Sir Richard
Fanshawe
born June 1608, Ware Park,
Hertfordshire, Eng.
died , June, 16, 1666, Madrid
English poet, translator, and diplomat whose
version of Camões’ Os Lusíadas is a major
achievement of English verse translation.
Educated at Cambridge, he was appointed
secretary to the English embassy at Madrid in
1635. At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined
the King. In 1648 he became treasurer to the
navy, and in 1650 he was dispatched by Charles
II to obtain help from Spain. Although this was
refused, Fanshawe was created a baronet; he
rejoined Charles in Scotland and was taken
prisoner at the Battle of Worcester. On
Cromwell’s death he reentered the King’s service
in Paris and after the Restoration was appointed
ambassador to Portugal and later to Spain.
Fanshawe’s Il Pastor Fido, The faithful
Shepherd, a translation of Battista Guarini’s Il
Pastor Fido, was published in 1647. A second
edition “with divers other poems” (1648)
included his version of the fourth book of
Virgil’s Aeneid, in Spenserian stanza. His
Selected Parts of Horace appeared in 1652. The
great work of his retirement during the
Protectorate was his translation in the original
metre of the Os Lusíadas of Camões (1655).
