John Barclay: Argenis (review)

John Barclay's Argenis has fallen into neglect in recent decades, despite its immense popularity up to the eighteenth century. This first scholarly edition prepared with great care by Riley and Huber should mark the beginning of renewed interest not only in this work but also in other Neo-Latin novels, too many of which are currently accessible only in centuries-old editions collecting dust in research libraries. The last work of the cosmopolitan poet/scholar John Barclay, the Argenis, first came out in 1621 and soon became popular throughout Europe in numerous editions and translations, garnering compliments from Richelieu and Coleridge, among others. Set in the ancient Mediterranean, it is in its most basic outline a somewhat juvenile romance between Poliarchus, a prince with a secret past, and Argenis, princess of Sicily. But clustered around this is a thick mass of rival courtships, adventures, wars, and political/literary/religious debates, many of these thinly disguised commentaries on contemporary Europe.

The introduction consists of short sections on the lives of John and his father William Barclay, the novel's setting, plot, political messages, sources, reception, Latinity, and text. A number of appendices follow, which include the very useful keys to characters (many of whom are contemporary figures in disguise; e.g. Usinulca=Calvin), lists of editions, translations, sequels and satires, text, and translation of Raphael Thorius' Elegia, dedication and contributory poems prefaced in Long's 1625 English translation, and a full bibliography. These materials will be an essential starting point for future researchers.

The Latin text is modernized in spelling and punctuation and is divided into books, chapters, and sections. The book division is original, while the chapters are mostly taken from a 1623 French translation, and the sections are the editors' own. This format means that scholars now have a convenient and standard means of citing the Argenis, instead of arbitrarily settling on some early edition and using its page numbers. Riley and Huber consulted not only the first two printed editions but also the autograph manuscript, another reason why the present edition is to be preferred.

The editors are to be commended also for making the text accessible to non-Latinists with a facing English translation. They chose to adopt the seventeenth-century English version by Kingesmill Long with minor grammatical and lexicographical alterations, a choice that is amply justified as it is in itself an important monument of English literature, extensively cited and discussed, for example, in P. Salzman's English Prose Fiction: 1558–1700 (Oxford 1985).

Barclay's rich and eclectic Latin makes it a challenge to record, and this is where the present edition has some shortcomings. The following are the typographical errors that I noticed (the numbers are in the order of page.line): 104.26 gratia>gratias; 118.16 Iubebat>Iubebant; 124.32 et et>et; 132.23 eas>eos; 148.23–24 sin-gulibus>sin-gultibus; 168.31 Extulerat>Extulerant; 174.10 iactura>iacturam; 176.15 insertum>in sertum; 206.15 maximae>maxime; 214.24–25 mul-tis>mul-ti; 226.1 deae>dea; 226.19 Sequebatur>Sequebantur; 232.21 eas>eos; 236.13 tinget>tingent; 272.5 praetera>praeterea; 288.20 Oloodemus>Oloodemum; 408.28 ille>illa; 410.16 libindine>libidine; 410.23 coactum>coactam; 494.14 erat>erant; 522.34 lenitate>levitate (as suggested by the Long translation, though lenitate may be in the original); 544.12 invocatium>invocantium; 558.28 ille>illa; 564.1 confino>confinio; 586.9 obruerunt>obruerent; 626.3 sollictantque>sollicitantque; 674.9 interr­rogans>interrogans; 692.3 aut>at; 752.12 convertit>convertunt (convertit is said to be in the ms., and edd., but grammar requires the plural); 776.12 viceret>vinceret; 808.26 trigenta>triginta; 836.8 esse>esset; 854.31...