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A Note about Paul Scarron's Virgile Travesti and N. P. Osipov's Eneida

In such scholarly investigation as Nikolai Petrovich Osipov's travesty-masterwork, Virgilieva Eneida, vyvorochennaia na iznanku (1791-6), has received, the unanimous view expressed is that Osipov produced a "slavish imitation" or, at best, a "free translation" of Aloys Blumauer's Die Abenteuer des frommen Helden Aeneas (1782-8). Whether Osipov had slavishly imitated Blumauer's text or rendered it in a way describable as translation or whether he had produced a creative and imaginative and, thus, original transformation of it is a very arguable matter. But that he did use Blumauer's travesty for the composition of his own, and used it massively, is an uncontestable fact. The point at issue in the present Note is the relevance to Osipov's work of another, far more illustrious travesty of Vergil's Aeneid, indeed the classic of the genre - Paul Scarron's Le Virgile travesti en vers burlesques (1648-52). The scholars who recognized Osipov's dependence on Blumauer and who also touched upon this issue have all categorically denied any direct connection between Osipov's and Scarron's travesties.(1) I. I. Steshenko, for instance, while admitting the possibility of Osipov's having known French, asserted that "Skarron ne otrazilsia v russkoi peredelke niskol'ko", explaining that "gde Osipov ne podrazhal Blumaueru, on pochti perevodil Virgiliia".(2) The highly distinguished and usually impeccably scrupulous Boris Tomashevskii made the same assertion, only claiming that the passages in the Eneida not dependent on Blumauer "iavliaiutsia samostoiatel'noi parodiei Virgiliia".(3) The purpose of the present Note is to prove that those assertions are quite incorrect and that Scarron's Virgile travesti did indeed play a vital role in the composition of Osipov's Eneida.

Aloys Blumauer, in the spirit of the 'enlightenment' cultivated in Austria during the reign of Emperor Joseph II, took advantage of the 'Roman' connection in his travesty of the Aeneid to inject into it huge doses of vehement satire against the Roman Catholic Church. A number of episodes in the Aeneid had to be drastically changed or refurbished for this purpose. For example, in Book IV, when Dido is suffering mental anguish due to the onset of her passion for Aeneas. Vergil has her consult with her sister Anna; Blumauer eliminates Anna altogether and has Dido consult her 'confessor' - a Jesuit priest. Vergil's Underworld, in Book VI, becomes in Blumauer's version a Hell ruled over by the Devil and populated with Catholic clergymen and monks from popes on down. These are only two of a large number of such changes. There are also numerous instances where Blumauer alters the events in the Aeneid for reasons not or only remotely connected with his anti-Catholic propaganda. For example, instead of the famous Golden Bough episode, Blumauer merely has Venus drop a bag of golden coins at Aeneas's feet, the coins thereupon carrying out the same function as the Golden Bough. With respect to all these and many, many other similar alterations of the Vergilian details introduced by Blumauer Osipov did not follow suit but reverted back to the original events and episodes of the Aeneid. Now, the question is: did he, in those instances, "translate" or "parody" Virgil directly or did he, instead, make use of Scarron's travesty? A few examples will amply prove that Scarron was in fact Osipov's model.

Let us start with Dido's sister Anna who, as mentioned, was eliminated from Blumauer's travesty. In Vergil's text Anna performs her interlocutory role without any authorial commentary about her excepting one single epithet: "cum sic unanimarm adioquitor male sana sororem" [IV, 8, emphasis added, IRT].(4) Scarron, however, devotes twelve lines of verse to a characterization of Anna and of certain circumstances of the interview:

And Osipov, in turn, gives an expansive three-stanza characterization of Anna and the scene:

Can it conceivably be mere coincidence, not only that both poets came up with similar characterizations where nothing of the sort is found in the object of travesty, but also that there should be distinct echoes of Scarron in Osipov's text: "Ko vremeni shutit' umela, /umela takzhe i molchat'" = "Qui savoit parler et se taire"; "I sovest' chistuiu imela" = "Et si pleine de charité"; "I gliadia na sestru krasnela" = "Sitôt que la reine la vit, /Rouge en visage, elle lui dit"?

Let us now turn to the Golden Bough episode, also eliminated, as previously mentioned, from Blumauer's travesty of the Aeneid. Here again to illustrate tthe remarkable closeness of Osipov's to Scarron's approach to the scene, let us take just the passage where Aeneas breaks off the Golden Bough. The reading in Vergil's text is:

Scarron's version of this event is embellished:

Osipov, again, operates similarly, clearly picking up the detail of Scarron's meat-filching dog and turning it into a whole mock-epic simile:

Finally, let us list one especially striking, single-word example that provides compelling proof of Osipov's having been inspired by Scarron. The passage in question comes at the end of the Allecto episode in Book VII of the Aeneid where, her task of sowing madness and discord accomplished, the Fury reports back, as it were, to Juno (in the Aeneid lines 540ff). Scarron has Allecto (Alecton in the French text) make a word-play on her own name: "Dame Aimeé est alectonée" [274L, emphasis added, IRT]. Nothing remotely like this is found in Blumauer or, needless to say, in Vergil. However, in Osipov's version (where Ñ no doubt for the sake of richer rhyme possibilities - Allecto becomes her sister Fury, Tisiphone) we read: "Amatu takzhe postaralas' / Na svoi potizifonit' lad" [450, emphasis added, IRT].

The examples above represent a small fraction of the clearcut, unmistakable instances in Osipov's Eneida of Scarron's influence, instances that can be found throughout the entire seven-canto work and even, moreover, in passages where the model of Blumauer's travesty was being followed. Therefore, the appropriate correction ought now be registered in the established knowledge about Osipov's masterwork and, as well, in our knowledge about the influence on Russian literature of Paul Scarron. Also, it is hoped that the examples from Osipov's Eneida quoted above have shown (a point posed, but not pressed, in the foregoing) that Osipov 'used' Scarron in exactly the same way, I believe, he 'used' Blumauer - not "slavishly imitating" or "freely translating" him but imaginatively transforming borrowed ideas to create skillful and comically effective versions of his own.(7)

I. R. Titunik (University of Michigan)

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References

(1) I willingly acknowledge that C. L. Drage does remark the Eneida's "obvious indebtedness" to Virgile travesti in his Russian Literature in the 18th Century (London, 1978), p. 49, but inasmuch as nothing further is said there and the even more obvious indebtedness of the Eneida to Blumauer's travesty is not recognized, I assume that Drage simply had Virgile travesti in mind as the generic classic.
(2) I. I. Steshenko, 'I. P. Kotliarevskii i Osipov v ikh vzaimootnosheniiakh', Kievskaia starina, Nos. 7-8, pp. 37 and 44.
(3) Iroi-komicheskaia poema, edited by Boris Tomashevskii (Leningrad, 1933), p. 722.
(4) Quotations from the Aeneid are from the Loeb Classical Library edition by H. R. Fairclough, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA and London, 1986). Citations in brackets provide the number of the Book and the line(s) quoted.
(5) The edition of Scarron's travesty used here is Le Virgile travesti en vers burlesque par Paul Scarron, edited by Victor Foumel (Paris, 1858). Since the text in that edition is printed in double columns on each page, citations in brackets after quotations provide the page number(s) plus an L (= left column) or an R (= right column).
(6) The text of Osipov's Eneida used here is the one reprinted in Iroi-komicheskaia poema, as identified in note 3 above. Citations in brackets after quotations provide only page number(s).
(7) It ought also be pointed out that Osipov's Eneida does include a number of completely original passages, i.e. passages that have no equivalents in either Blumauer or Scarron - or, for that matter, even Vergil.

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