Arthur Golding
Arthur Golding was an English translator and writer born around 1535 or 1536 in Essex. He was the second son of a prominent puritan auditor of the Court of Exchequer and grew up in a family of eleven children. Golding attended Jesus College, Cambridge, but left without a degree during Queen Mary's reign, which was challenging for puritans. He lived for some time on the estate of his sister's husband, John de Vere, the sixteenth Earl of Oxford, where he began his translation work. Golding is notably recognized for his translation of Ovid's *Metamorphoses*, which had a lasting influence on English literature, particularly on Shakespearean themes. His prolific contributions also included significant translations of historical and religious texts, as well as an early work of popular journalism. Despite his literary accomplishments, Golding faced financial difficulties later in life, leading to imprisonment for debt. He passed away in 1606 and was buried in his birthplace. Golding's life reflects a blend of literary talent and personal hardship within the cultural and religious context of the time.
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Arthur Golding
Author
- Born: 1535 or 1536
- Birthplace: Belchamp St. Paul's, Essex, England
- Died: 1606
Biography
Arthur Golding was born in 1535 or 1536 at Belchamp St. Paul’s in Essex, the second son of John Golding, auditor of the Court of Exchequer and a prominent puritan, and his second wife, Ursula, née Marston. He was the sixth of his father’s eleven children. John Golding died in 1547, leaving his estate to Golding’s stepbrother Thomas. Golding entered Jesus College Cambridge as a commoner but left without a degree when Queen Mary came to throne and England became inhospitable to puritans. His sister Mary had, however, married John de Vere, the sixteenth earl of Oxford, on whose estate he seems to have lived unobtrusively for some years.
Although there is no firm evidence of the fact, Golding might have tutored Edward de Vere, the future seventeenth earl; adherents of the thesis that the latter might have written William Shakespeare’s plays are enthusiastic to argue that case because Golding’s interest in the classics is a plausible source for certain Shakespearean interests and materials in which Edward de Vere showed little evident interest. While under John de Vere’s protection, Golding began translating Latin and French works. His first publication was an anti-Catholic tract called A Brief Treatise Concerning the Burnynge of Bucer and Phagius at Cambridge. Other significant early translations by Golding included the works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Julius Caesar’s Comentarii de bello Gallico (52-51 b. c. e.).
Almost all Golding’s work in this vein was historical or religious—he produced a great deal of work by and about John Calvin and a version of the psalms—but one conspicuous exception was his version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 c. e.), which was dedicated to the Earl of Leicester. It presented the classical gods as parodic English gentlefolk and provided a source for many Shakespearean references, including the elaborate play-within-a-play, “Pyramus and Thisbe” in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1555-1556).
Golding married Ursula Roydon of Chilham, Kent, some time in the 1560’s; they had four sons and four daughters. He inherited the estate of his stepbrother Henry in 1576, but it proved to be encumbered by debt and claims on the property were made by the widow’s family. Further inheritances were insufficient to save the situation; he was imprisoned in the Fleet as a debtor in 1593 and his properties were mortgaged to the Crown. Many of his later translations were presumably done for money; he became amazingly prolific, eventually racking up a total of five million words. Little survives of his original work except for one dramatic work, A Tragedie of Abraham’s Sacrifice, and two significant early exercises in popular journalism, A Brief Discourse of the Murther of Master George Sanders, a Worshipful Citizen of London and an account of the earthquake of April, 1580; he may have done more work of this (frankly sensational) sort that he did not sign. Although he was released from the Fleet, perhaps on the intervention of Lord Cobham, Golding never got out of debt. He died in 1606 and was buried at St Andrew’s Church in Belchamp St. Paul’s on the thirteenth of that month.