An Ovidian tribute to Nevil Maskelyne

08 Jul 2011

More on Nevil Maskelyne, I'm afraid. Because I was doing another talk recently, I was looking again at one of the images we have of him, which was among some manuscripts that came to the Museum a couple of years ago.

The image appears to be for a medallion commemorating Maskelyne, although I'm not aware of one being produced. I'd love to hear of any that are known. Anyway, the moon appearing in the background seems fairly straightforward, given Maskelyne's role in proving and promoting the lunar distance method, but I wasn't so sure about the inscription - 'MARE PRÆSTAT EUNTI'.

After some hunting (well, Google searches), I decided that it appears to be from Ovid's Heroides (The Heroines), no. 15, Sapho to Phaon. This has the line, 'Venus, orta mari, mare praestat eunti.'

The next problem was to come up with a good (or at least effective) translation. That's one of the things I hate about Latin - too many possible meanings.

Looking at some previous attempts, I found Alexander Pope's version of 1717, which was reprinted into the 19th century, and runs, 'Venus for thee shall smooth her native main'. A more modern translation by Florence Verducci in 1985 offers, 'Venus, born from the sea, smoothes the waves for a lover'.

So I'd say the three words of the inscription could translate as something like 'he smoothes the waves for them', or 'he smoothes the oceans', again referring to Maskelyne's navigational work. Given that it's Latin, I'd be prepared to push it a bit further and exploit the ambiguity as to whether Maskelyne or the moon is the subject and say, 'they guide them [i.e. sailors] across the oceans'. But if anyone's got any better ideas, I'd love to hear some suggestions.

Incidentally, I also found Horace Walpole using the whole line in a letter to Mary Berry in 1796:

I rejoice at your bathing promising so well. If the beautiful fugitive from Brighthelmstone dips too, the waves will be still more salutary;--

Venus, orta Mari, mare praestat eunti.

(The 'beautiful fugitive' being the Countess of Jersey, I gather)

Walpole's letter has nothing to do with Maskelyne, as far as I'm aware, but I don't like to waste the fruits of my research.