And joins your greatness to as great a bliss.
Shield virtue and advance her then, great Queen,
And make this book your glass to make it seen.
Your Majesty’s in all subjection most
humbly consecrate,
GEO. CHAPMAN.
TO THE READER
Lest with foul hands you touch these holy rites,
And with prejudicacies too profane,
Pass Homer in your other poets’ slights,
Wash here. In this porch to his num’rous fane,
Hear ancient oracles speak, and tell you whom
You have to censure. First then Silius hear,
Who thrice was consul in renowned Rome,
Whose verse, saith Martial, nothing shall out-wear.
SILIUS ITALICUS, LIB. XIII. 777
He, in Elysium having cast his eye
Upon the figure of a youth, whose hair,
With purple ribands braided curiously,
Hung on his shoulders wond’rous bright and fair,
Said: “Virgin, what is he whose heav’nly face
Shines past all others, as the morn the night;
Whom many marvelling souls, from place to place,
Pursue and haunt with sounds of such delight;
Whose count’nance (were’t not in the Stygian shade)
Would make me, questionless, believe he were
A very God?” The learned virgin made
This answer: “If thou shouldst believe it here,
Thou shouldst not err. He well deserv’d to be
Esteem’d a God; nor held his so-much breast
A little presence of the Deity,
His verse compris’d earth, seas, stars, souls at rest;
In song the Muses he did equalize,
In honour Phœbus. He was only soul,
Saw all things spher’d in nature, without eyes,
And rais’d your Troy up to the starry pole.”
Glad Scipio, viewing well this prince of ghosts,
Said: “O if Fates would give this poet leave
To sing the acts done by the Roman hosts,
How much beyond would future times receive
The same facts made by any other known!
O blest Æacides, to have the grace
That out of such a mouth thou shouldst be shown
To wond’ring nations, as enrich’d the race
Of all times future with what he did know!
Thy virtue with his verse shall ever grow.”
Now hear an Angel sing our poet’s fame,
Whom fate, for his divine song, gave that name.
ANGELUS POLITIANUS, IN NUTRICIA
More living than in old Demodocus,
Fame glories to wax young in Homer’s verse.
And as when bright Hyperion holds to us
His golden torch, we see the stars disperse,
And ev’ry way fly heav’n, the pallid moon
Ev’n almost vanishing before his sight;
So, with the dazzling beams of Homer’s sun,
All other ancient poets lose their light.
Whom when Apollo heard, out of his star,
Singing the godlike act of honour’d men,
And equalling the actual rage of war,
With only the divine strains of his pen,
He stood amaz’d and freely did confess
Himself was equall’d in Mæonides.
Next hear the grave and learned Pliny use
His censure of our sacred poet’s muse.
Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 29.
Turned into verse, that no prose may come near Homer.
Whom shall we choose the glory of all wits,
Held through so many sorts of discipline
And such variety of works and spirits,
But Grecian Homer, like whom none did shine
For form of work and matter? And because
Our proud doom of him may stand justified
By noblest judgments, and receive applause
In spite of envy and illiterate pride,
Great Macedon, amongst his matchless spoils
Took from rich Persia, on his fortunes cast,
A casket finding, full of precious oils,
Form’d all of gold, with wealthy stones enchas’d,
He took the oils out, and his nearest friends
Ask’d in what better guard it might be us’d?
All giving their conceits to sev’ral ends,
He answer’d: “His affections rather choos’d
An use quite opposite to all their kinds,
And Homer’s books should with that guard be serv’d,
That the most precious work of all men’s minds
In the most precious place might be preserv’d.
The Fount of Wit was Homer, Learning’s Sire,
And gave antiquity her living fire.”
Volumes of like praise I could heap on this,
Of men more ancient and more learn’d than these,
But since true virtue enough lovely is
With her own beauties, all the suffrages
Of others I omit, and would more fain
That Homer for himself should be belov’d,
Who ev’ry sort of love-worth did contain.
Which how I have in my conversion prov’d
I must confess I hardly dare refer
To reading judgments, since, so gen’rally,
Custom hath made ev’n th’ ablest agents err 1
In these translations; all so much apply
Their pains and cunnings word for word to render
Their patient authors, when they may as well
Make fish with fowl, camels with whales, engender,
Or their tongues’ speech in other mouths compell.
For, ev’n as diff’rent a production
Ask Greek and English, since as they in sounds
And letters shun one form and unison;
So have their sense and elegancy bounds
In their distinguish’d natures, and require
Only a judgment to make both consent
In sense and elocution; and aspire,
As well to reach the spirit that was spent
In his example, as with art to pierce
His grammar, and etymology of words.
But as great clerks can write no English verse, 2
Because, alas, great clerks! English affords,
Say they, no height nor copy; a rude tongue,
Since ’tis their native; but in Greek or Latin
Their writs are rare, for thence true Poesy sprung;
Though them (truth knows) they have but skill to chat in,
Compar’d with that they might say in their own;
Since thither th’ other’s full soul cannot make
The ample transmigration to be shown
In nature-loving Poesy; so the brake
That those translators stick in, that affect
Their word-for-word traductions (where they lose
The free grace of their natural dialect,
And shame their authors with a forcéd gloss)
I laugh to see; and yet as much abhor 3
More license from the words than may express
Their full compression, and make clear the author;
From whose truth, if you think my feet digress,
Because I use needful periphrases,
Read Valla, Hessus, that in Latin prose,
And verse, convert him; read the Messines
That into Tuscan turns him; and the gloss
Grave Salel makes in French, as he translates;
Which, for th’ aforesaid reasons, all must do;
And see that my conversion much abates
The license they take, and more shows him too,
Whose right not all those great learn’d men have done,
In some main parts, that were his commentors.
But, as the illustration of the su
n
Should be attempted by the erring stars,
They fail’d to search his deep and treasurous heart;
The cause was, since they wanted the fit key
Of Nature, in their downright strength of Art. 4
With Poesy to open Poesy:
Which, in my poem of the mysteries
Reveal’d in Homer, I will clearly prove;
Till whose near birth, suspend your calumnies,
And far-wide imputations of self-love.
’Tis further from me than the worst that reads,
Professing me the worst of all that write;
Yet what, in following one that bravely leads,
The worst may show, let this proof hold the light.
But grant it clear; yet hath detraction got
My blind side in the form my verse puts on;
Much like a dung-hill mastiff, that dares not
Assault the man he barks at, but the stone
He throws at him takes in his eager jaws,
And spoils his teeth because they cannot spoil.
The long verse hath by proof receiv’d applause
Beyond each other number; and the foil,
That squint-ey’d Envy takes, is censur’d plain;
For this long poem asks this length of verse,
Which I myself ingenuously maintain
Too long our shorter authors to rehearse.
And, for our tongue that still is so impair’d 5
By travelling linguists, I can prove it clear,
That no tongue hath the Muse’s utt’rance heir’d
For verse, and that sweet music to the ear
Strook out of rhyme, so naturally as this;
Our monosyllables so kindly fall,
And meet oppos’d in rhyme as they did kiss;
French and Italian most immetrical,
Their many syllables in harsh collision
Fall as they break their necks; their bastard rhymes
Saluting as they justled in transition,
And set our teeth on edge; nor tunes, nor times
Kept in their falls; and, methinks, their long words
Shew in short verse as in a narrow place
Two opposites should meet with two-hand swords
Unwieldily, without or use or grace.
Thus having rid the rubs, and strow’d these flow’rs
In our thrice-sacred Homer’s English way,
What rests to make him yet more worthy yours?
To cite more praise of him were mere delay
To your glad searches for what those men found
That gave his praise, past all, so high a place;
Whose virtues were so many, and so crown’d
By all consents divine, that, not to grace
Or add increase to them, the world doth need
Another Homer, but ev’n to rehearse
And number them, they did so much exceed.
Men thought him not a man; but that his verse
Some mere celestial nature did adorn;
And all may well conclude it could not be,
That for the place where any man was born,
So long and mortally could disagree
So many nations as for Homer striv’d,
Unless his spur in them had been divine.
Then end their strife and love him, thus receiv’d,
As born in England; see him over-shine
All other-country poets; and trust this,
That whosesoever Muse dares use her wing
When his Muse flies, she will be truss’d by his,
And show as if a bernacle should spring
Beneath an eagle. In none since was seen
A soul so full of heav’n as earth’s in him.
O! if our modern Poesy had been
As lovely as the lady he did limn,
What barbarous worldling, grovelling after gain,
Could use her lovely parts with such rude hate,
As now she suffers under ev’ry swain?
Since then ’tis nought but her abuse and Fate,
That thus impairs her, what is this to her
As she is real, or in natural right?
But since in true Religion men should err
As much as Poesy, should the abuse excite
The like contempt of her divinity,
And that her truth, and right saint-sacred merits,
In most lives breed but rev’rence formally,
What wonder is’t if Poesy inherits
Much less observance, being but agent for her,
And singer of her laws, that others say?
Forth then, ye moles, sons of the earth, abhor her,
Keep still on in the dirty vulgar way,
Till dirt receive your souls, to which ye vow,
And with your poison’d spirits bewitch our thrifts.
Ye cannot so despise us as we you;
Not one of you above his mole-hill lifts
His earthy mind, but, as a sort of beasts,
Kept by their guardians, never care to hear
Their manly voices, but when in their fists
They breathe wild whistles, and the beasts’ rude ear
Hears their curs barking, then by heaps they fly
Headlong together; so men, beastly giv’n,
The manly soul’s voice, sacred Poesy,
Whose hymns the angels ever sing in heav’n,
Contemn and hear not; but when brutish noises,
For gain, lust, honour, in litigious prose
Are bellow’d out, and crack the barbarous voices
Of Turkish stentors, O, ye lean to those,
Like itching horse to blocks or high may-poles;
And break nought but the wind of wealth, wealth, all
In all your documents; your asinine souls,
Proud of their burthens, feel not how they gall.
But as an ass, that in a field of weeds
Affects a thistle, and falls fiercely to it,
That pricks and galls him, yet he feeds, and bleeds,
Forbears a while, and licks, but cannot woo it
To leave the sharpness; when, to wreak his smart,
He beats it with his foot, then backward kicks,
Because the thistle gall’d his forward part;
Nor leaves till all be eat, for all the pricks,
Then falls to others with as hot a strife,
And in that honourable war doth waste
The tall heat of his stomach, and his life;
So in this world of weeds you worldlings taste
Your most-lov’d dainties, with such war buy peace,
Hunger for torment, virtue kick for vice,
Cares for your states do with your states increase,
And though ye dream ye feast in Paradise,
Yet reason’s daylight shews ye at your meat
Asses at thistles, bleeding as ye eat.
THE PREFACE TO THE READER
Of all books extant in all kinds, Homer is the first and best. No one before his, Josephus affirms; nor before him, saith Velleius Paterculus, was there any whom he imitated, nor after him any that could imitate him. And that Poesy may be no cause of detraction from all the eminence we give him, Spondanus (preferring it to all arts and sciences) unanswerably argues and proves; for to the glory of God, and the singing of his glories, no man dares deny, man was chiefly made. And what art performs this chief end of man with so much excitation and expression as Poesy; Moses, David, Solomon, Job, Esay, Jeremy, etc. chiefly using that to the end abovesaid? And since the excellence of it cannot be obtained by the labour and art of man, as all easily confess it, it must needs be acknowledged a Divine infusion. To prove which in a word, this distich, in my estimation, serves something nearly:
Great Poesy, blind Homer, makes all see
Thee capable of all arts, none of thee.
For out of him, according to our most grave and judicial Plutarch, are all Arts deduced, confirmed, or
illustrated. It is not therefore the world’s vilifying of it that can make it vile; for so we might argue, and blaspheme the most incomparably sacred. It is not of the world indeed, but, like truth, hides itself from it. Nor is there any such reality of wisdom’s truth in all human excellence, as in Poets’ fictions. That most vulgar and foolish receipt of poetical licence being of all knowing men to be exploded, accepting it, as if Poets had a tale-telling privilege above others, no Artist being so strictly and inextricably confined to all the laws of learning, wisdom, and truth, as a Poet. For were not his fictions composed of the sinews and souls of all those, how could they defy fire, iron, and be combined with eternity? To all sciences therefore, I must still, with our learned and ingenious Spondanus, refer it, as having a perpetual commerce with the Divine Majesty, embracing and illustrating all His most holy precepts, and enjoying continual discourse with His thrice perfect and most comfortable Spirit. And as the contemplative life is most worthily and divinely preferred by Plato to the active, as much as the head to the foot, the eye to the hand, reason to sense, the soul to the body, the end itself to all things directed to the end, quiet to motion, and eternity to time; so much prefer I divine Poesy to all worldly wisdom. To the only shadow of whose worth, yet, I entitle not the bold rhymes of every apish and impudent braggart, though he dares assume anything; such I turn over to the weaving of cobwebs, and shall but chatter on molehills (far under the hill of the Muses) when their fortunatest self-love and ambition hath advanced them highest. Poesy is the flower of the Sun, and disdains to open to the eye of a candle. So kings hide their treasures and counsels from the vulgar, ne evilescant (saith our Spond.). We have example sacred enough, that true Poesy’s humility, poverty, and contempt, are badges of divinity, not vanity. Bray then, and bark against it, ye wolf-faced worldlings, that nothing but honours, riches, and magistracy, nescio quos turgidè spiratis (that I may use the words of our friend still) qui solas leges Justinianas crepatis; paragraphum unum aut alterum, pluris quàm vos ipsos facitis, etc. I (for my part) shall ever esteem it much more manly and sacred, in this harmless and pious study, to sit till I sink into my grave, than shine in your vainglorious bubbles and impieties; all your poor policies, wisdoms, and their trappings, at no more valuing than a musty nut. And much less I weigh the frontless detractions of some stupid ignorants, that, no more knowing me than their own beastly ends, and I ever (to my knowledge) blest from their sight, whisper behind me vilifyings of my translation, out of the French affirming them, when both in French, and all other languages but his own, our with-all-skill-enriched Poet is so poor and unpleasing that no man can discern from whence flowed his so generally given eminence and admiration. And therefore (by any reasonable creature’s conference of my slight comment and conversion) it will easily appear how I shun them, and whether the original be my rule or not. In which he shall easily see, I understand the understandings of all other interpreters and commentors in places of his most depth, importance, and rapture. In whose exposition and illustration, if I abhor from the sense that others wrest and wrack out of him, let my best detractor examine how the Greek word warrants me. For my other fresh fry, let them fry in their foolish galls, nothing so much weighed as the barkings of the puppies, or foisting hounds, too vile to think of our sacred Homer, or set their profane feet within their lives’ length of his thresholds. If I fail in something, let my full performance in other some restore me; haste spurring me on with other necessities. For as at my conclusion I protest, so here at my entrance, less than fifteen weeks was the time in which all the last twelve books were entirely new translated. No conference had with anyone living in all the novelties I presume I have found. Only some one or two places I have showed to my worthy and most learned friend, M. Harriots, for his censure how much mine own weighed; whose judgment and knowledge in all kinds, I know to be incomparable and bottomless, yea, to be admired as much, as his most blameless life, and the right sacred expense of his time, is to be honoured and reverenced. Which affirmation of his clear unmatchedness in all manner of learning I make in contempt of that nasty objection often thrust upon me, — that he that will judge must know more than he of whom he judgeth; for so a man should know neither God nor himself. Another right learned, honest, and entirely loved friend of mine, M. Robert Hews, I must needs put into my confess’d conference touching Homer, though very little more than that I had with M. Harriots. Which two, I protest, are all, and preferred to all. Nor charge I their authorities with, any allowance of my general labour, but only of those one or two places, which for instances of my innovation, and how it showed to them, I imparted. If any tax me for too much periphrasis or circumlocution in some places, let them read Laurentius Valla, and Eobanus Hessus, who either use such shortness as cometh nothing home to Homer, or, where they shun that fault, are ten parts more paraphrastical than I. As for example, one place I will trouble you (if you please) to confer with the original, and one interpreter for all. It is in the end of the third book, and is Helen’s speech to Venus fetching her to Paris from seeing his cowardly combat with Menelaus; part of which speech I will here cite:
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 47
