lii

TO THE SACRED FOUNTAIN OF PRINCES,

SOLE EMPRESS OF BEAUTY AND VIRTUE, ANNE, QUEEN

OF ENGLAND, ETC.

ITH 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 powerful 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.

ANNE, daughter of FREDERICK II. of Denmark, married King James Ist 20

Aug. 1590, and died 2 March, 1619.

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 numerous 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.

H

SILIUS ITALICUS, LIB. XIII. 777.

E, 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 heavenly 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 countenance (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

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A little presence of the Deity,

His verse comprised 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 raised 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 every way fly heaven, the pallid moon

Even 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 acts of honour'd men,
And equalling the actual rage of war,

With only the divine strains of his pen,

* The lines begin,—

<< nam Demodoci vivacior ævo

Obstrepuit, prorsusque parem confessus Apollo est."

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 used? All giving their conceits to several ends,

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He answer'd: His affections rather choosed

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.'

OLUMES of like praise I could heap on this,

Of men more ancient and more learn'd than these,

*Plin. Nat. Hist. XVII. 5.

† Idem, xxv. 3.

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 every 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 generally,
Custom hath made even th' ablest agents err

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, even as different 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,
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,

77 Of Translation, and the natural difference of Dialects necessarily to be

observed in it."-CHAPMAN.

93 66 Ironicè."-CHAPMAN.