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The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils By: Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (1595-1640) |
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MATHIAS CASIMIRE
SARBIEWSKI The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils (1646)
With an Introduction by
Maren Sofie Roestvig
Publication Number 44 Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1953
GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD C. BOYS, University of Michigan
RALPH COHEN, University of California, Los Angeles
VINTON A. DEARING, University of California, Los Angeles
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL, Clark Memorial Library ASSISTANT EDITOR W. EARL BRITTON, University of Michigan ADVISORY EDITORS EMMETT L. AVERY, State College of Washington
BENJAMIN BOYCE, Duke University
LOUIS BREDVOLD, University of Michigan
JOHN BUTT, King's College, University of Durham
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, Columbia University
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, University of Chicago
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, University of California, Los Angeles
LOUIS A. LANDA, Princeton University
SAMUEL H. MONK, University of Minnesota
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, University of Texas
JAMES SUTHERLAND, University College, London
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., University of California, Los Angeles CORRESPONDING SECRETARY EDNA C. DAVIS, Clark Memorial Library
INTRODUCTION
Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski (1595 1640) vas a Polish Jesuit whose
neo Latin Horatian odes and Biblical paraphrases gained immediate
European acclaim upon their first publication in 1625 and 1628.[1] The
fine lyric quality of Sarbiewski's poetry, and the fact that he often
fused classical and Christian motifs, made a critic like Hugo Grotius
actually prefer the "divine Casimire" to Horace himself, and his
popularity among the English poets is evidenced by an impressive number
of translations. G. Hils's Odes of Casimire (1646), here reproduced by permission from
the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, is the earliest English
collection of translations from the verse of the Polish Horace. It is
also the most important. Acknowledged translations of individual poems
appeared in Henry Vaughan's Olor Iscanus (1651), Sir Edward
Sherburne's Poems and Translations (1651), the Miscellany Poems and
Translations by Oxford Hands (1685), Isaac Watts's Horae Lyricae
(1706), Thomas Brown's Works (1707 8), and John Hughes's The Ecstasy.
An Ode (1720). Unacknowledged paraphrases from Casimire include Abraham
Cowley's "The Extasie,"[2] John Norris's "The Elevation,"[3] and a
number of Isaac Watts's pious and moral odes.[4] Latin editions of
Casimire's odes appeared in London in 1684, and in Cambridge in 1684
and 1689. Another striking example of the direct influence of Casimire upon
English poetry is presented by Edward Benlowes's Theophila (1652).
This long winded epic of the soul exhibits not only a general
indebtedness in imagery and ideas, but also direct borrowings of whole
lines from Hils's Odes of Casimire . One example will have to suffice: Casimire, Ode IV, 44 Theophila , XIII, 68 Let th' Goth his strongest chaines prepare,
The Scythians hence mee captive teare,
My mind being free with you, I'le stare
The Tyrants in the face.... Then let fierce Goths their strongest chains prepare;
Grim Scythians me their slave declare;
My soul being free, those tyrants in the face I'll stare. Casimire's greatest achievement was in the field of the philosophic
lyric, and in a number of cases he anticipated poetic techniques and
motifs which later grew popular also with the English poets. Thus, long
before Denham and Marvell, he practised the technique of investing the
scenes of nature with a moral or spiritual significance. A comparison
of Casimire's loco descriptive first epode on the estate of the Duke of
Bracciano with Denham's Cooper's Hill (1642) reveals that the Polish
poet was the first to mix description with moral reflection, and to
choose the gentle hills, the calmly flowing river, and a retired country
life as symbols of the Horatian golden mean... Continue reading book >>
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