This article thoroughly analyzes the central role of translation in George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589), studying and contextualizing the different instances of translation and reflections on translating that are present in the book. By paying special attention to the translation into English of the numerous Latin lines included in the volume, as well as to the names of over a hundred rhetorical figures explained in it, it will be demonstrated that in The Arte of English Poesie translation has an essential function within the process of adjusting the work’s rhetorical teachings to the profile of its target readership: idle courtiers ignorant of classical languages but highly interested in reading or composing poetry.