As it’s international women’s day, I wanted to bring to your attention a woman who is responsible for a few of my favourite translated texts of Stoic Teachings. The volumes in question are Epictetus’s Discourses, and subsequent Enchiridion + fragments. Eliza (her pen name) lived in through the 1700s spent her time well focusing on the areas of poetry, writing, translating and linguistics. She took on the weighty task of translating a version of Arrian’s written lectures of Epictetus from ancient greek into formal english.
What’s notable about this, is that we have a case of one of the first important classical translations by a woman. Catherine Talbot, a friend and academic companion of Elizabeth introduced her to Epictetus. After a series of events and discussions of ethics, the first translations appeared in 1758. After years of toiling over the original writings, she apparently received raving reviews and no surprise as this was the first english written version of Epictetus’s legacy.
Thankfully, Carter’s translations sold enough volumes to make her an income, but most importantly for many of us, popularising Stoicism in the second half of the 18th Century, and the works have never gone of out of print since. Eliza was a devotee to the Church of England, which I would imagine would have caused her difficulties when translating, going to great lengths to distinguish between her beliefs and the teachings of Epictetus.
If you’d like to know more about her experiences, Judith Stove wrote a great article for Modern Stoicism going into detail about her life and work.
So here’s to Elizabeth, for your work, and dedication to translation. Us practicing Stoics salute you for bringing these words to life! You can read her full translation of the Enchiridion for free below, something I still use to this day when researching Epictetus’ work:
http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
What are my key takeaways from the Enchiridion of Epictetus? Find out here: