Dryden's Edition of CorneilleAuthor(s): Lawrence E. PadgettSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Mar., 1956), pp. 173-174Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043478 .

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The annotators have long had their way with this allusion and have harvested most of the classical references to this mysterious stream that was supposed to flow out of Arcadia into the Cyparissian Gulf and emerge still fresh as the Sicilian fountain. The geographers and mythographers of Milton's age continued to tell the story of its wanderings through the Ionian Sea, and in the minds of men of letters it continued to unite the poets of Arcadia with these of Sicily.

It would, consequently, be surprising if the myth and its attendant hydrographic phenomenon were not subject to a symbolic reading. We have only to turn to Bishop Fulgentius to find that it was.

Alfeus fluvius Aretusam nimpham amavit; quam cum sequeretur, in fontem conversa est. Ille in mediis undis ambulans non inmixtus in sinu eius in- mergitur; unde et aput inferos oblivionem animarum trahere dicitur. Alpheus enim Grece quasi aletiasfos, id est veritatis lux, Arethusa vero quasi areteisa, id est nobilitas aequitatis. Ergo quid amare poterat veritas nisi aequitatem, quid lux nisi nobilitatem. Ideo et in mari ambulans non miscetur, quia lucida veritas omni malorum morum salsidine circumdata pollui aliqua commixtione non novit.2

This interpretation got into the heads of Ovid's editors, and even Sandys repeats it in his commentary on the Metamorphoses.3 As late as 1699, Ursinus is still piously quoting it in his handbook for preachers.4 It seems not unlikely that Milton knew this interpretation and applied the allusion fittingly to remind the good priest of the virtues of the river and the fount, and also to suggest to them that they, too, could flow through an ocean of evil and corruption without being tainted.

Johns Hopkins University D. C. ALLEN

Dryden's Edition of Corneille The extent to which Dryden borrowed from Corneille's Trois

Discours in writing the Essay of Dramatic Poesy has been given due attention by his editors; I but no one seems to have inquired what

2Mitologiarum libri tres (ed. Helm, Leipzig, 1898), p. 80. Ovid's Metamorphoseos Englished (Oxford, 1632), pp. 197-8.

4 Stlyva 7Theotoqicae Symbolicae (Norimbergae, 1699), pp. 100-101. 1 W. P. Ker, ed., Essays of John, Dryden, (Oxford, 1926), Vol. 1; and Thomas

Arnold, ed., An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 3rd ed.. rev. William T. Arnold (Ox- ford, 1918) give particular notice to the relationship in their introductions and notes. The citation of Dryden in my text is to the Arnold edition.

VOL. LXXI, March 1956 173

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edition of Corneille he used. Corneille's discourses first appeared in the 1660 edition of his TheaUtre, one at the beginning of each volume, new editions being published, with revisions, in 1663 and 1664. Since the Essay was probably written no earlier than 1665, Dryden might have used any one of the three editions; however, a discrepancy between Corneille's words as paraphrased in the Essay and his actual words in any edition gives reason to believe that Dryden used the edition of 1660.

The relevant passage occurs in Neander's discussion of The Silent Woman. Jonson, says Neander, knew all the advantages a dramatist might have in writing his play: " One of these advantages is that which Corneille has laid down as the greatest which can arrive to any poem, and which he himself could never compass above thrice in all his plays; viz. the making choice of some signal and long-expected day, whereon the action of the play is to depend " (pp. 75, 76). The passage to which Neander refers is in the Discours des Trois Unites, which was prefaced to the third volume of the Theatre. Having remarked upon the excellence of the long-expected day, Corneille continues: " Il ne s'en presente pas touj ours des occasions; et dans tout ce que j'ai fait jusqu'ici, vous n'en trouverez de cette nature que quatre: celui d'Horace, oiu deux peuples devoient decider de leur empire par une bataille; celui de Rodogune, d'Androme'de, et de Don Sanche." 2 This is the reading of editions subsequent to that of 1660; but reference to the textual notes of the Marty-Laveaux edition (loc. cit., nn. 1-3) reveals that in the 1660 edition " dans tout ce que j'ai fait jusqu'ici, vous n'en trouverez de cette nature que quatre" reads "dans mes deux premiers volumes, vous n'en trouverez de cette nature que celui d'Horace"; and before the words "celui de Rodogune" is inserted "ce dernier en a trois." Dryden, it would seem fairly evident, read carelessly and took the trois as the total number of dramas beginning on signal days rather than the number of them in the last volume of the 1660 edition.

Dating Dryden's edition of Corneille does not, of course, date Dryden's reading of Corneille. But when one considers the amount of revision Corneille gave all his writings, the question of which edition Dryden consulted when forming his own critical opinions may be of more than trivial importance.

University of Arizona LAWRENCE E. PADGETT

2 WEuvres de P. Corneille, ed. C. Marty-Laveaux (Paris, 1862), i, 116.

174 Modern Language Notes

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