La traducción portuguesa de la Confessio Amantis de John Gower
- Author/Editor
- Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio
- Title
- La traducción portuguesa de la Confessio Amantis de John Gower
- Published
- Cortijo Ocaña, Antonio. "La traducción portuguesa de la Confessio Amantis de John Gower." Euphrosyne 23 (1995), pp. 457-466. ISSN 0531-2175
- Review
- Announces the discovery of a manuscript of the Portuguese translation of CA, the source of the Castilian translation of the poem. The Castilian translation has long been known. (Macaulay has a few words about it, Works 2.clxvii-clxviii.) Dated (by Santano Moreno) sometime before 1454, it claims to be based on a Portuguese version by one Ruberto Payno, who has been identified with a clergyman who accompanied Philippa of Lancaster to Lisbon. Until now, no trace of this work has been found. The manuscript was discovered in the Biblioteco de Palacio, Madrid, where it had been catalogued simply as "Libro de las moralidades.” Professor Cortijo had the good luck of having the existence of the manuscript communicated to him by Professor Angel Gomez Moreno, and then upon obtaining a microfilm, he had the perspicacity to identify it as the long lost translation of Gower. The manuscript is a paper quarto, about 10.25 x 7.5 inches. The main body, containing the translation, consists of 251 leaves written in two columns. It is preceded by 8 leaves containing an index to the poem in Castilian, evidently added later. The text begins with the first line of the English Prologue, with no mention of the title, the author, or the translator; but it is followed by a colophon which identifies the scribe (Joham Barroso, whom Cortijo has not been able to identify), his patron (D. Fernando de Castro the Younger, from Cepta, a small corner of Spanish territory in northwest Africa opposite Gibraltar), and the date of the completion of the copy, 1430. Santano Moreno recently argued that the translation was done after 1433. That date must now be revised and indeed pushed back beyond 1430 to allow enough time for the Portuguese version to become known, and a copy of it acquired, by a minor Spanish nobleman. The index was no doubt added for the convenience of the Spanish readers. It is not identical, however, to the index that is now attached to the Spanish translation, and that is one of several indications that the newly found manuscript is not that upon which the Spanish translation was based, allowing us to infer an even wider diffusion. It appears from Cortijo’s account that the Spanish version follows the Portuguese very closely. Cortijo’s essay contains the fullest description of the manuscript and it also provides the English, Portuguese and Spanish versions Book 1, lines 2681-2784, the portion of dialogue that precedes the tale of “Nebuchadnezzar’s Punishment.” [PN. Copyright. The John Gower Society JGN 20.1.]
- Date
- 1995
- Gower Subjects
- Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
- Confessio Amantis
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies