William Ainsworth's Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Sæculare of Horace (c.1625) in a Bodleian Manuscript

Abstract

Bodleian manuscript Rawlinson poetry 104 contains a seventeenthcentury translation of the Odes, Epodes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace, followed by a short sequence of original English poems. Its principal interest is not its linguistic skill or literary merit, but its place within the history of English Horace translation, because it is a very early complete translation of the Odes, Epodes and Carmen Saeculare -and quite possibly the earliest on record. This note offers an attribution and an approximate dating for the translation, suggests something of its significance within its historical context, and provides samples of the translation itself.Previous comment on the translation comprises a few brief and scattered observations which note a probable connection with Cambridge and a dating some time in the first half of the seventeenth century. 1 The manuscript itself, a rather foxed and damp-stained quarto (x+66 leaves, c.190×140mm), contains four distinct sections: a complete translation of Horace's Odes (fols 1 r -46 v ), a complete translation of his Epodes (fols 47 r -60 r ), a translation of his Carmen 1 Falconer Madan et al., A Summary Catalogue of