Abstract
In the first printed English translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (London, 1567), Arthur Golding recounts the story of Hecuba, fallen Queen of Troy, for native readers.2 Golding’s translation offers an extended narrative of Troy’s fall and its aftermath, with a significant section, a full 200 lines, devoted to Hecuba’s tragedy (13.488–688). The section is arranged in five scenes that are rendered with emotionally potent rhetoric and vividly striking images. Such a poetics of feeling, richly visceral and dramatically attuned to Hecuba’s suffering, invites readers to participate empathetically in the tragic experience of the legendary queen. The nature of participation is determined both structurally and linguistically through three significant textual strategies: first, Hecuba’s story is framed by other women’s experiences of loss at the hands of men; second, models of empathetic spectatorship and response are incorporated into the narrative; and third, Golding’s rhetoric evokes affective responses through sense-oriented language and Hecuba’s own voice of lamentation.
Her fortune moved not
Her Trojans only, but the Greekes her foes to ruthe: her lot
Did move even all the Goddes to ruthe: and so effectually,
That Hecub to deserve such end even Juno did denye.
—Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphoses 13.685–881
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© 2015 Carole Levin and Christine Stewart-Nuñez
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Tassi, M.A. (2015). Tears for Hecuba: Empathy and Maternal Bereavement in Golding’s Translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In: Levin, C., Stewart-Nuñez, C. (eds) Scholars and Poets Talk about Queens. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534903_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137534903_2
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