Weeping verse: Jasper Heywood's translation of Seneca's Troades (1559) and the politics of vicarious compassion

Abstract

In the month of Elizabeth I's coronation, January 1559, the Oxford student Jasper Heywood (1535-98) dedicated 'a simple New Year's gift' to the new queen. 1 It was a freshly published translation of Troades, Lucius Annaeus Seneca's tragedy on the suffering of Trojan women after the defeat of their city. Heywood was the first to translate a Senecan tragedy into English; he later also translated Thyestes (1560) and Hercules Furens (1561). His example was soon followed by four other men who translated the remaining seven tragedies then thought to have been written by the Roman statesman and philosopher. All ten translations were published as a collection by Thomas Newton in 1581. 2 Heywood's first translation was the entry point of Seneca's dramatic works into the English vernacular; in the course of Elizabeth's reign the tragedies would feed into the extremely popular genre of revenge tragedy. Although these English translations of Seneca's plays are usually viewed through the lens of their influence on this later genre, Heywood did not initiate the translation project out of an interest in the theme of revenge. On the contrary, he reads Seneca's Troades as a plea to rulers to resist vindictive reprisals after defeating an enemy. In his translation Heywood explores the tragedy's potential to kindle an affective response in its readers, listeners, or audiences: the response of compassion with defeated adversaries. I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their valuable feedback and constructive suggestions. This article was written in the context of a research project funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). 1 James Ker and Jessica Winston (eds.), Elizabethan Seneca: Three Tragedies (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2012), 69. Although the year began on 25 March, New Year's gifts were exchanged on 1 January. 2 Alexander Neville published OEdipus in 1563; John Studley translated Agamemnon (1566), Medea (1566), Hercules OEtaeus (?1566) and Hippolytus (1567; not published as a separate quarto); Thomas Nuce published his translation of Octavia (?1566), and Thomas Newton completed the collection with his translation of Thebais in 1581. He published these ten translations (some in revised versions) as Seneca's Tenne Tragedies that year. Of these tragedies, Octavia and Hercules OEtaeus are no longer considered to be by Seneca. The dates of Hercules OEtaeus and Hippolytus are based on Jessica Winston, 'Seneca in Elizabethan England', Renaissance Quarterly 59 (2006), 29-58.