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37
Wiggins, the author of the only modem English translation of the
Satires. 33
Robert Griffin, in his study of Ariosto for the Twayne
World Authors Series, charges that Tofte "actually mistranslated some
passages by inserting Horatian turns of phrase that the original text
did not authorize. Even more significant, the autobiographical element
was blurred in favor of a more universalized relevance . . . more in
keeping with the developing nature of the Renaissance essay." 3lt
The
principal commentators on Ariosto- ignore Tofte's translation in their
discussions of the Satires. Francesco De Sanctis, Benedetto Croce,
J. A. Symonds, Edmund Gardner, and C. P. Brand, for example, are silent
on the subject of the first English translation. 35
And Richard Hardin,
whose five page article in Satire Newsletter is the longest published
commentary on Tofte's book, concludes that "Tofte's contemporaries would
probably never have read his translation had it not been for Ariosto's
fame as the author of Orlando Furioso .... These satires were
received in England as adjuncts to the poet's biography, containing
incidental particulars about a culture which was, to many educated
Englishmen, the most enlightened in Europe." 36
Only Alexander Grosart,
with his usual benign point of view, has something kind to say: "There
are good bits in these 'seven famous discourses,' and the versification
is at once facile and faithful" (p. xvi).
Ariosto's Satyres was entered in the Stationer's Register by
Roger Jackson 37 on 21 September 1608 as "a President for Satirists or
the Seven famous Satyres or "Pianettes written by Master Ludovico
Ariosto" (Arber,
390). It was published near the end of the