Joshua Sylvester (1563 – 28 September 1618) was an English poet.

He translated into English heroic couplets the scriptural epic of Guillaume du Bartas. Essay of the Second Week

“ Our bisexed Parents, free from sin,
In Eden did their double birth begin.

”
—Du Bartas his divine weekes and workes (1608)[1]
His Essay of the Second Week was published in 1598; and in 1604 The Divine Weeks of the World's Birth. The ornate style of the original offered no difficulty to Sylvester, who was himself a disciple of the Euphuists and added many adornments of his own invention. The Sepmaines of Du Bartas appealed most to his English and German co-religionists, and the translation was immensely popular. It has often been suggested that John Milton owed something in the conception of Paradise Lost to Sylvester's translation. His popularity ceased with the Restoration, and John Dryden called his verse "abominable fustian."

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544 – July 1590) was a French poet. A Huguenot, he served under Henry III of Navarre. He is known as an epic poet. La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578) was a hugely influential hexameral work, relating the creation of the world and the history of man. It was translated into many languages, including English, and helped inspire Milton's Paradise Lost. It was followed quickly by La Seconde Sepmaine (1584) which Du Bartas did not manage to finish before falling fatally ill.