Sophoclis Antigone

Histories of English literature mainly remember Thomas Watson (1555/6-1592) for his contribution to lyric poetry, notably with the verse sequence The Έκατομπαθία, Or Passionate Centurie of Love (1582). However, Watson was also a playwright: it seems that he wrote comedies, now lost (Wiggins with Richardson 2012, 398); also, it has recently been argued that he collaborated with Shakespeare on Arden of Faversham (Taylor 2020). However, his extant dramatic production is confined to the Neo-Latin translation of Sophocles’ Antigone under analysis (Chatterley 2004).

         Sophoclis Antigone was printed by John Wolfe in 1581. By that date, there were already eight Latin translations available, including the version by Thomas Naogeorgus (1558). Watson explicitly refers to this version in a note to the list of the dramatis personae: lexical choices and marginal notes betray derivation from Naogeorgus’ version. Watson’s translation is surrounded by a rich paratextual material: before the translation, in the dedicatory letter Watson explains the circumstances under which he translated the play and tries to explain the importance of the topic for his dedicatee. Then, seven congratulatory letters penned by fellow humanists praise Watson and his achievement in translating Sophocles’ play; in one of the letters, William Camden’s, there seems to be the suggestion that the play was performed, although the date and the venue of the performance are still contended. Following an extract from the Suda on Sophocles’ life, a prose argument summarizes the content of the play and a further argument in verse, spoken by an allegorized Natura, lead the reader to interpret the play in the frame of Natural law and the concept of equity. These juridical themes were particularly relevant to authors like Watson, who presents himself as “iuris utriusque studioso” (“student in both branches of the law”, i.e. canon and civil law) in the title page.

These legal notions are taken up again in the additional material appended to the play: two sets of poems, four pomps and four sequence of sentences called “themes”. Preceded by another dedicatory letter, the pomps dramatize the inner conflicts of the four main characters, Creon, Antigone, Haemon, and Ismene, in the form of speaking allegories; the themes further digest these contents into long sequence of gnomic sentences. These additions were certainly not perceived as part of the translation of the text of Antigone: the title page advertises them specifically as authored by Watson, by distinguishing his twofold role as auctor and interpres. The ultimate message of these openly didactic poems appended to the translation is one of obedience and moderation, embodied by the character of Ismene, who is foregrounded to the detriment of the despicable behaviour of Creon and Antigone.

References

Chetterley, Albert. 2004, ‘Watson, Thomas (1555/6-1592)’. In ODNB.

Taylor, Gary. 2020. “Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, and Four Forgotten Playwrights”. The Review of English Studies, New Series: 1-29.

Wiggins, Martin, with Catherine Richardson, 2012, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, Volume II: 1567-1589. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Alhiyari, Ibrahim. 2006. “Thomas Watson: New Birth Year and Privileged Ancestry”. Notes and Queries 53 (1): 35-40.

Binns, James Wallace. 1990. Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Latin Writings of the Age. Leeds: F. Cairns.

Bozio, Tommaso. 1596. De ruinis gentium et regnorum aduersus impios politicos libri octo. Romae: Apud Guilielmum Facciottum.

Bremmer, Rolf H. 2004. “Morris, John (d. 1658)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/71214 (Accessed 8 January 2021).

Cecioni, Cesare G.. 1964a. “Introduzione”, in Thomas Watson, Έκατομπαθια (1582), edited by Cesare G. Cecioni, 11-25. Catania: Università di Catania Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia

– 1964b. Primi studi su Thomas Watson. Catania: Università di Catania.

Chetterley, Albert. 2004, ‘Watson, Thomas (1555/6-1592)’. In ODNB.

Cokayne, George Edward. 1900. Complete Baronetage, vol. 1. Exeter: William Pollard.

Coldewey, John C., and Brian F. Copenhaver. 1987. “Thomas Watson”, in Thomas Watson, William Alabaster, Peter Mease, Antigone, Roxana, Adrastus parentas sive vindicta, edited by John C. Coldewey and Brian F. Copenhaver, 1-7. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.

Coldiron, A. E. B. 1996. “Watson’s “Hekatompathia” and Renaissance Lyric Translation’. Translation and Literature 5 (1): 3-25.

Cooper, Thomas. 1578. Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae. Londini: [By Henry Denham].

Forcellini, Egidio, et al. 1940. Lexicon totius latinitatis. Patavii: typis Seminarii.

Grund, Gary. 2015. “Tragedy”. In The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin, edited by Sarah Knight and Stefan Tilg, 103-118. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hirrel, M. J. 2014. “Thomas Watson, Playwright: Origins of Modern English Drama”. In Lost Plays in Shakespeare’s England, edited by David McInnis and Matthew Steggle, 187-207. Basingstroke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Homer. 1999. The Iliad, translated by A. T. Murray. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

McKerrow, Ronald B. 1913. Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices in England and Scotland 1485-1640. London: Printed for the Bibliographical Society.

Naogeorgus, Thomas. 1558. Sophoclis tragoediae septem. Basileae: Per Ioannem Oporinum.

Nichols, Thomas. 1550. The Hystory Writtone by Thucidides. Imprinted at London: By John Waylande.

Sutton, Dana Ferrin. 1996. “Commentary” to Sophoclis Antigone. In Watson, Complete Works, vol. 1, edited by Dana Ferrin Sutton, 117-129. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.

– 2016. “Oxford Drama in the Late Tudor and Early Stuart Periods”. Oxford Handbooks Online, online edition: Oxford University Press.

Taylor, Gary. 2020. “Shakespeare, Arden of Faversham, and Four Forgotten Playwrights”. The Review of English Studies, New Series: 1-29.

Watson, Thomas. 1581. Sophoclis Antigone. Londini: Excudebat Iohannes Wolfius.

Wiggins, Martin, with Catherine Richardson. 2012. British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Winsheim, Veit, and Philip Melanchthon. 1546. Interpretatio tragoediarum Sophoclis. Francoforti: excudebat Petrus Brubachius.

Thomas Watson’s Sophoclis Antigone was published only once, in 1581, printed in quarto format by John Wolfe (STC [2nd ed.], 22929). There are only four extant copies of this edition and only two available online: one at the British Library (digitized both on the library website and on Google Books); one at the Huntington library, which is the copy digitized in EEBO; one at the Folger Shakespeare Library; and, finally, one at the University of Chicago Library. Since these are all copies of the same edition, only one has been selected as major witness and hence as copytext among the two copies available online, i.e., the copy held at the British Library (Digital Store 1070.m.31.[2.]; henceforth referred to as “BL”), which has a higher quality than the one available on EEBO (henceforth referred to as “HL”). Overall, BL presents few ink stains, which seldom impair the readability of the printed text, whereas HL has numerous ink smudges on pages 65-68. HL has a significant lacuna on page 18: one of Ismene’s clues lacks a whole word (“humans”).

Both BL and HL bear a handwritten inscription of an owner’s name: “Ioh. Mauritius” and “Thomas Wilbraham”, respectively. The former inscription stands for Iohannes Mauritius and certainly refers to the book collector John Morris (d. 1658), since the inscription is very similar to another book he owned. The latter inscription likely refers to either the second or third baronet Wilbraham of Woodhey, both named Thomas (Cokayne 1900, 163-4).

In both BL and HL, Wolfe’s device stands out in the title page and is accompanied by the motto “ubique florescit”, typical of the works printed by Wolfe in the years 1581-1582 (McKerrow 1913, 82). Overall the volume comprises sixty-six pages, with signatures running from A4r to I2v. However, the pagination appears to be wrong because the signature A4r appears after A5r. Probably as a result of this, in HL the first pages are ordered wrongly, whereas BL has them in the correct order: title page followed by a blank page; dedicatory letter to Philip Howard; thirteenth earl of Arundel; seven congratulatory letters, of which one is in Greek with an illustration below; Sophocles’ life from the Suda, also decorated with an illustration; two arguments of the play by Watson; finally, the list of the dramatis personae. The first argument is brief and in prose, equally accompanied by a decorative illustration, and the other is longer and in verse, spoken by an allegorical figure called “Natura”.

The text of the translation is divided into five acts but the first is not signalled by a title and is followed by a second dedicatory epistle to Arundel, which announces two sets of verse compositions authored by Watson: four pomps and four themes. These additional poems are first heralded in the full title of the text: Sophoclis Antigone, interprete Thoma Watsono i[uris] u[triusque] studioso. Huic adduntur pompae quaedam, ex singulis tragoediae actis derivatae, et post eas, totidem themata sententiis refertissima; eodem Thoma Watsono auctore. The paratexts are written either in Roman type or in italics; the text of the translation is in Roman type except for the italic type for speech headings and subtitles preceding each section with information about metre. Running titles are in small capitals throughout.

References

Bremmer, Rolf H. 2004. “Morris, John (d. 1658)”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/71214 (Accessed 8 January 2021)

Cokayne, George Edward. 1900. Complete Baronetage, vol. 1. Exeter: William Pollard.

McKerrow, Ronald B. 1913. Printers’ and Publishers’ Devices in England and Scotland 1485-1640. London: Printed for the Bibliographical Society.