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44 The Translator’s InvisibilityIIn 1656, Sir John Denham published a translation with the runningtitle, The Destruction of Troy, An Essay upon the Second Book of VirgilsÆneis. Written in the year, 1636. The title page is one among manyremarkable things about this book: it omits any sign of authorshipin favor of a bold reference to the gap between the dates ofcomposition and publication. Most early seventeenth-centurytranslations of classical texts are published with a signature, if nota full name (John Ashmore, John Ogilby, Robert Stapylton, JohnVicars), then at least initials and some indication of social position,“Sir T: H:,” “W.L., Gent.” Denham’s omission of his name may betaken as the self-effacing gesture of a courtly amateur, presentinghimself as not seriously pursuing a literary career, not asserting anyindividualistic concept of authorship (the title page presents thetranslation as no more than an “essay”) and thus implying that histext is the fruit of hours idle, not spent in the employ of royalauthority, in political office or military service. 1 Denham’s title pagepresented his text as a distinctively aristocratic gesture in literarytranslation, typical of court culture in the Tudor and Stuart periods,and this is clear even in the imprint, For Humphrey Moseley, one ofthe most active publishers of elite literature during the seventeenthcentury and a staunch royalist who advertised his political views inthe prefaces to his publications. Once the social conditions ofDenham’s book are recognized, the temporal gap indicated by thedates on the title page fills with significance from his own activitiesin support of the royalist cause, both in the royal government andarmy during the civil wars and for the exiled royal family and courtduring the Interregnum. Perhaps the omission of his name shouldalso be taken as an effort to conceal his identity, a precaution takenby royalist writers who intended their work to be critical of theCommonwealth (Potter 1989:23–24).“Written in 1636” proclaimed a continuity between Denham’stranslation and the years when court poetry and drama were settingthe dominant literary trends in England, when the Carolineexperiment in absolutism reached its apex, and when Denhamhimself, the twenty-year-old son of a baron of the Exchequer, waspreparing for a legal career at Lincoln’s Inn, dabbling in literarypursuits like translating the Aeneid. The Destruction of Troy wasrevised and published much later, in 1656—after Denham returnedfrom several years of exile with the Caroline court in France, soon