Part 1

The Iliads of Homer by Homer

Translated from the Greek by George Chapman

London: Published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd.

New York: published by Charles Scribner’s Sons

****************************** Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographic errors corrected without note in the text. (E.g. In many cases, “renown” and its variants are spelled “renowm” in the original).

Inconsistent spellings in the original text, particularly of proper names with special characters, retained in the transcription (E.g. Peleus/Peleüs).

Link for footnote in Book XIV missing from original text. Footnote[1] is included and assumed to refer to the entire book.

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Contents

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO THE READER THE PREFACE TO THE READER OF HOMER THE FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE FIFTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE SIXTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE SEVENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE EIGHTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE NINTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE ELEVENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWELFTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE THIRTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE FOURTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE FIFTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE SIXTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE EIGHTEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE NINETEENTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWENTIETH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWENTY-FIRST BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWENTY-SECOND BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWENTY-THIRD BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS THE TWENTY-FOURTH BOOK OF HOMER’S ILIADS EPILOGUE TO HOMER’S ILIADS

THE ILIADS OF HOMER

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY

TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE INCOMPARABLE HEROE, HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.

Thy tomb, arms, statue, all things fit to fall At foot of Death, and worship funeral, Form hath bestow’d; for form is nought too dear. Thy solid virtues yet, eterniz’d here, My blood and wasted spirits have only found Commanded cost, and broke so rich a ground, Not to inter, but make thee ever spring, As arms, tombs, statues, ev’ry earthy thing, Shall fade aid vanish into fume before. What lasts thrives least; yet wealth of soul is poor, And so ’tis kept. Not thy thrice-sacred will, Sign’d with thy death, moves any to fulfil Thy just bequests to me. Thou dead, then I Live dead, for giving thee eternity.

_Ad Famam._

To all times future this time’s mark extend, Homer no patron found, nor Chapman friend. Ignotus nimis omnibus, Sat notus moritur sibi.

TO THE HIGH BORN PRINCE OF MEN, HENRY, THRICE ROYAL INHERITOR TO THE UNITED KINGDOMS OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC.

Since perfect happiness, by Princes sought, Is not with birth born, nor exchequers bought, Nor follows in great trains, nor is possest With any outward state, but makes him blest That governs inward, and beholdeth there All his affections stand about him bare, That by his pow’r can send to Tower and death All traitorous passions, marshalling beneath His justice his mere will, and in his mind Holds such a sceptre as can keep confin’d His whole life’s actions in the royal bounds Of virtue and religion, and their grounds Takes in to sow his honours, his delights, And cómplete empire; you should learn these rights, Great Prince of men, by princely precedents, Which here, in all kinds, my true zeal presents To furnish your youth’s groundwork and first state, And let you see one godlike man create All sorts of worthiest men, to be contriv’d In your worth only, giving him reviv’d For whose life Alexander would have giv’n One of his kingdoms; who (as sent from heav’n, And thinking well that so divine a creature Would never more enrich the race of nature) Kept as his crown his works, and thought them still His angels, in all pow’r to rule his will; And would affirm that Homer’s poesy Did more advance his Asian victory, Than all his armies. O! ’tis wond’rous much, Though nothing priz’d, that the right virtuous touch Of a well-written soul to virtue moves; Nor have we souls to purpose, if their loves Of fitting objects be not so inflam’d. How much then were this kingdom’s main soul maim’d, To want this great inflamer of all pow’rs That move in human souls! All realms but yours Are honour’d with him, and hold blest that state That have his works to read and contemplate: In which humanity to her height is rais’d, Which all the world, yet none enough, hath prais’d; Seas, earth, and heav’n, he did in verse comprise, Out-sung the Muses, and did equalize Their king Apollo; being so far from cause Of Princes’ light thoughts, that their gravest laws May find stuff to be fashion’d by his lines. Through all the pomp of kingdoms still he shines, And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie Your lutes and viols, and more loftily Make the heroics of your Homer sung, To drums and trumpets set his angel’s tongue, And, with the princely sport of hawks you use, Behold the kingly flight of his high muse, And see how, like the phœnix, she renews Her age and starry feathers in your sun, Thousands of years attending ev’ry one Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in Their seasons, kingdoms, nations, that have been Subverted in them; laws, religions, all Offer’d to change and greedy funeral; Yet still your Homer, lasting, living, reigning, And proves how firm truth builds in poet’s feigning.

A prince’s statue, or in marble carv’d, Or steel, or gold, and shrin’d, to be preserv’d, Aloft on pillars or pyramides, Time into lowest ruins may depress; But drawn with all his virtues in learn’d verse, Fame shall resound them on oblivion’s hearse, Till graves gasp with her blasts, and dead men rise. No gold can follow where true Poesy flies.

Then let not this divinity in earth, Dear Prince, be slighted as she were the birth Of idle fancy, since she works so high; Nor let her poor disposer, Learning, lie Still bed-rid. Both which being in men defac’d, In men with them is God’s bright image ras’d; For as the Sun and Moon are figures giv’n Of his refulgent Deity in heav’n, So Learning, and, her light’ner, Poesy, In earth present His fiery Majesty. Nor are kings like Him, since their diadems Thunder and lighten and project brave beams, But since they His clear virtues emulate, In truth and justice imaging His state, In bounty and humanity since they shine, Than which is nothing like Him more divine; Not fire, not light, the sun’s admiréd course, The rise nor set of stars, nor all their force In us and all this cope beneath the sky, Nor great existence, term’d His treasury; Since not for being greatest He is blest, But being just, and in all virtues best.

What sets His justice and His truth best forth, Best Prince, then use best, which is Poesy’s worth; For, as great princes, well inform’d and deck’d With gracious virtue, give more sure effect To her persuasions, pleasures, real worth, Than all th’ inferior subjects she sets forth; Since there she shines at full, hath birth, wealth, state, Pow’r, fortune, honour, fit to elevate Her heav’nly merits, and so fit they are, Since she was made for them, and they for her; So Truth, with Poesy grac’d, is fairer far, More proper, moving, chaste, and regular, Than when she runs away with untruss’d Prose; Proportion, that doth orderly dispose Her virtuous treasure, and is queen of graces; In Poesy decking her with choicest phrases, Figures and numbers; when loose Prose puts on Plain letter-habits makes her trot upon Dull earthly business, she being mere divine; Holds her to homely cates and harsh hedge-wine, That should drink Poesy’s nectar; ev’ry way One made for other, as the sun and day, Princes and virtues. And, as in spring, The pliant water mov’d with anything Let fall into it, puts her motion out In perfect circles, that move round about The gentle fountain, one another raising; So Truth and Poesy work; so Poesy, blazing All subjects fall’n in her exhaustless fount, Works most exactly, makes a true account Of all things to her high discharges giv’n, Till all be circular and round as heav’n.

And lastly, great Prince, mark and pardon me:— As in a flourishing and ripe fruit-tree, Nature hath made the bark to save the bole, The bole the sap, the sap to deck the whole With leaves and branches, they to bear and shield The useful fruit, the fruit itself to yield Guard to the kernel, and for that all those, Since out of that again the whole tree grows; So in our tree of man, whose nervy root Springs in his top, from thence ev’n to his foot There runs a mutual aid through all his parts, All join’d in one to serve his queen of arts,[1] In which doth Poesy like the kernel lie Obscur’d, though her Promethean faculty Can create men and make ev’n death to live, For which she should live honour’d, kings should give Comfort and help to her that she might still Hold up their spirits in virtue, make the will That governs in them to the pow’r conform’d, The pow’r to justice, that the scandals, storm’d Against the poor dame, clear’d by your fair grace, Your grace may shine the clearer. Her low place, Not showing her, the highest leaves obscure. Who raise her raise themselves, and he sits sure Whom her wing’d hand advanceth, since on it Eternity doth, crowning virtue, sit. All whose poor seed, like violets in their beds, Now grow with bosom-hung and hidden heads; For whom I must speak, though their fate convinces Me worst of poets, to you best of princes. By the most humble and faithful implorer for all the graces to your highness eternized by your divine Homer. Geo. Chapman.

[1] Queen of arts—the soul.

TO THE SACRED FOUNTAIN OF PRINCES, SOLE EMPRESS OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE, ANNE, QUEEN OF ENGLAND, ETC.

With whatsoever honour we adorn Your royal issue, we must gratulate you, Imperial Sovereign; who of you is born Is you, one tree make both the bole and bow. If it be honour then to join you both To such a pow’rful work as shall defend Both from foul death and age’s ugly moth, This is an honour that shall never end. They know not virtue then, that know not what The virtue of defending virtue is; It comprehends the guard of all your State, 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[2] 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,[3] 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[4]] 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 sun 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.[5] 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[6] 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.