In his excellent The Stoic Handbook Erik Wiegardt tells us that "Queen Elizabeth I was an admirer of Stoicism and personally translated the Discourses of Epictetus into Elizabethan English (Page 17)." He goes on to say that "The ethics of the Stoa predominated and inspired Renaissance philosophers and essayists in their creation of the new humanism of that era."
Intrigued, I did a quick online search for Queen Elizabeth's translation and found nothing. Wikipedia, however, reveals that another Elizabeth, Elizabeth Carter, is credited with publishing the first translation into English of The Discourses of Epictetus.
Ms. Carter was part of the Bluestocking Group, a loose collective of female intellectuals in mid 1700's Britain. She was an accomplished classicist and author and was highly regarded by Dr. Johnson.
Now it's a bit of a stretch to call either Elizabeth Stoic. Both were committed Christians (at least outwardly), and they seem to have "admired" Stoicism rather than practiced it. On the other hand how can a person translate the entire Discourses and not be something of a Stoic?
Ms. Carter's translation is available here.http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html
If anybody knows anything about Elizabeth I's translation, even as a fragment, please do pass it along.
And since we're on the subject of female Stoics Donald Robertson has written a very interesting post on Portia Catonis, available here.
The ethics of the Stoa predominated and inspired Renaissance philosophers and essayists
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