ABSTRACT
The main aim of translation is the availability of the text: he translates the Trionfi 'to mak thame sum what more populare then they ar in thair Italian original'; the mark of the good translator is fidelity and elegance, and the previous translator's chief fault is their 'barbar grosnes'. In writing Fowler may be simply expressing a feeling that was shared by contemporary Scottish writers working at the court of James VI. Thomas Hudson, in dedicating his Judith, a translation from Du Bartas's poem, to the king, noted how James himself had lamented that the French eloquence was not yet 'sufficiently expressed in our rude and impollished English language'; and the king is explicitly asked to correct his servant's imperfect work. Fowler's dedication, incomplete as it is, underlines what was probably the central preoccupation in the translator's mind and offers the reader important clues in the interpretation of the work.
