Germanicus

Recommendations

Professor Claassen is an internationally acknowledged expert on the relationship between Roman history and culture and the concerns of writers today. Her translation marks an important extension of the availability of Afrikaans texts to anglophone readers ...

Prof. Lorna Hardwick: Open University, United Kingdom

"This translation is exciting, thorough and very readable. Its language is as gripping as the original. Jo-Marie Claassen’s Introduction has taught me more about Germanicus and about Van Wyk Louw’s classical background than my many years of cursory skimming through the original without the contextualisation that she provides ..."

Nico (P.N.) Muller: Online Editor Fairfax Sundays, Auckland, New Zealand

I believe that the publication of this play in English will attract the attention of scholars in the booming field of classical reception ...

Prof. William J. Dominik: University of Otago, New Zealand

GERMANICUS

A drama in verse

by NP Van Wyk Louw

Translated and

with an Introduction

by Jo-Marie Claassen

Published by Jo-Marie Claassen at Smashwords

First edition 2013

Copyright © N.P. van Wyk Louw

(Originally published in Afrikaans by Tafelberg, an imprint of NB Publishers, Cape Town, South Africa in 1956)

Cover design © Jo-Marie Claassen

www.dragonflyebooks.co.uk

This is the first translation into English of the verse drama Germanicus by the Afrikaans poet N.P. Van Wyk Louw. The work was based on the first three chapters of the Annales of the Roman historiographer Tacitus. After the death of Emperor Augustus, his successor Tiberius’ adopted son Germanicus recoils from the cruelty inherent in imperial rule. In the end he helplessly acquiesces, finally welcoming his own death as a means of escape from the burden of empire.

The drama has been considered a highlight in Afrikaans literature since its publication in 1956. Its interest lies in its amazing sweep of words, Louw’s sense of history and his portrayal of the inevitability of the corruption inherent in power. Louw’s great monologues dominate the debates between his main protagonists. His poetic Afrikaans had a grand eloquence that swept his audience along in a torrent of densely-argued meaning. Such conciseness offered severe challenges to the translator. Claassen’s colloquial translation manages to capture both the essence of Louw’s dramatic dialogues and the rhythmic cadences of the original poetry.

The translator provides a lengthy Introduction, aimed at both a classical and a theatre-going readership, explaining the historical background and discussing Louw’s interpretation of Tacitus’ narrative and the constraints under which a translator works. A brief overview of the contents of the drama’s eight scenes is followed by a select bibliography.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Translator’s Preface

Simplified Family Tree of the Julio-Claudians

Introduction

Historical background

Patronage and obligation

Tacitean antecedents of Louw’s drama

The origins and reception of the drama

Dominant themes in the drama

The character of Germanicus as presented by Tacitus and by Louw

Louw’s characterization of the three male protagonists

The women

Historicity of the drama

On Translating Louw’s Afrikaans

Conclusion

Notes

Brief Overview of the Contents of the Drama

Translation

Part I: Roman Encampment Near the Rhine Border

Scene 1 Roman camp in northern France, evening

Scene 2 Piso’s tent, that same night

Scene 3 Agrippina’s tent, that same night

Scene 4 Germany: Germanicus’ official tent, one week later.

Part II: Rome

Scene 5 Livia’s palace, some months later

Scene 6 Palace of Tiberius, a few days later

Part III: The Roman Near East

Scene 7 The palace of the Nabataean king, some months later

Scene 8 Daphne, in front of the temple of Apollo, a month later

Select Bibliography

About the Author

About the Translator

Other Books by Translator

Copyright

Book Description

Full Recommendations

Notes:

(1) Louw did not employ scene or line numbers, but scenes have been numbered to facilitate reference.

(2) Words or lines quoted in the Introduction are referenced by means of such scene numbering only: use the ‘search’ facility to find the context of each within this text.

(3) In this text Louw’s pages are marked by means of figures within square brackets immediately to the right of the translation of the first line of each of his pages. In the ‘Overview of Contents’ passages cited are referenced by means of such pagination plus line numbers (each page notionally beginning with a ‘line 1’). This will aid readers who wish to compare passages with the original Afrikaans version of the drama.

Foreword

The verse drama Germanicus by the Afrikaans poet and dramatist N.P. Van Wyk Louw (1906-1970) is based on the first three chapters of the Annales of the Roman historiographer Tacitus. The drama is a highlight in Afrikaans literature that deserves international attention. It has also on occasion been produced for the radio, its chief interest lying in its magnificent linguistic display.

Its author, Van Wyk Louw, towered over the Afrikaans literary scene as poet and essayist for the central four decades of the twentieth century. He was the first and perhaps the most prominent of the so-called dertigers (‘writers of the thirties’) who worked to rejuvenate Afrikaans literature during the first half of the century. Louw led the way in rejecting a limited, colonial-style literature, concentrating rather on a functional, intellectual and self-analytical poetic style which was rich in symbolism and imagery.

Louw’s influence was such that he may also be considered the role model for, if not also the doyen of, the sestigers (‘writers of the sixties’), another wave of innovative poets and novelists who in that decade broke further new ground in Afrikaans literature, again sending it in new directions and in many ways preparing its readership for the political changes initiated in South Africa some thirty-odd years later.

The interest of this drama lies, however, less in its political undertones than in its amazing sweep of words, Louw’s interpretative sense and his sense of history. Louw is at his best in the great monologues that dominate the various debates between the main protagonists. His non-standard Afrikaans has a grand eloquence that sweeps the reader or listener along in a torrent of densely-argued meaning.

Louw’s poetic Afrikaans is so concise that it requires an effort to be as brief in English. ‘Shakespearian English’, both lexis and word-order, is closer to the Germanic Afrikaans, but would be unacceptable in a modern translation. This more colloquial translation tries to avoid any strangeness of diction while aiming to convey the extent of Louw’s genius to an international readership by adhering to the rhythms and, where possible, the cadences, of the original. The translation is pitched at both a classical and a theatre-going readership, hence the lengthy Introduction, which conveys information and background necessary for the appreciation of the drama by both groups.

Translator’s Preface

I first saw Louw’s Germanicus performed in 1956 while still at school, and for a second time in the early 1970s (when I had gained considerably more experience of Roman history), at a production of the Stellenbosch University Drama Department. That performance awakened my ambition to bring this great play to the attention of the anglophone classical and theatrical worlds.

The staff of NB Publishers, Cape Town, Louw’s literary executors, are thanked for entrusting me with the exhilarating task of realising my ambition and for licensing me to publish this volume. Particular thanks to Catrina Wessels, Marga Stoffer, Eloise Wessels and Kerneels Breytenbach for advice and practical help.

The publication of this translation as an e-book would not have been possible without the help of my editor and agent, Lisl Haldenwang of Dragonfly eBooks, UK. Thanks to the University of Stellenbosch Research fund for subvention of publishing costs.

Parts of the Introduction derive from two papers of mine (listed in the Select Bibliography). Both appeared in Akroterion. My thanks to its former editor, Christoff Zietsman, then of Stellenbosch, now of the University of the Free State, for permission to use these. The kindness of the late John Betts of Bristol, who shortly before his untimely death carefully scrutinised and annotated the Introduction, is gratefully remembered. Its present format is thanks to his perspicacious advice.

My husband Piet is thanked for help with the simplification of the Caesars’ family tree, and for proofreading the translation. Our friend Frans Maritz is gratefully remembered and his widow Jessie is again thanked for their birthday gift of more than forty years ago – the tenth reprint of Louw’s text (Cape Town: Tafelberg-Uitgewers, 1970), which formed the basis of this translation.

My friend Maridien Schneider is thanked for technical help with my original draft. Thanks also to the Louw heirs, in particular Peter Louw and Nico Muller, for their whole-hearted encouragement of my venture.

Stellenbosch, May 2013

Van Wyk Louw’s Germanicus

Introduction

Historical background

The South African poet and dramatist N.P. van Wyk Louw based his metrical drama Germanicus (1956) on the first chapters of the Annales of the Roman historiographer Cornelius Tacitus (c.55-c.116 AD). The dramatic structure of Tacitus’ Annales has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest. Louw turned Tacitus’ narrative relating the role of Cnaeus Calpurnius Piso in the death of the Roman prince Germanicus, step-grandson of the emperor Augustus, into a cohesive play.

The drama, like the historical narrative upon which it is based, treats of the era that was initiated by the death of the Roman emperor Augustus in 14 AD and ended with the death of Germanicus in 19 AD. Augustus had taken over control of an annually revolving electoral republican system that no longer worked and which his great-uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, had, by initiating a ‘perpetual dictatorship’, effectively ended. Caesar’s assassination by a coterie of Republican-minded senators (44 BC) was followed by a time of political manoeuvring which ended with the ascendance of Caesar’s grandnephew Octavian over his rival, Mark Antony, who had served under the dictator Julius Caesar as his ‘Master of the Horse’. Octavian had been posthumously adopted in Caesar’s will as his son and heir. He later adopted the name ‘Augustus’, by which he was subsequently known.

By 27 BC Augustus had perfected his adoptive father’s autocratic system of government in Rome under the guise of ‘restoring’ the Republic, with himself as princeps, that is, ‘first among equals’. The Roman empire as a geographical concept now gained its metaphysical stature as ‘principate’, a hereditary, virtually monarchical, way of exercising rule over almost the whole of Europe south and west of the Rhine, as well as the lands fringing the Mediterranean.

Augustus’ supreme power in government was ostensibly subject to renewal from time to time, with the sporadic awarding of ‘tribunician power’. This meant that the princeps had the same rights as a so-called ‘tribune of the people’ (another of the annual positions within the state that had by now virtually lapsed in importance). Like the Republican people’s tribunes, the princeps had the power to convene the Senate and to veto laws, and most importantly, his person was sacrosanct. Anyone inflicting physical harm on him would be guilty of irreligio, which concept later became the basis for prosecutions of laesa maiestas (harm to the greatness of the princeps). By now the title of imperator (military commander), that had been won by Julius Caesar in a genuine military context, had also become the sole prerogative of the princeps or members of his family, simultaneously gaining the meaning that is now attached to the term ‘emperor’. The concomitant term ‘empire’ hence came to denote both the physical bounds of Roman hegemony and the new (unwritten) ‘Roman constitution’: the principate of the imperator.

Augustus was desperate to ensure dynastic continuation with concomitant stability of rule in an empire that could no longer afford the annual republican electoral upheavals of the kind that had worked well when Rome had been a small, self-contained city-state. Hence he needed an heir who could continue the family name. Augustus had many years before married his second wife Livia Drusilla while she was still pregnant by her former husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. She then already had a little boy of three, named after his father. Three months after her marriage to Augustus, Livia bore a son who was named Drusus. There was no issue from the marriage of Livia and Augustus, but their respective children and grandchildren intermarried, so that the term Julio-Claudian is applied to their combined dynasty, a dynasty that ended only with the death of the emperor Nero (AD 59). See the simplified family tree above.

Augustus clearly did not see his stepson Tiberius (the elder son of his wife Livia) as a potential successor in the principate, but rather sought to find a successor within his own blood line. Having no son of his own, he adopted in turn various members of his immediate family. He coerced his daughter, Julia (usually known as ‘Julia the Elder’), his only child from an earlier marriage, successively to marry three different