SOURCE: Percy, Lee T. “George Sandys: A Translator Between Two Worlds.” In The Mediated Muse: English Translations of Ovid, 1560-1700, pp. 37-70. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1984.

In the following essay, Percy examines Sandys's translation of Ovid and argues that in this work Sandys displays qualities associated with both the Renaissance and with modern times.

In 1623, on a tiny ship crossing the Atlantic “amongst the roreing of the seas, the rustling of the Shroude, and the clamour of the Saylers,” George Sandys, newly appointed treasurer of the Virginia Company, sat down to translate two books of Ovid's Metamorphoses.¹ Later, in the midst of the distractions of government in the New World, he translated eight more. In 1626, soon after he returned from America, a small folio appeared containing his version of all fifteen books. The reading public, whose appetite had been whetted by the publication of the first five books...