AIMBOTILIAO First privately printed 1913 (see footnote page v). Now published in an edition of 525 copies (of which 500 are for sale) 1923 Printed in Great Britain at the Chiswick Press of Charles Whittingham & Griggs (Printers), Ltd. 20 Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London, E.C.4 931x 1923 PREFACE THIS translation of Shakespeare's Sonnets into Latin Elegiac verse is the work of Mr. Alfred Thomas Barton, late Fellow, Tutor, and Vice-gerent of Pembroke College, Oxford. Begun as a parergon to fill the spare hours of a busy life, it ended by being the most considerable piece of work left behind him by its author, and as such was first published, after his death, in 1913, at the instance of his grateful pupils to be a remembrance of his full and ripe scholarship. The Memorial volume,1 of which this is a reprint, represents the labour and study of some forty years. Perhaps no more difficult task in its kind was ever attempted. The thought in the Sonnets is profound, elaborate, and complicated, and might well appear alien to the genius of the Latin Elegiac couplet, which as a vehicle suits better epigrammatic sentiment or condensed narrative. But the book found immediate favour with scholars, who admired the ingenuity of thought, the felicity of diction and the apparent inevitableness of the Latin counterpart, which disdained the facile and superficial equivalent, and faced with unflagging courage the hard problem of repre 'Gulielmi Shakespeare Carmina quae Sonnets nuncupantur Latine reddita ab Alvredo Thoma Barton Edenda curavit Joannes Harrower. Riccardi Press edition limited to 150 copies. 9 by 6 inches. London 1913. 591535 senting in melodious Latin the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth of the original. But if the version were a mere triumph of expression, a feat of verbal ingenuity, it would have small claim to seek a wider public in this year of the Shakespeare Tercentenary celebrations. What gives it permanent value for all homines venustiores is that it asserts in monumental form the bedrock identity of thought and feeling in the old world and the new. The closer it is studied the more apparent will be the penetrating insight of the scholar which detected the essential likeness under the semblance of diversity between the English and the Roman humanitas. No one who reads and ponders over the book with this in his mind will ever sneer at Latin verse-composition as mere knack at the best or dilettante trifling. It remains to thank the Rev. Douglas Macleane, Canon of Salisbury, and Mr. H. L. Drake, Fellow and Tutor of Pembroke College, Oxford, for the correction of errata which were not expunged in the first edition. JOHN HARROWER UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN The Publishers are indebted to the Master and Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford, for permission to publish this volume in the year of the Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebrations |