Array Ovid - The Lovers Assistant; Or, New Art of Love

The publishing history of this translation has been sketched by Cross, in his History of Henry Fielding , and may simply be summarized here. The first edition, entitled Ovid's Art of Love Paraphrased and Adapted to the Present Time (or Times ) was first issued in February, 1747, and was advertised in the Gentleman's and Scots Magazines in that month. During March, further advertisements appeared in the London Magazine and the St. James Evening Post . The most extensive notice ran, however, in Fielding's own Jacobite Journal (No. 15), where it served as basis for a detailed comparison between the art of love and the art of Jacobitism. Of this 1747 anonymous, original edition no copy is known.

In 1759, the work was reissued in London and Dublin, under the title The Lover's Assistant , and again in London in 1760. Meanwhile, advertisements for the original edition, as by Henry Fielding, had been run by the publisher, Andrew Millar, in 1754 and 1758. Inasmuch as Millar apparently still had unsold sheets in 1758, the 1759 edition may comprise these sheets with new title pages and prefatory matter necessary because of Fielding's death in 1754. At any rate, the "modern instances" referred to by the author of the 1759 Preface are not too modern to have been written in 1747. There has been no reprint since 1760.

The present text is printed from the 1760 edition, collated with a copy of the 1759 issue. The Latin text, which in the original faces the English, is omitted. Notes keyed by letters and asterisks appear in the original; it will be noted that Fielding's notes combine scholarly and facetious remarks; he frequently used footnotes for comic effect, especially in the translation of the Plutus of Aristophanes in which he collaborated.

Literature affords few pleasures so satisfying as translations done by those who are not only expert in the languages concerned, but who also are of the same spirit as the authors they translate. Some examples come readily to mind: Pope's Horace, Dryden's Juvenal and Persius, Smollett's LeSage, Lang's Aucassin and Nicolette , and Pound's translations from Provençal. Such a felicitous combination appears in Henry Fielding's translation of Book I of Ovid's Ars Amoris .

Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English translators of the classics abounded, including Marlowe, Jonson, Chapman and Sandys; Roscommon, Waller, Denham, Cowley and Dryden. By 1700, the major kinds of translation had been differentiated, described, evaluated and practised.

To summarize, Dryden wrote as follows in his Preface to the 1680 edition of Ovid's Epistles , Translated by Several Hands:

All translation I suppose may be reduced to these three heads:

First, that of Metaphrase, or turning an Author word by word, and line by line, from one language to another… The second way is that of Paraphrase, or Translation with Latitude, where the Author is kept in view by the Translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly follow'd as his sense, and that too is admitted to be amplyfied, but not alter'd… The Third way is that of Imitation, where the Translator (if now [i.e. by taking such liberties] he has not lost that name) assumes the liberty not only to vary from the words and sence, but to forsake them both as he sees occasion: and taking only some general hints from the Original, to run division on the ground-work, as he pleases…

Doubtless, he refers to the translation of verse into verse, but actually verse-into-prose also falls within Dryden's "third way." When the author of the Preface to The Lover's Assistant speaks of it as an "undertaking" in translation, he means prose imitation, or paraphrase of verse.

Earlier, in the 1743 Miscellanies , Fielding had published "Part of Juvenal's Sixth Satire Modernized in Burlesque [i.e. Hudibrastic] Verse." The modernization, as in his Art of Love , was of place (England instead of Italy) as well as time, and allowed the author to satirize some of his contemporaries, as well as the customs of his own age.

When, four years later, he turned to the first book of Ovid's Artis Amatoriae , he found prose an even better medium for "Imitation," or "Modernization." The result is a most enjoyable pot pourri of Roman mythology and eighteenth century social customs, combined with some of the patriotism left over from Fielding's anti-Jacobinism during the Forty-Five. His devotion to, and constant use of, the classics has excited comment from every Fielding biographer since his own time. His works abound in classical instances, references and imitations; and most of his writing includes translations from Greek or Roman authors. His library, as Austin Dobson observed, was rich in editions of the classics.

Curiously, the sale catalogue lists only one, unidentifiable, Ovid item, as contrasted with 5 editions of Horace, 9 of Lucian and 13 (between 1504 and 1629) of Aristotle. This probably means that, along with other unlisted works known to have been in his possession, his Ovid was retained by his family or given to a friend. Dryden's translation of Book One of the Ars Amoris is included among Fielding's books, however, and Cross suggests that Fielding "kept one eye" on it. It is surprising how much visualization there is in his imitation. Many of the incidents resemble those treated by Hogarth, with whom by 1747 Fielding was on excellent terms. There is also some resemblance in his contemporaneous materials, or modernization, to scenes in Fielding's own later plays, and in his novels.

This Work was begun many Years ago, though altered in some Places by the Author, before his Death; as will appear by the modern Instances introduced in it. Many of which being so applicable to the present Time, is the Occasion of it being now published.

As to any Exception which may be made to the Impurity of this Work, we shall transcribe what was written long ago in its Defence, from the Preface prefixed to Mr. Dryden 's Translation of this Poem.

'A great many People are mistaken in these Books; and tho' they were made use of as a Pretence to drive the Author from the Court of Augustus , and confine him to Tomos on the Frontiers of the Getae and Sarmatae , yet they were not the true Cause of his Confinement. They are very far from being so licentious as the Writings of several other Poets, both Greek and Latin . However we must own he might have been a little more discreet, especially in some Places 1 1 He means in the other two Books.

'That which offended the Romans most in this Work, cannot touch us. It has always been more dangerous in Italy to converse with Women of Honour, and frequent their Houses, than 'tis with us; where there is more Liberty, and what in that Country may be an Occasion of Debauchery, would not at all be so in ours.

'Notwithstanding all that has been said against these Books of the Art of Love , by some over-scrupulous Persons, whose Discretion has too much of Affectation in it: they are not only necessary for the Knowledge of the Latin Tongue, and the Roman History, concerning which they contain several Things very particular; but for the noble Sentiments we find in them, which the Gravest and Learnedest Writers have thought worthy to be quoted for Authorities .

'In a Word, there's nothing in them that comes near the Licence of some Epigrams of Catullus , Martial , and Ausonius , of some Satires of Horace and Juvenal , and several other Pieces of Ancient and Modern Authors, which are read and commented upon; and about which even celebrated Jesuits and other religious Persons, as eminent for their Piety as their Erudition, have employed their Studies. Yet who has condemn'd or complain'd of them? We must confess, such Things should be managed with Address; and those of them who have meddled with any of the Authors I have named, have shewn that it may be done so, by their succeeding so happily in it.