The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman

by George Chapman

  Οὕνεκα δὴ νυ̑ν δι̑ον‭ ᾽‬Αλέξανδρον Μενέλαος

  Νικήσας,‭ etc.

  For avoiding the common reader’s trouble here, I must refer the more Greekish to the rest of the speech in Homer, whose translation ad verbum by Spondanus I will here cite, and then pray you to confer it with that which followeth of Valla.

  Quoniam verò nunc Alexandrum Menelaus

  Postquam vicit, vult odiosam me domum abducere,

  Propterea verò nunc dolum (seu dolos) cogitans advenisti?

  Sede apud ipsum vadens, deorum abnega vias,

  Neque unquam tuis pedibus revertaris in cœlum,

  Sed semper circa eum ærumnas perfer, et ipsum serva

  Donec te vel uxorem faciat, vel hic servam, etc.

  Valla thus:

  Quoniam victo Paride, Menelaus me miseram est reportaturus ad lares, ideo tu, ideo falsâ sub imagine venisti, ut me deciperes ob tuam nimiam in Paridem benevolentiam: eò dum illi ades, dum illi studes, dum pro illo satagis, dum illum observas atque custodis, deorum commercium reliquisti, nec ad eos reversura es ampliùs: adeò (quantum suspicor) aut uxor ejus efficieris, aut ancilla, etc.

  Wherein note if there be any such thing as most of this in Homer; yet only to express, as he thinks, Homer’s conceit, for the more pleasure of the reader, he useth this overplus, dum illi ades, dum illi studes, dum pro illo satagis, dum ilium observas, atque custodis, deorum commercium reliquisti. Which (besides his superfluity) is utterly false. For where he saith reliquisti deorum commercium, Helen saith, θεω̑ν δ᾽ἀπόειπε κελεύθους, deorum auten abnega or abnue, vias, ἀπείπειν (vel ἀποείπειν as it is used poetically) signifying denegare or aonuere; and Helen (in contempt of her too much observing men) bids her renounce heaven, and come live with Paris till he make her his wife or servant; scoptically or scornfully speaking it; which both Valla, Eobanus, and all other interpreters (but these ad verbum) have utterly missed. And this one example I thought necessary to insert here, to show my detractors that they have no reason to vilify my circumlocution sometimes, when their most approved Grecians, Homer’s interpreters generally, hold him fit to be so converted. Yet how much I differ, and with what authority, let my impartial and judicial reader judge. Always conceiving how pedantical and absurd an affectation it is in the interpretation of any author (much more of Homer) to turn him word for word, when according to Horace and other best lawgivers to translators) it is the part of every knowing and judicial interpreter, not to follow the number and order of words, but the material things themselves, and sentences to weigh diligently, and to clothe and adorn them with words, and such a style and form of oration, as are most apt for the language in which they are converted. If I have not turned him ill any place falsely (as all other his interpreters have in many, and most of his chief places) if I have not left behind me any of his sentences, elegancy, height, intention, and invention, if in some few places (especially in my first edition, being done so long since, and following the common tract) I be something paraphrastical and faulty, is it justice in that poor fault (if they will needs have it so) to drown all the rest of my labour? But there is a certain envious windsucker, that hovers up and down, laboriously engrossing all the air with his luxurious ambition, and buzzing into every ear my detraction, affirming I turn Homer out of the Latin only, etc. that sets all his associates, and the whole rabble of my maligners on their wings with him, to bear about my impair, and poison my reputation. One that, as he thinks, whatsoever he gives to others, he takes from himself; so whatsoever he takes from others, he adds to himself. One that in this kind of robbery doth like Mercury, that stole good and supplied it with counterfeit bad still. One like the two gluttons, Philoxenus and Gnatho, that would still empty their noses in the dishes they loved, that no man might eat but themselves. For so this castrill, with too hot a liver, and lust after his own glory, and to devour all himself, discourageth all appetites to the fame of another. I have stricken, single him as you can. Nor note I this, to cast any rubs or plashes out of the particular way of mine own estimation with the world; for I resolve this with the wilfully obscure:

  Sine honore vivam, nulloque numero ero.

  Without men’s honours I will live, and make No number in the manless course they take.

  But, to discourage (if it might be) the general detraction of industrious and well-meaning virtue, I know I cannot too much diminish and deject myself; yet that passing little that I am, God only knows, to Whose ever-implored respect and comfort I only submit me. If any further edition of these my silly endeavours shall chance, I will mend what is amiss (God assisting me) and amplify my harsh Comment to Homer’s far more right, and mine own earnest and ingenious love of him. Notwithstanding, I know, the curious and envious will never sit down satisfied. A man may go over and over, till he come over and over, and his pains be only his recompense, every man is so loaded with his particular head, and nothing in all respects perfect, but what is perceived by few. Homer himself hath met with my fortune, in many maligners; and therefore may my poor self put up without motion. And so little I will respect malignity, and so much encourage myself with mine own known strength, and what I find within me of comfort and confirmance (examining myself throughout with a far more jealous and severe eye than my greatest enemy, imitating this:

  Judex ipse sui totum se explorat ad unguem, etc.)

  that after these Iliads, I will (God lending me life and any meanest means) with more labour than I have lost here, and all unchecked alacrity, dive through his Odysseys. Nor can I forget here (but with all hearty gratitude remember) my most ancient, learned, and right noble friend, M. Richard Stapilton, first most desertful mover in the frame of our Homer. For which (and much other most ingenious and utterly undeserved desert) God make me amply his requiter; and be his honourable family’s speedy and full restorer. In the mean space, I entreat my impartial and judicial Reader, that all things to the quick he will not pare, but humanely and nobly pardon defects, and, if he find anything perfect, receive it unenvied.

  OF HOMER

  Of his country and time, the difference is so infinite amongst all writers, that there is no question, in my conjecture, of his antiquity beyond all. To which opinion, the nearest I will cite, Adam Cedrenus placeth him under David’s and Solomon’s rule; and the Destruction of Troy under Saul’s. And of one age with Solomon, Michael Glycas Siculus affirmeth him. Aristotle (in tertio de Poeticâ) affirms he was born in the isle of Io, begot of a Genius, one of them that used to dance with the Muses, and a virgin of that isle compressed by that Genius, who being quick with child (for shame of the deed) came into a place called Ægina, and there was taken of thieves, and brought to Smyrna, to Mæon king of the Lydians, who for her beauty married her. After which, she walking near the flood Meletes, on that shore being overtaken with the throes of her delivery, she brought forth Homer, and instantly died. The infant was received by Mæon, and brought up as his own till his death, which was not long after. And, according to this, when the Lydians in Smyrna were afflicted by the Æolians, and thought fit to leave the city, the captains by a herald willing all to go out that would, and follow them, Homer, being a little child, said he would also ὁμηρει̑ν (that is, sequi); and of that, for Melesigenes, which was his first name, he was called Homer. These Plutarch.

  The varieties of other reports touching this I omit for length; and in place thereof think it not unfit to insert something of his praise and honour amongst the greatest of all ages; not that our most absolute of himself needs it, but that such authentical testimonies of his splendour and excellence may the better convince the malice of his maligners.

  First, what kind of person Homer was, saith Spondanus, his statue teacheth, which Cedrenus describeth. The whole place we will describe that our relation may hold the better coherence, as Xylander converts it. “Then was the Octagonon at Constantinople consumed with fire; and the bath of Severus, that bore the name of Zeuxippus, in which there
was much variety of spectacle, and splendour of arts; the works of all ages being conferred and preserved there, of marble, rocks, stones, and images of brass; to which this only wanted, that the souls of the persons they presented were not in them. Amongst these master-pieces and all-wit-exceeding workmanships stood Homer, as he was in his age, thoughtful and musing, his hands folded beneath his bosom, his beard untrimm’d and hanging down, the hair of his head in like sort thin on both sides before, his face with age and cares of the world, as these imagine, wrinkled and austere, his nose proportioned to his other parts, his eyes fixed or turned up to his eyebrows, like one blind, as it is reported he was.” (Not born blind, saith Vell. Paterculus, which he that imagines, saith he, is blind of all senses.) “Upon his under-coat he was attired with a loose robe, and at the base beneath his feet a brazen chain hung.” This was the statue of Homer, which in that conflagration perished. Another renowned statue of his, saith Lucian in his Encomion of Demosthenes, stood in the temple of Ptolemy, on the upper hand of his own statue. Cedrenus likewise remembereth a library in the palace of the king, at Constantinople, that contained a thousand a hundred and twenty books, amongst which there was the gut of a dragon of an hundred and twenty foot long, in which, in letters of gold, the Iliads and Odysseys of Homer were inscribed; which miracle, in Basiliscus the Emperor’s time, was consumed with fire.

  For his respect amongst the most learned, Plato in Ione calleth him ἄριστον καὶ θειότατον τω̑ν ποιητω̑ν, Poeta rum omnium et præstantissimum et divinissimum; in Phædone, θει̑ον ποιητὴν, divinum Poetam; and in Theætetus, Socrates citing divers of the most wise and learned for confirmation of his there held opinion, as Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Epicharmus, and Homer, who, saith Socrates, against such an army, being all led by such a captain as Homer, dares fight or resist, but he will be held ridiculous? This for Scaliger and all Homer’s envious and ignorant detractors. Why therefore Plato in another place banisheth him with all other poets out of his Commonwealth, dealing with them like a Politician indeed, use men, and then cast them off, though Homer he thinks fit to send out crowned and anointed, I see not, since he maketh still such honourable mention of him, and with his verses, as with precious gems, everywhere enchaceth his writings. So Aristotle continually celebrateth him. Nay, even amongst the barbarous, not only Homer’s name, but his poems have been recorded and reverenced. The Indians, saith Ælianus (Var. Hist. lib. xii. cap. 48) in their own tongue had Homer’s Poems translated and sung. Nor those Indians alone, but the kings of Persia. And amongst the Indians, of all the Greek poets, Homer being ever first in estimation; whensoever they used any divine duties according to the custom of their households and hospitalities, they invited ever Apollo and Homer. Lucian in his Encomion of Demosth. affirmeth all Poets celebrated Homer’s birthday, and sacrificed to him the first fruits of their verses. So Thersagoras answereth Lucian, he used to do himself. Alex. Paphius, saith Eustathius, delivers Homer as born of Egyptian parents, Dmasagoras being his father, and Æthra his mother, his nurse being a certain prophetess and the daughter of Oris, Isis’ priest, from whose breasts, oftentimes, honey flowed in the mouth of the infant. After which, in the night, he uttered nine several notes or voices of fowls, viz. of a swallow, a peacock, a dove, a crow, a partridge, a redshank, a stare, a blackbird, and a nightingale; and, being a little boy, was found playing in his bed with nine doves. Sibylla being at a feast of his parents was taken with sudden fury, and sung verses whose beginning was Δμασαγ όρα πολύνικε; polynice, signifying much victory, in which song also she called him μεγάκλεα, great in glory, and στεϕανίτην, signifying garland-seller, and commanded him to build a temple to the Pegridarij, that is, to the Muses. Herodotus affirms that Phæmius, teaching a public school at Smyrna, was his master; and Dionysius in his 56th Oration saith, Socrates was Homer’s scholar. In short, what he was, his works show most truly; to which, if you please, go on and examine him.

  ENDNOTES.

  1 Of Translation, and the natural difference of Dialects necessarily to be observed in it.

  2 Ironicè.

  3 The necessary nearness of Translation to the example.

  4 The power of Nature above Art in Poesy.

  5 Our English language above all others for Rhythmical Poesy.

  THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS

  THE ARGUMENT

  Apollo’s priest to th’ Argive fleet doth bring

  Gifts for his daughter, pris’ner to the king;

  For which her tender’d freedom he entreats;

  But, being dismiss’d with contumelious threats,

  At Phœbus’ hands, by vengeful pray’r, he seeks

  To have a plague inflicted on the Greeks.

  Which had; Achilles doth a council cite,

  Embold’ning Calchas, in the king’s despite;

  To tell the truth why they were punish’d so.

  From hence their fierce and deadly strife did grow.

  For wrong in which Æacides so raves,

  That goddess Thetis, from her throne of waves

  Ascending heav’n, of Jove assistance won,

  To plague the Greeks by absence of her son,

  And make the general himself repent

  To wrong so much his army’s ornament.

  This found by Juno, she with Jove contends;

  Till Vulcan, with heav’n’s cup, the quarrel ends.

  ANOTHER ARGUMENT

  Alpha the prayer of Chryses sings:

  The army’s plague: the strife of kings.

  Achilles’ baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos’d

  Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls los’d.

  From breasts heroic; sent them far to that invisible cave

  That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave;

  To all which Jove’s will gave effect; from whom first strife begun

  Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis’ godlike son.

  What god gave Eris their command, and op’d that fighting vein?

  Jove’s and Latona’s son: who fir’d against the king of men,

  For contumély shown his priest, infectious sickness sent

  To plague the army, and to death by troops the soldiers went.

  Occasion’d thus: Chryses, the priest, came to the fleet to buy,

  For presents of unvalu’d price, his daughter’s liberty;

  The golden sceptre and the crown of Phœbus in his hands

  Proposing; and made suit to all, but most to the commands

  Of both th’ Atrides, who most rul’d. “Great Atreus’ sons,” said he,

  “And all ye well-greav’d Greeks, the gods, whose habitations be

  In heav’nly houses, grace your pow’rs with Priam’s razéd town,

  And grant ye happy conduct home! To win which wish’d renown

  Of Jove, by honouring his son, far-shooting Phœbus, deign

  For these fit presents to dissolve the ransomable chain

  Of my lov’d daughter’s servitude.” The Greeks entirely gave

  Glad acclamations, for sign that their desires would have

  The grave priest reverenc’d, and his gifts of so much price embrac’d.

  The Gen’ral yet bore no such mind, but viciously disgrac’d

  With violent terms the priest, and said:— “Dotard! avoid our fleet,

  Where ling’ring be not found by me; nor thy returning feet