1

TRANSMUTING DIDO: MAROT, DU BELLAY,

AND THE DISPLACEMENT OF OVIDIAN AND VIRGILIAN AUTHORITY IN TRANSLATIO

Among ancient heroines, all “intertextual creatures”1 whose stories appear always-already

translated, the figure of Dido pervades the works of Renaissance writers. French humanist poets

Clément Marot and Joachim Du Bellay exploit this ambivalent iconic figure in the context of

emulation with classical authors Virgil and Ovid. In their work Dido appears of course in the Aeneid

(books 3-4) and the Heroides (heroic letter/epistle 7).2 While textual translations more or less

directly conveying a source-text (transcriptio verborum, sometimes called traductio) were popular,

more involved imitations and rewritings exposed the cultural politics of translation. This is the case

for Marot and Du Bellay, whose poetic, political and ethical appropriations of the figure of Dido

promote and question historical and ideological transfer. The enduring notion of translatio studii et

imperii (the transfer of hegemony both at the cultural and political level) is at play in their work.3 As

evidenced in a few poems we offer to read comparatively from this standpoint, conflicting themes

and motivations highlight the polysemy of translatio and problematize poetic authority in the

French sixteenth century. Marot’s Epistre de Maguelonne and concluding rondeau and Du Bellay’s

Dido ‘triptych’ (verse translated from Ovid, Virgil, and Ausonius; presented in that order)4 both

display a strong interplay of poetic structure and vernacular literature with classical authorities. The

treatment of displacement (spatial, textual, moral, and political) as intrinsic to translatio in those

poems encourages us to further interpret how ambitious vernacular translations frame and

appropriate major works.

Marot and Du Bellay’s verse straddle translation in the modern sense and emulative imitation;

the queen of Carthage is textually subject to moral intervention. Both poets set out to correct Dido’s

1 P. White, Renaissance Postscripts: Responding to Ovid’s Heroides in Sixteenth-Century France, Columbus, Ohio University Press, 2009, p. 245. 2 Besides Heroides 7, one comes across Dido briefly in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (14.77-81), Fasti (3.545-561, featuring Anna), and Tristia (3.73). 3 On the medieval notion of translatio, see E. R. Curtius, La littérature européenne et le Moyen-Âge latin (1957), Paris: Presses Pocket, 1991, pp. 70-73; and A. G. Jongkees, ‘Translatio studii: les avatars d’un thème medieval,’ in Miscellanea Mediaevalia in Memoriam Jan Frederick Niermeyer, Groningen: Wolters, 1967, pp. 41-51. Among rhetorical tropes, translatio also means “metaphor,” as Curtius reminds us (p. 219). 4 The epigram was in actuality falsely attributed to Ausonius: T. W. Reeser, ‘Du Bellay's Dido and the Translation of Nation." Virgilian Identities in the French Renaissance, ed. P. J. Usher and I. Fernbach, Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2012, pp. 213-236 (232) provides references retracing the attribution history. This bears no relevance on our argument, centered on Du Bellay’s relationship to authority in translatio(n). Editions used: C. Marot, L’Epistre de Maguelonne à son amy Pierre de Provence, elle estant en son Hospital, in L'Adolescence clémentine (1532), in Œuvres complètes, ed. F. Rigolot, Paris: GF-Flammarion, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 78-85; includes the “Rondeau, duquel les lettres Capitales portent le nom de l’Autheur“; J. Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre de l’Enéide de Vergile - Complainte de Didon à Énée, prinse d’Ovide - Sur la statue de Didon, prins d’Ausone (Paris, 1552), in Œuvres poétiques VI. Discours et traductions (1928), ed. H. Chamard, Paris: SFTM, 1991, pp. 257-332.

2

fate and import by dramatizing her ambivalent virtue of noble widow and virago. Dido

(‘wanderer/erring,’ pseudo-etymologically) is synonym to the Latin virago, and is generally

substituted to her ‘original’ name Elissa/Eliza. Contrasted versions of the character appear in

classical sources themselves: compared to Virgil who justifies her being abandoned by Aeneas, Ovid

negates the epic thrust through elegiac verse; he gives Dido a voice and adds ironies, forensic

defense, and intimate pathos. In commentary, conflicting interpretations of Aeneid 4 predate the

French Renaissance: “On either side of this developing gap in medieval Virgilianism – the political

book of Aenean empire vs. the erotic book of Didonian tragedy – the Queen of Carthage is

consistently a figure of pathos.”5 In history or fable, she is a great queen who suffered a mad

downfall. Judgments on her fate fluctuate, as do generic traits attached to her story, in turns

perceived as (or rendered) more elegiac, epic, tragic, or romance-like.6

The texts to be discussed here are Marot’s 1532 Epistre de Maguelonne, with its concluding

rondeau “Comme Dido…” (‘Like Dido’), and Du Bellay’s 1552 collection comprising Le Quatriesme

livre de l’Enéide de Vergile (‘The Fourth Book of the Aeneid by Virgil’), followed by Complainte de

Didon à Énée, prinse d’Ovide (‘Dido’s Lament to Aeneas, after Ovid’) and Sur la statue de Didon, prins

d’Ausone (‘On/Upon the Statue of Dido, after Ausonius’). Armed with allusive intertextual echoes

and assertive paratexts, these arresting verse interventions enact a multi-layered agenda in which

the transference of authority is at stake, with theoretical implications bearing resonance beyond

their time and place. What then does the figure of Dido stand for, in those disruptions and

displacements of authorial framing and exploitations of the problematic exemplarity concentrated

in the heroine’s name? And what do the moral and generic displacements applied to the myth tell

us about generational shifts differentiating Marot and Du Bellay’s similar perspective on Gallic

translatio, beyond Gallicized translation?

***

1. Clément Marot’s Maguelonne: ‘Transmuting’ Ovid and displacing Virgil’s authority through Dido

Marot’s stance is critical of Dido both from a nationalistic and a Christian moral standpoint. The

poet places Dido in a network of unworthy pagan heroines, among whom is Helen of Troy.7 On the

5 She is pathetic figure as a widow or as a lover, says C. Baswell, Virgil in Medieval England. Figuring the Aeneid from the Twelfth Century to Chaucer, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 279. 6 Ibid. pp. 10-11, 184-200. 7 Other heroines with a virile side, which gives them equivocal or “reversible value,” include Judith and Lucretia (M.-C. Malenfant, Argumentaires de l’une et l’autre espèce de femme (1500-1550), Laval: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003, p. 350).

3

other hand Gallic figures, real or mythical, present or past, are praised as superior figures and used

to announce a transfer of dominion (translatio imperii) into France under Francis I. This concerns

Marguerite de Navarre (then Marguerite d’Angoulême, the poem’s dedicatee) and Maguelonne (the

poem’s scriptor-persona, a forlorn but hopeful lover from Occitan medieval lore). The projected

power shift conflates the medieval translatio and the Christian-humanist transitus, which Francis I,

Roi treschrestien as per his title, was expected to achieve during his reign.8

Let us first clarify the key notions of transitus and conversion, as they pertain to Christian

humanism and will guide our interpretation of the Epistre. Guillaume Budé’s contribution to

Christian (French) Humanism introduced among other things the influential ideas of symbolic

theology, cultural transference, and transmutation. His De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum

was printed in 1535 but its key notions were disseminated prior to publication.9 His De studio

literarum commode et recte instituendo (1532) features the notions of “transeundum” (the near-

mystical journey of the humanist scholar) and “transferendum” (transfer of pagan cultural resources

to the new Christian literary canon to be constituted) which will become the syncretic transitus.10

Budé’s De studio and De philologia also provided a vademecum for Christian humanist scholars; and

Marot expresses his admiration for the scholar in his œuvre. Budé’s idea of transitus, in France most

notably, encapsulates and expands the humanist impetus for the accommodation of ancient wisdom

and pagan authors to Christian ethics and theology. It implies the implicit or explicit

supplementation of pagan sources with Christian authorities such as Augustine or Ascentius.11 In the

French 1530s-1580s, freer forms of emulation and ironic distancing began to undermine the

univocal interpretations of traditional moral/spiritual commentary.

Marot’s work at large pointedly eschews the mad love which to him Dido embodies. Folle

amour, which the character allegorizes, is to be supplanted by Ferme amour (unwavering, steadfast

love).12 In this respect, the exemplary story of Maguelonne exemplifies a form of (female) ‘mad love’

8 On the various national myths surrounding King Francis I and his reign foreshadowing absolutism, see A.-M. Lecoq, François Ier imaginaire. Symbolique et politique à l'aube de la Renaissance française, Paris: Macula, 1987. 9 M.-M. de La Garanderie, Christianisme et lettres profanes: essai sur l'Humanisme français (1515-1535) et sur la pensée de Guillaume de Budé. Paris, Honoré Champion, 1995, pp. 249-260. 10 Ibid. pp. 22-25. 11 See ibid, passim; M. Tudeau-Clayton, ‘Supplementing the Aeneid in early modern England: translation, imitation, commentary,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition, vol. 4 (1997-1998), pp. 507-525 (7); and White, Renaissance Postscripts (n. 1 above). 12 On Marot’s folle amour (‘mad love’), see G. Defaux, ’Les deux amours de Clément Marot,’ Rivista di letterature moderne e comparate vol. 1, 1993, pp. 1-30, J. Dellaneva, ‘À propos de ‘Folle Amour,’’ in Clément Marot, “Prince des Poëtes français”, 1496-1996, ed. G. Defaux, Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997, pp. 381-389, and T. Mantovani, ‘‘Leal amours Venus despite’: Martin Le Franc et Clément Marot,’ in La poétique des passions à la Renaissance, eds. F. Lecercle and S. Perrier, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001, pp. 19-36. White notes that amor stultus is a reference in Fontaine’s translation of the Heroides, which also mentions “amour voluptueuse” (‘lecherous love,’ White, Renaissance Postscripts [n. 1 above], p. 164) and Octovien de Saint-Gelais referred to the notion as well (ibid. pp. 169-170). Élisenne de Crenne, whose name recalls

4

converted, transmuted into ‘unwavering love.’ Throughout his œuvre, Marot moreover urged his

contemporaries to turn away – that is, etymologically, to convert − from pagan and profane songs

and from the Ovidian Ars amatoria, electing instead more spiritual material. He partly translated the

Metamorphosis in order to highlight the historic gap between pagan and Christian notions of

transmutation.13 Choosing the verb transmuer rather than translater, thus echoing Budé’s De

transitu (1535), suggests a positive metamorphosis, figuratively rooted in alchemy, theology, and

mythology.14 Dante’s reflections on the ordeal of transmuting musical qualities (e.g., the Psalms’), in

the Convivio especially, come to mind as well.15 The first preface to the Psalms16 likewise redirects

the very meaning of convertir and muer – two polysemous verbs used in the context of

metamorphosis and translation alike – to emphasize the infusion of the Holy Spirit in the heart.17

Aside from religious undertones, the Latin term convertere is typically rendered by “tourner” (to

translate, to turn into French) in contemporary French lexicology and translation theory.18 The

change in outlook and inspiration – that is, the conversion highlighted by Marot – involves

supplanting the ancient authorities themselves. The Prince of Poets representing the glorious

kingdom of France should not let their names stifle Gallic pride, the humble pride of the (newly- or

hopefully-) elect nation under Francis I – not only a victorious commander but also a patron and a

poet (at least 1515-1525). Accordingly, Marot offers no acknowledgement of the main model for his

verse epistle even though the Epistre de Maguelonne and its forlorn heroine are closely tied to

Ovid’s Heroides. In Marot, mediated authority and strategic interpolations point to a decisive

translatio, often erasing the source and leveling influence. Marot’s ‘transmuting’ Ovid in the Epistre

involves a dynamic spatial, textual, and ideological shift, a “displacement” meant to act as a

Elissa, and who published a relatively unnoticed prose translation of Aeneid 1-4 (V. Worth, ‘‘Cest estranger naturalizé’: Du Bellay traducteur de Virgile,’ in Du Bellay. Actes du colloque international d’Angers, Ed. G.Cesbron, vol. 2, Angers: Presses de l’Université d’Angers, 1990, pp. 485-495 [75]), presents her love narrative as a caveat against amor stultus: the full title runs, Angoysses douloureuses […] à ne suyvre folle Amour (Malenfant, Argumentaires [n. 7 above], p. 452). H. Naïs, “Traduction et imitation chez quelques poètes du XVIe siècle.” Revue des sciences humaines vol. 52, no. 180, 1980, pp. 33-49 (38-43), succinctly compares some of the many translations of Dido’s death (Peletier, Du Bellay, Ronsard, and Jodelle, who imitated Du Bellay). In the reception of the Heroides, Phyllis traditionally was more of an example of lethal fury than Dido (ibid. p. 116-117). The feminized genre of the heroic letter lent itself to cultural contest and protest because it showcased minor voices within a minor genre. It also represented a new sounding-board for scholarly commentary and freshly-broken ground (in Neo-Latin poetry) to emulate in the vernacular (ibid. p. 88, p. 94). 13 “[Q]uelle difference peut estre entre les Anciens et les Modernes,” in C. Marot, Œuvres poétiques, ed. G. Defaux, 2 vols, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 1996, vol. 2, p. 407. 14 La Garanderie, Christianisme et lettres profanes (n. 9 above), p. xxviii. 15 J. Risset, Traduction et mémoire poétique, Paris, Hermann Éditeurs, 2007, pp. 36-38. 16 “Clément Marot aux Dames de France…,” in Marot, Œuvres poétiques (n. 13 above), p. 629. 17 Vingt Psalmes (ll. 35-37), ibid. 18 See R. Estienne’s Thesaurus “Tourner: Convertere. Pro ex una lingua in aliam vertere”; “tourner” appears in his Dictionarium latinogallicum in the four entries: CONVERTO, EXPRIMO, REDDO, TRADO.

5

Christian corrective and a moralized appropriation.19 How is the authority of the Ancients displaced

and transmuted by Marot, especially Virgil and Ovid’s? The discreetly syncretic Epistre de

Maguelonne (1532) sketches out an answer while also outlining the status of Dido for Marot and his

Gospel-loving generation.

Clément Marot’s Maguelonne is a love epistle in verse published in L’Adolescence clémentine in

1532.20 The letter is filled with discreet biblical allusions and derived from a medieval, likely Occitan,

prose tale.21 Its female heroine is the authorial voice; it is inspired by Ariadne’s complaint to Theseus

(Heroides 10).22 Maguelonne, who chose to become a sœur hospitalière (a sort of nun minus the

final vows) after losing her beloved Pierre and wandering aimlessly for a while as a consequence,

recounts the story that led her from Italy to France (to Provence). She writes in the hope of reuniting

with her long-lost lover or at least hearing from him (“en attendant des nouvelles,” l. 71).

As a deserted lover, Maguelonne both recalls and departs from Dido, whose name appears

twice in relation to Maguelonne’s story (including once in the attached rondeau, a short verse piece

to be discussed below). The first-person epistle alludes to Dido early on (l. 23) among other Ovidian

heroines such as “Helaine” (l. 52), “Medée,” (l. 112), and “Thysbé” (l. 163). In Maguelonne’s mouth,

Medea’s name appears at the height of despair. The first occurrence of Dido’s name sounds equally

ominous since it announces fatal misery. Yet it also hints at a discreet pattern of emulation,

confirmed by the epideictic rhetorical context in which the names of Helen and Thisbe appear:

Mais tout soubdain la fatalle deesse

En dueil mua nostre grande lyesse,

19 On Marot’s poetics of displacement, “déplacement,” as Defaux puts it, see G. Defaux, ‘Introduction,’ in Marot, Œuvres poétiques (n. 13 above), vol. 1, p. xxxix. Michel d’Amboise’s Les Contrepistres d’Ovide (1546) can be tied, with a hint of parody perhaps, to that Christian-humanist current of translatio vilipending folle amour (White, Renaissance Postscripts [n. 1 above], p. 205-206). 20 The poem first appeared alone in pamphlet form (plaquette, ca. 1517-1519). With slight variations, almost fifteen years later, L’Epistre de Maguelonne, à son amy Pierre de Provence, elle estant à son Hospital became the opening epistle to the Epistres section of L'Adolescence clémentine (1532 edition; Marot, Œuvres completes, vol. 1, pp. 78-85). 21 Josiane Rieu shows how The Song of Songs informs this sorrowful plea from a fiancée to her missing lover (Rieu, ‘Le silence de Dieu: Marot, l’Epître de Maguelonne,’ Loxias no. 15, 2006. Online. <http://revel.unice.fr/loxias/index.html?id=1394> [cited February 20, 2015].). The medieval tale or histoire of Pierre and Maguelonne enjoyed multiple editions and translations throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, as François Roudaut shows in his introduction and bibliography to Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne (ed. F. Roudaut, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2009). For a comparative study of the tale and other medieval sources of Marot’s epistle (including devotional literature), see F. Lestringant, ‘De la déploration aux ossements, Clément Marot, André de la Vigne et l’Epître de Maguelonne,’ Op. Cit. Revue de littérature française et comparée, vol. 7, 1996, pp. 67-77. 22 The English translation of Ovid’s Epistulae heroidum or Heroides consulted is Hine’s. Heroides 10 features a heroine who, like Maguelonne, is a virgin, whose lover left with no apparent reason, and who wanders the shore in desperate search of him. The Heroides also provided a model for Marot’s Elegies, published in 1534 in La Suite de l’Adolescence without a trace of acknowledgement, even though publishing twenty-one verse love letters indicated Ovidian emulation. In another instance of implicit emulation, Ronsard’s Clymène (La Franciade, book 3) is modelled after Virgil’s Dido, and enables the poet to deploy pathos without compromising the “moral censure” applied (D. Stone, ‘Dido and Aeneas. Theme and Vision in the third Book of the Franciade,’ Neophilologus vol. 49, no. 1, 1965, pp. 289-297).

6

Qui dura moins que celle de Dido (ll. 21-23)

(‘But suddenly, the fatal goddess / Into pain converted our intense joy / Which did not last

as long as Dido’s did’)

Maguelonne’s amorous ecstasy was even more painfully short-lived than Dido’s, whose name

rhymes with “Cupido” (l. 24), the harbinger of love which Marot’s earlier Temple de Cupido criticized

using the same rhyme.23

Dido becomes a clear counter-example of Maguelonne’s ‘unwavering love’ or ferme amour in

the 15-line postscript rondeau, which is worth analyzing in detail. There, the authorial voice draws a

contrastive parallel, staging an antagonistic response to the pagan and treacherous Dido, deemed

“felonne” (l. 7), contrary to the faithful and hopeful Maguelonne; hence the negative rhyme:

Comme Dido, qui moult se courrouça,

Lors qu’Eneas seule la delaissa

En son pays: tout ainsi Maguelonne

Mena son dueil et comme saincte et bonne,

En l’hospital toute sa fleur passa.

Nulle fortune oncques ne la blessa:

Toute constance en son cueur amassa,

Myeulx esperant: et ne fut point felonne,

Comme Dido. (ll. 1-9)

(‘Like Dido, who displayed great ire / when Eneas left her alone / in her country, so did

Maguelonne / suffer deeply, and, pure and good as she was, / let her youth fade inside the

hospital. / Fortune never was able to harm her. / Sheer constancy in her heart she

gathered, / hoping for the best. And she was not treacherous / like Dido.’)

The Queen of Carthage, contrary to Maguelonne with her familiar vernacular name, is not called

Elissa, even though the rhyme in /sa/ echoes that very name while the rhyme in /ɔn/ echoes

Maguelonne in the rondeau. Cast off centre, Dido’s unspoken name is entombed in the negative

verb delaissa (‘abandoned’), while Maguelonne figuratively takes over that very name in the verb

amassa, a near antonym to ‘delaissa’ (l. 7, ‘gathered’), knowing that with ama- also evokes the verb

to love in French and Latin, and ma- the beginning of Maguelonne’s name. Dido suffered as much

23 Cupido is also opposed to ‘Amour’ (that is, Love in the Christian, Pauline sense) in Le Franc’s Le Champion des Dames, which influenced Marot’s “Temple de Cupido” even though our poet is far less radical (T. Mantovani, ‘Leal amours,’ pp. 22-32). In “Le Temple de Cupido,” Dido turned pale at the sight of the magnificent allegory of Ferme Amour (ll. 510-515, in Marot, Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, p. 41). Cupid is the pagan deity that Du Bellay disparages in a critical epigram preceding his translation of Elissa-centered pieces, thus making him closer to fol amour (Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, p. 256).

7

pain for love as the Italian-turned-Provençal hospitalière, but she lacked Maguelonne’s saintly

constancy and hope (second and first stanzas), theological virtues that sustained her ‘unwavering

love’ and prevented her from committing suicide:

Tant eut de dueil, que le monde s’estonne,

Que d’un cousteau son cueur ne transpersa,

Comme Dido. (ll. 13-15 and final)

(‘So deep was her grief, that the world marvels / that with a blade she did no pierce her

heart / Like Dido.’)

The rondeau’s deceptive rentrement “Comme Dido” (‘Like Dido’) turns the parallel into a negative

comparison, a strong antithesis: “Like Dido…” or rather, not so. That is, certainly not in spirit, since

the two heroines are separated by Christian faith. They also have contrasting destinies: Pierre did

come back, which means Maguelonne’s story met a happy ending attributed to divine Providence –

“celluy qui toute puissance a” ‘he who almighty is,’ the final stanza of the rondeau specifies (l. 10).

Marot makes it plain to see: The miracle (“le monde s’estonne” ‘the world marvels,’ l. 13)24 of

Maguelonne’s Christian fortitude and virtue eclipses in wonder the tragedy of Dido’s abandonment

and (implicitly) perdition. In this light, it is no wonder poets celebrate her (“on en blasonne,” l. 12):

The Christian heroine, keeps drawing praise because she does not owe her exemplarity to virtue

alone; God’s will is at play.25

Why does the concluding piece insist on defining Maguelonne’s love in contrast with Dido’s?

Why restate and reiterate this didactic resonance? The third-person rondeau functions as an

ideological afterword to the first-person epistre, further disambiguating the heroic letter imitating

pagan voices. The brief, Gallic, witty lines of the native rondeau balance out the elegiac tone of the

long imported poem. The form itself casts the heroine transplanted in Provence as an anti-Dido in

spite of surface similarities. Since young Elissa too had left her original realm for a foreign prince and

wandered – as emphasized by the false etymology of Dido on the mind of learned readers – the

24 The tradition of medieval mirabilia is present but applied to psychological and moral traits, as in contemporary romans de chevalerie (Pierre de Provence [n. 21 above], p. 50). In Marot’s twenty-first elegy of the Suite, the mal-mariée utters: “Las, je me plains, non point comme Dido / Frappée au cueur du dard de Cupido,” (‘Alas, I lament, but not like Dido did / Struck in her heart by the arrow of Cupid,’ ll. 15-16, “La vingtiesme elegie,” in Marot, Œuvres poétiques [n. 13 above], vol. 1, p. 271); such a statement introduces moral wonder into a matrimonial context devoid of passion. In Ovid, unredeemable suicide concerns Phyllis more than Dido; Heroides 2 is related to Heroides 7 since Phyllis partly models herself after Dido, while also echoing Ariadne. 25 And Jesus and Mary, as the knife-in-heart image suggests (Stabat mater dolorosa…), took on the burden of such human suffering (Rieu, ‘Le silence de Dieu’ [n. 21 above], §19).

8

contrast should be underscored.26 No narrative development is needed. Dido is but a name, an

allegorical placeholder exemplifying fol amour and its erratic ways. Dido’s words will not be allowed;

among the many scripter-personae of the Heroides, Ariadne is the model actually chosen for

Maguelonne’s elegiac plaint, not the eloquent Dido of Heroides 7. Virgil’s Aeneid 4 and Dido’s

powerful lines are even more authoritatively brushed aside by Marot, who consistently eschews the

epic model as historically out-of-place, inflated and hubristic.27 Substitution and transplantation

prevail, as though the translatio was already achieved. Can the displacement and transmutation of

ancient authorities observed in the Epistre mean something beyond the ‘moralizing’ exegesis

inherited from the Middle Ages and reinterpreted by the ‘Evangelical’ brand of Christian humanism

professed by Marot?

2. Achieving translatio and transitus, according to Marot’s Epistre de Maguelonne

Geo-political stakes also surface in subtle ways. Before the rondeau clarifies the agenda, the

epistle itself contains a narrative figuration of the translatio imperii et studii from Italy to France.

The idea of translatio pervaded royal propaganda under Francis I, even after the bid for the Empire

was lost to the Hapsburgs of Spain. Marot legitimates the claim to a French translatio in spiritual

terms. Maguelonne’s journey westward, aided by Providence, and her eschewing mad love is

interpreted as a conversion (again: a ‘turning to,’ a transformation) to faith and France, more than a

simple ‘moving-across’ (a spatial translation).

Maguelonne’s journey is detailed. Roaming in a state of despair after waking up alone, Pierre

having disappeared, she takes to the sea in Lombardy (ll. 191-92), and easily reaches the “pays de

Prouvence” (‘land of Provence,’ l. 194), where people welcome her. Significantly, Maguelonne is an

Italian princess, born daughter to the king of Naples, that is, one of the contested territories that

generated conflict between France, Provence (when not French), and the Hapsburg Empire.28 The

figurative annexation or appropriation of the Italian-born exemplar is reinforced by the omission of

26 As stated in introduction, the name Dido is thought to etymologically mean either virago or ‘wanderer.’ Her destiny is suicide, while the end of the voyage is charity and chastity for Maguelonne; the scripter’s long-awaited marriage is not explicitly projected at the end of the epistle. 27 See C. Noirot, “Entre deux airs”: style simple et ethos poétique chez Clément Marot et Joachim Du Bellay (1515-1560). Paris: Hermann éditeurs, 2013, pp. 126-143. 28 Naples became a territory of interest beginning with the reign of expansionist king Charles VIII (failed Naples expedition, 1494-1495). Francis I conquered Milan right before the Epistre was initially composed (1515-1517), although he definitively lost it after Pavia in 1525. He renounced Naples to Charles V. Marot likely wrote his poem on Maguelonne during those Italian campaigns, when at the service of Francis’s sister Marguerite d’Angoulême (queen Marguerite de Navarre after 1527). No historical fact is directly transcribed in the tale, whose character names are fictional and symbolical except for dynastic ties linking Naples and Provence between the 13th and 15th centuries (Pierre de Provence [n. 21 above], p. 33).

9

the heroine’s stopover in Rome, which medieval versions do mention.29 Marot, a militant critic of

the Roman Catholic Church and its abuses, replaces the Roman episode with the heroine’s spiritual

blossoming on Provençal, that is, French, soil. Maguelonne, moreover, came to bear a distinctly

French-sounding name, thus erasing her foreign roots for posterity. It is also a name that is bound to

liken her – phonetically and beyond – to another popular penitent lover: Mary Magdalene.30 The

latter was similarly transplanted into Southern European territory by medieval lore. Besides the

heroine’s leaving Italy and her journeying westward, which already mimics translatio, she finds her

promised land in Provence, which sounds like Providence. (And Marot’s taste for sonic figuration

was demonstrated above in the rondeau’s rhyme scheme.) What is more, Marot adds in his retelling

that upon setting sail, the grieving lady became instantly freed from worry, from gloomy spirits

(“soucy tresamer,” l. 191). Soucy (‘worry’) is a negative state in Marot’s idiolect; and the strong

homophony between amer (‘bitter’) and a(i)mer (‘love’) echoes the dread and sorrow depicted.

Among other Biblical allusions and theological terms, Maguelonne additionally encounters a

favorable wind (“le bon vent,” l. 193), which can be read as an image of the Holy Spirit literally

inspiring her.31 Further evidence that the translation strives to achieve a religiously-justified transfer

of power – in other words, a transitus-oriented translatio – lies in the lover’s name. His birth name is

Pierre (Peter) like the apostle, and his absence inspires Maguelonne to join a charity order and

contribute to literally building the Church (“un hospital a basty,” l. 206) while honouring his memory

by naming the (safe-)harbour thus founded after him (“ung port, / Dict de Sainct Pierre,” ll. 205-206;

now Saint-Pierre de Maguelonne, a village located near Montpellier). There she built a hospital to

provide assistance to sick wanderers (“pauvres errants malade,” l. 210).32

The heroine thus becomes an hospitalière, that is, a (semi-)nun devoting her life to healing the

sick and forlorn. The pilgrim who saved her as well as the land of Provence granted her charitable

solace and adopted her as one of their own, which she herself later does. The religious order

29 Ibid. pp. 45-46. 30 Mary Magdalene is alluded to as a penitent example in the devotional epistle that precedes, in the initial edition of L’Adolescence: “Les Tristes Vers de Philippes Beroalde“ (Marot, Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, p. 76). 31 See. C. Noirot, “Entre deux airs” (n. above), pp. 317-336. The ‘messenger of Venus’ (l. 1) in charge of carrying the letter also recalls the common symbol of the Holy Spirit (Rieu, “Le silence de Dieu” [n. 21 above], §25). In the same article, Rieu analyses numerous allusions to the Song of Songs, the Book of Job and the Psalms. 32 Notwithstanding the fact that she initially joins the hospital as a pragmatic way to save herself for Pierre and wait for him safely. Roudaut’s bibliography mentions a few editions of the tale of Maguelonne calling Pierre de Provence “Chevalier des Clefs” (‘Knight of the Keys,’ Pierre de Provence [n. 27 above], p. 257), which recalls Matt 16.17-19 and 18-18, as if to further underscore the figurative resonance of the character. Contrary to Marot’s poem, most of the titles chosen for published versions of the tale extol the valiant knight first, not Maguelonne, while celebrating the courtoisie and honnêteté of the perfect love exemplified. But Marot was then serving Marguerite, a Christian princess whose writings explore female virtue and spiritual devotion. A profane love is to be converted in the tale. Peter, not God, is the one the derelict lover calls for help, in an epizeuxis/apostrophe (“Pierre, Pierre,” rhyming with “pierre” meaning ‘stone,’ ll. 81-82) perhaps meant to echo the famous ‘Anna, soror…’ of Aeneid 4.9).

10

chosen, evoking nurturing and hospitality, suggests a continuing act of returning the favor, a

felicitous circulation of graces turning around the pain of abandonment and uprooting. The

translatio is thus not only textually achieved and pointed toward France. Through figurative

language exploiting the polysemy of the term, it is also Christianized and infused with charity. The

ongoing journey as well as the quest for matrimonial fulfillment can be read at the psychological,

spiritual, and political levels; the latter includes translatio imperii, contemporary territorial shifts,

Gallican aspirations (against Rome), and dynastic expansion and continuity. All imply the internal

and spiritual dimension of conversion.

In sum, as regards humanist imitation itself, the text betrays a will to surpass Ovidian heroines

and to bypass or marginalize Ovid’s authority. This is in an example of bold aemulatio, or “heuristic

imitation” (i.e., time-conscious, culture-conscious, and self-conscious, dialectical and critical in

nature), to use one of Thomas M. Greene’s categories.33 A vernacular model is chosen and

presented as ‘translated,’ Ovid never being acknowledged as a source. An aggressive contaminatio

of sources is performed. Not only is Ovid’s name eluded, but Dido’s rejected tragic stance

(Heroides 7) is replaced with Ariadne’s hopeful words (Heroides 10).34 All these displacements

bolster the Espitre’s contribution to translatio. Ideologically supportive of a French Christian empire,

they also justify translatio imperii by anchoring it in the principle of literary and spiritual transitus

articulated by Guillaume Budé35 as well as the ‘Evangelical’ – referring to Marot and Marguerite de

Navarre’s Gospel-and-Spirit brand of Christian humanism – emphasis on ferme amour, which

conflates caritas, courtly foy (i.e., loyalty), and constancy.

Closer to traditional moral commentary than Du Bellay’s pieces to be examined in short order,

Marot’s stance as a ‘corrective’ translator emphasizes the mad love (fol amour/amor stultus) that

precipitated Elissa’s impious suicide. Dido is blamed, expressly and expeditiously, while the Gallic

and pious figure of Maguelonne is praised: again, “on en blasonne” (l. 12 in the rondeau) reflexively

underscores the fact. She is a vehicle for translatio and transitus, viewed as indissoluble while

growing increasingly emancipated from the Latinate imperative and legitimized as behooving French

vernacular poetry. The deliberate conflation of Ovid and Virgil’s versions of Dido’s story into one

negative pagan figure, moreover, confirms that a spiritual conversion and Christian rewriting

33 T. M. Greene, The Light in Troy. Imitation and discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982, pp. 46-47; besides “heuristic imitation,” “eclectic imitation” is also at play. 34 On how Marot imitates Ariadne’s voice in Heroides 10, see Lestringant, “De la déploration aux ossements” (n. 22 above) and Rieu, ‘Le silence de Dieu’ (n. 21 above). 35 The translatio agenda becomes more aggressive as times get more desperate; so it appears in the “Sonnet acrostichic [sic] sur la transmigration des bonnes lettres d’Athènes et Rome à Paris, és personnes des Heroides d’Ovide” for example (1579; added to a 1580 edition of Fontaine’s translation; qtd in White, Renaissance Postscripts [n. 1 above], p. 441).

11

predominantly are at stake. The very translation of a transformation is enacted – again, a moral

transmutation, as Marot described his French(ed) Metamorphoses, deliberately using a term

promoted by Budé.36 This act of transmuting is an ideological appropriation, far beyond mere textual

emulation and the adaptation of classical authors. Pious and patient, Maguelonne clearly departs

from Dido’s fury, which the rondeau dramatizes: “moult se courrouça” (‘she became infuriated,’

l. 1), we read; and the heart-broken queen even turned “felonne” (‘treacherous,’ l. 8 in the

rondeau). Maguelonne’s constant hope represents a bold religious counterpoint to the pagan lover’s

suicidal impiety. Her exemplary fortitude highlights a historical and spiritual departure, poetically

affirmed by Marot.37

Marot’s dueling with the Heroides − especially and paradoxically through the Epistre de

Maguelonne which never explicitly refers to them − thus operates a primarily spiritual and

ideological, if also national and authorial, gesture of translatio. Compared to Du Bellay’s treatment

to be examined next, his works display a more univocal criticism of Dido’s lethal love, while a great

measure of independence characterizes his relationship to source-texts and pagan authorities.

Du Bellay’s judgment on Dido proves more critical of Virgil, in line with the ‘historical-Dido’ tradition

embraced by Boccaccio.38 Yet it also betrays deeper ethical and ideological ambivalence as regards

the role of the poet in the translatio studii et imperii. Marot stays closer in spirit to Budé’s

accommodating transitus. His ambivalence toward classical authorities proves less acute than in the

case of Du Bellay and the Pléiade generation, whom we shall now turn to.

3. Du Bellay’s moral translatio buttressed by Dido: framing Ovid and correcting Virgil

One generation after Clément Marot and a few years after discrediting the very practice of

poetic translation in his 1549 Deffence and illustration, Joachim Du Bellay published his verse

rendition of the popular Aeneid book 4.39 The prefatory epistle to this 1552 publication, traditionally

36 To transmute Ovid, the famous ‘transmuter,’ is a commendable feat according to Marot’s preface to his partial translation of Metamorphoses. For to transmute the ‘transmuter’ is a corrective endeavour (Marot, Œuvres poétiques [n. 13 above], vol. 1, p. 406). 37 Maguelonne’s chaste patience similarly contrasts with the destiny of Hero, another Ovidian heroine appropriated by Marot. In Hero’s story, lust, exacerbated by forced celibacy and a clandestine marriage, led to the drowning of Hero’s beloved Leander. Marot recounts it in “L’Hystoire, de Leander et de Hero” (1541) a narrative heroic elegy claiming Hellenic poet Musaeus as its main source, just as Ovid’s voice was mediated by a medieval Christian text in the Epistre de Maguelonne. The 1541 edition adds to the Musaeus adaptation the clear imitation of two Ovidian heroic letters (from Hero to Leander and from Leander to Hero). I reserve the analysis of “L’Hystoire, de Leander et de Hero” for another essay. 38 This tradition of commentary ‘rehabilitating’ Dido by opposing history to epic fable is believed to have originated in fragment by Timaeus of Tauromenium (M. Desmond, Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994, p. 24-33, qtd by Reeser, ‘Du Bellay's Dido’ [n. 4 above], p. 233). 39 See Reeser, ‘Du Bellay's Dido’ (n. 4 above) for a comparison between the declarations of the Deffence and the paratext of the Dido collection examined (pp. 213-216). The triptych appeared before “La Mort de Palinure,” inserted in the 1553 Recueil de Poësie, and the posthumous publication of Aeneid 6 (1560). Charles Fontaine’s 1552 translation of Heroides 1-10

12

called “Lettre à Jean de Morel,”40 purports to right a wrong by offsetting Virgil’s vilifying account of

Dido’s liaison with Aeneas. To that effect, the author appends to his Virgilian translation an elegiac

heroic letter featuring Dido’s reproachful and noble plea to Aeneas (after Ovid), and an epigram

immortalizing her chaste virtue, which reads as a conciliatory third piece (after Ausonius). Besides

showcasing the poet’s virtuosity in diverse styles (varietas), the short collection stages a sort of trial

in which Virgil’s voice and vision are countered by two poems echoing the dominant humanist

viewpoint on Dido, in line with Augustine and, closer in time than Pizan’s Cités des Dames,

Boccaccio. In his De claris mulieribus in particular, the latter initiated a rehabilitation of the heroine

via a ‘historical’ account.41 Such defence of Elissa, although already prevalent under Francis I, was of

no concern to Marot, who sought to replace pagan with Christian heroines, as discussed above, and

consequently voiced a harsher indictment of Dido’s mad love. In contrast, the tradition of the

historical (‘true’) Dido denied she killed herself for love, and praised her as a model of virtue. Virgil’s

version of her unchaste demise was consequently an “injure” (iniquitous slander) according to

Du Bellay’s “Lettre à Jean de Morel.”42 With a professed faithfulness to historical truth (‘recounting

the veritable story of Dido,’ ibid.) justifying the addition of the Ausonius epigram in particular, and

with marked concern for reparation and honour,43 Du Bellay compassionately offers a belated

tombeau to the Carthaginian queen; and in so doing proves the great Virgil wrong. Du Bellay’s Celt-

Hellenic and Gallic views on translatio, pugnacious and sceptic in tone, and his idea of poetry as

‘compensating’ the faults and gaps created by history, fable, and intra-lingual poetry, deeply inform

his Dido-themed translations.44

was published after Octovien de Saint-Gelais and André de La Vigne’s, and right before Du Bellay’s translation (but completed in the forties). Certain critics believe that Du Bellay was “goaded” by Fontaine’s heavily-annotated imitation attacking the Deffence and its claims regarding translation (White, Renaissance Postscripts [n. 1 above], pp. 147-148, 153) as well as the success of Saint-Gelais’s Aeneid (R. Griffin, Coronation of the Poet. Joachim Du Bellay’s Debt to the Trivium, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969, p. 84). 40 Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, pp. 246-255. 41 See Malenfant, Argumentaires (n. 7 above), p. 351 and Desmond, Reading Dido (n. 38 above), pp. 24-33. 42 J. Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, p. 253. 43 Du Bellay declares that he included “ung epigramme d’Ausone, declarant la verité de l’hystoire de Dydon” (‘an epigram by Ausonius, recounting the veritable story of Dido’) and chose two laudatory authors in order to ‘repair her honor’ (“reparer son honneur,” J. Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, p. 253; emphasis mine). 44 Stone, ‘Dido and Aeneas’ (n. 22 above) shows that a comparable vision (supporting Dido over Aeneas) is shared by Ronsard, Jodelle, and Du Bellay (pp. 291-294). “Their version of their own myths often contradict or undermine the dominant narrative” (White, Renaissance Postscripts [n. 1 above], p. 6). Jodelle’s Dido se sacrifiant, implies a tragic vision applied to the heroine, beyond madness and suicide; Dido is but a queen on the wheel of fortune, says the end of the first chorus, aware, torn, and befallen. While eschewing the tragic modality associated with the character, “Du Bellay exprime au mieux la situation morale et littéraire de Didon” (‘Du Bellay best expresses Dido’s moral and literary standing’) says J. P. Néraudau, ‘Traduction et création chez Du Bellay, l’exemple de la ‘Complainte de Didon à Enée prinse d’Ovide’ (Héroïdes, VII),’ in La naissance du monde et l’invention du poème, ed. J.-C. Ternaux, Paris: Champion, 1998, pp. 369-386 (376). Sheldon Brammall has shown that, without radically subverting prevailing interpretations (i.e., Virgil as moral authority vs. Virgil as master of eloquence; Aeneas as a sacrificial hero vs. Aeneas as a perjury with no honor), Marlowe’s Dido Queene of Carthage tragedy exposes conflicting hermeneutic strands, most notably through select moments of direct

13

The closing epigram, Sur la Statue de Didon (‘On the Statue of Dido’),45 which, the poet claims,

follows historical truth, depicts Dido as a stoic heroine who killed herself in order to preserve her

honour when cruelly harassed by Iarbas. In the epigram, the polyptoton on pudicité, or chaste virtue

(l. 3, 8, 16, 20), recalls the preface’s insistence on reproaching Virgil with sullying the faithful

widow’s renown. Du Bellay offers an ethical corrective. The Ovidian Dido, whom Du Bellay fleshes

out, speaks in contrition and without imprecations although she blames Aeneas for his deception

and disloyalty.46 She reverses the tragic and epic curse formulated in Virgil (Aeneid 4.606-21),

turning it into a pious, elegiac vow which includes good fortune for Aeneas, an end to warfare, and a

tranquil resting place for his father (ll. 469-80). Such an unequivocally pious stance robs Aeneas of

his traditional epithet, to the heroine’s benefit as well as the poet’s. This moral positioning echoes

the ’historian’ scholarly tradition of praise and compassion toward Dido (Augustine to Bocacccio).

Indeed, a whole strand of epideictic productions penned by Christian humanists sought to challenge

the Virgilian narrative of the Roman Empire, reading the heroine as an example of virtue crushed by

Fortune in contrast with Aeneas, recast as impius.47 Accordingly, in Du Bellay’s appropriation,

compassionate elegiac epithets such as “la malheureuse” (‘the ill-fated woman,’ l. 127; l. 951) and

“la princesse humaine” (‘the humane princess,’ l. 521; also: “la miserable” ‘the most-unfortunate

woman,’ in the Complainte, l. 574) serve to temper traditional epic descriptors such as “furieuse,”

“insensée,” furibonde,” “fole,” “forcenée” (‘furious,’ ‘demented,’ ‘infuriated,’ ‘mad,’ ‘frenzied’). In

the preface to Morel – and this is paramount – Virgil is deemed iniquitous in attributing Dido’s

suicide to mad love. Her sin (“peché,” l. 311) was to have called a “noçaige,” that is, an intimate

union (l. 302), a “marriage,” which describes a legitimate union (l. 310). Aeneas’ deception, his

perjury or broken foi is underscored in the amplified heroic letter. The Ovidian epitaph at the end

bursts with fraught and hostile formulations directed at the male epic hero (e.g., “à grand tort”

‘doing great wrong,’ l. 572).

Du Bellay’s endeavour itself − which consists in no less than tackling the epic as an initial

attempt at translating classical poetry − and the meta-language used to describe such a daring deed

translation. Du Bellay’s Dido triptych likewise reveals the interplay of conflicting versions of Virgil in general and of Aeneid 4 in particular delineated in Baswell, while taking a firm ideological stance against the vilification of the heroine. Marlowe’s pessimistic interpretation of Virgil highlights the violence of fickle gods as well as the violence of Virgil’s epic narrative framing (S. Brammall, ‘’Sound this Angrie Message in Thine Eares’: Sympathy and the Translations of the Aeneid in Marlowe’s Dido Queene of Carthage,’ The Review of English Studies, vol. 65, no. 270, 2014, pp. 383-402, p. 3, 15). Such a stance appears closer to contemporary French thought than Marlowe’s fellow-countrymen, save for Chaucer (ibid. p. 7; and Baswell, Virgil in Medieval England, n. 5 above). (I would like to thank one of my IJCT reviewers for pointing me to Brammall’s brilliant article, combining minute source-study with conceptual amplitude.) 45 Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, pp. 331-332. 46 Ibid. pp. 307-330. 47 White, Renaissance Postscripts (n. 1 above), pp. 124-126.

14

echo the bellicose stance the young poet took in his 1549 Deffence and Illustration of the French

Tongue, a manifesto exhorting young French poets (later called the Pléïade) to embolden and

shamelessly pillage the literary riches of the Ancients. The metaphorical assault was presented as

just reprisal putting an end to a long-standing usurpation of supremacy.48 Just like Rome is not the

empire it used to be, The Aeneid is not the last word on Dido, Du Bellay will show. Some of his

subsequent works even illustrate in a sense the fulfillment of Dido’s curse onto the empire promised

to Aeneas’ kin, without making the queen responsible for the demise. Figurative, partly esoteric

imagery in Les Antiquitez de Rome, plus un Songe thus beautifully entombs a hubristic downfall.49

Over time, dominion shifts and conquest is overturned. Beside a ‘moving across,’ the spatial shift at

the heart of translatio suggests an uprooting and a dynamic transfer; a transgressive or violent

seizure is easily implied. The external force applied may claim to ‘naturalize’ what was seized or

displaced, or simply bring it ‘home’ or take it back. The act of displacing dominance requires the

assertion of its own legitimacy. Du Bellay’s Deffence illustrates the fact. In the French context, the

Pléiade seizes upon the aggressive, antagonistic undertones subtending the nationalistic notion of

translatio(n) with more eagerness and anxiety than the Marot generation. The Pléiade turned to

epic posturing partly because Henri II was a bellicose monarch, in contrast with Francis I’s image as

patron for the arts; the new king even had in mind to conquer Italy or at least take important cities

back from the Hapsburg empire.50 Although Du Bellay’s published triad or triptych on Dido is labeled

“translations,” close-reading reveals that those poems are primarily imitations, that is, to use

today’s terminology, adaptations, ambitious Gallic appropriations as advocated in the Deffence.51

The very titles Du Bellay chose for those three imitations are telling. La Complaincte de Didon à

Énée, prinse d’Ovide operates the aggressive naturalization promoted in the Deffence at three levels:

by Gallicizing all proper names, by using old-French-romance vocabulary,52 by re-labeling the heroic

48 Deffence 1.2, in J. Du Bellay, La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue françoyse. Et L’Olive, ed. J-C. Monferran, Geneva: Droz, 2007, pp. 76-79; and ”Conclusion” (ibid. pp. 179-180). 49 Ovid-and-Du-Bellay’s elegiac Dido is more compassionate; she reverses the curse uttered in the Aeneid (4.606-21), wishing well to Aeneas’s people (ll. 469-480, Complainte de Didon à Énée, in Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, pp. 325-326). 50 L. Guillerm, ‘L’auteur, les modèles, et le pouvoir, ou la topique de la traduction au XVIe siècle en France,’ Revue des sciences humaines, vol. 52, no. 180, 1980, pp. 5-31, sees a “déplacement de la sujétion” (‘displacement of subservience’) and a “captation de pouvoir” (‘seizure of power’) in the Pléiade’s theory of Imitation itself (23). G. Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975), 3rd ed. Oxford, 1998 posits that aggression is an intrinsic phase in the translation process itself (p. xvi; chap. 5). 51 On the distinction between imitation and translation in Du Bellay’s time, see T. Cave, The Cornucopian Text. Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, pp. 57-73. Comparative close readings can be found in White, Renaissance Postscripts (n. 1 above), p. 156-186; and Néraudau, ‘Traduction et création chez Du Bellay’ (n. 44 above). 52 This adds a sense of stylistic Antiquity to the French verse, as Du Bellay says in his preface (p. 252); archaic vocabulary of the medieval vernacular “vieux romans” is used pervasively, although not heavy-handedly. See White, Renaissance Postscripts (n. 1 above), pp. 156-163, on the ‘Gallicization,’ the heightened pathos, and the integration of the elegiac héroïde turned complainte, as a counterpoint to French translation(s) of Aeneid 4 that preceded Du Bellay’s.

15

letter as a complainte, that is, the sister-form to the Latinate elegy in the French tradition. He also

mixes deference to authority with a conquering mindset by adding “prinse d’Ovide” and “prins

d’Ausone” (‘taken from…’) as subtitles. The ‘lapsing’ into translation and other concessions made to

the intransigent discourse of the Deffence, which discouraged its reader from translating the Poets,

seek justification through these marks of successful ‘naturalization’: seizure, framing, and

assimilation. If truly translating the original genius that organically binds inventio and elocutio is

impossible, then the modern poet’s chance at successful transplantation chiefly resides in

meaningful dispositio, which Du Bellay’s triptych achieves. Stringing together three Latin poets not

only bears a leveling effect, and structurally outnumbers Virgil’s damning outlook, it also neutralizes

the principal hurdle of translation formulated in Deffence 1.5, namely, “n’espacier point hors des

Limites de l’Aucteur” (‘not to wander outside the limits set by the Author’).53 If the term limits

evokes the unique lineaments of a specific poem and idiom,54 it also conjures up the territorial

theme linked to the stakes of translatio. Coupled with the epigraphic undertone tying together the

chosen forms, the two epitaphs enclosed − the one which concludes the Ovidian Complaincte

(ll. 565-576) and the Ausonian epigram itself − act as a memento mori uttered by the virtuous queen

in her own voice or in her name; they emphasize Aeneas’s fault and combine the affirmation of

death and immortality. The idea of an inscribed statue − Sur la statue de Didon being the title of the

translated epigram – adds the notion of a faithful image (eidola or imago) to the familial piety and

sympathetic immortalization offered to Dido as a domestic, virtuous figure. The implicit function of

eidola is reinforced by the noun “la semblable” (l. 1), which translates ‘assimilate’ in the Latin

original (printed alongside). Faithful representation is shown as problematic.55 But the image here is

also closely tied to funeral rites and collective memory. Translating Ausonius, Du Bellay follows the

‘truthful,’ ‘historical’ version, the one insisting that the truth was likely not – and real piety certainly

was not – on Aeneas’ side, as pointed out in the preface. Such claim is further supported by the

enshrining visual elements reflecting the epigraphic theme. This, in turn, bolsters the author’s ethos:

pius Bellaius.

At a similar level of politicized figuration, the choice of a female subject at the heart of this

artful tryptic rings as a sort of Abduction of the Sabine women, all the more so since the lifeblood of

Antiquity is perceived by the Pléiade as vital for the regeneration of French supremacy (translatio

studii) as part of a Christian empire – although with more skeptic undertones than in the previous

53 Du Bellay, Deffence, p. 88. 54 E. Dobenesque, ‘Style et traduction au XVIe siècle,’ Littérature, no. 137, 2005, pp. 47-50 (40-54). 55 Reeser, ‘Du Bellay's Dido’ (n. 4 above), pp. 232-234.

16

generation (Marot and Francis I). The projected agency of the monarch makes a difference in this

respect. While Marot’s historical arrow is steadfastly pointed forward, toward a Christian empire

and the horizon of Redemption ignited anew by a quasi-millennial prince, the next generation

struggles with Henri II’s more bellicose and short-sighted outlook. The Pléiade nonetheless upholds

Christian humanist and Gallican beliefs, valorizing History vs. Fable; Du Bellay’s Dido cluster ends on

a memento mori and the falsehood of fables, which attribute to the divine the failings of human

flesh (ll. 17-22, Sur la Statue de Didon).56 The realistic possibility of achieving translatio and

extending the transitus had grown contextually more problematic between Marot and Du Bellay due

to increasing territorial and religious conflicts. (The definitive loss of the imperial title to the

Hapsburg was to happen in 1559, and the Wars of Religion to erupt in 1562.) What sort of

authorship claims could the critical translator condemning or defending Dido then make, across the

generation gap that separates our two poets?

4. Poetic translatio and auctoritas: Marot and Du Bellay transcending translation

The issues of virtuous or mad love, displacement, and moral upending touched upon in the first

three sections of this article remind us that Marot and Du Bellay both viewed translation as a means

to a political and ethical end, a collective enterprise to which personal glory was unequivocally

related. What then do common traits in our corpus teach us about Dido’s instrumentality, so to

speak, in the uneasy quest for a French translatio studii (if not imperii) and a Christian transitus

applied to classical literature? Structural, thematic, and generic traits shed light on the interplay

between vernacular verse imitation and authority beyond French Renaissance poetry.

Dido’s instrumental moral status and the questioning of exemplarity it enables seem to

intensify over the two decades separating Marot and Du Bellay. In a parallel evolution, the authority

of the epic and the prestige of translation lessened, albeit in tentative ways. Although erudite

commentaries focused on moral interpretation and allegory valorized the Virgilian and Homeric

epics, they also legitimized their pillaging, transformation through imitation, and the

decontextualized borrowing of significant motifs or structures to be used as arguments for external

purposes, including ethical or nationalistic. Likewise, the long-standing ‘moral interpretation’ of Ovid

(and Virgil) was still alive in the French sixteenth century, but frequently supplemented with more

erudite encyclopedic readings disseminated through humanist education.57 Marot’s poetics of

56 Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, p. 332. 57 On trends and variations in the reception of Virgil and Homer as master epic poets, see M. Bizer, An Epic Longing: Homer and the Politics of Authority in Renaissance France, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; P. Ford, De Troie à

17

displacement (Defaux) deftly Christianizes diverse motifs and structures inherited from medieval or

classical lore (e g., lyrical, satirical, folkloric, and courtly motifs). Because of the spiritual drive that

subtends Marot’s poetics, it retains the substance of moralizing views on Ovid. In contrast,

Du Bellay, in his own poetics of imitation, seeks to naturalize the Virgilian epic and the Ovidian elegy

within Gallic frameworks. The Deffence even encourages poets to compose heroic poetry based on

old French romances (“nos vieux romans”)58 − which Du Bellay likely knew in their prose rewritings −

because they are epic in tenor, dealing with noble feats and quests.59

Linguistic and poetic conquest, as opposed to spiritual conversion as in the case of Marot,

primarily fashioned Du Bellay’s epic intent and valiant textual appropriation. The early-Sixteenth-

century “querelle du cicéronianisme” (controversies over the imitation of Cicero) in which Erasmus

played a central part, is to be mentioned in this respect. Focusing on accommodation, as did Budé’s

transitus, in an effort to avoid anachronism,60 Erasmus’s ideas on ‘natural’ style and sensible

imitation paved the way for guiltless contamination; using multiple sources, from various times and

places and rank in the canon, became preferable to the slavish or exclusive translation of idolized

authorities.

As translators, Marot – who translated some of Erasmus’s Colloquia − and Du Bellay did favor

tremendous variety, in form, source and content, and trusted the poetic vim of their own

vernacular.61 Du Bellay’s Dido triptych alone features three distinct sources and voices, each of them

translated and/or ‘contaminated,’ as in the case of Marot’s Maguelonne; this is especially true of the

Complainte de Didon à Enée.62 Such multifarious mediation and selection have a leveling effect on

pre-established hierarchies. Du Bellay blatantly excerpts the Aeneid, treating a fragment from the

magnus opus as a stand-alone piece. By ‘digesting’ and homogenizing various styles and voices in his

own vein (‘converting them into blood and food’ “les convertissant en sang et nourriture,” Deffence

1.7),63 the translator experiments with Erasmian ‘natural style’ in a paradoxical way; he frees his

Ithaque. Réception des épopées homériques à la Renaissance, Geneva: Droz, 2007; and P. J. Usher, Epic Arts in the French Renaissance, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 58 Du Bellay, La Deffence, p. 139. 59 Deffence 2.5 (ibid.): “Choysi moy quelque un de ces beaux vieulx Romans Françoys comme un Lancelot, un Tristan, ou autres: et en fay renaitre au monde un admirable Iliade, et laborieuse Eneide” (‘Go and elect some of those beautiful old French romances, such as a Lancelot, Tristan, or others; and from it, bring back into the world an astounding Iliad, and a well-wrought Aeneid’). 60 Greene, The Light in Troy (n. 33 above), p. 183. 61 Marot translated − often with much mediation − authors as diverse as Virgil, Philippe Beroalde, Barthélemy de Loches, Lucian, Petrarch, Erasmus, Ovid, David, Lorris, and Villon (non-exhaustive list). In translating and paraphrasing Latin or Neo-Latin authors, “Marot reste donc partisan de la langue française” (‘Marot thus remains an advocate for the French tongue,’ Hersant p. 40). Du Bellay, paradoxically, translated many authors, including, besides Virgil and Ovid, Homer, Horace, Lucan, Pontano, Navagero, and L’Hospital. 62 See Néraudau, ‘Traduction et création chez Du Bellay’ (n. 44 above): even Ovid’s Tristia come into play. 63 See Cave, The Cornucopian Text (n. 51 above), pp. 61-73.

18

capacity for invention within the very limits of translation, typically deemed incompatible with

authority and authorship, even in the late-sixteenth century: “Some, un Traducteur n’a james le

nom d’Auteur” (‘In sum, never can a Translator be called an Author’), stated Jacques Peletier,

Du Bellay’s contemporary.64

How can one become more of a poet by translating another? A telling notion Du Bellay employs

in order to conquer such a paradox is that of compensation, the very notion that contemporary

French poet Yves Bonnefoy equates with the conservation of the “mass of poetry” achieved with

precision by gifted translator/poets.65 ‘Compensation’ in Du Bellay’s own terminology66 is close in

meaning to the notion of ‘supplement’ that serves as a conceptual axle – borrowed from the author

under study as well – in Margaret Tudeau-Clayton’s article analysing English-Renaissance readings of

the Aeneid. Since translation and imitation of a perfect(ed) original are conceived as loss, deliberate

“supplementary moves”67 make up for such intrinsic deficiency, making the resulting text both

lacking – due to unachievable plenitude implying a chain of mediations; and meritorious – since

moral allegory and/or vernacular abundance are supplied. Compensation, however, as per its

etymology evokes equal weight, and therefore healthy moderation and accommodation rather than

melancholy addition or substitution. Beyond stylistic and linguistic adjustment, compensation is tied

to ethical and poetic considerations differentiating poetry from history as well as literal and

inadequate – as opposed to poetic and faithful − translation.68

In sum, framing processes and generic shifts in our corpus expand the notion of translatio to a

transfer of literary authority and an expansion of poetic autonomy. The secondary and subordinate

nature of translation is overturned, in a dialectic of deference and retribution that renders the

Ovidian or Virgilian models ‘minor’ and marginal within the framework of a Christian Gallic dominion

to come, be it inchoative or optative in its establishment. Prior to the age of Humanism, a certain

brand of exegesis began to pave the way for vernacular literary ambition and cultural transference,

64 Jacques Peletier (1555), qtd by Guillerm, ‘L’auteur’ (n. 50 above), p. 11. On the 1540-1560 topos of the toilsome, inglorious task of translation, albeit serving as captatio and coupled with antagonistic intent, see Guillerm, ‘L’auteur’ (n. 50 above), pp. 8-13. 65 Y. Bonnefoy, qtd in Risset, Traduction et mémoire poétique (n. 15 above) p. 11. See also Steiner, After Babel (n. 50 above), pp. 316-319. 66 Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, p. 250. 67 Tudeau-Clayton, ‘Supplementing the Aeneid,’ (n. 11 above), p. 6. 68 Two liminary texts touch upon Du Bellay’s view of poetic compensation, which prioritizes poetic unity in translating and imitating; the “Lettre à Jean de Morel” advocates stylistic adjustment to the target language’s usage and versification (“rendre” and “recompenser” the original sense matter, he points out; Du Bellay, Le Quatriesme livre, pp. 249-250), and the “Préface de L’Olive” of 1550. In his the latter (“Au lecteur”), Du Bellay loftily responds to the accusation of breaching rhetorical decorum; his dispositio allegedly disrespected the order of dignities concerning ‘a few of the most learned men in France.’ To that criticism he replies that his intention was to write not a work of history, but a piece of poetry (“mon intention n'estoit alors d’ecrire une hystoire, mais une poësie,” Du Bellay 1993, p. 14). Reeser, ‘Du Bellay's Dido’ (n. 4 above) also highlights the notion of compensation as crucial for Du Bellay’s poetics of translation (p. 214).

19

Rita Copeland argues.69 Because Christian commentary implies strong ideological/spiritual

difference, exegesis in a way – along with medieval translations which achieved “interpretive

performance” − “always carried a rhetorical motive of displacement.”70 Still according to Copeland,

falsely subservient translations − that is, purportedly rendering the source-text word for word − such

as the fourteenth-century Ovide moralisé already exposed the disruption and displacement intrinsic

to translatio studii. As evidenced in Marot and Du Bellay, at least in their treatment of Dido, the

partly obscured, tentative displacement found in medieval translations appears noticeably bolder –

although not without complexities or anxieties − in the French Renaissance.71

Perhaps more sceptical in his posture, Joachim Du Bellay nonetheless artfully reins in

authorities in his triptych celebrating Dido over Aeneas. Entering an implicit cultural contest with an

aristocratic mind-set,72 he literally frames Ovid, to make his own Heroides imitation (the Complainte)

the centrepiece. He fragments and de-centers the epic, centring the text on elegiac pathos and

defensive rhetoric, penning for the aggrieved queen an argument-driven swan song not devoid of

forensic accusation − knowing that Ovid himself exploited the art of suasoriae and disputatio.73 Not

only does Dido speak, and not exclusively in the Complainte, but her persona does so with relative

closeness to Du Bellay’s personal ethical stance. This reinforces the emulative if not provocative

nature of the performance. Eschewing subservient views of translation, Du Bellay’s critical

appropriation presents itself in the context of symbolic resistance to a treacherous, seductive

power. His translations dispel the illusion that dominance or authority, be it that of a language

(Latin), a genre (the epic) or a poet (Virgil), implies moral superiority. In this light, the great Virgil and

his hero can be seen as adversaries, if not straw-men used to bolster not only vernacular literature

and the author, but also the prince slated to achieve the political form of historical translatio. Even

Ovid’s authority is questioned since he favoured ‘fable’ over ‘history,’ although Heroides 7 restores

the queen’s honour damaged by Virgil and shows Aeneas as dishonourable.

As for Marot’s authorial sovereignty, it could not be more plainly affirmed. In his Heroides-like

epistle, Maguelonne’s active role in the translatio is reinforced by the poet’s, who boldly inscribes

his own name in the demonstrative rondeau following the Epistre, the full title of said rondeau

69 R. Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages. Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 221-222. 70 Ibid. p. 64, 126. 71 Brammall, ’Sound this Angrie Message’ (n. 44 above), p. 7. 72 Copeland summarizes Roman views on translation, which are not unlike Du Bellay’s since they are tied to aggressive practices of rhetorical translation: “Achieving difference” (Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation [n. 69 above], p. 65) was the goal, in the context of a “cultural contest” with Greek authors as well as with the descriptive discourse of grammatici (ibid. p. 221). 73 H. Jacobson, Ovid’s Heroides, Princeton, 1974, p. 84.

20

being, Rondeau, duquel les lettres capitales portent le nom de l’Autheur (‘Rondeau, whose initial

letters spell the name of the Author’). “Autheur,” a title denied to translators and to most

Rhétoriqueurs poets, his predecessors, is explicitly what Marot claims for himself.74 His name,

moreover, virtually ‘engenders’ the rondeau − and indeed an auctor is etymologically ‘he who

creates, engenders.’ The lines visually stem out of an acrostic verse signature, which renders visible

such generative act (“C.L.E.M.E.N.T.M.A.R.O.T.Q.” are the initial of each line). Moreover, they

emphasize the poet’s Southern roots, shared with Maguelonne and Marguerite. In the signature,

“C.L.E.M.E.N.T.M.A.R.O.T.Q.,” the final Q. or Qc. stands for “Quercinois,” referring to Marot’s native

region – the land of Quercy and the city of Cahors in the South-Western province of Guyenne.

Mentioning this biographical fact pulls the poet closer to the ladies celebrated in the poem, and

their admirable faith. Composed perhaps twelve years after the Épistre, as the poet’s status was

rising (1530-1532), the postscript rondeau thus further affirms the vernacular poet’s identity and

authority, both by highlighting his name and heritage and eluding the translation and contamination

which the poem resulted from.

At the same time, the rondeau subtly valorises Marot’s position as cultural intermediary. He is

an interpreter in the fuller sense, skilled at transferring value, linguistically and geographically if not

spiritually, much like Maguelonne praying and caring for others as an hospitalière after leaving Italy

for Provence. By placing this piece first in the series of published epistles included in his highly-

structured Adolescence clémentine,75 Marot suggests that he actively stands in-between for multiple

reasons. The acrostic asserts that his Quercinois origins make him closer to the Provençal folk-tale,

while his art and bilingualism enable him to ‘transmute’ the Christian legend into French verse for

the très-chrétien king of France, thus effectively contributing to the translatio studii without

(seemingly) bowing to pagan authorities.76

74 Through self-commentary, Dante in a way already “bridges the temporal abyss between [auctor and lector]” while “Petrarch extends Dante’s implicit levelling of the distance between ancient auctores and modern lectores” (A. R. Ascoli, ‘“Favola fui”: Petrarch Writes His Readers,’ Binghamtom, NY, 2010, p. 3, 11). In this light, Marot further expands the Petrarchan conception of authorship. See F. Preisig, Clément Marot et les métamorphoses de l'auteur à l'aube de la Renaissance, Geneva: Droz, 2004, on questions of authorship and readership in Clément Marot’s works. 75 See F. Goyet, ‘Sur l’ordre de L’Adolescence clémentine,’ in Clément Marot, “Prince des Poëtes français“ 1496-1996, ed. G. Defaux, Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997, pp. 593-613. 76 Since Augustan rhetoric conflated the modus inveniendi and modus interpretandi, added dignity graced the translator as interpres, who through his task had become more than a compilator or accessor (Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation [n. 69 above], p. 178). Also see G. P. Norton, The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and Their Humanist Antecedents, Geneva: Droz, 1984 (p. 231-232), on Macault and the interpres as effectuating the task of translatio studii through linguistic translatio. On Marot deeply transforming the Petrarchan sonnet by translating it, see M. Clément, ‘Poésie et traduction: le sonnet Français de 1538 à 1548," in La traduction à la Renaissance et à l'âge classique, ed. M. F. Viallon, Saint-Étienne: Presses de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2001, pp. 91-102.

21

In this complex thrust to weaken the aura of idolized authorities, Dido as a Virgilian heroine is

both debased and exalted, as are (purportedly) unjust translatio imperii as well as translation

construed as naive traductio or transcriptio verborum.77 The poems examined display a self-

conscious, emulative practice of translation; chosen fragments are re-ordered, reframed, and

reworked so as to depreciate the magnum opus of the Aeneid – albeit in contrasted ways – along

with the fallen idea of an imperium sine fine promoted by the Roman epic. The paragon of poetry,

Virgil’s long-form poem in the king of genres, is supplanted by – or at least challenged by way of –

brief forms and minor genres, ancient and modern, native and foreign (the epistle, the rondeau, the

complainte or elegy, the epigram, and the epitaph). Following Ovid, Du Bellay gives a subjective

voice to the grieving queen, but makes it heard in a distinctly French, romance-like and lyrical

complainte. Generous sizains even replace the Ovidian elegiac couplets, both recalling the form of

old romances and deploying amplificatory mastery.78 The genres chosen incidentally present a

gendered aspect that does not serve to benefit women as much as to elevate vernacular literature.79

The poems feature minor, marginal figures as authors within the fiction itself (Maguelonne and

Dido); their inferior status is what matters. The femaleness of those voices is doubly displaced, both

as disruptive personae questioning figures holding authority, and as ‘proxy’ acting for the benefit of

male authors (and sovereigns) claiming authority. These are not fully autonomous but instrumental

personae. Claiming authority from a place of relative marginality, the surface female voice remains

an ambivalent vehicle for translatio. Such tension further exemplifies our poets’ ambivalences

towards translation and empire. In their ambitious, competitive rewritings, both Marot and

Du Bellay use varying degrees of stylistic and semantic counterpoint in order to wrestle the right to

authority and uneasily yet boldly undercut their models’ established glory.

* * *

Translation is a political act. This particularly holds true in contexts such as the French sixteenth

century, when the very act of ‘transmuting’ classical authorities problematized the notion of

translatio (studii et imperii) if not its aims. As outlined in Marot and in Du Bellay Bold operations of

77 In the rhetorical terminology of elocutio, the term traductio − which became, in modern French, traduction, the word for ‘translation,’ corresponds to the trope of derivatio/polyptoton, translatio/trallatio, that is, ‘metaphor’ (Curtius, La littérature européenne (n. 3 above), p. 219; and Cave, The Cornucopian Text (n. 51 above), p. 45. 78 Néraudau, ‘Traduction et création chez Du Bellay’ (n. 44 above), p. 371. 79 On the French héroïde or lettre héroïque as a polemically gendered genre, and this well into the 17th century See White, Renaissance Postscripts (n. 1 above), Malenfant, Argumentaires (n. 7 above); L. Fulkerson, The Ovidian Heroine as Author. Reading, Writing, and Community in the Heroides, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005; and D. Dalla Valle, ‘Les Héroïdes en France et les Lettres héroïques au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle (jusqu’aux Lettres héroïques de Tristan L’Hermitte),’ in Lectures d’Ovide, Ed. E. Bury et al, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2003, pp. 371-383. Links to romans de chevalerie, the Querelle des femmes, and a new female readership in courts exist; such discussion topics are besides the scope if the present article.

22

framing and appropriation based on displacement transcend translation understood in a stricter

sense. What subtends the transformation for Marot is conversion – i.e., a more spiritual, transitus-

inspired appropriation – and compensation for Du Bellay, which is more philosophical and political

like the notion of translatio. In the poems assessing Dido’s love examined in this essay, the act of

displacement reveals its ideological underpinnings: Fantasies of moral superiority, political

autonomy, and individual mastery surface. They reflect a Christian humanist Gallic context growing

more and more disenchanted in the fifteen/twenty years between Marot and Du Bellay due to rising

religious and political tensions. Yet defiant emulation remains. Both poets ruffle Virgil and Ovid’s

feathers, turn blame into praise and praise into blame to elevate French poetry, making ambitious

claims for the vernacular as a key instrument to achieve translatio studii. Their contrasted

interpretations of Dido, that ambivalent figure of errant, pagan love, also define translation at large

as a liminal and transient space, where minor voices (including female) and forms (including

indigenous) can claim and win paradoxical authority. Marot and Du Bellay’s critical appropriations of

Dido can thus be read as a striking case study. They did contribute to making them national

champions, if not epic heroes, in the competitive enterprise of translatio in all senses.

––––––––––––––

COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICAL STANDARDS:

This is not sponsored research and no conflict of interest shall be found.

This research involves no animal or human participant and therefore no consent forms were ever

needed.

––––––––––––––

REFERENCES

Amboise, Michel d’. Les Contreepistres d’Ovide nouvellement inventées. Paris: Maurice de la Porte,

1546.

Ascoli, Albert Russel, ““Favola fui”: Petrarch Writes His Readers,” Bernardo Lecture Series no. 17,

Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies-SUNY, Binghamtom, NY, 2010.

Baswell, Christopher. Virgil in Medieval England. Figuring the Aeneid from the Twelfth Century to

Chaucer. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Bizer, Marc. An Epic Longing: Homer and the Politics of Authority in Renaissance France, Oxford/New

York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

23

Bonnefoy, Yves. “Le paradoxe du traducteur.” Preface to Traduction et mémoire poétique, by

Jacqueline Risset. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2007, pp. 7-15.

Brammall, Sheldon. “’Sound this Angrie Message in Thine Eares’: Sympathy and the Translations of

the Aeneid in Marlowe’s Dido Queene of Carthage. The Review of English Studies, New Series,

vol. 65, no. 270 (2014), pp. 383-402.

Cave, Terence. The Cornucopian Text. Problems of Writing in the French Renaissance. Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1979.

Clément, Michelle. “Poésie et traduction: le sonnet Français de 1538 à 1548.“ In La traduction à la

Renaissance et à l'âge classique. Ed. Marie F. Viallon. Saint-Étienne: Presses de l’Université de

Saint-Étienne, 2001, pp. 91-102.

Copeland, Rita. Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages. Academic Traditions and

Vernacular Texts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Curtius, Ernst Robert. La littérature européenne et le Moyen-Âge latin (1957). Paris: Presses Pocket,

1991.

Dalla Valle, Daniela. “Les Héroïdes en France et les Lettres héroïques au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle

(jusqu’aux Lettres héroïques de Tristan L’Hermitte).” In Lectures d’Ovide. Eds. Emmanuel Bury et

al. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2003, pp. 371-383.

Defaux, Gérard. “Les deux amours de Clément Marot,” Rivista di letterature moderne e comparate 1

(1993), pp. 1-30.

Dellaneva, JoAnn. “À propos de ‘Folle Amour.’“ In Clément Marot, “Prince des Poëtes français”,

1496-1996. Actes du colloque international de Cahors en Quercy, 1996. Ed. Gérard Defaux. Paris:

Honoré Champion, 1997, pp. 381-389.

Desmond, Marilynn. Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Dobenesque, Étienne. “Style et traduction au XVIe siècle.” Littérature no. 137 (March 2005), pp. 40-

54.

Du Bellay, Joachim. La Deffence, et Illustration de la Langue françoyse. Et L’Olive. Ed. Jean-Charles

Monferran. Geneva: Droz, 2007.

Du Bellay, Joachim. Le Quatriesme livre de l’Enéide de Vergile – Complainte de Didon à Énée, prinse

d’Ovide – Sur la statue de Didon, prins d’Ausone [Le Quatriesme livre de l’Eneide de Vergile,

traduict en vers françoys. La Complaincte de Didon à Énée, prinse d’Ovide. Paris, 1552]. In

Œuvres poétiques VI. Discours et traductions (1928). Ed. Henri Chamard. Paris: SFTM, 1991.

24

Du Bellay, Joachim. Œuvres poétiques. Eds. Daniel Aris et Françoise Joukovsky. 2 vols. Paris:

Classiques Garnier, 1993, pp. 257-332.

Estienne, Robert. Dictionarum latinogallicum (1551). Chicago: ARTFL Project. <http://artfl-

project.uchicago.edu/content/dictionarium-latinogallicum> [cited February 20, 2015].

Estienne, Robert. Thesaurus latinae linguae. Paris: R. Stephanus [Robert Estienne], 1531.

Ford, Philip. De Troie à Ithaque. Réception des épopées homériques à la Renaissance. Geneva: Droz,

2007.

Fulkerson, Laurel. The Ovidian Heroine as Author. Reading, Writing, and Community in the Heroides.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Gadoffre, Gilbert. Du Bellay et le Sacré. Paris: Gallimard, 1978.

Goyet, Francis. “Sur l’ordre de L’Adolescence clémentine.“ In Clément Marot, “Prince des Poëtes

français“, 1496-1996. Actes du colloque international de Cahors en Quercy, 1996. Ed. Gérard

Defaux. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997, pp. 593-613.

Greene, Thomas M., The Light in Troy. Imitation and discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven

and London: Yale University Press, 1982.

Griffin, Robert. Coronation of the Poet. Joachim Du Bellay’s Debt to the Trivium. Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1969.

Guillerm, Luce. “L’auteur, les modèles, et le pouvoir, ou la topique de la traduction au XVIe siècle en

France.” Revue des sciences humaines vol. 52, no. 180 (Oct.-Dec. 1980), pp. 5-31.

Hersant, Isabelle. “Les traductions de Marot dans l’illustration de la langue française”. In Le Génie de

la langue française. Autour de Marot et de La Fontaine, L’Adolescence clémentine, Les Amours

de Psyché et de Cupidon. Ed. Jean-Charles Monferran. Fontenay-aux-Roses: ENS éditions, 1997,

pp. 37-52.

Hine, Daryl. Ovid’s Heroines. A Verse translation of the Heroides. New Haven: Yale UP, 1991.

Hulubei, Alice. “Virgile en France au XVIe siècle.” Revue du seizième siècle 18 (1931-1932), pp. 1-77.

Jacobson, Howard. Ovid’s Heroides. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.

Jodelle, Étienne, Didon se sacrifiant (ca. 1555). Ed. Jean-Claude Ternaux. Paris: Honoré Champion,

2002.

Jongkees, A. G. “Translatio studii: les avatars d’un thème medieval.” In Miscellanea Mediaevalia in

Memoriam Jan Frederick Niermeyer. Groningen: Wolters, 1967, pp. 41-51.

La Garanderie, Marie-Madeleine de. Christianisme et lettres profanes: essai sur l'Humanisme

français (1515-1535) et sur la pensée de Guillaume de Budé. Paris, Honoré Champion, 1995.

25

Lecoq, Anne-Marie, François Ier imaginaire. Symbolique et politique à l'aube de la Renaissance

française. Paris: Macula, 1987.

Lestringant, Frank. “De la déploration aux ossements, Clément Marot, André de la Vigne et l’Epître

de Maguelonne”. Op. Cit. Revue de littérature française et comparée 7 (Nov. 1996): 67-77.

Malenfant, Marie-Claude. Argumentaires de l’une et l’autre espèce de femme (1500-1550). Laval:

Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003.

Mantovani, Thierry. “‘Leal amours Venus despite’: Martin Le Franc et Clément Marot”. In La

poétique des passions à la Renaissance, mélanges offerts à Françoise Charpentier. Ed. François

Lecercle and Simone Perrier. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001, pp. 19-36.

Marot, Clément. Œuvres complètes. Ed. François Rigolot. 2 vols. Paris: GF-Flammarion, 2007.

Marot, Clément. Œuvres poétiques. Ed. Gérard Defaux. 2 vols. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1996.

Naïs, Hélène. “Traduction et imitation chez quelques poètes du XVIe siècle.” Revue des sciences

humaines vol. 52, no. 180 (Oct.-Dec. 1980), pp. 33-49.

Néraudau, Jean-Pierre. “Traduction et création chez Du Bellay, l’exemple de la ‘Complainte de Didon

à Enée prinse d’Ovide’ (Héroïdes, VII).” In La naissance du monde et l’invention du poème. Ed.

Jean-Claude Ternaux. Paris: Champion, 1998, pp. 369-386.

Noirot, Corinne. “Entre deux airs”: style simple et ethos poétique chez Clément Marot et Joachim Du

Bellay (1515-1560). Paris: Hermann éditeurs, 2013.

Norton, Glyn P. The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and Their Humanist

Antecedents. Geneva: Droz, 1984.

Preisig, Florian. Clément Marot et les métamorphoses de l'auteur à l'aube de la Renaissance.

Geneva: Droz, 2004.

Quint, David. Epic and Empire. Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton UP, 1993.

Reeser, Todd W. "Du Bellay's Dido and the Translation of Nation." Virgilian Identities in the French

Renaissance. Eds. Phillip John Usher and Isabelle Fernbach. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer,

2012, pp. 213-236.

Rieu, Josiane. “Le silence de Dieu: Marot, l’Epître de Maguelonne.” Loxias 15 (2006). Online.

<http://revel.unice.fr/loxias/index.html?id=1394> [cited February 20, 2015].

Risset, Jacqueline. Traduction et mémoire poétique. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2007.

Roudaut, François, ed. Pierre de Provence et la belle Maguelonne. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2009.

Sebillet, Thomas. Art poétique françoys. In Traités de poétique et de rhétorique de la Renaissance.

Ed. Francis Goyet. Paris: Le Livre de Poche classique, 1990.

26

Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation (1975). 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1998.

Stone, Donald. “Dido and Aeneas. Theme and Vision in the third Book of the Franciade.”

Neophilologus vol. 49, no. 1 (1965), pp. 289-97.

Tudeau-Clayton, Margaret, “Supplementing the Aeneid in early modern England: translation,

imitation, commentary,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 4 (1997-1998), pp. 507-

525.

Usher, Phillip J. Epic Arts in the French Renaissance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Virgil. Eclogues-Georgics-Aeneid I-VI. Eds. H. Fairclough and G. P. Goold. “Loeb Classical Library.”

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.

White, Paul. Renaissance Postscripts: Responding to Ovid’s Heroides in Sixteenth-Century France.

Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2009.

Worth, Valerie. “‘Cest estranger naturalizé’: Du Bellay traducteur de Virgile.” In Du Bellay. Actes du

colloque international d’Angers. Ed. Georges Cesbron. Vol. 2. Angers: Presses de l’Université

d’Angers, 1990, pp. 485-495.