The Epitaph of Ovid in Russian and Swedish Translations (17th–19th Centuries)

JATS XML:

XML
BibTEX:

BIB
Research Information Systems Citation Format:

RIS
Category: Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature: Issue 25
Full text:

PDF
Abstract:

In the present study, information is clarified regarding the circulation in European literature of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries of an epitaph allegedly engraved on Ovid’s tombstone, and its translations into Russian and Swedish are examined. The text of the epitaph was first published in 1574 in a book of engravings by the Netherlandish artist Tobias Fendt. In 1585, an account of Ovid’s tombstone and its epitaph was included in the book Polnische, Liffländische, Moschowiterische, Schwedische und andere Historien by Laurentius Müller, court councillor to the Duke of Courland, and in the following year it was printed in a book by the German hagiographer Laurentius Surius. Most likely, from Fendt’s publication the text of Ovid’s epitaph passed into the Annals of the Polish historian Stanisław Sarnicki, published in 1587, and was borrowed by Dmitry Cantemir for his Description of Moldavia. The Russian translation of the German translation of Cantemir’s book was published in 1789, and in it, as in all other cases, Ovid’s epitaph is not accompanied by a translation. The Russian interlinear translation of the epitaph appeared in 1882 in a paraphrase of Müller’s work published in Riga. In Sweden, a translation of Müller’s book was published in 1629; it was carried out by the royal translator Erik Schroderus, and in it the Latin text of the epitaph was printed together with a verse paraphrase into Swedish. The Swedish version of the distich from Book VI of Ovid’s Fasti is provided by Schroderus in his book Rättegångz Oordning (1616), a translation of a German treatise by Georg Am Waldt. For a supporter of the ideas of Swedish Gothicism such as Schroderus, paraphrases of Latin poems were intended to demonstrate the possibilities of the Swedish language as a language of poetry and to confirm Sweden’s status as a great cultural power.
Keywords: Ovid’s epitaph, Laurentius Müller, D. Cantemir, Swedish literature of the first quarter of the 17th century, Erik Schroderus, Russian literature of the first quarter of the 18th century
Author: Mikhail Yu. Ljustrov
Information about the author:

Mikhail Yu. Ljustrov, DSc in Philology, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Head of Old Slavic Literature Department, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8475-0700

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For citation:

Ljustrov, M.Yu. “The Epitaph of Ovid in Russian and Swedish Translations (17th–19th Centuries).” Germenevtika drevnerusskoi literatury [Hermeneutics of Old Russian Literature]. Issue 25. Ed.-in-chief O.A. Tufanova, sci. ed. M.V. Kaplun. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2026, pp. 744–757. https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-744-757 (In Russian)
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/EEEPMA
UDC: 821.161.1.0+821.113.6.0
Publication Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/HORL.1607-6192-2026-25-744-757

REFERENCES

  1. Nikolaev, I. “Ovidii v russkoi literature XVII veka” [“Ovid in the Seventeenth Century Russian Literature”]. Russkaia literatura, no. 1, 1985, pp. 205–211. (In Russian)
  2. Tolstikov, V. “‘Shvedskost’’ kak ‘gotskost’’: shvedskii gotitsizm XV–XVII vv.” [“‘Swedishness’ as ‘Gothicity’: Swedish Gothicism in the 15th–17th Centuries”]. Sushchnost’ i metamorfozy shvedskoi identichnosti: sbornik statei [Essence and Metamorphoses of Swedish Identity: A Collection of Articles]. Moscow, RSUH Publ., 2008, pp. 59–76. (In Russian)
  3. Formozov, A. “Zametki o Pushkine (kommentarii arkheologa). 1. O grobnitse Ovidiia” [“Notes on Pushkin (Commentary of an Archaeologist). 1. On Ovid’s Tomb”]. Vremennik Pushkinskoi komissii. 1976 [Proceedings of the Pushkin Commission, 1976]. Leningrad, Nauka Leningradskoe otdelenie Publ., 1979, pp. 131–132. (In Russian)
  4. Cheshikhin, E. “E.V.Cheshikhin. Opyt kharakteristiki” [“E.V. Cheshikhin. An Attempt at a Characterization”]. Pamiati Evgrafa Vasil’evicha Cheshikhina. K dvadtsatipiatiletiiu so dnia ego konchiny (1888 – 2 marta 1913) [In Memory of Evgraf Vasilievich Cheshikhin: On the 25th Anniversary of His Passing (1888 – March 2, 1913)]. Riga, Rizhskii vestnik Publ., 1913. 56 p. (In Russian)
  5. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot. Bd. 1, 1875. 781 S. (In German)
  6. Nicolae, “Stanisław Sarnicki, Annales — a Cantemirian bibliographical source.” Diversité et Identité Culturelle en Europe, vol. 7/2. Bucureşti, Editura Muzeul Literaturii Române, 2010, pp. 90–97. (In English)
  7. Sánta, Sára. “Fatum necessitatis The tomb of Ovid in the Hungarian Historiography (16–18th century).” Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, vol. 61, no. 1. Budapest, Akademiai Kiado, 2021, pp. 63–73. (In English)
  8. Ståhle, Carl Vers och språk i Vasatidens och Stormaktstidens svenska diktning. Stockholm, Norstedt, 1975. 470 s. (In Swedish)