Amphion

This article examines the first published Dutch translation of an ode written by the Polish Jesuit Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski (Mathias Casimirus Sarbievius, 1595-1640), one of the most renowned Neo-Latin poets, by the Dutchman Simon Ingels (1618-?), issued in 1658. It opens with a discussion of Sarbiewski’s links with the Low Countries, followed by an introduction of the translator and his works. A comparison between Sarbiewski’s original and Ingels’ version then shows how the translator cleverly appropriated the composition to his own, Dutch, context: whereas Sarbiewski wrote a call for unity amongst the Polish and Lithuanians knights, Ingels turned that into a similar message for the Dutch Republic.

Among the surviving works of the comic poet Eubolus is a comedy entitled Antiope, a parody of Euripides’ tragedy bearing the same name. Edmonds identifies in the protagonists of this comedy as representations of the politicians Epaminondas and Pelopidas. This study examines this hypothesis, never previously analysed in detail and almost ignored by the critics. Given the chronology of Eubolus, a contemporary of these politicians, an interpretation of the comic Antiope like that suggested by Edmonds, in which the politicians are to be identified with a pair of twins, would impose dating the literary construction of the “inseparable couple” to a period contemporary with the actions of Pelopidas and Epaminondas. This would lend support to the hypothesis that the image of the “inseparable couple” Pelopidas-Epaminondas started in the IV century as an artificial construction, for the purposes of Athenian propaganda.