Seneca and the Text of Marvell's (Climb) at court for me that will'

Seneca and the Text of Marvell's 'Climb at court for me that will' The most recent editor of Marvell's poetry, Elizabeth Story Donno, in her Andrew Marvell: The Complete Poems (Harmondsworth, 1972; repr. 1976), produces the following version of Marvell's 'Climb at court for m e that will' (pp. 137-38): Climb at court for m e that will Giddy favour's slippery hill; All I seek is to lie still. Settled in some secret nest In c d m leisure let m e rest, And far off the public stage Pass away m y silent age. Thus when without noise, unknown, I have lived out dl m y span, I shdl die, without a groan, 10 A n old honest countryman, W h o exposed to others' eyes, Into his own heart ne'er pries. Death to him's a strange surprise. This poem, as is well known, is a translation of the passage which ends the second chorus (and thus the second act) of Seneca's tragedy Thyestes. Rendssance editions of the play differ in a number of detdls, but they are in agreement concerning the text of these lines, and it is therefore not misleading to reproduce the passage from a m o d e m edition which is in tune with them and which has the advantage of being widely accessible. I quote from Vol. IX, 'Tragedies U', in The Loeb Classical Library's edition Seneca; this volume first appeared (with a translation by FJ. Miller) in 1917, and, with revisions, has been reprinted several times, as in 1968.1 Stet quicumque volet potens aulae cdmine lubrico; m e ddcis saturet quies; obscuro positus loco leni perfruar otio, nullis nota Quiritibus aetas per taciturn fluat sic cum transierint mei nullo cum strepitu dies, plebeius moriar senex. 400 illi mors gravis incubat 'The Loeb series has now been published in its entirety by Heinemann in London, together with Harvard Umversity Press (Cambridge, Mass.). I quote from the 1968 impression of Vol. DC. 108 J. Daalder qui, notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi. A very similar version of the Latin had appeared in the m d n scholarly edition to precede Professor Donno's, viz. that by H.M. Margoliouth, The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1927; 2nd ed. 1952). Professor Donno had access to this edition, dthough a third (revised) version, by Piene Legouis and E.E. Duncan-Jones, appeared only when hers was already in press (1971). Professor Donno's version of the text differs in some significant respects from that in the three Margoliouth editions. Margoliouth's text of the poem, which has been retdned in the third edition, is an 'old spelling' one. A more important difference between Margoliouth's text and Donno's, however, is that she prints line 2 from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which is there designated as Eng. poet. d. 49. This manuscript had belonged to Marvell's nephew William Popple, and it is dmost an understatement to say, as Donno does, that it is 'a vduable adjunct' to the first Folio edition of 1681. The Folio version of the line, as adopted by Margoliouth, is 'Tottering favors Pinacle'. With some effort, we can, of course, read 'Pinacle' as though it rhymes with 'will' and 'still', but 'hill' seems much preferable in this regard, and is an adequate enough translation of 'culmine'. While it may be difficdt to determine whether Marvell would have preferred 'Tottering' or 'Giddy', the latter has the advantage of fitting in better, in sound and meaning, with 'slippery', and that word is surely Marvell's equivdent for 'lubrico*. There had been two earlier English translations of the passage, one by Jasper Heywood,2 who speaks of a 'tickle' (i.e.insecure, slippery) 'top', and another one by Sir Thomas Wyatt who uses the expression 'slipper top',3 perhaps influencing Marvell. But, while we thus have reason to applaud Donno's departure from Margoliouth in line 2, she certdnly does not improve on his work in her 2 See m y edition of Thyestes by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, translated by Jasper Heywood (1560), in the 'New...