3 ms·

I don't quite follow this. The translation is written neatly, but has some emendments in Elizabeth's hand. So the conclusion is that Elizabeth translated it, ha

I don't quite follow this. The translation is written neatly, but has some emendments in Elizabeth's hand. So the conclusion is that Elizabeth translated it, had her translation recorded by a scribe (she dictated it? Or wrote it somewhere that does not survive?) and then made corrections when reading it back. It sounds plausible but hardly conclusive - couldn't it be someone else's translation she was working on? It's also unfortunate that the article doesn't seem to give a relevant image. There's a neatly written page from the Tacitus under discussion, and a separate sample of the queen's handwriting, but I can't see an example of her making an editor's note in the Tacitus book, as the article claims.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
The neatly written prose is an example of Elizabeth's idiosyncratic hand. Standards were a little different (far higher) back then. I really hesitate to do this, as I hate linking or even acknowledging them, but the Mail are often good and heavy with pictures. As they prove to be in this case: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7735885/Queen-Elizabeth-translated-Roman-historian-Tacituss-work-Latin-English-spare-time.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7735885/Quee...
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  > I really hesitate to do this, as I hate linking or even acknowledging them They get the most hate for their best reporting, not their worst. The translation is very bad, and looks almost word for word to the Latin. I'm a little surprised not to see a schoolmaster's corrections on it. I wonder what she conceived this document as.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    > They get the most hate for their best reporting, not their worst. If the Mail's celebrity gossip and baseless muck slinging constitutes their "best reporting" I'm even more glad that I proactively avoid them.
- dmurray 7y ago
  Standards really have changed if that's true. What should I make of this, then? > While the translation itself is copied in the elegant hand of a scribe, the corrections and additions are in “an extremely distinctive, disjointed hand”. Is the whole Tacitus page to be considered part of the "corrections and additions"? The Daily Mail article shows an example of a correction, inserting the word "Calme" which is clearly written sloppily even to modern eyes. But it also implies the whole page was written by her, picking out one example of a "hastily formed letter 'd'".
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    No, it implies the whole page was translated by her, but the main body of the text was transcribed by a scribe.
    - romaaeterna 7y ago
      A scribe would have had better Latin.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    I think Grauniad are using clumsy wording as "in the elegant hand of a scribe" can just as easily imply that was her Sunday best script in the style of a scribe, which degrades as she hurries. Which is how I took it. Auntie Beeb brings a tad more precision with: "But the clinching argument was the handwriting. The translation was copied by one of her secretaries but it is covered in corrections and additions which match the queen's highly distinctive, indeed rather messy, hand." So I was entirely wrong, and the Mail appear to be making stuff up, which is to be expected. :) Three sources, three differing results. lol. Dr Philo needs his own blog.
    - dmurray 7y ago
      > Three sources, three differing results. lol. Dr Philo needs his own blog. This provoked me to find the original source published in the Journal of English Studies this week, which appears to be freely available [0]. I haven't read the journal article yet, much like the journalists. It's not clear from the abstract whether the page in question was written by a professional or by the queen. The abstract does mention other stylistic arguments for the queen being the translator. [0] https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article/doi/10.1093/res/hgz112/5640388?searchresult=1 https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article/doi/10.1093/res...
vixen99 7y ago
It could have been someone else's but accounts seem to concur that Elizabeth would have been exceptionally able to provide her own translation. There's consistent evidence (as far as I can tell) that she was very bright. I'm not aware of the sources for these claims including the one that she was fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, German and Greek.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

The neatly written prose is an example of Elizabeth's idiosyncratic hand. Standards were a little different (far higher) back then. I really hesitate to do this, as I hate linking or even acknowledging them, but the Mail are often good and heavy with pictures. As they prove to be in this case: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7735885/Queen-Elizabeth-translated-Roman-historian-Tacituss-work-Latin-English-spare-time.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7735885/Quee...

romaaeterna 7y ago
> I really hesitate to do this, as I hate linking or even acknowledging them They get the most hate for their best reporting, not their worst. The translation is very bad, and looks almost word for word to the Latin. I'm a little surprised not to see a schoolmaster's corrections on it. I wonder what she conceived this document as.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  > They get the most hate for their best reporting, not their worst. If the Mail's celebrity gossip and baseless muck slinging constitutes their "best reporting" I'm even more glad that I proactively avoid them.
dmurray 7y ago
Standards really have changed if that's true. What should I make of this, then? > While the translation itself is copied in the elegant hand of a scribe, the corrections and additions are in “an extremely distinctive, disjointed hand”. Is the whole Tacitus page to be considered part of the "corrections and additions"? The Daily Mail article shows an example of a correction, inserting the word "Calme" which is clearly written sloppily even to modern eyes. But it also implies the whole page was written by her, picking out one example of a "hastily formed letter 'd'".
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  No, it implies the whole page was translated by her, but the main body of the text was transcribed by a scribe.
  - romaaeterna 7y ago
    A scribe would have had better Latin.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  I think Grauniad are using clumsy wording as "in the elegant hand of a scribe" can just as easily imply that was her Sunday best script in the style of a scribe, which degrades as she hurries. Which is how I took it. Auntie Beeb brings a tad more precision with: "But the clinching argument was the handwriting. The translation was copied by one of her secretaries but it is covered in corrections and additions which match the queen's highly distinctive, indeed rather messy, hand." So I was entirely wrong, and the Mail appear to be making stuff up, which is to be expected. :) Three sources, three differing results. lol. Dr Philo needs his own blog.
  - dmurray 7y ago
    > Three sources, three differing results. lol. Dr Philo needs his own blog. This provoked me to find the original source published in the Journal of English Studies this week, which appears to be freely available [0]. I haven't read the journal article yet, much like the journalists. It's not clear from the abstract whether the page in question was written by a professional or by the queen. The abstract does mention other stylistic arguments for the queen being the translator. [0] https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article/doi/10.1093/res/hgz112/5640388?searchresult=1 https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article/doi/10.1093/res...

vixen99 7y ago

It could have been someone else's but accounts seem to concur that Elizabeth would have been exceptionally able to provide her own translation. There's consistent evidence (as far as I can tell) that she was very bright. I'm not aware of the sources for these claims including the one that she was fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, German and Greek.