The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.)
Page 18
A. (Prologue, Page 31.)
The dedication with which Anthony Le Macon prefaces his translation ofBoccaccio contains several curious passages. In it Margaret is styled"the most high and most illustrious Princess Margaret of France, onlysister of the King, Queen of Navarre, Duchess of Alencon and of Berry;"while the author describes himself as "Master Anthoine Le Macon,Councillor of the King, Receiver General of his finances in Burgundy,and very humble secretary to this Queen." He then proceeds to say:--
"You remember, my lady, the time when you made a stay of four or fivemonths in Paris, during which you commanded me, seeing that I hadfreshly arrived from Florence, where I had sojourned during an entireyear, to read to you certain stories of the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio,after which it pleased you to command me to translate the whole bookinto our French language, assuring me that it would be found beautifuland entertaining. I then made you reply that I felt my powers weretoo weak to undertake such a work.... My principal and most reasonableexcuse was the knowledge that I had of myself, being a native of theland of Dauphine, where the maternal language is too far removed fromgood French.... However, it did not please you to accept any of myexcuses, and you showed me that it was not fitting that the Tuscansshould be so mistaken as to believe that their Boccaccio could not berendered in our language as well as it is in theirs, ours having becomeso rich and so copious since the accession of the King, your brother, tothe crown, that nothing has ever been written in any language that couldnot be expressed in this; and thus your will still was that I shouldtranslate it (the _Decameron_) when I had the leisure to do so. Seeingthis and desiring, throughout my life, to do, if I can, even more thanis possible to obey you, I began some time afterwards to translate oneof the said stories, then two, then three, and finally to the number often or twelve, the best that I could choose, which I afterwards showedas much to people of the Tuscan nation as to people of ours, who allmade me believe that the stories were, if not perfectly, at least veryfaithfully translated. Wherefore, allowing myself to be thus pleasantlydeceived, if deceit there was, I have since set myself to begin thetranslation at one end and to finish it at the other...."
This dedicatory preface is followed by an epistle, written in Italian byEmilio Ferretti, and dated from Lyons, May I, 1545; and by a notice tothe reader signed by Etienne Rosset, the bookseller, who in the King'slicense, dated from St. Germain-en-Laye, Nov. 2, 1544, is described as"Rosset called the Mower, bookseller, residing in Paris, on the bridgeof St. Michael, at the sign of the White Rose." The first edition of LeMacon's translation (1545) was in folio; the subsequent ones of 1548,1551, and 1553 being in octavo. It should be remembered that Le Macon'swas by no means the first French version of the _Decameron_. Laurent duPremier-Faict had already rendered Boccaccio's masterpiece into Frenchin the reign of Charles VI., but unfortunately his translation, althoughof a pleasing naivete, was not at all correct, having been made froma Latin version of the original. Manuscript copies of Laurent'stranslation were to be found in the royal and most of the princelylibraries of the fifteenth century.--Ed.