Modesty topoi

Definitely not unique either to this genre of navigational works is the modesty topos, which occurs often in Renaissance prefaces in general. We find it in a variety of paratexts such as dedicatory epistles, translators’ addresses to the reader and notes by the printer, where it is usually adopted to justify the translation and/or its publication.371 This device, employed by authors for several reasons, goes back to Classical writers, is used throughout the Middle Ages and continues into the Renaissance. The author and translator make themselves less important, doing so in an apologetic, self-deprecating manner. The topos is often used as a defence mechanism in times when authors and translators could attract serious trouble, in particular for political or religious reasons. In the case of translation, the topos can also play another role, namely to reinforce the concept of textual hierarchy that results in the translation and translator occupying a far

369 _{Wall, ‘Renaissance National Husbandry’, 779. Though she is discussing agriculture, it is interesting to} note that many of Wall’s arguments in this article about the way Markham’s translations helped shape an English nationalism fit in the context of the translations of navigational works discussed here.

370

Saenger, 96.

less important rung on the literary ladder than the original text and its authors. On occasion it also serves as a mark of respect, with varying degrees of obsequiousness, for the dedicatee, to show one’s awareness of being in an inferior social position.372 Examples of modesty topoi playing these roles can be found in about half of our corpus, as will become clear from the examples quoted below.

John Florio wrote in A shorte and briefe narration of the two Nauigations and Discoueries to the Northweast partes called Newe Fravnce: ‘I holde my selfe farre inferiour to many’ (A2r). This is just the first example in a series of confessions of feared or perceived inferiority expressed in this corpus. John Frampton beseeched the dedicatee of his translation of de Enciso, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, to think of his good intentions ‘as very greate persons of highe honour haue done, vvhen little trifles haue bene giuen them by others of lovv degree’ (A2v).

Two self-deprecatory remarks relate to language skills. The first concerns knowledge of the original language. Hakluyt in his translation of de Laudonnière readily assured his dedicatee that the latter ‘had spent more yeares in France then I, and vnderstande the french better then my selfe’ (π2r). Grasp of the target language is discussed in the second by Pierre Erondelle, who hoped ‘(nothwithstanding the defects which necessarily attend a stranger, who can neuer attaine the naturall Idiome of this eloquent language) that it might not be an iniury to your Highnesse’ (¶¶r), as he wrote in his 1609 Nova Francia. Neither Frampton nor Thomas Nicholls seem to think of themselves as learned, as the former claimed he only made the translation of Marco Polo ‘in hope some learned man woulde haue translated the worke, but [found] none that would take it in hand’ (*2r), while the latter confessed in The discoverie and

conqvest of the Prouinces of Perv ‘I ca[n] not polish as learned me[n] might require’ (A3r).

From this expression of inferiority comes the need to apologise in advance and already seek forgiveness for any possible faults, which is another topos of Renaissance prefaces. Thomas Hickock begins by apologising in The Voyage and Trauaile: of M. Cæsar Frederick: ‘I haue not beene a Scholler (brought vp to write fine Schoole- termes)’ and ends by asking for forgiveness: ‘if thou finde a blemish in this my simple worke, I pray thee heartily couer the same with the shadowe of Patience’ (A3v). Nicholas Lichefield begged the dedicatee of his translation of de Castanheda ‘to pardon those imperfections, which I acknowledge to be very many, & so much the more by reason of my long & many yeares continuaunce in foreine countries’ (A2v). Richard Eden stated he had translated his 1561 edition of Cortés ‘as well as my poore learnyng may perfourme […] and doe such seruice as my abilitie may suffice’ (CC1r) while Erondelle already promised in 1609 ‘to endeauour my selfe to doe better heereafter’ (¶¶2v).

Finally, there are many cases where the translator simply states as a fact that he or his work is of a lesser quality. From ‘vnskilfulnesse’, ‘an vnskilful hand’, ‘my slender skill’ and ‘my skille much lesse in the dooing thereof’ to ‘a poore shew’, ‘this poore Translation’, ‘this poor and slender present’, ‘this poore gifte’, ‘this poore paynes’ and ‘this poore myte, I meane my labour in translating this little pamphlet’, there is no end to the translator’s self-deprecation.373 The paratexts accompanying these translations of navigational works provide ample opportunity for translators to feel on

373

See respectively STC 24931, ¶v; STC 3398, π2r; STC 21545, A3r; STC 18487, A2v; STC 10529, A3r; STC 15691, A4r; STC 16805, ❧2r; STC 16807, a4r; STC 17784, A3v and STC 18417, A1v.

the one hand that they are serving their compatriots and performing a useful and significant duty, but on the other that their abilities are rather inadequate to the task.

The sense of hierarchy between the source text and the translation, the author and the translator, is also connected to the methods of Renaissance translation as discussed earlier. According to Theo Hermans, there is a link between

both the principle of word-for-word translation as an openly acknowledged norm or an underlying, distant ideal, and the strongly hierarchical power relation that prevails between the original and its translation. In Renaissance conceptions of translations these two things tend to go hand in hand anyway: the more marked the sense of inferiority and constriction on the translator’s part, the more he is likely to cling to the original’s every word.374

It would be interesting to see if this applies to the translations discussed here, namely to research whether those translators that present themselves as being inferior also used a word-for-word approach in their translation. However, since I am not doing a close textual analysis of these texts in comparison to their originals, such research goes beyond the scope of this thesis.

CHAPTER 4

MARTIN CORTÉS’S BREUE COMPENDIO IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

So far, we have discussed specific aspects of translating navigational manuals in early modern England, namely the social and print context in which they were undertaken, the translations themselves and the paratexts. In the present chapter, we shall examine one particular text, bearing in mind all we have said so far about the production of translated navigational materials. It will serve as a case study to highlight the points that we have made so far.

In 1551, a textbook discussing the art of navigation appeared in Seville. The full title reads as follows: Breue compendio de la sphera y de la arte de nauegar con nueuos instrumentos y reglas exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones: compuesto por Martin Cortes natural de burjalaroz en el reyno de Aragon y de presente vezino de la ciudad de Cadiz: dirigido al inuictissimo Monarcha Carlo Quinto Rey de las Hespañas etc. Señor Nuestro. The full title provides us with useful information about the author, Martin Cortés, but also with a dedicatee, namely Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and King of Spain from 1516 until 1556. The work was reprinted in 1556, both editions being produced by the printer Anton Alvarez in Seville. Cortés’s Breue compendio was translated into English for the first time in 1561 and published in an impressive total of ten editions before 1640. To what did it owe its success? Who was responsible for it? Who was involved in the making of these books and why? These are the questions I shall seek to answer in this chapter.

I shall start by discussing the socio-cultural context in which the author produced the

Breue compendio, taking a closer look at the author himself and describing the contents of the book. I shall then discuss the bibliographical context, focussing firstly on just

how many Spanish and English editions there were, and secondly on when they were published. This will be followed by a description of the journey from Spanish original to English translation and its subsequent editions. Finally, I shall analyse the most relevant paratexts. Despite the obvious importance of Cortés’s Breue compendio and its extraordinary reception in England, no in-depth study of the work and its translation such as I propose has so far been undertaken.