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George Sandys ( "sands"; 2 March 1578 Sandys, George, in: Encyclopædia Britannica online. – March 1644) was an English traveller, colonist, poet, and translator. He was known for his translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Passion of Jesus, as well as his travel narratives of the Eastern Mediterranean region, which formed a substantial contribution to geography and ethnology.
Sandys also took great interest in the earliest English colonization in America. In April 1621 he became colonial treasurer of the Virginia Company and sailed to Virginia with his niece's husband, Sir Francis Wyatt, the new governor.
When Virginia became a crown colony, Sandys was created a member of council in August 1624; he was reappointed to this post in 1626 and 1628. In 1631, he unsuccessfully applied for the secretaryship to the new special commission for the better plantation of Virginia; soon after this, he returned to England for good.
In 1621, he had already published an English translation, written in basic heroic couplets, of part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; this he completed in 1626; his poetic reputation rested mainly on this in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its 1632 edition, featuring extensive commentaries written by Sandys, provided an allegorical reading of Ovid's text. He also began a version of Virgil's Aeneid, but never produced more than the first book. In 1636, he issued his famous Paraphrase upon the Psalms and Hymns dispersed throughout the Old Testament and New Testament Testaments, he translated Christ's Passion from the Latin of Grotius, and, in 1641, he brought out his last work, a Paraphrase of the Song of Songs. He died, unmarried, at Boxley, near Maidstone, Kent, in 1644.
His verse was praised by John Dryden and Alexander Pope; John Milton was somewhat indebted to Sandys's Hymn to my Redeemer (inserted in his travels at the place of his visit to the Holy Sepulchre) in his Ode on the Passion.
The writing of The Relation series was influenced by Sandys’ background, as he followed the footsteps of his eldest brother who had previously visited and written about Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.Ellison, 2002, p. 66 This work contributed to the debates concerning religious tolerance in the early 17th century: Sandys shows that contrary to beliefs of many Western Europeans, multiple religions did not automatically cause social unrest, as exemplified in his descriptions of the Ottoman Empire.Ellison, 2002, p. 77 Sandys also appears to have been one of the first non-Jewish travelers to refute the belief that Jews "naturally emit an unsavoury odour".Ellison, 2002, p. 80 The book was well-received in his time, becoming a standard account of the Eastern Mediterranean, although Sandys has later been critiqued for his attitude towards women in his writing by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.Montagu, M. W. (1763). Turkish Embassy Letters. United Kingdom: Becket and De Hondt.
The seventh edition of The Relation of a Journey begun an. Dom. 1610, in four books combined the four books into a single volume, printed for John Williams junior at The Crown in Little Britain in London, 1673. This compilation volume included Sandys’ travels to all above mentioned locations, the first book containing a history of the state of the Ottoman Empire, describing their laws, government, policy, military, justice system and commerce. The first book also included Sandys’ description of the Mohammedan religion (Islam), a description of Constantinople and the manner of living of its sultan, and a study of Greece and Greek religion and customs. The second book of The Relation of a Journey focused on Egypt and the surrounding area. Sandys gives an account of Egyptian antiquity and culture, as well as his voyage on the Nile river. The second book also includes descriptions of Armenia, Cairo, Rhodes, and a brief history of Alexandria, in decline during the time of Sandys’ visitation. His is the last mention of the tomb of Alexander the Great, although it is likely a mere repetition of the description given by Leo Africanus the earlier century. The third book of the series is a description of Palestine, the Holy Land and the Judaism and Christians living there at the time. In the fourth and final volume of the series present in the compilation Sandys Travels, Sandys discusses Italy and describes the islands near it: Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicily and the Aeolian Islands. The final volume also includes Sandys’ account of cities and other places of note he visited, amongst which Venice, where his journey began, and Rome. The compilation of these four works, Sandys Travels, includes fifty maps and images.
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