he should free his spectators and rouse them into laughter so that he could then admonish them about intelligent words and matters concealed within his comedy, so that he might almost prepare them to repair their republic and mend their morals. For why should laughter prevent a man from telling the truth? Indeed in those days the people ’ s ears were so eager for foul jokes that they dismissed Cratinus and his troupe from the stage because he did not include any obscene jokes. Audiences would neither listen to nor watch comedies unless they contained obscene jokes, and Aristophanes himself complains about this elsewhere. It is indeed with this plan that he introduced to the stage obscene and filthy men. He tells us himself in no uncertain terms just how he wants the words of these characters to be received, when he says, σμικρὸν δ᾽ ὑποθέσθαι τοῖς κριταῖσι βούλομαι · τοῖς σοφοῖς μὲν τῶν σοφῶν μεμνημένοις 38 Frischlin (1586) 9 recto. 160 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes κρίνειν ἐμέ , τοῖς γελῶσι δ ´ ἡδέως διὰ τὸ γελᾶν κρίνειν ἐμέ [I wish to make a small suggestion to the critics: I wish the wise to be mindful of my wisdoms in judging me, and I wish those who laugh sweetly to judge me by their laughter] (Ecc. (Ecclesiazusae 1154 - 1156). Here the term “ compromise ” is most appropriate. Although Frischlin does not outright dismiss the use of obscenity in this passage, he does follow his contemporaries in describing it as an unfortunately necessary trick used to win over ancient audiences. This dismissal is balanced, however, by the parallel insistence that such jokes do, in fact, serve a higher purpose, namely that they compel their audience, conceived of as somehow politically empowered, if not entirely democratic, to change their Respublica for the better. We have already met many times with Frischlin ’ s contention that a well-governed society has nothing to fear from comedy. Here we meet with its logical conclusion, that a well-governed society is one which empowers the sort of people who laugh at obscoenitas. In fact, Frischlin uses his introductory materials, together with his understanding of Aristophanic obscenity, to further elucidate his notions of the stratified audience for which his translations are meant: a small, inner circle of learned critics who hold the majority of real power in the government, and a second tier consisting more broadly of mortales omnes. This is alluded to in the quote from Aristophanes ’ Ecclesiazusae given in the passage above, and finally stated by Frischlin himself a few pages later, when he writes, Quinta occurrit reprehensio, quod sales Aristophani<s> plus mordeant quam Menandri, cum sint acerbiores et acriores. [. . .] Quid, quod sales iidem omnibus non placent? Nam quae Philosophis iucunda et faceta, atque urbana videntur, ea plebeiis superciliosa et nasuta sunt, et plerunque pro specie contemtus arripiuntur. Quae plebi grata et iocularia sunt, ea doctis viris, et ad gravitatem compositis, scurrilia videntur. Quare, ut ipsemet Plutarchus fatetur, difficilimum est, utriusque favorem consequi, aut utrique se accommodare. 39 Plutarch ’ s fifth fault with Aristophanes is that his wit and jokes are more biting than those of Menander, since they are more harsh and sharp. [. . .] And what is this objection ultimately, other than the fact that the same wit cannot be pleasing to everyone? For what is elegant, pleasant and urbane to philosophers is scornful and arrogant to the masses, and is largely received with contempt at first sight. Conversely, those things which are amusing and pleasurable to the masses seem scurrilous to learned men who are given to a certain gravity. Therefore, as Plutarch himself will say, it is a most difficult deed to achieve the favor of both parties or to accommodate onself to the tastes of both. Frischlin thus seems to resolve the problems inherent in the type of humor found in Aristophanes. He allows obscenity to be an integral part of the plays and their messages, while acknowledging that both the jokes and the serious content of the plays will work on multiple levels within a stratified audience, 39 Frischlin (1586) 15 recto. Frischlin and the Evolving Place of Obscenity 161 just as Aristophanes himself insists. This is acceptance of Aristophanes per se, and it was absolutely revolutionary in 1586. Its true significance, however, lies in its lasting influence on later readers. The trail of this influence is easy to pick up in every later edition of Aristophanes. As late as 1710, in a masterful bilingual edition of all eleven comedies edited by Ludolph Küster and dedicated to Richard Bentley, the influence of Frischlin is ubiquitous. Though over a century had intervened since the first printing of Frischlin ’ s edition, Küster is unable to deny the influence that Frischlin ’ s approach to Aristophanes has had on every reader, nor the utility of his Vita and his Defensio Aristophanis, in which all the accusations against Aristophanes are rebutted and a middle path is found by which his plays can be appreciated by a near universal audience. 40 He prints all of these materials, together with Frischlin ’ s translations, giving a clear sign of the continued relevance both of Frischlin ’ s appreciation of Aristophanic obscenity, and of his translations thereof, which Küster never faults for being obscene or inaccurate, but only for occasionally misrepresenting the Greek meters of the ST. 41 As Holtermann notes, Küster ’ s edition of the plays remained unchallenged as the best and most popular scholarly edition of the plays until the publication of Bergler ’ s edition in 1760. 42 Thus Frischlin ’ s approach to obscenity would have been seen and accepted by any reader who read any of the most popular composite editions printed from 1586 to 1760. This is important and noteworthy in and of itself, but the larger question still remains: to what extent did Frischlin ’ s defense of Aristophanes and his obscenity extend outside the studies of people endowed with enough money, education, and leisure time to be able to purchase and peruse the two volumes of Küster ’ s expensive folio edition? Frischlin and the Developing non-Academic Aristophanes Frischlin ’ s influence on the 1613 Strasbourg performance of Clouds has already been noted. It is perhaps unsurprising that circles of Protestant humanists in and around the German-speaking world would be influenced by Frischlin ’ s work; and in any case, the research on the popular German Aristophanes of the later periods has already largely been done by Holtermann and Süss. It is therefore useful very briefly to widen the geographic scope of this study to demonstrate how far-flung Frischlin ’ s influence was felt 40 Küster (1710) Pref. includes a note warning his reader, clearly envisioned as an advanced scholar, that he will shortly be issuing a smaller version of the plays, lacking only the lengthy Greek scholia - hence still including the Vita and Defensio by Frischlin - but with shorter notes designed “ ad captum tironum. ” 41 Ibid. 42 Holtermann (2004) 281. 162 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes by focusing on his younger contemporary, Ben Jonson. Though Jonson is very free with obscenity when compared to Frischlin, 43 his occasional compromises and winking ellipses 44 seem more in line with Frischlin ’ s own slightly tamed, yet nonetheless humorous approach to obscene jokes. Frustratingly, it is nearly impossible to say whether or not this is a coincidence, and it is perhaps best not to overstate the case for a connection between the two playwrights. Although Jonson ’ s references to, and borrowings from Aristophanic comedy are numerous throughout his work, 45 efforts to assign any of his musings on vetus comedia to Frischlin or any other source are hampered by the destruction of Jonson ’ s personal library in a fire in 1623. The library that he rebuilt thereafter contained at least one edition of Aristophanes, the 1607 bilingual edition printed in Geneva and containing the complete translations and introductory materials by Frischlin, excepting only his dedications. 46 This gives a late terminus post quem for Jonson ’ s knowledge of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes, but one which, at very least, would allow for Frischlin ’ s ideas and translations to have influenced the composition of no less an Aristophanic comedy than The Staple of News. 47 Frischlin ’ s influence can thus be shown to extend well beyond the confines of academia, not only into the large audiences at the Globe Theater, but also into two centuries ’ worth of powerful and influential circles of English readers and writers enamored with the works of Ben Jonson. 48 Specific examples of Frischlin ’ s influence, as opposed to a general “ Aristophanic ” nature in any given play, are hard to come by in the plays of Jonson. At the most basic level, however, the first aspect of Jonson ’ s plays which seems curious to students of their Aristophanic influences is the fact that, although their plots tend largely to follow the loose and episodic nature of an Old Comedy, they are nonetheless organized into the strictly Terentian five-act structure typical of Elizabethan drama. 49 For example, Gum devotes a good deal of time to speculating as to how and why Jonson was able to make this work despite the obvious conflict between the two radically different types of drama. 50 Gum ’ s analysis assumes that this would have been a difficult 43 See Gum (1969) 46 - 66. 44 Ostovitch (2001) 23. 45 See e. g. Gum (1969); Steggle (2007). 46 See Gum (1969) 13; McPherson (1974) 25 - 26. Gum also mentions a second edition, supposedly printed in Geneva in 1614, but I can find no record of such an edition anywhere else. It is possible, given the year of the fire that destroyed Jonson ’ s work, that McPherson is mistaking the 1624 Leiden edition for a 1614 Geneva, though this does not explain why only the one copy is listed in McPherson ’ s excellent and exhaustive bibliography. 47 For Jonson ’ s use of Aristophanic material in this play, see Steggle (2007) 61 - 64. 48 See Davis (1967); Donaldson (2011) 429 - 441. 49 Ostovitch (2001) 24 - 28. 50 Gum (1969) 23 - 24. Frischlin and the Developing non-Academic Aristophanes 163 and unprecedented feat of dramaturgy, apparently without recognizing that by the time Jonson Wrote Every Man out of His Humour (EMOH) in 1598, Frischlin ’ s edition, by itself, had already standardized the five-act divisions of an Old Comic plot, and had thus paved the way for Jonson ’ s experiments with the form of popular comedy. Frischlin himself had known how perfectly performable and popular such a play could be: this was not only the form taken by his own very successful comedies, full of Aristophanic digressions and gags as they were; 51 he had even intended to produce performances of two of his Latin translations for Carnival in 1581. 52 Unfortunately we do not know why, exactly, Frischlin was unable to bring this plan to fruition. It is reasonable to surmise, however, that the financial and logistical difficulties of furnishing an entire chorus and troupe of musicians for the performance, combined with Frischlin ’ s ongoing political troubles, made the grand idea simply impractical. To avoid these same difficulties, Jonson simply replaces Aristophanes ’ cumbersome chorus with the characters of the Grex in EMOH, though still taking full advantage of the leeway that Frischlin had given Renaissance playwrights to experiment with a form that was, as the Grex ’ s Cordatus phrased it, “ strange and of a particular kind by itself, somewhat like Vetus Comedia: a work that hath bounteously pleased me ” . 53 Because of Jonson ’ s lasting influence, this particular innovation would prove to be immensely popular among the next generations of comic playwrights to work in Caroline England. 54 Although it is thus beyond doubt that Jonson had access to Frischlin ’ s translations and introductory materials at one point during his career, it is unfortunately impossible to prove that this was the case until after 1623. While I hope (and believe) that further research will help prove Jonson ’ s acquaintance with Frischlin ’ s work at an earlier date to be likely, I must also acknowledge the minor divergences between the comic theories of the two dramatists, as well as the numerous other sources which influenced Jonson ’ s conception of comedy. Primacy of place among these must be given to Antonio Minturno ’ s De Poeta, which has been shown to have been the work quoted directly by the Grex at EMOH 3.1 in answer to (and in the posing of) the question, “ quid sit comedia? ” 55 Minturno ’ s immense work employs a mixture of Aristotelian and Horatian criticism to insist that comedy must meet certain standards of verisimilitude while also being morally instructive; 56 or, as Cordatus phrases it, comedy must “ be imitatio vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis: a thing throughout pleasant and ridiculous, and 51 See Price (1990) passim for the influence of Aristophanic structure and humor on Frischlin ’ s Neo-Latin comedies. 52 Süss (1911) 44. 53 Induction 226 - 229, ed. Ostovitch (2001). 54 Davis (1967) 103 - 127. 55 Snuggs (1950). 56 Moss (1999) 101 - 102. 164 Chapter V - The Reception of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes accommodated to the correction of manners ” . 57 This admixture of the Horatian, the Aristotelian, and the contemporary is truly representative of Jonson ’ s eclectic conception of comedy throughout, which refuses to be pinned down to a single author or a single source. 58 More broadly, however, it is representative of a larger culture flourishing in every corner of the European Republic of Letters, in which a multitude of different learned voices were finding new ways to defend and define comedy, creating new approaches and new opportunities for scholars and playwrights such as Frischlin and Jonson to exploit in their shared struggle to bring Aristophanes and Aristophanic humor to new audiences. It is clear that Jonson was acquainted with many of the same works as Frischlin, including the Poetices Libri Septem of Scaliger, of which he, unlike Frischlin, did not much approve. 59 Nonetheless, these shared influences ensure that it is not difficult to detect echoes of Frischlin ’ s work in lines such as: Good men and virtuous spirits that loathe their vices Will cherish my free labours, love my lines, and with the fervour of their shining grace make my brain fruitful to bring forth more objects worthy their serious and intentive eyes. 60 Whether or not these lines were inspired directly by Frischlin ’ s own work, it is clear that both playwrights were utilizing the model of Aristophanic Old Comedy in response to the same intellectual, cultural, and ultimately, political, stimuli. Like Frischlin, Jonson would soon be arrested and threatened with corporal punishment for abuse of his Aristophanic parrhesia, when his 1605 comedy Eastward Ho! attacked highly placed noblemen at the court of King James I. 61 Unlike Frischlin, Jonson was ultimately able to regain his freedom and continue working. Though he finally emerged from imprisonment somewhat chastised, he came back into a world where Aristophanic comedy, complete with foul obscenity and blistering personal satire that pulled no punches, had emerged from the shadows cast by the criticisms of Plutarch and Plato to reclaim its rightful place as a vibrant and powerful part of European political discourse. From 1586 until 1760, the chief texts to which people across Europe would turn when they wanted to better understand this increasingly important part of the public discourse, or to adapt it for their own ends, were those authored by Nicodemus Frischlin. 57 3. 1. 526 - 529, ed. Ostovitch (2001). 58 See the entirety of Mitis ’ and Cordatus ’ own proud embrace of eclecticism at EMOH Induction 243 - 265, ed. Ostovitch (2001). 59 See Ostovitch (2001) 226 - 227. 60 EMOH Induction 132 - 137, ed. Ostovitch (2001). Cf. Induction 140 - 143, 3. 2. 359 - 397. 61 Donaldson (2011) 206 - 213. Frischlin and the Developing non-Academic Aristophanes 165 Chapter VI Conclusion Writing in the 1st century C. E., Quintilian did not hesitate to place Attic Old Comedy second only to the poems of Homer as ideal study material for the would-be orator. 1 Although the humanists of the European Renaissance were happy, in theory, to take Quintilian at his word, they struggled to find a way to make Aristophanes acceptable to their contemporaries on a wide scale. In order to facilitate the reading of Aristophanes in Greek, they produced Latin translations for use by students, who would often bind the translations in a single volume behind any of the readily available Greek texts. These translations, and most notably that of Andreas Divus, were purely utilitarian, designed only to help the beginning student of Greek. As such, they were unable to meet the needs of a reading public eager to be able truly to appreciate the biting, political humor of Aristophanes, humor which they had read much about in the in the poetics of their day, but which had thus far been beyond the reach of the Greekless majority. It took an accomplished comic dramatist, Nicodemus Frischlin, to first make Aristophanes ’ sincera sermonis Attici gratia available to the Latinate public of the late sixteenth century. His ability to do so was dependent on his ability to produce a translation which, according to his own translator ’ s commission, faithfully reproduced the risus which, as his contemporaries had come to understand, was so central to the meaning of the source text. He was able to do this largely because he understood well the mechanisms which made the ST humorous, and so was able to reproduce them in a humorous way in his TT. Where he could, Frischlin used verbal creativity, drawing on Latin examples such as Plautus, to reproduce the inventiveness of Aristophanes ’ Greek. Often he simply foreignized his translation, a tactic which had the effect of indicating that some aspect of the ST reference network had been lost in the TT. By thus simultaneously acknowledging the act of translation while using every resource available to a skilled Latinist to produce a humorous dramatic text, Frischlin broke truly new and important ground in advancing the appreciation of Aristophanes in Renaissance Europe. In doing so, however, Frischlin had his own motives. Many of these had their roots in his personal struggles with the rigidly authoritarian church and state apparatus of Württemberg, where his constant calls for checks on the supposed abuses of the lower nobility, as especially exemplified in his Oratio de Vita Rustica of 1578, had raised a firestorm of anger against him among the upper classes of the entire German-speaking world. As this firestorm raged, 1 Inst. 10. 1. 65. Frischlin took to translating Aristophanes, and we can detect in his translation a determined attempt both to pacify those forces that he had angered, and to continue his calls for checks on the power of those who would do harm to the defenceless peasant classes of the Holy Roman Empire. These calls took the form, typical of Frischlin and largely representative of the educational goals of the Northern Renaissance as a whole, of insistence on the virtues of education in the conscientious application of rhetorical training as a great leveler and guarantor of justice. This is especially conspicuous in Frischlin ’ s translations of the Byzantine Triad of Clouds, Plutus, and Frogs, all texts which had a storied association with education, stretching back at least into the Palaeologan dynasty of Byzantium and finding more troubling and polemical revivals among such luminaries of the Northern Renaissance as Philipp Melanchthon. Frischlin upended the traditional uses of these plays: whereas Melanchthon had (perhaps unknowingly) reproduced the Byzantine praise of Clouds as an indictment of the evils of philosophical speculation into religion; Frischlin, through his translation and introductory materials, highlighted the play ’ s representation of the victimization of the farmers at the hands of unscrupulous sophists, and the social unrest that would surely follow from this. Likewise his translation of Plutus, the most popular, unproblematic, and easily allegorized play for Christian readers and audiences, became the first volley of this same project, presenting a situation wherein massive social upheavals follow from a situation wherein laboriosi agricolae are regularly and freely trod underfoot by the powers that be. With Frogs, as difficult a text as ever there was to translate, Frischlin everywhere insisted on the necessities of education for the upper classes. More controversially, however, he also used this play to insist on the central place of poets, playwrights, and rhetorically educated men of all sorts within the civic discourse of a well-governed state. This insistence proved to be Frischlin ’ s undoing with the Duke of Württemberg, and so we notice in his translations a clear turn toward the Emperor as a potential patron, the ultimate ruler, and the greatest guarantor of social justice. Thus Frischlin uses his translation of Knights to portray the successful integration of the Imperial Knights into the governing structure of the Empire as an ideal example of how lower nobility can and should be made a useful and obedient state apparatus dedicated to serving the ruler and the subjects whose wishes he implicitly takes into consideration while governing. Frischlin ’ s various dedications, in fact, essentially map out the governing bureaucracy of the Holy Roman Empire, and every dedicatee is given together with his subservient relationship to the Emperor. The picture drawn is one of an Imperial government which responds to the needs of its subjects by reaching decisions in a collaborative manner and for the greater good. Unfortunately, Frischlin ’ s idealism about the nature of Holy Roman Empire ’ s constitution, strongly in evidence already in his Julius Redivivus of 1585, was no more accurate nor welcome than his criticisms of the proto-absolutist 168 Chapter VI - Conclusion regime of Württemberg. Once again, his insistence, especially prevalent in Acharnians, that poets and authors deserve a place at the table of government, did little to endear him to his would-be patrons, while his scattershot attempt to win the patronage of several competing elements within the court of Rudolf II may actually have harmed his chances of succeeding with any. Ultimately, Frischlin was forced to abandon Prague and all hope of the sort of sustained Imperial largesse which many other Latin poets enjoyed at court. Yet despite its immediate failure as an instrument designed to gain its author political power and support, the impact of Frischlin ’ s Aristophanes was still strongly to be felt in European art and scholarship for over a century. Frischlin ’ s use of Plautine meters for translations of Aristophanes was quickly adapted by the French humanist, Florent Chrestien, and the two men ’ s translations were often bound together and reprinted for a century to come. Frischlin ’ s keen sense of the theater and the necessities of performance, meanwhile, were lost on none: his ability to produce a humorous and lively, topical and obscene comedy can be seen in no less a figure than Ben Jonson, who likely used Frischlin ’ s translations as an inspiration for his own effort to bring a new variety of vetus comoedia to an ever-widening and appreciative audience. Long after Frischlin ’ s translations had been replaced by newer versions, many in the colloquial languages of Europe, his introductory materials continued to be reprinted in every edition of Aristophanes. In this way, Frischlin was able to vindicate for generations of artists and scholars the political value of Aristophanes and of Old Comedy. None of Frischlin ’ s accomplishments, of course, were made in a vacuum. Frischlin was not the only voice helping to re-assert the relevance of Aristophanic comedy, or the many pleasures that proceed from it, and a great deal of work still needs to be done to determine the larger, European impact of many of Frischlin ’ s contemporaries and predecessors. Of particular interest is the under-researched Italian translation of the complete Aristophanes by the Rositini Brothers in 1545. Although, in contrast to Frischlin ’ s, their work is nowhere cited in the Latin translations and editions of Aristophanes that circulated around Europe alongside and after that of Frischlin, their influence cannot have been confined to Italy alone. It is therefore imperative that scholars of Aristophanes ’ reception learn more about the Renaissance culture that gave birth to both of these fascinating attempts to popularize and lionize the greatest light of Greek Comedy. In addition, a scholarly analysis of Frischlin ’ s translations of Callimachus would be an interesting study in its own light, and would surely provide a useful set of comparanda for more clearly defining Frischlin ’ s approach to the art of translation from Greek to Latin. Despite these significant blank spots, our picture is more or less complete. We can say with confidence that Nicodemus Frischlin brought Aristophanes, both the political activist and the popular playwright, to a larger audience Chapter VI - Conclusion 169 than he had reached in almost 2,000 years. In doing so, he not only left a lasting influence on all subsequent approaches to Aristophanes, he also provided a model for politically engaged comedy which was copied instantly across Europe. 170 Chapter VI - Conclusion Bibliography Translations and Editions of Aristophanes Barrett, David (1968). The Frogs and Other Plays. New York: Penguin Books. Bergler, Stephan (1760). Aristophanis Comoediae Undecim Graece et Latine cum Notis. 2 vols. Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Samuelem et Joannem Luchtmans. Brunck, Richard François Philippe (1783). Aristophanis Comoediae ex Optimis Exemplaribus Emendatae. Tomus III. Argentorati: Sumptibus Joh. Georgii Treuttel. Chrestien, Florent (1589). Q. 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Secondary Material 179 Index Acharnians 13, 15, 26, 36, 39, 43, 45, 48 - 49, 59, 66, 100, 122, 137 - 138, 140 - 142, 145, 169, 172 Aelian 86, 88, 100, 151 Aeschylus 54 - 55, 57 - 59, 99 - 100, 104 - 105 Agrippa, Cornelius 89 Alcibiades 105 - 106, 150 Amsdorf, Nikolaus von 85 Andreas, Jacob 108 apotropaic 42 Aristotle 29 - 30, 48, 71, 119 - 120 Attardo, , Salvatore 29, 31 - 34, 36, 40, 43, 45, 48 - 49 audience 9, 16 - 17, 21, 23, 27, 29 - 30, 39, 42, 44, 46, 48 - 50, 53 - 54, 58 - 61, 63 - 66, 74, 82, 84 - 87, 96 - 99, 111, 116 - 120, 132, 136, 138, 141, 143, 147, 150, 152, 155, 158, 161 - 162, 169 - Audience, notional versus actual 117 babbling, accusations of 104 Bacchus 100, 103 - 105 Baier, Thomas 7, 14, 26, 68, 72 Baker, Mona 21, 39 - 40 Bentley, Richard 162 Bergler, Stephan 162 Bowdlerization 135 Brasidas 88 Bruni, Leonardo 12, 14, 25 - 26, 57, 72 butt, as target of a joke, see target 33, 42 Byzantium 11, 72, 86, 98, 101, 132, 151 - 152, 168 Castelvetro, Lodovico 31, 48 Celtis, Conrad 112, 114 - 115 - Ingolstädter Rede 112 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 129 Charles II, Archduke of Inner Austria 125 Chrestien, Florent 148, 155 - 157, 169 Christoph, Duke of Württemberg 107 Chrysoloras Manuel 11, 57 Cicero 25, 29, 67 - 68, 70, 78 - 82, 98, 111, 113, 121, 132, 136 Cleon 88, 130, 132, 137 - 138, 142, 149 Clouds 13, 15, 28, 45 - 47, 49, 58 - 59, 61, 72, 74, 83 - 88, 90 - 101, 103, 116, 119, 123 - 124, 133, 140 - 141, 151 - 152, 162, 168 Cobenzl, Hans 91, 124 - 125 coherence 21 - 22, 37, 39, 64 cohesion 21 - 22 commission 21 - 23, 26, 28, 37, 167 cratylism 43 - 44 Crusius, Martin 89 De Autonomia 122 de Charlais, Edouard Bizet 148 Demos 41, 133 - 135 dialogue literature, versus dramatic performance 118 Dicaeopolis 35 - 37, 41, 50 - 53, 97, 140, 142 - 143 - As a representative of the poet himself. 142 Dietrichstein, Baron Adam von 73 - 74, 77, 84, 122 Diogenes Laertius 100 Dionysus, See Bacchus discourse 13, 16, 31 - 32, 37, 39 - 40, 43 - 44, 53 - 54, 65 - 66, 75 - 76, 99, 107, 109, 133, 165 Divus, Andreas 12, 38 - 41, 44 - 45, 56 - 58, 67, 82, 149, 159, 167 Dolet, Étienne 25 domestication 49, 55, 59 - 61, 64 - 66, 94 Donatus 24, 69 - 71, 87 Dover, Kenneth 46 - 47, 55, 57 - 58, 60, 64, 72, 90, 104 - 105, 130, 138 education 11 - 12, 15, 27, 48, 67 - 68, 70 - 71, 73, 75, 81, 88, 91, 93, 95 - 96, 104, 107 - 108, 112, 119, 122, 131, 133, 162, 168 eloquence, as opposed to elegance 80, 82, 153 equivalence 21 - 23, 132 Erasmus 69, 80, 90, 152 - 154, 159 Erstenberger, Dr. Andreas 122, 145 - De Autonomia 145 Euripides 50 - 55, 57 - 59, 65, 72, 87, 99 - 101, 103 - 106, 142 - 143 Feminist readings of Aristophanes 154 - 159 Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor 124 Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor 125 foreignization 49, 57, 59 - 60, 64, 66, 116 - 117, 119, 132 foreskin 58 frames and frame analysis 31 - 34, 40, 43 - 44, 50 Frischlin, Nicodemus - As textual critic 90 - Julius Redivivus 81, 113, 115 - 116, 121, 168 - Oratio [de Vita Rustica] 15, 75 - 76, 78, 80, 82, 85, 89, 93 - 98, 102, 107, 109, 112, 121, 126, 128 - 130, 139 - 140, 143 - 144, 167 - Rebecca 82 - Susanna 82 Frogs 9, 13, 15, 54 - 55, 72, 79, 84, 98 - 101, 103, 107 - 108, 116, 119, 121, 130, 133, 139 - 140, 145, 168, 171 - 172 Fröreisen, Isaac 152, 171 Gaza, Theodore 11, 152, 159 genitals 46 - 47, 58 - 59 Giraldus, Lilius 28, 149 - 154, 158 - 159 Grice, Paul 31, 43, 50 Henderson, Jeffrey 40, 45, 47, 60, 97, 116 - 119, 130, 132 - 133, 135 Hippodamus 132 Hoffmann, Ferdinand 123 - 124, 126, 128 - 130, 144 Holtermann, Martin 14, 154 - 155, 157, 162 Holy Roman Empire 13, 15, 67, 74 - 76, 80 - 82, 84 - 85, 91, 98, 105, 107, 109, 111 - 112, 114 - 115, 121, 125, 128, 130, 142, 144, 168 Horace 25, 70, 99, 102, 158 - 159 Hortensius, Lambertus 147 Hrotsvit of Gandersheim 70 humor 9, 19, 21 - 22, 27 - 34, 36 - 37, 39 - 46, 48 - 49, 53 - 56, 62 - 63, 65, 95 - 96, 136, 144, 152, 159 - 161, 164 - 165, 167 Humphrey, Lawrence 12, 26 iambic senarius 55, 58, 68 iambic trimeter 55, 68 Ilsing, Johann 124 - 125 Irenism 109, 124 Italian, See Italy Italy 11, 48, 72, 169 Ivan IV, Russian czar 125 James I, King of England 165 Jonson, Ben 163 - 165, 169 - Eastward Ho! 165 - The Staple of News 163 kainotheism 123 Knights 13, 15, 41 - 42, 44, 79, 90, 123, 125 - 127, 129 - 130, 132, 136 - 138, 142, 144, 154, 168 Knights ’ Rebellion of 1522 - 1523, 129 knowledge resources 33 Kühlmann, Wilhelm 69, 75 - 76, 79, 89, 98, 109 Küster, Ludolf 147, 162 Laibach 76 Lamachus 88, 138 - 139 Lenaia 136 locus 36, 43 Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg 107 - 109 Luther 85 - 86, 108, 111 - 112 Lysistrata 118, 148, 155, 172 Madius, Vincentius 29 - 31 Manutius, Aldus 11, 135, 152 - 153, 155 Margaret, Queen of France 156 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor 124 Megarian 27, 35 - 41, 66, 138 - 139 Melanchthon 69 - 70, 74, 80 - 81, 85 - 87, 89, 94, 108, 111 - 112, 124, 151, 168 Menander 24, 28, 68, 149 - 150, 161 Middle Comedy 156 Minturno, Antonio, author of De Poeta 164 182 Index More, Thomas 69 Moss, Joseph 86, 148, 164 Münzer, Thomas 76, 83, 89, 109, 130 Musurus, Marcus 135, 155 Nashe, Thomas 72, 151 natural equivalence 21 - 22 New Comedy 26, 55, 61, 65, 70, 87, 156, 177, 179 nobility 67, 75 - 76, 82, 91, 93, 108 - 109, 112, 114, 126, 128 - 129, 132, 167 - 168 notional audience 16, 116 - 117, 144 Obernburger, Dr. Peter 122 obscenity 12 - 13, 19, 40 - 41, 45, 49, 59, 69, 71, 85 - 86, 132, 135, 147, 155, 159 - 163, 165 Paleologan 72 Panathenaea 60 - 61 panhellenism 66 peasants 75 - 76, 83 - 84, 93, 107 - 109, 143 Peasants ’ Rebellion 85 Peloponnesian War 138, 142 penis 47, 49, 60, 117 Pericles 88, 138 Plato 11 - 12, 27, 29, 86, 142, 151, 165 - Apology 86 - Symposium 11 - 12, 86, 88, 142 Plautus 23 - 24, 55, 63, 68 - 70, 74, 114, 167 Pliny 47 - 49 Plutarch 23, 28, 139, 149 - 151, 158, 161, 165 Plutus 12 - 13, 15, 72, 74 - 75, 101, 168 Poetices Libri Septem 28, 71, 156, 165 Portus, Aemilius 148 Price, David 14, 126 Quaestionum Grammaticarum Libri IIX 68 Quintilian 11, 27, 29, 43, 68, 70, 72, 78 - 79, 132, 136, 167 Reformation 68, 70 register 31, 39 - 40, 49 - 50, 53 - 54, 94, 136 Reiss, Katharina 23, 27, 63 rhetoric 11, 13, 15, 67, 70 - 71, 73, 79, 91, 96, 100, 131 - 132, 143, 153, 159 Rhetorica sive Institutionum Oratoriarum Libri Duo 68, 78 rhetorical 13, 15, 44, 63, 67 - 68, 70 - 73, 77, 79 - 81, 89, 91, 95, 111, 115, 132 - 133, 135, 143, 153, 168 rhetorical education 13, 15, 44, 67 - 68, 70, 91, 132 Robson, James 23, 31 - 33, 36, 40, 42, 50, 54, 177 Roman Civil Law 128 Romanum Theatrum 114 Roselli, David 117 - 119 Rositini, Bartolomeo and Pietro 149, 159, 169 Rousseau 154 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor 13, 23, 87, 109, 114, 119, 121, 123 - 125, 137, 144 - 145, 169 Sausage Seller 41, 43, 45, 130, 132 - 135 Scaliger, Julius Caesar 28 - 31, 71, 83, 154, 156, 159, 165 scrotum, See testicles Seneca 65, 173 Sicily 138 skopos 15, 22, 26 - 27, 37, 39 Socrates 72, 85 - 88, 90, 93 - 97, 99 - 100, 103, 106, 123, 133, 141, 151 - 152 sophistic, See sophists sophistic innovations 94 - 95, 133 sophists 53, 87 - 88, 90, 94, 96, 100, 104, 107, 133, 168 source culture 26, 49, 64 source text 16, 21 - 22, 25, 31, 47, 55, 57, 63, 65, 111, 119, 167 ST, See source text St. Bartholomew ’ s Day Massacre 123 St. Jerome 25 Strepsiades 91, 94 - 97, 140 - 141 Süss, Wilhelm 152, 162 target 14, 26, 33, 34, 42, 44, 49, 65 target culture 26, 49, 65 target text 21 - 22, 31, 65 target language 14 Terence 23 - 24, 29, 55, 68 - 70, 74, 114, 153 testicles 58 Thirty Years War 121, 145, 179 Thucydides 138 - 139 topicality 19, 21, 49, 59, 137 Toury, Gideon 20 - 21, 178 Index 183 Translitaration of foreign terms 132 TT, See target text Tübingen 76, 89, 108 Turkish threat 124 Venuti, Lawrence 20, 22 - 23, 49, 66 Vieheuser, Sigmund, Imperial Vice Chancellor 101 - 103, 121 - 123, 145 Voltaire 154 Wagnerus 71 Walsh, Philip 158 Willi, Andreas 37, 53, 77 - 78, 87, 94 - 95, 133 Willichius 70 - 71 Württemberg 76, 84, 91, 107 - 109, 111, 122 - 123, 128, 167 - 168 Zeus 19, 60, 75 Index of Non-English Terms German Terms geheimer Rat 122 landsässiger Adel 129 Obersthofmeister 122 Reichshofkanzlei 122 Reichshofrat 120 - 123 Reichsidee 125 Reichskammergericht 121 Reichsritter 129 Reichstag 121, 129 Reichsunmittelbarkeit 129 Reichsvizkanzlei 124, 145 teutsche Freiheit 113, 129 Tübinger Stift 108, 128 Greek Terms Βλιτομάμα 64 γλισχραντιλογεξεπιτρίπτος 63 - 64 Διπωλίεια 60 μετριότης 150 παρῥησιάζοντες poetae 130, 136, 142 ῥήτορες 78, 80, 82 ῥήτωρ 78, 132 τριβολεκτράπελος 63 χαίνω 42 - 43 χοῖρος 35 - 36, 39 - 40 Latin Terms admiratio 30 assessores 102 - 103 bonitas 27 - 28, 66 - 67, 102 - 103, 105, 136 Cyclopicus fastus 93 electores 115 elegantia 80 grammaticus 80 improbi 78, 82, 98, 101, 132 laboriosi agricolae 75 - 76, 78, 97, 168 multiplex catastrophe 83 - 84 nugacissima 62 - 63 orator 25, 78 - 80, 98, 101, 103 - 105, 107, 132, 136, 153, 167 porca 35 - 36, 38, 43 privilegium de non appellando 75, 107 pudenda 28, 48 Respublica Germaniae 115, 125 - 126, 128, 132, 144 rhetor 80, 132 rhetores 92, 131, 133 risus 19, 28 - 31, 61, 66 - 67, 150, 167 Septemviri, See electores speculum civitatis 87 - 88, 111 speculum vitae 87 suavitas 27 - 28, 66 - 67, 136, 142, 150 theatrum 38, 116, 118, 121, 136 - 137 Theatrum Romani Imperii 116, 137 translatio artium 112, 114 translatio imperii 111 - 112, 114 turpitudo 29 - 31, 46 Virago 40 184 Index Index Locorum Aelian Varia Historia (2.13) 86 Aristophanes Ach. (395 - 431) 50 - 54 (497 - 501) 143 (763 - 782) 35 - 38 Nub. (192 - 194) 94 (433 - 434) 95 (972 - 979) 45 - 46 (981 - 989) 59 - 61 (990 - 1008) 61 - 64 (1055 - 1057) 101 Eccl. (1154 - 1156) 160 - 161 Ran. (687 - 688) 99 (911 - 917) 104 - 105 (1202 - 1204) 57 - 59 (1206 - 1208) 55 - 57 (1298 - 1299) 105 (1391) 105 (1422 - 1434) 105 - 107 Eq. (322 - 324) 131 - 133 (507 - 511) 136 - 137 (551 - 564) 130 (1261 - 1263) 42 (1373 - 1383) 134 - 136 Pax (962 - 967) 117 - 118 Plut. (26 - 31) 78 Cicero Opt. Gen. (5.14) 25, 80 Tusc. (II. 5 - 6) 81 Frischlin, Nicodemus Elegia VII.3, 103 Julius Redivivus (II.3) 113 - 114 (Prologue) 98 - 99 Oratio de Vita Rustica (74) 93 (92 - 93) 93 (94) 95 (102 - 103) 93 (108) 140 (138) 97 Giraldus, Lilius Historiae Poetarum tam Graecorum Quam Latinorum Libri Decem (813) 150 Humphrey, Lawrence Interpretatio Linguarum (403) 26 Jonson, Ben Every Man out of His Humour (3.1) 164 (Induction) 165 Pliny the Elder HN (24.38.59) 47 - 48 Index 185 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH+Co. KG • Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen Tel. +49 (07071) 9797-0 • Fax +49 (07071) 97 97-11 • info@narr.de • www.narr.de JETZT BES TELLEN! Thomas Baier, Jochen Schultheiß (Hrsg.) Würzburger Humanismus NeoLatina 23 2015, X, 295 Seiten €[D] 98,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-6898-4 In diesem Band wird das kulturgeschichtliche Phänomen des umanismus an dem geogra hisch de nierten Paradigma Würzburgs und seines Umlands untersucht. Mögen die Gelehrten unterschiedlichen Herrschaften, Nationalitäten, Konfessionen und Geschlechtern angehören, haben sie doch teil an einer überwölbenden res publica eruditorum, die die Trennlinien durch die Gesellschaft überwindet. Dieser Prozess vollzieht sich einerseits auf der Ebene der Akteure, etwa durch persönliche Netzwerke, andererseits im Bereich der literarischen Produktion über intertextuelle Bezüge. Voraussetzung dafür ist der den Humanismus begründende, von allen Mitwirkenden gep egte Rückbezug auf die Antike. Die Beiträge zeigen auf, dass Unterfranken mit seinem Hauptort Würzburg eine Kernregion des deutschen Humanismus darstellte, von der eine auf ganz Europa wirkende Strahlkraft ausging. Der Band leistet einen wichtigen Schritt zur Erschließung der editorisch und interpretatorisch größtenteils noch unbearbeiteten Textcorpora fränkischer Humanisten. The bawdy comedies of Aristophanes gradually began to attract more attention among learned circles in the later 16th century. This trend culminated in 1586, when Nicodemus Frischlin produced new and strikingly original Latin versions of five plays by Aristophanes. With this work Frischlin completely recast the place of Aristophanes in the Republic of Letters, forcing readers to approach him as a dramatist of tremendous contemporary relevance. Frischlin was able to rehabilitate Aristophanes by calling attention both to the practical advice his plays could give on the administration of a res publica, and to the light they could shed on serious problems concerning rhetorical education and political discourse within the troubled Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II. This work aims to restore Frischlin’s translations to their rightful place of honor within the broader reception tradition of Aristophanes and Old Comedy, while analyzing them within the context of Frischlin’s own longstanding campaigns for educational and political reform. Neo L atina The bawdy comedies of Aristophanes gradually began to attract more attention among learned circles in the later 16th century. This trend culminated in 1586, when Nicodemus Frischlin produced new and strikingly original Latin versions of five plays by Aristophanes. With this work Frischlin completely recast the place of Aristophanes in the Republic of Letters, forcing readers to approach him as a dramatist of tremendous contemporary relevance. Frischlin was able to rehabilitate Aristophanes by calling attention both to the practical advice his plays could give on the administration of a res publica, and to the light they could shed on serious problems concerning rhetorical education and political discourse within the troubled Holy Roman Empire under Rudolf II. This work aims to restore Frischlin’s translations to their rightful place of honor within the broader reception tradition of Aristophanes and Old Comedy, while analyzing them within the context of Frischlin’s own longstanding campaigns for educational and political reform. Neo L atina