Mother of all things, the well-founded Earth,
My Muse shall memorize; who all the birth
Gives food that all her upper regions breed,
All that in her divine diffusions feed
In under continents, all those that live
In all the seas, and all the air doth give
Wing’d expeditions, of thy bounties eat;
Fair children, and fair fruits, thy labour’s sweat,
O great in reverence; and referr’d to thee,
For life and death is all the pedigree
Of mortal humans. Happy then is he
Whom the innate propensions of thy mind
Stand bent to honour. He shall all things find
In all abundance; all his pastures yield
Herds in all plenties; all his roofs are fill’d
With rich possessions; he, in all the sway
Of laws best order’d, cuts out his own way
In cities shining with delicious dames,
And takes his choice of all those striving flames;
High happiness and riches, like his train,
Follow his fortunes, with delights that reign
In all their princes; glory invests his sons;
His daughters, with their crown’d selections
Of all the city, frolic through the meads,
And everyone her call’d-for dances treads
Along the soft-flow’r of the claver-grass.
All this, with all those, ever comes to pass,
That thy love blesses, Goddess full of grace,
And treasurous Angel t’ all the human race.
Hail, then, Great Mother of the Deified Kind,
Wife to the cope of stars! Sustain a mind
Propitious to me for my praise, and give
(Answering my mind) my vows fit means to live.
TO THE SUN
The radiant Sun’s divine renown diffuse,
Jove’s daughter, great Calliope, my Muse;
Whom ox-ey’d Euryphaëssa gave birth
To the bright Seed of starry Heaven and Earth.
For the far-fam’d Hyperion took to wife
His sister Euryphaëssa, that life
Of his high race gave to these lovely three:
Aurora, with the rosy-wrists; and She
That owns th’ enamouring tresses, the bright Moon;
Together with the never-wearied Sun,
Who (his horse mounting) gives both mortals light
And all th’ Immortals. Even to horror, bright
A blaze burns from his golden burgonet,
Which to behold exceeds the sharpest set
Of any eye’s intention, beams so clear
It all ways pours abroad. The glorious cheer
Of his far-shining face up to his crown
Casts circular radiance, that comes streaming down
About his temples, his bright cheeks, and all,
Retaining the refulgence of their fall.
About his bosom flows so fine a weed
As doth the thinness of the wind exceed
In rich context; beneath whose deep folds fly
His masculine horses round about the sky,
Till in this hemisphere he renders stay
T’ his gold-yok’d coach and coursers; and his way,
Let down by heaven, the heavenly coachman makes
Down to the ocean, where his rest he takes.
My salutations then, fair King, receive,
And in propitious returns relieve
My life with mind-fit means; and then from thee,
And all the race of complete Deity,
My song shall celebrate those half-god States,
That yet sad death’s condition circulates,
And whose brave acts the Gods show men that they
As brave may aim at, since they can but die.
TO THE MOON
The Moon, now, Muses, teach me to resound,
Whose wide wings measure such a world of ground;
Jove’s daughter, deck’d with the mellifluous tongue,
And seen in all the sacred art of song.
Whose deathless brows when she from heaven displays,
All earth she wraps up in her orient rays.
A heaven of ornament in earth is rais’d
When her beams rise. The subtle air is sais’d
Of delicate splendour from her crown of gold.
And when her silver bosom is extoll’d,
Wash’d in the ocean, in day’s equall’d noon
Is midnight seated; but when she puts on
Her far-off-sprinkling-lustre evening weeds,
(The month is two cut; her high-breasted steeds
Man’d all with curl’d flames, put in coach and all,
Her huge orb fill’d,) her whole trims then exhale
Unspeakable splendours from the glorious sky.
And out of that state mortal men imply
Many predictions. And with her then,
In love mix’d, lay the King of Gods and men;
By whom made fruitful, she Pandea bore,
And added her state to th’ Immortal Store.
Hail, Queen, and Goddess, th’ ivory-wristed Moon
Divine, prompt, fair-hair’d! With thy grace begun,
My Muse shall forth, and celebrate the praise
Of men whose states the Deities did raise
To semi-deities; whose deeds t’ endless date
Muse-lov’d and sweet-sung poets celebrate.
TO CASTOR AND POLLUX
Jove’s fair Sons, father’d by th’ Oebalian king,
Muses well-worth-all men’s beholdings, sing!
The dear birth that bright-ankl’d Leda bore;
Horse-taming Castor, and, the conqueror
Of tooth-tongu’d Momus, Pollux; whom beneath
Steep-brow’d Taygetus she gave half-god breath,
In love mix’d with the black-clouds King of Heaven;
Who, both of men and ships, being tempest driven,
When Winter’s wrathful empire is in force
Upon th’ implacable seas, preserve the course.
For when the gusts begin, if near the shore,
The seamen leave their ship, and, evermore
Bearing two milk-white lambs aboard, they now
Kill them ashore, and to Jove’s issue vow,
When though their ship, in height of all the roar
The winds and waves confound, can live no more
In all their hopes, then suddenly appear
Jove’s saving Sons, who both their bodies bear
‘Twixt yellow wings down from the sparkling pole,
Who straight the rage of those rude winds control,
And all the high-waves couch into the breast
Of th’ hoary seas. All which sweet signs of rest
To seamen’s labours their glad souls conceive,
And end to all their irksome grievance give.
So, once more, to the swift-horse-riding race
Of royal Tyndarus, eternal grace!
TO MEN OF HOSPITALITY
Reverence a man with use propitious
That hospitable rites wants; and a house
(You of this city with the seat of state
To ox-ey’d Juno vow’d) yet situate
Near Pluto’s region. At the extreme base
Of whose so high-hair’d city, from the race
Of blue-wav’d Hebrus lovely fluent, grac’d
With Jove’s begetting, you divine
cups taste.
EPIGRAMS
TO CUMA
Lend hospitable rites and house-respect,
You that the virgin with the fair eyes deckt
Make fautress of your stately-seated town,
At foot of Sardes, with the high-hair’d crown,
Inhabiting rich Cuma; where ye taste
Of Hermus’ heavenly fluent, all embrac’d
By curl’d-head whirl pits; and whose waters move
From the divine seed of immortal Jove.
IN HIS RETURN TO CUMA
Swiftly my feet sustain me to the town,
Where men inhabit whom due honours crown,
Whose minds with free-given faculties are mov’d,
And whose grave counsels best of best approv’d.
UPON THE SEPULCHRE OF MIDUS CUT IN BRASS, IN THE FIGURE OF A VIRGIN
A maid of brass I am, infixed here
T’ eternize honest Midus’ sepulchre;
And while the stream her fluent seed receives,
And steep trees curl their verdant brows with leaves,
While Phœbus rais’d above the earth gives sight,
And th’ humorous Moon takes lustre from his light,
While floods bear waves, and seas shall wash the shore,
At this his sepulchre, whom all deplore,
I’ll constantly abide; all passers by
Informing, “Here doth honest Midus lie.”
CUMA REFUSING HIS OFFER TO ETERNIZE THEIR STATE, THOUGH BROUGHT THITHER BY THE MUSES
O to what fate hath Father Jove given o’er
My friendless life, born ever to be poor!
While in my infant state he pleas’d to save me,
Milk on my reverend mother’s knees he gave me,
In delicate and curious nursery;
Æolian Smyrna, seated near the sea,
(Of glorious empire, and whose bright sides
Sacred Meletus’ silver current glides,)
Being native seat to me. Which, in the force
Of far-past time, the breakers of wild horse,
Phriconia’s noble nation, girt with tow’rs;
Whose youth in fight put on with fiery pow’rs,
From hence, the Muse-maids, Jove’s illustrous Seed,
Impelling me, I made impetuous speed,
And went with them to Cuma, with intent
T’ eternize all the sacred continent
And state of Cuma. They, in proud ascent
From off their bench, refus’d with usage fierce
The sacred voice which I aver is verse.
Their follies, yet, and madness borne by me,
Shall by some pow’r be thought on futurely,
To wreak of him whoever, whose tongue sought
With false impair my fall. What fate God brought
Upon my birth I’ll bear with any pain,
But undeserv’d defame unfelt sustain.
Nor feels my person (dear to me though poor)
Any great lust to linger any more
In Cuma’s holy highways; but my mind
(No thought impair’d, for cares of any kind
Borne in my body) rather vows to try
The influence of any other sky,
And spirits of people bred in any land
Of ne’er so slender and obscure command.
AN ASSAY OF HIS BEGUN ILIADS
Ilion, and all the brave-horse-breeding soil,
Dardania, I sing; that many a toil
Impos’d upon the mighty Grecian pow’rs,
Who were of Mars the manly servitours.
TO THESTOR’S SON 1
INQUISITIVE OF HOMER ABOUT THE CAUSES OF THINGS
Thestorides! of all the skills unknown
To errant mortals, there remains not one
Of more inscrutable affair to find
Than is the true state of a human mind.
ENDNOTES.
1 Homer intimated, in this his answer to Thestorides, a will to have him learn the knowledge of himself, before he inquired so curiously the causes of other things. And from hence had the great peripatetic, Themistius, his most grave epiphoneme, Anima quæ seipsam ignorat, quid sciret ipsa de aliis? And, therefore, according to Aristotle, advises all philosophical students to begin with that study.
TO NEPTUNE
Hear, pow’rful Neptune, that shak’st earth in ire,
King of the great green, where dance all the quire
Of fair-hair’d Helicon; give prosperous gales;
And good pass, to these guiders of our sails,
Their voyage rend’ring happily directed,
And their return with no ill fate affected.
Grant likewise at rough Mimas’ lowest roots,
Whose strength up to her tops prærupt rocks shoots,
My passage safe arrival; and that I
My bashful disposition may apply
To pious men, and wreak myself upon
The man whose verbal circumvention
In me did wrong t’ hospitious Jove’s whole state,
And th’ hospitable table violate.
TO THE CITY ERYTHRÆA
Worshipful Earth, Giver of all things good!
Giver of even felicity; whose flood
The mind all-over steeps in honeydew;
That to some men dost infinite kindness shew,
To others that despise thee art a shrew,
And giv’st them gamester’s galls; who, once their main
Lost with an ill chance, fare like abjects slain.
TO MARINERS
Ye wave-trod watermen, as ill as she
That all the earth in infelicity
Of rapine plunges; who upon your fare
As sterv’d-like-ravenous as cormorants are;
The lives ye lead, but in the worst degree,
Not to be envied more than misery;
Take shame, and fear the indignation
Of Him that thunders from the highest throne,
Hospitious Jove, who, at the back, prepares
Pains of abhorr’d effect of him that dares
The pieties break of his hospitious squares.
THE PINE
Any tree else bears better fruit than thee,
That Ida’s tops sustain, where every tree
Bears up in air such perspirable heights,
And in which caves and sinuous receipts
Creep in such great abundance. For about
Thy foots, that ever all thy fruits put out,
As nourish’d by them, equal with thy fruits,
Pour Mars’s iron-mines their accurs’d pursuits.
So that when any earth-encroaching man,
Of all the martial brood Cebrenian,
Plead need of iron, they are certain still
About thy roots to satiate every will.
TO GLAUCUS WHO WAS SO MISERABLY SPARING THAT HE FEARED ALL MEN’S ACCESS TO HIM
Glaucus! though wise enough, yet one word more
Let my advice add to thy wisdom’s store,
For ‘twill be better so: Before thy door
Give still thy mastiffs meat, that will be sure
To lie there, therefore, still, and not endure
(With waylaid ears) the softest foot can fall,
But men and beasts make fly thee and thy stall.
AGAINST THE SAMIAN MINISTRESS, OR NUN
Hear me, O Goddess, that invoke thine ear,
Thou that dost feed and form the youthful year,
And grant that this dame may the loves refuse,
And beds, of yo
ung men, and affect to use
Humans whose temples hoary hairs distain,
Whose pow’rs are passing coy, whose wills would fain.
WRITTEN ON THE COUNCIL CHAMBER
Of men, sons are the crowns of cities’ tow’rs;
Of pastures, horse are the most beauteous flow’rs;
Of seas, ships are the grace; and money still
With trains and titles doth the family fill.
But royal counsellors, in council set,
Are ornaments past all, as clearly great
As houses are that shining fires enfold,
Superior far to houses nak’d and cold.
THE FURNACE CALLED IN TO SING BY POTTERS
If ye deal freely, O my fiery friends,
As ye assure, I’ll sing, and serve your ends.
Pallas, vouchsafe thou here invok’d access, I
Impose thy hand upon this Forge, and bless
All cups these artists earn so, that they may
Look black still with their depth, and every way
Give all their vessels a most sacred sale.
Make all well-burn’d; and estimation call
Up to their prices. Let them market well,
And in all highways in abundance sell,
Till riches to their utmost wish arise,
And, as thou mak’st them rich, so make me wise.
But if ye now turn all to impudence,
And think to pay with lies my patience,
Then will I summon ‘gainst your Furnace all
Hell’s harmfull’st spirits; Maragus I’ll call,
Sabactes, Asbett, and Omadamus,
Who ills against your art innumerous
Excogitates, supplies, and multiplies.
Come, Pallas, then, and all command to rise,
Infesting forge and house with fire, till all
Tumble together, and to ashes fall,
These potters selves dissolv’d in tears as small.
And as a horse-cheek chides his foaming bit,
So let this Forge murmur in fire and flit,
And all this stuff to ashy ruins run.
And thou, O Circe, daughter of the Sun,
The Complete Poetical Works of George Chapman Page 175
