Sylvester conflated metaphorically the rare flower Lotos
(a divine immortalizing pen) with "The Massacre at Paris" ?
Christopher Marlowe: The Massacre at Paris (1594)
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Du Bartas "The third dayes creation" (1604)
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| Du Bartas: His Divine Weeks, translated and written(!) by Josua Sylvester 1605 |
Excerpt of an interpolation of "The Masscre at Paris" of Sylvester into "The Third Days Creation" Josuah Silvester's translations of the French Poets Du Bartas works "La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde "(1578), and "La Seconde Semaine" (1584-1603) were extremely popular in early modern England.
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Sylvester's most significant translation “Bartas his devine Weekes and Workes (1605) was reprinted six times by 1641 (s.Faksimile 1605)
It is noteworthy that the translation "The Third Daye's Creation" 1604 (by Thomas Winter s. Faksimile) was not only significantly altered in the final version “Bartas Devine Weekes and Workes" 1605) but Sylvester also interpolated several substantial own contributions.
For instance Josuah Sylvester as "Thy Servan of deer S.BARTAS" in "THE THIRD DAYES CREATION (1604)" within the section of the Beginnings of Vegetations interpolates a remarkable personal information by weaving one rare flower, The LOTOS whose wondrous nature had more worthy been of Sylvester's "divine, immortalizing Pen": from his sight, when the river SEIN(E) did swell with Bloud, the Flower [Lotos] sunk under the crimson flood, when Medices, Valois, Guise stained Hymens [Godess of Marriage] Roabe with Heathen cruelties.
He had to keep his chamber at Paris because of the Massacre during the Night of Bartholomew /Because the sun, to shun so vile a view, his chamber kept;and wept with Bartholmew". As a metaphor the Lotos dived deeper and deeper til midnight: then remounthet toward Day:....
There are plausible speculations (ref.) and indications (ref. ) that Marlowe as an 8 year old page belonged to the entourage of Philip Sidney and his servants on his 3 year European tour .- The Sidney party arrived in Paris just a few days before the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of the Huguenots on August 24, 1572.
Sir Francis Walsingham was Elizabeth’s ambassador in Paris, and Sidney and his entourage took refuge in the English embassy.
The Huguenot leadership had gathered in Paris to attend the marriage of Huguenot King Henry of Navarre and the Catholic Princess Marguerite de Valois. The marriage was supposed to bring the Protestants and Catholics together. However, Catherine de Medici, the Queen mother, saw this occasion as an opportunity to destroy the Huguenot leadership in one fell swoop, and therefore she planned and ordered the massacre with help of the famous Duc de Guise.
