Shakespeare’s Library - School Books
#1 Richard Bernard, translator, Terence in English (1614)
The comedies of the Roman playwright Terence were an important influence on Shakespeare, who read the plays in Latin in grammar school. This book provides the Latin text of the plays with an English translation. Richard Bernard, a clergyman and graduate of Christ’s College, Cambridge, produced this popular translation in 1598, and it was reprinted six times during his lifetime. The book was printed by John Legate, the University Printer in Cambridge, a sign that it was intended for a primarily academic audience. This copy was annotated throughout by a seventeenth-century reader who drew in “manicules,” or pointing fingers, a sign commonly used to mark important passages.
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