Lucan's Pharsalia

Christopher Marlowe translated several classical works from Latin into English, including the first book of the incomplete ten-book Pharsalia, an epic by the first-century poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (known as Lucan). While it is not known for certain the date of Marlowe's translation, it first appeared in print in 1600. It is a safe assumption that he probably translated this first book near the end of his life (1593), since it was left unfinished. The original poem is an epic about the first-century-B.C. Roman civil war, and the poem contains sufficient references to Marlowe's own time to provide some apt comparisons to Tudor England. Marlowe was Lucan's first English translator, and his choice of Lucan may hint at the Elizabethan poet's Republican sympathies.