Translators,
chocolate and war
Louis
G. Kelly
One
of the leitmotifs in the history of translation is the role translators
play in creating international understanding. While not diminishing those
translations and translators where that has actually happened, it is worth
remembering that translation is a double-edged sword, just as dangerous
when sharp as when blunt. I propose to glance at the activities of certain
translators who worked with official permission if not encouragement from
Spanish into English in the mid-seventeenth century, and who aimed at
other things.
In
English government circles Spanish, Italian and French official documents
were translated as a matter of course, usually by anonymous translators,
and then often printed as broadsheets for sale to the public, there being
no Official Secrets Act. There was a fair market for international
treaties which were quite often negotiated and published in Latin. The
news did not have to be hot. The Articles of Peace, Intercourse and
Commerce signed by Charles I of England and Philip IV of Spain on 5
November 1630 were printed in both English and Spanish immediately on
signing, and reissued on the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Spain's
dealings with other countries were also of interest to the British public.
An English version of the documents exchanged by France and Spain in
preparation for the Peace of Münster appeared in 1646, to be followed in
1648 by an English version of the treaty between Spain and the Netherlands.
And 1659 saw The True and Exact Particulars of the Articles of Peace and
Mariage (sic) agreed between his most Catholick Majesty of Spain and Most
Christian King of France. Translation of explorers and colonisers journals
also has a long history in Britain, the most important works of this type
being Hakluyt and Samuel Purchass Purchas
His Pilgrimage (1613). Apart from that, campaign journals from French,
Spanish and Italian, and books on diplomacy and war were translated,
usually anonymously, for the instruction of the military, and published
with the blessing of the authorities. In those days independent printers
often filled the role of information and comment newspapers have taken
today.
The
importance of the translators preface is shown by a translator known as
I.B. In 1645 he translated a Royal Privilege granted English merchants
resident in Spain by Philip IV. His extensive preface lays out the points
as far as relations with Spain with the Civil War in England. He begins by
pointing out the importance to world trade of the precious metals mined in
the Spanish dominions, and of the particular importance to England of the
Spanish export market. He then recalls the long friendship between England
and Spain marked by military and marriage alliances. He regrets that it
was broken by the Reformation and the Spanish attempt to invade England in
1588. But he emphasises that in spite of everything, England ran rely on a
huge fund of Spanish goodwill. He then summarizes the major privileges,
granted English merchants such as freedom to practise the Anglican
religion, immunity from having their good requisitioned by Spanish
officials for military use, immunity from having their fish inspected by
Spanish officials, ability to set prices for their own goods without
reference to Spanish authorities, confidentiality for their accounts, and
the right to have disputes within the English community settled according
to English law.
But
ever since Henry Vlll's cavalier treatment of Catherine of Aragon and
establishment of the Church of England, relation between England and Spain
had been uncertain. Not only was there political rivalry, but also the
right conditions for a holy war. Balancing the drawn sword, however, was
Spain's commercial interest: without English ships and money, overseas
trade would have been impossible for Spain, a point I.B. does not bring
out. English ships often carried slaves to Central America, for instance.
But I.B.'s preface does cast some light on a translation published some two
years before. On 8 October 1642 two English ships under the command of
Captain Bennet Stratford entered the port of Santo Domingo. The English
crews were invited on board a Spanish treasure ship, the Santa
Clara, for a party. The party in full swing, the English sailors took
over the ship, imprisoned the crew, and left port. They set their
prisoners ashore before leaving the West Indies, and headed straight for
Southampton where they disposed of ship and cargo under the prize
regulations of the Royal Navy; and therefore one can presume that the
authorities at least connived at Stratford's exploit. On New Years Eve, the
Spanish ambassador, Don Alonso de Cardenas, demanded restitution from King
Charles I on the grounds that Stratford was an officer of the Royal Navy,
and backed up his request by veiled threats to supply the Irish rebels,
who were then as now a major English preoccupation. He finally hinted that
the matter of English mercantile privileges in Spain could be put in
question. The Kings reply, as one might expect, denied that Stratford was
in Royal Service, and promised to impound the Santa
Clara and her cargo, and to punish Stratford and his men in accordance
with international law.
The
Spanish Ambassadors text was translated early in 1643 as A
Speech or Complaint lately Made by the Spanish Embassadour and put on
public sale with King Charless reply. Although the translator was careful
not to comment overtly on the text, the relatively measured reply by the
King conveys just enough injured innocence to make the Spanish complaint
seem more offensive than it really is. The translator was a noted Italian
teacher resident in Oxford, Giovanni Torriano, who seems to have
supplemented his income considerably by translating French, Italian and
Spanish official documents.
Behind
this exploit lay British jealously of the riches of the Spanish Empire.
Mining, particularly of precious metals, was a hot topic and many
translators tried their hand as continental handbooks on metallurgy. One
of the most significant of these was The
Art of Metalls, translated in 1674 by Edward Montagu from La
arte de los metales by Alvar Alfonso Barba Alonso, a priest who lived
in Peru. The book is concerned solely with precious metals, but covers
everything from mining to the final making in the goldsmiths workshop. But
is the interest just scientific? The translator, Edward Montagu (1625-72),
First Earl of Sandwich, was an admiral who had fought on Cromwell's side in
the Civil War. He had then fought at sea in the war against Spain in 1656,
and been responsible for escorting Spanish treasure ships to English
ports, for which he had received a vote of thanks from Parliament. He then
changed sides in 1659 and took an active part in the Restoration of the
King.
In
an England that was rapidly expanding the pharmacopoeia, hypochondria was
an ally to greed in maintaining fascination with things Spanish: the New
World offered a new repertoire of medicines. Chocolate, coffee and tobacco
begin appearing in English pharmacopoeias at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Tobacco is a good medicine for rheumatic pains, a
cure for intestinal worms and a decongestant. But the great apothecary,
Nicholas Culpeper, remarks that one drop of the distilled oil of tobacco
will kill a cat. A couple of Latin treatises on the ceremonial use of
tobacco among the Indians were translated in the 1650s. Coffee is
mentioned too - but is not discussed in any significant way until later in
the seventeenth century. But chocolate was heavily publicized. The most
important books about it was A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate (1640)
from the Spanish of Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma by James Wadsworth
(1604-56?), al so known as: Don Diego de Vadesforte, an English Catholic
brought up in Spain, who lived off the fees he got for betraying all and
sundry to any suitable authority. Among his other exploits Wadsworth seems
to have become a Jesuit and then converted to Puritanism. As such he
produced a stream of anti-Spanish propaganda from about 1629 onwards.
Chocolate
was not a social drink, but a medicine admired by the most learned Doctors
in Europe. It was prepared by infusion techniques known to all
apothecaries Wadsworth's preface claims that it fattens people, it makes
drinkers amiable and vehemently incites to Venus, it causeth conception in
women, it hastens and facilitates delivery, and it cures indigestion,
congestion of the lungs, cleans the teeth and is good for every part of
the body. Because Puritan writers on medicine saw an intimate relationship
between medicine and religion, they saw European colonisation of the New
World as prompted by Divine Providence for the good of all concerned.
Wadsworth's Colmenero excited enough interest to be reedited in 1651 and
again by one John Chamberlayne in 1682 in a volume containing Sylvestre
Dufours description of the medical virtues of tea and coffee, Chamberlayne
has a very blunt reference to the Divine Will:
They therefore do seem to clash with Reason, who in
contempt of the sacred rules of Divine Providence, do hold that very
country ought to be content with the sale use of its own Drugs, without
seeking after those things where with Strangers and Foreigners might
furnish us.
Spain
herself, her history and her politics, were of absorbing interest.
Wadsworth turned historian and in 1652 translated The
Civil Wars of Spain by Prudencio de Sandoval, Historiographer to Philip
III. It was reprinted in 1655 and 1662. Among the Interregnum
translations by James Howell, who was to become Historian to Charles II
after the Restoration, are several books of direct reference to Spanish
political interests as they impinged on England: An
exact History of the Late Revolutions in Naples (1650) (from an
Italian original) and in 1651 from the Spanish of Augustin de Hierro, The
Process and Pleadings in the Court of Spain upon the Death of Anthony
Ascham. This second was a tract for the times. The previous year
Anthony Ascham had been appointed Parliamentary Ambassador to Spain. The
day after his arrival in Madrid he was murdered by six English Royalists,
who promptly took sanctuary in a church, and were maintained there by
sympathisers. Spain acceded to English demands that the murderers be tried
by arresting them, condemning them to death, and returning them to
sanctuary. The story is left to speak for itself, and the interested
reader in England drew his own conclusions about Spanish attitudes to
Protestant England, and her respect for law.
The
story of Ascham was exploited to confirm the English conviction that Spain
had international ambitions with England as a special target. Therefore
the worst possible motives were read into Tommaso Campanella's treatise on
statecraft: De monarchia hispanica,
translated in 1654 under the title, A
Discourse touching the Spanish Monarchy by Edmund Chilmead. Chilmead
(1610-54) had been appointed clerk at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1625,
chaplain in 1632 and ejected as a Royalist in 1648. He then, like so many
who (as things now stand) have hardly any trade of life to take to lived
by a constant stream of miscellaneous publications, including translation.
Chilmead's preface to Campanella gives the reader three necessary bits of
information. The first is an introduction to Campanella, a Roman Catholick,
nay a Frier, who attracted the attention of the Inquisition in spite of
his loyalty to his church. There follows a graphic description of
Campanella in prison after several sessions of torture. Chilmead implies
that there is some resemblance between his own dispossession by a harsh
religious authority and Campanella's imprisonment and torture for being on
the wrong side in the 1598 revolt of Naples against the Spaniards. Though
Chilmead worked from the third edition of the Latin, he tries to date the
original edition from internal evidence. He conjectures 1599 or 1600. This
is a good setting for the next bit of information, the use the reader is
to make of the book. There follows a careful summary of Campanella's ideas
on statecraft, topped off by an unambiguous reference to Spanish
international ambitions, and their lack of finesse in carrying out
Campanella's ideas. The Interregnum reader could draw his own conclusions
about the timeliness of a book written during the aftermath of Spanish
attempts to invade Britain.
The
third "necessary" information is on the translation itself.
Campanella's utopian view of the mutually beneficial relationship between
state and individual was not unlike the Puritan ideal which Chilmead too
seems to have shared. He respects Campanellas political acumen,
sympathises with his sufferings, and disapproves heartily of his religion:
We have dealt so fairely and Ingenuously with our
Author, as that we have perfectly and entirely preserved his own Sense
unto Him. Neither have we stopped his foul mouth where he hath used ill
Language toward any of the Protestant Princes, or cast dirt into the faces
of the first Reformers, Luther, Calvin &c. For to what end should we
falsifie out Original, by making our Author more Civil than he had a Mind
to be.
He
finishes with a self-satisfied plea for toleration.
In
the millenial climate of the 1650s, the removal of the disabilities
against the Jews, outlawed in 1290 at the order of Edward I, was to be one
of the preparations for the Second Coming. It would also have the
advantage of being a gesture towards a notorious minority persecuted by
the Spaniards. In brief this is the argument put forward in Moses Walls
preface to The Hope of Israel
(1651) from the Latin Spes Israelis,
itself from the Spanish by the Dutch rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel, who spent
two years in England lobbying Parliament. But where ben Israel was seeking
toleration, Wall was after more:
Doe not think that I ayme by this Translation to
propagate or commend ludaisme, but to give some discovery of what
apprehensions and workings there are at these days in the hearts of the
Jews and to remove our sinfull hatred from off that people, whose are the
promises, and who are beloved for their Fathers sakes; and who of Jews, we
shall heare to be, ere long, reall Christians.
Produced
by this and similar publications Cromwell called a conference on the
Jewish question in 1655; but it proved easier to lave the Jews in their
absence, and the legal disabilities against them were not lifted, even if
a de facto toleration resulted.
In
a word which disapproved of regicide, England needed to be tolerated. The
Interregnum Parliament keenly felt the need to convince friends and
enemies overseas of the legality of the Puritan regime. If translators
were successful propagandists at home, they would presumably be as
successful abroad in presenting England's case. Hence in 1651 at the
command of Parliament a certain W. G. translated John Cowell's Institutiones
juris anglicanae as Institutes of the Laws of England, and the next
year the journalist, Marchamont Nedham (1620-78), was paid twenty
shillings for his Of the Dominion and Ownership of the Sea, a translation of John
Selden's Mare Clausum on the
traditional rights England exercised over her coastal waters. At first an
enthusiastic Parliamentarian, Nedham changed sides in 1647, and after
Iying low for a couple of years, repented in time to be invited to
translate one of his anti-Spanish diatribes into Latin for international
consumption.
The
trend towards using travel literature was a weapon for both political and
religious policy had begun during the late sixteenth century as relations
were worsening between Spain and England. In 1583 a traveller known only
as M.M.S. had written The Spanish
Colonie: or Brief Chronical of the Acts and Gestes of the Spaniards in the
West Indies. Purchas had not been at all kind to Spain in Purchas,
his Pilgrimage. Some of the more horrifying parts had been taken from La
istoria de las Indias by the Franciscan, Francisco Lopez de Gómara,
secretary to Cortes. The
English-American (1648) by Thomas Gage, an English Dominican friar,
who had celebrated his conversion to Anglicanism in 1642 by a sermon in
St. Pauls, London, entitled The Tyranny of Satan, is a compilation of some
original material, of matter from Purchas, and of translated material from
Lopez de Gómara. From his experience as a Catholic missionary in Mexico,
Gage urges that the Spanish dominions with their long coastlines and weak
defences are there for the taking. In fact he claims it is the duty of the
English to act: as the Puritans had brought the purifying wrath of God to
Protestant England, how much more reason was there to do Gods work in a
Romish America with its notoriously corrupt clergy. When Lord Fairfax,
Parliaments Captain-General, acted on his advice, the attack on the West
Indies failed miserably and Gage, fortunately for himself, died on active
service in Jamaica in 1656.
Expeditions
to the West Indies were also wars of liberation on behalf of the Indians,
who were commonly thought to be descended from the lost tribes of Israel;
and it was good to think that the Spaniards were adding further anti-Semitism
to their other crimes. A typical production was The
Tears of the Indians (1656) from Bartolomé de las Casas Brevísima
relación de la destruyción de las Indias. Las Casas (1474 - 1564)
was a Dominican missionary, who became Bishop of Chiapa. He was famous for
his efforts to protect the Indians against exploitation. The first
translation of him was by Purchas in 1625, A
Briefe Narration of the Destruction of the Indians by the Spaniards.
The 1656 version was far more graphic. The translator was John Phillips
(1631-1706), Miltons nephew and private secretary, and his publisher was
Nathaniel Brooks, a notoriously evangelical Puritan. This book amply
exemplifies Phillipss reputation for wit, acidity and vulgarity. A work
sharing Gages social purposes, its dedication to Cromwell urges swift
action against the Spaniards, whose cruelty and Catholicism made them
unfit to govern. Phillips makes much of the duty of the European to bring
civilisation, the Christian Religion and the love of God to the benighted
heathen. This the Spaniards were not doing. Phillips underlines the
ghastly effects of the commercial exploitation of the West Indies on the
Indians, points out all the normal Protestant clichés of the contractions
between Catholicism and Christianity, and leaves the lack of love of God
to speak for itself. And to keep the readers zeal hot, the text includes
some of the famous de Bry engravings of Spanish atrocities. Phillips drew
the only logical conclusion: that it was up to Cromwell to do Gods work
and take the Spanish Empire from them.
After
their efforts to stamp out the English Reformation the Jesuits, the
archetypal Spanish Catholic priests, stalk through British mythology with
ever-increasing malevolence. Englishmen published a suspiciously large
number of documents purporting to have been written by Jesuit novices
disenchanted by their Orders appetite for political destabilisation. To
mark the centenary of the Papal Bull of Approval of the Jesuits, W.F.X.B,
Minister of Christ' Gospel, published in 1641 Camiltons
Discoverie of the Devilish Designs of the Society of Jesuites. To gain
the maximum mileage, it is dedicated to Parliament. It is a version of the
Latin broadside, De studiis Jesuitarum abstrusis, by Joannes Camiltonus, who is
supposed to have escaped from a Jesuit house of studies in Germany. It
details the supposed role in the planning and execution of the failed
Spanish invasion of England in 1588.
Not
surprisingly all this sabre-rattling by translators and others led to war.
And when in 1655 Philip IV declared war on England and impounded English
property in Spain, his proclamation was immediately turned into English.
The version fitted the national mood, and Cromwell branded Spain the
natural enemy. But the last word in the Interregnum belongs to Chilmead.
His Campanella was reissued in 1659 with a new forematter and title-page: Advice
to the Spanish Monarchy, translated into English by Ed. Chilmead and
published for awakening the English to prevent the approaching ruin of
their Nation. The book is printed from the same type as the 1654
edition, and may be re-issue of unsold copies.
The
moving spirit was William Prynne, the pamphleteer, who supplied a preface
underlining all the lessons of the book. His praise of Campanella as a
Second Machiavell has an edge to it: Machiavelli was deeply feared in
Britain as one of those unscrupulous Mediterranean princes who could not
be trusted to leave somebody else's country alone. So Prynne represents
Campanella as addressing his book to the King of Spain to instruct him on
how to make himself sole Temporal and the Pope sale Spiritual
Monarch of the World in general, with special attention to England,
Scotland, Ireland and Holland. The whole diatribe is reinforced by
apposite quotes on the horrible effects of divisions in Gods kingdom, both
spiritual and temporal. Prynne goes to the Ascetica
of St. Basil the Great for the spiritual parallel: Basil was very much
perplexed in his mind at the manifold Schismes and vehement dissentions
then in the Church of Christ. He then comes to the confused constitutional
state of England through the text, in those days there was no King in
Israel (Judges 17.6), a reference to the internecine wars of succession
and their social consequences recorded in the Old Testament Book of Judges.
By a literal interpretation of this text he puts the similar political
confusion in England issue down to the lack of a King, a situation
Campanella takes as the worst fate that could befall a country. Though the
actual culprit who got rid of the monarchy, was Oliver Cromwell, Prynne
traces the original idea back to Cromwell's assiduous reading of
Campanella. Though not a jot of proof is given for this assertion, it was
a safe thing to say in an England openly discussing the return of the
Stuarts.
What I have sketched here is the role of the translator as pamphleteer. Manipulation of translators for official ends goes back at least to the Roman Empire. The Thomasson Tracts in the British Library are a marvellous index to the social and religious prejudices of the mid-seventeenth century, and a large number of them are translations. Translators were prolific, and they kept a huge number of London printers in business. Though much of this output was anonymous, it held the same role in manipulating public opinion as the modern newspaper. Cromwell's distaste for press censorship encouraged unbridled use of printing as a propaganda device, even if those who overstepped the mark by tracts in favour of Charles I were often punished. Because England aspired to be a theocracy under Cromwell, the boundary between secular and religious was infinitely permeable, and religious difference strongly colours any relationships with Catholic Spain: the fact that the Jesuits were a Spanish order was a godsend to any religious propagandist. Our translators pride themselves on the accuracy of their texts, and so they should. But they were well aware of the human tendency to read the very worst into information from suspicious sources, particularly if it is accurate. And by interpreting their texts through prefaces exploiting legend, history, prejudice and the Bible, a good many of our translators fanned the English unease with a powerful and Catholic Spain into actual mal ice. It would be difficult not to blame Puritan translators for a good part of the tension between Spain and England in the mid-seventeenth century.
Works cited
Chilmead,
Edmund. 1654. A Discourse touching the
Spanish Monarchy. London. STC C401
-----------
(ed. William Prynne). 1659. Advice
to the Spanish Monarchy, translated into English by E d. Chilmead and
published for awakening the English to prevent the approaching ruin of
their Nation. London. STC C400
Gage,
Thomas. 1648. The English-American.
London. STC G109
Howell,
James. 1651. The Process and Pleadings
in the Court of Spain upon the Death of Anthony Ascham. London. STC
H1944
I.B.
1645. Royal and Gracious Priviledges
Granted by the High and Mighty Philip IV, King ot Spain, unto the English
Merchants trading within his Dominions. London. STC P1987.
M.M.S.
1583. The Spanish Colonie: or Brief
Chronical of the Acts and Gestes of the Spaniards in the West Indies.
London. STC 4739
Montagu,
Edward. 1674. The Art of Metalls.
London. STC B678
Nedham,
Marchamont. 1652. Of the Dominion and
Ownership of the Sea. London. STC S2432
Phillips,
John. 1656. The Tears of the Indians.
London. STC C799.
Purchas,
Samuel. 1613. Purchas, his Pilgrimage.
London. STC 20505
-------------
1625. A Briefe Narration of the
Destruction of the Indians by the Spaniards. London. Not in the Short
Title Catalogue
Torriano,
Giovanni. 1643. A Speech or Complaint
Lately Made by the Spanish Embassadour. London. STC C496.
W.F.X.B.
1641. Camiltons Discoverie ot the
Devilish Designs of the Society of Jesuites. London. STC C388A
W.G.
1651. Institutes of the Laws of
England. London. STC C6641
Wadsworth,
James. 1640. A Curious Treatise of the
Nature and Quality of Chocolate. London. STC C5400 (1652 edition)
reprinted in Chamberlayne, John. 1682. The
Natural History of Coffee, Chocolate, and thee. London. STC C1859
-------------
1652. The Civil Wars of Spain by
Prudencio de Sandoval, Historiographer to Philip III. London. STC S664
Wall,
Moses. 1651. The Hope of Israel.
London. STC M375
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