The Heptameron (Machen)/Translator's Preface

In attempting a new version of the "Heptameron" the translator has endeavoured—1, to preserve as closely as possible the sense of the original; 2, to give the work a thoroughly English dress, and not merely to transfer the idioms of one language into those of another. The Queen of Navarre made use of a style marked by a quaint redundancy, and every page teems with repetitions which would not be tolerated in a modern book. Indeed, the reader is now and again reminded of the Law Reports, so determined was the writer to be understood by posterity, a peculiarity which the translator has, to the best of his ability, reproduced. But though the work is calculated to remind readers rather of Walton than Macaulay, it by no means lays claim to an antiquarian accuracy; "thou," "thee," "hath," &c., would, if pertinaciously adhered to throughout, become tedious, and be resented as a needless and irritating piece of affectation.

The present translator was, indeed, all the more impelled to choose an older form of English, after examining the version of Mr. W. K. Kelly (now out of print), originally published by the late Mr. H. G. Bohn in 1855, and afterwards by Messrs. George Bell and Sons, in which, from one end of the book to the other, not the slightest attempt is made to reproduce the quaint diction of the original. Slipshod in style, erroneous and unscholarlike in rendering, this translation, besides its grievous sins of commission, to which we shall presently return, is guilty also of sins of omission, excusable only on the ground of parsimony on the part of the original publisher.

​Mr. Kelly has dealt in a very summary manner with the poetical pieces occurring in four novels of the "Heptameron." In the first case (Novel XIII.) the amorous captain's epistle is dismissed thus:—"It was an elaborate declaration of the feelings which the writer had so carefully concealed, and in it was inclosed a large, handsome diamond, mounted in a black enamel ring, which the lady was supplicated to put on her fair finger." In Novel XIX. the pitiful lament of the monk is altogether suppressed, and no mention whatever made of it. In Novel XXIV. the Castilian's farewell to his cruel mistress is rendered into somewhat bald prose, and ends as follows:—"I take my leave of cruelty, pain, torment, scorn, hatred, and the burning fire with which you are filled, no less than you are adorned with beauty. I cannot better bid farewell to all woes and pains and intolerable distresses, and to the hell of the amorous woman, than in bidding farewell to you, madam, without the least prospect that wherever you or I shall be we shall ever look upon each other more." Lastly, in Novel LXIV., a poem of forty-five lines is compressed into five lines of prose! The arguments to each day's Entertainment are also omitted, while many words—such as crémeau, cannettes, gouvernante^[1]—are left untranslated. And a few instances, culled at random, of his phenomenal ignorance and portentous blundering will suffice and serve better than any vituperation to exhibit the extent of Mr. Kelly's incompetency for the task of translating a French classic into English. It will readily be confessed that "she sat down to read for hours until his return" is not a satisfactory rendering of "en disant ses Heures, attendoit le retour de son mary" (Novel XXXVII.); while the monk and nun would scarcely, with all their faults have "shouted three hours, loud and long," into the ear of a dying man. Novel LXXII. "Bien cryé leurs Heures à l'oreille du pauvre homme." It would be difficult to say on what grounds ​the legal title "Maitre des Requêtes" has been rendered Into "Referendary." Courts of Requests existed in England till the reign of Charles I., and appear to have adjudicated on small money claims, discharging the functions of our modern County Courts. Herrick alludes to them in the lines:

The same strictures apply to other volumes of Bohn's Series. The translator of Martial in this series, which is described in the Preface as a faithful rendering into English, positively translates a score or two of the Epigrams not into English but Italian!

The earliest English translation of the "Heptameron" was published as far back as 1654. The title-page runs as follows:—"Heptameron; or, the History of the Fortunate Lovers: written by the most Excellent and Virtuous Princess, Margaret de Valoys, Queen of Navarre; Published in French by the Privilege and Immediate Approbation of the King; Now made English by Robert Codrington, Master of Arts. 1654." In the address of "The Translator to the Reader," Codrington says he has been informed "that the Queen had fully finished the Ten Days' work, but the fryers and religious men who have deprived us of the two last Journals and the greater part of the eighth, would have deprived us also of all the rest, if possibly they could have prevented it." A translation of Claude Gruget's Dedication is followed by "The true and lively Portraiture of the most Illustrious and most Excellent Princess Marguerite of Valois," by Ronsard; and this by two sonnets to the same effect. The translation itself does not call for any particular remark; it seems a somewhat careless and hasty performance, owing whatever merit it may possess rather to the quaint phraseology of English at that period, than to any ability on the part of the translator. The ​poetical pieces are all omitted, and the Arguments are wanting (the latter had doubtless dropped out of the current French text which Codrington made use of); but such as it is the version gives a far better notion of the original than the bald and commonplace rendering of Mr. Kelly.

We now pass on to the bibliography of the "Heptameron." The first edition bears the title: "Histoire des Amans fortunez dediée à très-illustre princesse madame Marguerite de Bourbon, duchesse de Nivernois, par Pierre Boiastuau dit Launay. Paris. G. Gilles. 1558." This edition, now of the utmost rarity, contains only sixty-seven novels, not arranged in their proper order, or divided into Days. Proper names are also altered, and many passages offensive to the clergy suppressed.

The second edition is entitled: "L'Heptameron des Nouvelles de très-illustre et très-excellente princesse Marguerite de Valois, royne de Navarre, remis en son vray ordre, confus auparavant en sa première impression, dediée à très-illustre et très-vertueuse princesse Jeanne, royne de Navarre, par Claude Gruget, Parisien. Paris. Benoit Prevost. 1559." Here we have for the first time the title "Heptameron," which was invented by Gruget himself. The Queen of Navarre intended her book to be a "Decameron;" or, Entertainment for Ten Days, and this is the title of the MSS. But the scheme being apparently interrupted by death, only seven days and two stories of the eighth day were completed; hence Gruget's title. In this edition the order of the tales is preserved, with the division into days, and the arguments before each day. But in place of Novels XI., XLIV., and XLVI., Gruget substituted three others, composed, according to M. Frank, by himself. The many audacious, and indeed blasphemous passages in the work (e.g., see the Epilogue to Novel XLI.), suppressed by Boiastuau, are also omitted in the edition of 1559.

This impression of Gruget's served as a model for succeeding ​editors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who reproduced his text with more or less fidelity. But the Parisians of the closing years of the seventeenth century, to whom Boileau gave laws in poetry and Bossuet in prose, were not likely to endure the archaisms of the "Heptameron:" consequently the text underwent great changes, and fared somewhat like a good many of our old country-houses of the same period, whose oriel windows and arched porches gave way to square surfaces of glass, rows of Corinthian columns, and imposing flights of steps. The very name was often suppressed, and the title ran: "Contes et Nouvelles de Marguerite de Valois, Reine de Navarre, mis en beau langage." Many of these editions were published in the various literary centres of Europe, and some of them—especially a London edition—are still highly valued for the sake of their engravings. The first attempt to reissue the work as Marguerite wrote it was made by M. Paul Lacroix, who published in 1841 an edition^[2] which follows the text of Gruget—the orthography, however, being modernised as an intermediate step between the "beau langage" of the eighteenth century and the thorough-going antiquarianism of the present age. This impression was eagerly bought up, and the editor having suggested in his Preface that an edition from the text of the MSS. would be acceptable, the Société des Bibliophiles Français took the hint, and deputed their secretary, M. Le Roux de Lincy, to carry out M. Lacroix's suggestion. After a careful examination of the various MSS.^[3] M. de Lincy chose the most complete and authentic, and in 1853 published his edition,^[4] which has not been equalled by any subsequent editor ​for completeness and fullness of illustration. For the first time the old classic was given to the world as the authoress had written it; the suppressed novels, and all those passages which had fallen under the ban of the Index Expurgatorius, being restored to their proper positions. An Introductory essay upon the life and works of Marguerite, with notices of sixteen MSS. examined by the editors, on the various editions of the "Heptameron," and the unpublished poetical pieces of the Queen of Navarre, precede the text; while at the end of each volume are notes, "critical and explanatory," on the subject matter contained in it.

Next to this admirable edition of the "Bibliophiles Français" comes M. Paul Lacroix's edition of 1858, in which the text of Le Roux de Lincy is followed throughout, the three rejected novels—XI., XLIV., and XLVI.—introduced by Gruget, being restored. M. Lacroix also made some slight alterations in the orthography, and fixed the punctuation on a logical basis; but with these exceptions his text (from which the present translation has been made) is practically identical with that of the "Bibliophiles Français." Prefixed to the worki s an historical notice of Marguerite, and a list of her writings, with some valuable critical remarks.

In the "Petite Collection Elzevirienne" a three-volume edition of the "Heptameron" was published in 1879 by Liseux, who seems to have spared no pains to make the paper and printing worthy of the work and of the laborious editing of M. Felix Frank. Like Lacroix, the last-named editor has been contented to avail himself of the labours of the Bibliophiles Français, and, with the exception of including Gruget's three novels, the text of Frank is substantially the same as that of Le Roux de Lincy. The Introduction of 179 pages contains an essay on the character and life of "La Marguerite des Princesses," with a minute criticism on the "Heptameron," its plan, and the personages who tell the novels. Not the least interesting portion is the comparison of Mar​guerite's work with the similar collections of Boccaccio, Sabadino degli Arienti, Massucio, Antoine de Sains Denis, Bonaventura des Periers, and, last but not least, of Geoffrey Chaucer. It is noteworthy that M. Frank couples Marguerite and Chaucer together as the only writers of the kind who have endowed their devisants with individuality, and sought to make them something more than mere pegs to hang so many novels upon. Remarkable also for its curious research is his investigation into the real personalities of Dagoucin, Ennasuitte, Parlamente, and their companions. Here M. Frank differs repeatedly from Le Roux de Lincy and Lacroix. M. Lacroix sees under the mask of Dagoucin a certain Comte d'Agoust; M. Frank has ten pages to prove that he is an ecclesiastic named Nicolas Dangu. M. Le Roux de Lincy will have Longarine to be Madam de Chastillon, the Queen of Navarre's governess, while M. Frank shows that Longarine "est la dame de Longrai ou Longray en Normandie," one of Marguerite's most intimate friends. A hundred pages are devoted to this identification of the devisants, and to the third volume are subjoined three Appendices, with notes on the novels.

We have also seen an edition published by Garnier, without any date, introduction, or memoir, in which Novels XI., XLIV., and XLVI. are omitted and replaced by Gruget's substitutes; while the arguments to the Days and Novels are altogether wanting. Geburon and Ennasuitte appear as Guebron and Emarsuitte. The language is modernised and the text very corrupt: it seems, in fact, to be nothing more nor less than a reproduction of an edition published in the last century.

Thus our text is identical with that which is unquestionably the best—namely, the "Bibliophiles Français." We have omitted annotations which seem only to provoke discussion on matters concerning which nothing definite is known, and which, to use a hackneyed phrase, rarely rise above the level of "scandal about Queen Elizabeth." Those, however, who wish ​to identify the personages of the "Heptameron" will find what they require in the edition of M. Paul Lacroix; while for the biography of the authoress our readers cannot do better than consult Miss Freer's "Life of Marguerite d'Angoulême, Queen of Navarre."^[5]

Finally, our aim has been to present in a worthy dress what we claim to be the only complete English translation of the "Heptameron."