Abstract:
It is a human desire - or perhaps it is better to say, necessity - to recite and consume stories. Stories are more than just a form of entertainment: they are vessels for human histories. The lack of a universal language, however, has severely impeded the dispersal and preservation of those histories. Stories tell how we learned to create fire, form communities, and keep the memories of ancient heroes and heroines alive. The early seventeenth-century tragedy by French playwright Nicolas de Montreux, La Sophonisbe, as it is transcribed in the Stone edition, is one such tale. While the translation of the play's fourth act was undertaken alone, it was later reviewed and refined among a group of peers and like-minded scholars who were working to translate the remaining acts. I endeavor in the translation of Act IV to continue the telling of the tragic tale that de Montreux set to paper over four hundred years ago, recounting the fall from grace of a respected military leader and politician, and the death sentence that awaits his beautiful bride, Sophonisba.
