The <I>Eneados</I>: Gavin Douglas's Translation of Virgil's <I>Aeneid</I>. Volume I: Introduction and Commentary

Although Virgil's Aeneid was one of the most widely admired works of the European Middle Ages, the first complete translation to appear in any form of English was Gavin Douglas's magisterial verse rendering into Older Scots, completed in 1513, which he called the "Eneados". It included not only the twelve books of Virgil's original, but a thirteenth added by the Italian humanist scholar Maphaeus Vegius, and lively, original prologues to every book. D.F.C. Coldwell's four-volume modern edition of it was published in 1957-64 for the Scottish Text Society, but for some time now has needed revision. This new edition will provide a corrected version of Coldwell's text and variants in subsequent volumes. The first volume, here, the Introduction and Commentary, offers a wealth of new scholarship, comparing Douglas's text to his exact Latin source (first identified by Professor Bawcutt in a 1973 essay reprinted here); vastly expanding the Commentary; offering detailed new analysis of the manuscript and print witnesses to the text and its early reception and circulation; and surveying modern Douglas criticism. There is also a new Bibliography. PRISCILLA BAWCUTT, honorary professor at the University of Liverpool, is one of the most distinguished contemporary scholars of Older Scots. She has edited The Poems of William Dunbar for the Association of Scottlish Literary Studies (1997/8), and The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas for the Scottish Text Society (revised 2003); she has written very widely and deeply on all aspects of Older Scots literature, including her foundational study, Gavin Douglas (1976). IAN C. CUNNINGHAM, former Keeper of Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland, has published extensively on Latin and Older Scots manuscripts, and edited and translated Theophrastus