The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman

Home > Other > The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman > Page 107
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 107

by George Chapman


  The wide orbs that the needle rectifies,

  In virtuous guide of ev’ry sea-driv’n course,

  To all aspiring his one boundless force;

  So from one Homer all the holy fire

  That ever did the hidden heat inspire

  In each true Muse came clearly sparkling down,

  And must for him compose one flaming crown.

  He, at Jove’s table set, fills out to us

  Cups that repair age sad and ruinous,

  And gives it built of an eternal stand

  With his all-sinewy Odyssæan hand,

  Shifts time and fate, puts death in life’s free state,

  And life doth into ages propagate.

  He doth in men the Gods’ affects inflame,

  His fuel Virtue blown by Praise and Fame;

  And, with the high soul’s first impression driv’n,

  Breaks through rude chaos, earth, the seas, and heav’n.

  The nerves of all things hid in nature lie

  Naked before him; all their harmony

  Tun’d to his accents, that in beasts breathe minds.

  What fowls, what floods, what earth, what air, what winds,

  What fires ethereal, what the Gods conclude

  In all their counsels, his Muse makes indued

  With varied voices that ev’n rocks have mov’d.

  And yet for all this, naked Virtue lov’d,

  Honours without her he as abject prizes,

  And foolish Fame, deriv’d from thence, despises.

  When from the vulgar taking glorious bound

  Up to the mountain where the Muse is crown’d,

  He sits and laughs to see the jaded rabble

  Toil to his hard heights, t’ all access unable, etc.

  And that your Lordship may in his face take view of his mind, the first words of his Iliads is μη̑νιν, wrath; the first word of his Odysseys, ἄνδρα man: contracting in either word his each work’s proposition. In one predominant perturbation; in the other over-ruling wisdom. In one the body’s fervour and fashion of outward fortitude to all possible height of heroical action; in the other the mind’s inward, constant, and unconquered empire, unbroken, unaltered, with any most insolent, and tyrannous infliction. To many most sovereign praises is this poem entitled; but to that grace, in chief, which sets on the crown both of poets and orators; τὸ‭ τὰ μικρὰ μεγάλως, καὶ τὰ κοινὰ καιίνως: that is, ‭Parva magnè dicere; pervulgata novè; jejuna plenè. — To speak ‭things little greatly; things common rarely; things barren and empty ‭fruitfully and fully. The return of a man into his country is his ‭whole scope and object; which in itself, your Lordship may well ‭say, is jejune and fruitless enough, affording nothing feastful, ‭nothing magnificent. And yet even this doth the divine inspiration ‭render vast, illustrious, and of miraculous composure. And for ‭this, my Lord, is this poem preferred to his lliads; for therein much ‭magnificence, both of person and action, gives great aid to his ‭industry; but in this are these helps exceeding sparing, or nothing; ‭and yet is the structure so elaborate and pompous that the poor ‭plain ground-work, considered together, may seem the naturally ‭rich womb to it, and produce it needfully. Much wondered at, ‭therefore, is the censure of Dionysius Longinus, (a man otherwise ‭affirmed grave and of elegant judgment,) comparing Homer in his ‭Iliads to the Sun rising, in his Odysseys to his descent or setting, ‭or to the ocean robbed of his æsture, many tributary floods and ‭rivers of excellent ornament withheld from their observance. When ‭this his work so far exceeds the ocean, with all his court and ‭concourse, that all his sea is only a serviceable stream to it. ‭Nor can it be compared to any one power to be named in nature, ‭being an entirely well-sorted and digested confluence of all; ‭where the most solid and grave is made as nimble and fluent as the ‭most airy and fiery, the nimble and fluent as firm and ‭well-bounded as the most grave and solid. And, taking all ‭together, of so tender impression, and of such command to the ‭voice of the Muse, that they knock heaven with her breath, and ‭discover their foundations as low as hell. Nor is this ‭all-comprising Poesy fantastic or mere fictive; but the most ‭material and doctrinal illations of truth, both for all manly ‭information of manners in the young, all prescription of justice, ‭and even Christian piety, in the most grave and high governed. To ‭illustrate both which, in both kinds, with all heightof expression, ‭the Poet creates both a body and a soul in them. Wherein, if the ‭body (being the letter or history) seems fictive, and beyond ‭possibility to bring into act, the sense then and allegory, which ‭is the soul, is to be sought, which intends a more eminent ‭expressure of Virtue for her loveliness, and of Vice for her ‭ugliness, in their several effects; going beyond the life than any art ‭within life can possibly delineate. Why then is fiction to this end ‭so hateful to our true ignorants? Or why should a poor chronicler ‭of a Lord Mayor’s naked truth (that peradventure will last his year) ‭include more worth with our modern wizards than Homer for his ‭naked Ulysses clad in eternal fiction? But this proser Dionysius, ‭and the rest of these grave and reputatively learned — that dare ‭undertake for their gravities the headstrong censure of all things, ‭and challenge the understanding of these toys in their childhoods; ‭when even these childish vanities retain deep and most necessary ‭learning enough in them to make them children in their ages, ‭and teach them while they live — are not in these absolute divine ‭infusions allowed either voice or relish: for, Qui Poeticas ad fores ‭accedit, etc. (says the divine philosopher) he that knocks at the ‭gates of the Muses, sine Musarum furore, is neither to be ‭admitted entry, nor a touch at their thresholds; his opinion of entry ‭ridiculous, and his presumption impious. Nor must Poets ‭themselves (might I a little insist on these contempts, not tempting ‭too far your Lordship’s Ulyssean patience) presume to these doors ‭without the truly genuine and peculiar induction. There being in ‭Poesy a twofold rapture, — or alienation of soul, as the abovesaid ‭teacher terms it, — one insania, a disease of the mind, and a mere ‭madness, by which the infected is thrust beneath all the degrees of ‭humanity: et ex homine, brutum quodammodò redditur: — (for ‭which poor Poesy, in this diseased and impostorous age, is so ‭barbarously vilified;) — the other is, divinus furor, by which the ‭sound and divinely healthful suprà hominis naturam erigitur, et in ‭Deum transit. One a perfection directly infused from God; ‭the other an infection obliquely and degenerately proceeding ‭from man. Of the divine fury, my Lord, your Homer hath ever ‭been both first and last instance; being pronounced absolutely, ‭τὸν σοφώτατον, καὶ τὸν θειότατον ποιητήν, “THE MOST WISE ‭AND MOST DIVINE POET.” Against whom whosoever shall ‭open his profane mouth may worthily receive answer with ‭this of his divine defender — Empedocles, Heraclitus, Protagoras, ‭Epicharmus, etc., being of Homer’s part — τίς οο͒ν, etc.; who ‭against such an army, and the general Homer, dares attempt the ‭assault, but he must be reputed ridiculous? And yet against this ‭host, and this invincible commander, shall we have every ‭besogne and fool a leader. The common herd, I assure myself, ‭ready to receive it on their horns. Their infected leaders,

  Such men as sideling ride the ambling Muse,

  ‭ Whose saddle is as frequent as the stews.

  ‭ Whose raptures are in ev’ry pageant seen,

  ‭ In ev’ry wassail-rhyme and dancing-green;

  ‭ When he that writes by any beam of truth

  ‭ Must dive as deep as he, past shallow youth.

  ‭ Truth dwells in gulfs, whose deeps hide shades so rich

  ‭ That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch,

  ‭ More dark than Nature made her, and requires,

  ‭ To clear her tough mists, heav’n’s great fire of fires,

  ‭ To whom the sun itself is but a beam.

  ‭ For sick souls then — but rapt in foolish dream —

  ‭ To wrastle with these
heav’n-strong mysteries,

  ‭ What madness is it? when their light serves eyes

  ‭ That are not worldly in their least aspect,

  ‭ But truly pure, and aim at heav’n direct.

  ‭ Yet these none like but what the brazen head

  ‭ Blatters abroad, no sooner born but dead.

  Holding, then, in eternal contempt, my Lord, those short-lived ‭bubbles, eternize your virtue and judgment with the Grecian ‭monarch; esteeming, not as the least of your new-year’s presents,

  Homer, three thousand years dead, now reviv’d,

  ‭ Ev’n from that dull death that in life he liv’d;

  ‭ When none conceited him, none understood

  ‭ That so much life in so much death as blood

  ‭ Conveys about it could mix. But when death

  ‭ Drunk up the bloody mist that human breath

  ‭ Pour’d round about him — poverty and spite.

  ‭ Thick’ning the hapless vapour — then truth’s light

  ‭ Glimmer’d about his poem; the pinch’d soul

  ‭ (Amidst the mysteries it did enrol)

  ‭ Brake pow’rfully abroad. And as we see

  ‭ The sun all-hid in clouds, at length got free,

  ‭ Through some forc’d covert, over all the ways,

  ‭ Near and beneath him, shoots his vented rays

  ‭ Far off, and sticks them in some little glade,

  ‭ All woods, fields, rivers, left besides in shade;

  ‭ So your Apollo, from that world of light

  ‭ Clos’d in his poem’s body, shot to sight

  ‭ Some few forc’d beams, which near him were not seen,

  ‭ (As in his life or country) Fate and spleen

  ‭ Clouding their radiance; which when Death had clear’d,

  ‭ To far-off regions his free beams appear’d;

  ‭ In which all stood and wonder’d, striving which

  ‭ His birth and rapture should in right enrich.

  ‭ Twelve labours of your Thespian Hercules

  ‭ I now present your Lordship; do but please

  ‭ To lend life means till th’ other twelve receive

  ‭ Equal achievement; and let Death then reave

  ‭ My life now lost in our patrician loves,

  ‭ That knock heads with the herd; in whom there moves

  ‭ One blood, one soul, both drown’d in one set height

  ‭ Of stupid envy and mere popular spite.

  ‭ Whose loves with no good did my least vein fill;

  ‭ And from their hates I fear as little ill.

  ‭ Their bounties nourish not when most they feed,

  ‭ But, where there is no merit or no need,

  ‭ Rain into rivers still, and are such show’rs

  ‭ As bubbles spring and overflow the flow’rs.

  ‭ Their worse parts and worst men their best suborns,

  ‭ Like winter cows whose milk runs to their horns.

  ‭ And as litigious clients’ books of law

  ‭ Cost infinitely; taste of all the awe

  ‭ Bench’d in our kingdom’s policy, piety, state;

  ‭ Earn all their deep explorings; satiate

  ‭ All sorts there thrust together by the heart

  ‭ With thirst of wisdom spent on either part;

  ‭ Horrid examples made of Life and Death

  ‭ From their fine stuff wov’n; yet when once the breath

  ‭ Of sentence leaves them, all their worth is drawn

  ‭ As dry as dust, and wears like cobweb lawn:

  ‭ So these men set a price upon their worth,

  ‭ That no man gives but those that trot it forth

  ‭ Though Need’s foul ways, feed Humours with all cost

  ‭ Though Judgment sterves in them; rout, State engrost

  ‭ (At all tobacco-benches, solemn tables,

  ‭ Where all that cross their envies are their fables)

  ‭ In their rank faction; shame and death approv’d

  ‭ Fit penance for their opposites; none lov’d

  ‭ But those that rub them; not a reason heard

  ‭ That doth not soothe and glorify their preferr’d

  ‭ Bitter opinions. When, would Truth resume

  ‭ The cause to his hands, all would fly in fume

  ‭ Before his sentence; since the innocent mind

  ‭ Just God makes good, to Whom their worst is wind.

  ‭ For, that I freely all my thoughts express,

  ‭ My conscience is my thousand witnesses;

  ‭ And to this stay my constant comforts vow,

  ‭ You for the world I have, or God for you.

  CERTAIN ANCIENT GREEK EPIGRAMS TRANSLATED

  All stars are drunk-up by the fiery sun,

  ‭ And in so much a flame lies shrunk the moon.

  ‭ Homer’s all-liv’d name all names leaves in death,

  ‭ Whose splendour only Muses’ bosoms breathe.

  ANOTHER

  Heav’n’s fires shall first fall darken’d from his sphere,

  ‭ Grave Night the light weed of the Day shall wear,

  ‭ Fresh streams shall chase the sea, tough ploughs shall tear

  ‭ Her fishy bottoms, men in long date dead

  ‭ Shall rise and live, before Oblivion shed

  ‭ Those still-green leaves that crown great Homer’s head.

  ANOTHER

  The great Mæonides doth only write,

  ‭ And to him dictates the great God of Light.

  ANOTHER

  Sev’n kingdoms strove in which should swell the womb

  ‭ That bore great Homer, whom Fame freed from tomb;

  ‭ Argos, Chios, Pylos, Smyrna, Colophone,

  ‭ The learn’d Athenian, and Ulyssean throne.

  ANOTHER

  Art thou of Chios? No. Of Salamine?

  ‭ As little. Was the Smyrnean country thine?

  ‭ Nor so. Which then? Was Cuma’s? Colophone?

  ‭ Nor one nor other. Art thou, then, of none

  ‭ That fame proclaims thee? None. Thy reason call.

  ‭ If I confess of one I anger all.

  THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ODYSSEYS

  THE ARGUMENT

  The Gods in council sit, to call

  ‭ Ulysses from Calypso’s thrall,

  ‭ And order their high pleasures thus:

  ‭ Grey Pallas to Telemachus

  ‭ (In Ithaca) her way addrest;

  ‭ And did her heav’nly limbs invest

  ‭ In Mentas’ likeness, that did reign

  ‭ King of the Taphians, in the main

  ‭ Whose rough waves near Leucadia run.

  ‭ Advising wise Ulysses’ son

  ‭ To seek his father, and address

  ‭ His course to young Tantalides,

  ‭ That govern’d Sparta. Thus much said,

  ‭ She shew’d she was Heav’n’s martial Maid,

  ‭ And vanish’d from him. Next to this,

  ‭ The Banquet of the Wooers is.

  ANOTHER ARGUMENT

  Ἂλφα.

  ‭ The Deities sit;

  ‭ The Man retired;

  ‭ Th’ Ulyssean wit

  ‭ By Pallas fired.

  The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way 1

  ‭ Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay;

  ‭ That wander’d wondrous far, when he the town

  ‭ Of sacred Troy had sack’d and shiver’d down;

  ‭ The cities of a world of nations,

  ‭ With all their manners, minds, and fashions,

  ‭ He saw and knew; at sea felt many woes,

  ‭ Much care sustain’d, to save from overthrows

  ‭ Himself and friends in their retreat for home;

  ‭ But so their fates he could not overcome,

  ‭ Though much he thirsted it. O men unwise,

  ‭ They perish’d by their own impieties!

&nb
sp; ‭ That in their hunger’s rapine would not shun

  ‭ The oxen of the lofty-going Sun,

  ‭ Who therefore from their eyes the day bereft

  ‭ Of safe return. These acts, in some part left,

  ‭ Tell us, as others, deified Seed of Jove.

  ‭ Now all the rest that austere death outstrove

  ‭ At Troy’s long siege at home safe anchor’d are,

  ‭ Free from the malice both of sea and war;

  ‭ Only Ulysses is denied access

  ‭ To wife and home. The grace of Goddesses,

  ‭ The rev’rend nymph Calypso, did detain

  ‭ Him in her caves, past all the race of men

  ‭ Enflam’d to make him her lov’d lord and spouse.

  ‭ And when the Gods had destin’d that his house,

  ‭ Which Ithaca on her rough bosom bears,

  ‭ (The point of time wrought out by ambient years)

  ‭ Should be his haven, Contention still extends

  ‭ Her envy to him, ev’n amongst his friends.

  ‭ All Gods took pity on him; only he,

  ‭ That girds earth in the cincture of the sea,

  ‭ Divine Ulysses ever did envy,

  ‭ And made the fix’d port of his birth to fly.

  ‭ But he himself solemniz’d a retreat

  ‭ To th’ Æthiops, far dissunder’d in their seat,

  ‭ (In two parts parted, at the sun’s descent,

  ‭ And underneath his golden orient,

  ‭ The first and last of men) t’ enjoy their feast

  ‭ Of bulls and lambs, in hecatombs addrest; 2

  ‭ At which he sat, giv’n over to delight.

  ‭ The other Gods in heav’n’s supremest height

  ‭ Were all in council met; to whom began

  ‭ The mighty Father both of God and man

  ‭ Discourse, inducing matter that inclin’d

  ‭ To wise Ulysses, calling to his mind

  ‭ Faultful Ægisthus, who to death was done 3

  ‭ By young Orestes, Agamemnon’s son.

  ‭ His memory to the Immortals then

  ‭ Mov’d Jove thus deeply: “O how falsely men

  ‭ Accuse us Gods as authors of their ill!

  ‭ When, by the bane their own bad lives instill,

  ‭ They suffer all the mis’ries of their states,

  ‭ Past our inflictions, and beyond their fates.

  ‭ As now Ægisthus, past his fate, did wed

 

‹ Prev