Homer's Odysses (George Chapman)

thumb| Homer's Odysses is an English translation of Homer's Odyssey by writer George Chapman. It was published around 1614 to 1615. It is widely known as the first complete translation of the poem into the English language. Chapman spent twenty-six years translating works traditionally attributed to Homer. His complete Iliad was released in 1611, written in rhyming fourteeners. For Odyssey, he changed the blank verse and dactylic hexameter of the original Homeric Greek to rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter, establishing a new standard for translations of Greek and Latin hexameter. Quotes Book I The Deities sit; The Man retired; Th’ Ulyssean wit By Pallas fired. The man, O Muse, inform, that many a way 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! 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. Book II The old Maid’s store The voyage cheers. The ship leaves shore, Minerva steers. Book III Ulysses’ son With Nestor lies, To Sparta gone; Thence Pallas flies. Book IV Here of the sire The son doth hear. The Wooers conspire. The Mother’s fear. Book V Ulysses builds A ship; and gains The glassy fields; Pays Neptune pains. He stoop’d Pieria, and thence Glid through the air, and Neptune’s confluence Kiss’d as he flew, and check’d the waves as light As any sea-mew in her fishing flight, Her thick wings sousing in the savory seas. l. 69 A grove grew In endless spring about her cavern round, With odorous cypress, pines, and poplars, crown’d, Where hawks, sea-owls, and long-tongued bittours bred, And other birds their shady pinions spread; All fowls maritimal; none roosted there, But those whose labours in the waters were. A vine did all the hollow cave embrace, Still green, yet still ripe bunches gave it grace. Four fountains, one against another, pour’d Their silver streams; and meadows all enflower’d With sweet balm-gentle, and blue-violets hid, That deck’d the soft breasts of each fragrant mead. l. 86 Two nights, yet, and days He spent in wrastling with the sable seas; In which space, often did his heart propose Death to his eyes. But when Aurora rose, And threw the third light from her orient hair, The winds grew calm, and clear was all the air, Not one breath stirring. Then he might descry, Rais’d by the high seas, clear, and land was nigh. And then, look how to good sons that esteem Their father’s life dear, (after pains extreme, Felt in some sickness, that hath held him long Down to his bed, and with affections strong Wasted his body, made his life his load, As being inflicted by some angry God) When on their pray’rs they see descend at length Health from the heav’ns, clad all in spirit and strength, The sight is precious; so, since here should end Ulysses’ toils, which therein should extend Health to his country, held to him his sire And on which long for him disease did tire, And then, besides, for his own sake to see The shores, the woods so near, such joy had he, As those good sons for their recover’d sire. Then labour’d feet and all parts to aspire To that wish’d continent. l. 504 Book VI Here olive leaves T’ hide shame began, The maid receives The naked man. Book VII The honour’d minds, And welcome things, Ulysses finds In Scheria’s kings. Book VIII The council’s frame At fleet applied. In strifes of game Ulysses tried. Book IX The strangely fed Lotophagi. The Cicons fled. The Cyclop’s eye. Th’ out-law’d Cyclops’ land we fetch’d; a race Of proud-liv’d loiterers, that never sow, Nor put a plant in earth, nor use a plow, But trust in God for all things; and their earth, Unsown, unplow’d, gives ev’ry offspring birth That other lands have; wheat, and barley, vines That bear in goodly grapes delicious wines; And Jove sends show’rs for all. No councils there, Nor councillors, nor laws; but all men bear Their heads aloft on mountains, and those steep, And on their tops too; and their houses keep In vaulty caves, their households govern’d all By each man’s law, impos’d in several, Nor wife, nor child awed, but as he thinks good, None for another caring. l. 167 There, close upon the sea, sweet meadows spring; That yet of fresh streams want no watering To their soft burthens, but of special yield. Your vines would be there; and your common field But gentle work make for your plow, yet bear A lofty harvest when you came to shear; For passing fat the soil is. l. 203 Nor was he Like any man that food could possibly Enhance so hugely, but, beheld alone, Show’d like a steep hill’s top, all overgrown With trees and brambles l. 271 He answer’d nothing, but rush’d in, and took Two of my fellows up from earth, and strook Their brains against it. Like two whelps they flew About his shoulders, and did all embrue The blushing earth. No mountain lion tore Two lambs so sternly, lapp’d up all their gore Gush’d from their torn-up bodies, limb by limb (Trembling with life yet) ravish’d into him. Both flesh and marrow-stufféd bones he eat, And ev’n th’ uncleanséd entrails made his meat. l. 397 ‘Cyclop! now, As thou demand’st, I’ll tell my name, do thou Make good thy hospitable gift to me. My name is No-Man; No-Man each degree Of friends, as well as parents, call my name.’    He answer’d, as his cruel soul became: ‘No-Man! I’ll eat thee last of all thy friends; And this is that in which so much amends I vow’d to thy deservings, thus shall be My hospitable gift made good to thee.’ l. 499 From his throat brake out My wine, with man’s-flesh gobbets, like a spout, When, loaded with his cups, he lay and snor’d. l. 511 Book X Great Æolus, And Circe, friends Finds Ithacus; And hell descends. Book XI Ulysses here Invokes the dead, The lives appear Hereafter led. ... the spleen of her-that-arrows-please,Diana, envious of most eminent dames. Book XII The rocks that err’d, The Sirens’ call. The Sun’s stol’n herd. The soldiers’ fall. Book XIII Phæacia Ulysses leaves; Whom Ithaca, Unwares, receives. Book XIV Ulysses fains For his true good: His pious swain’s Faith understood. Book XV From Sparta’s strand Makes safe access To his own land Ulyssides. Book XVI To his most dear Ulysses shows. The wise-son here His father knows. Book XVII Ulysses shows Through all disguise. Whom his dog knows; Who knowing dies. Book XVIII The beggar’s glee. The King’s high fame. Gifts giv’n to see A virtuous dame. Book XIX The King still hid By what he said; By what he did Informs his maid. Thus many tales Ulysses told his wife, At most but painting, yet most like the life; Of which her heart such sense took through her ears, It made her weep as she would turn to tears. And as from off the mountains melts the snow, Which Zephyr’s breath conceal’d, but was made flow By hollow Eurus, which so fast pours down, That with their torrent floods have overflown; So down her fair cheeks her kind tears did glide, Her miss’d lord mourning set so near her side.    Ulysses much was mov’d to see her mourn, Whose eyes yet stood as dry as iron or horn In his untroubled lids, which in his craft Of bridling passion he from issue saft. l. 287 Book XX Jove’s thunder chides, But cheers the King, The Wooers’ prides Discomfiting. Book XXI The nuptial vow And game rehears’d, Drawn is the bow, The steels are pierc’d. Book XXII The end of pride, And lawless lust, Is wretched tried With slaughters just. And now man-slaught’ring Pallas took in hand Her snake-fring’d shield, and on that beam took stand In her true form, where swallow-like she sat. And then, in this way of the house and that, The Wooers, wounded at the heart with fear, Fled the encounter; as in pastures where Fat herds of oxen feed, about the field (As if wild madness their instincts impell’d) The high-fed bullocks fly, whom in the spring, When days are long, gad-bees or breezes sting. l. 379 Ulysses and his son the flyers chas’d, As when, with crooked beaks and seres, a cast Of hill-bred eagles, cast-off at some game, That yet their strengths keep, but, put up, in flame The eagle stoops; from which, along the field The poor fowls make wing, this and that way yield Their hard-flown pinions, then the clouds assay For ’scape or shelter, their forlorn dismay All spirit exhaling, all wings’ strength to carry Their bodies forth, and, truss’d up, to the quarry Their falconers ride-in, and rejoice to see Their hawks perform a flight so fervently; So, in their flight, Ulysses with his heir Did stoop and cuff the Wooers, that the air Broke in vast sighs, whose heads they shot and cleft, The pavement boiling with the souls they reft. l. 389 The house then cleans’d, they brought the women out, And put them in a room so wall’d about That no means serv’d their sad estates to fly. Then said Telemachus: “These shall not die A death that lets out any wanton blood, And vents the poison that gave lust her food, The body cleansing, but a death that chokes The breath, and altogether that provokes And seems as bellows to abhorréd lust, That both on my head pour’d depraves unjust, And on my mother’s, scandalling the Court, With men debauch’d, in so abhorr’d a sort.”    This said, a halser of a ship they cast About a cross-beam of the roof, which fast They made about their necks, in twelve parts cut, And hal’d them up so high they could not put Their feet to any stay. As which was done, Look how a mavis, or a pigeon, In any grove caught with a springe or net, With struggling pinions ’gainst the ground doth beat Her tender body, and that then strait bed Is sour to that swing in which she was bred; So striv’d these taken birds, till ev’ry one Her pliant halter had enforc’d upon Her stubborn neck, and then aloft was haul’d To wretched death. A little space they sprawl’d, Their feet fast moving, but were quickly still. l. 576 They first slit both his nostrils, cropp’d each ear, His members tugg’d off, which the dogs did tear And chop up bleeding sweet; and, while red-hot The vice-abhorring blood was, off they smote His hands and feet; and there that work had end. Then wash’d they hands and feet that blood had stain’d, And took the house again. l. 606 Book XXIII For all annoys Sustain’d before, The true wife’s joys Now made the more. He wept for joy, t’ enjoy a wife so fit For his grave mind, that knew his depth of wit, And held chaste virtue at a price so high, And as sad men at sea when shore is nigh, Which long their hearts have wish’d, their ship quite lost By Neptune’s rigour, and they vex’d and tost ’Twixt winds and black waves, swimming for their lives, A few escap’d, and that few that survives, All drench’d in foam and brine, crawl up to land, With joy as much as they did worlds command; So dear to this wife was her husband’s sight. l. 359 Book XXIV The uproar’s fire, The people’s fall: The grandsire, sire, And son, to all. External links Odyssey (George Chapman translation) Source text, digitised by Project Gutenberg: The Odysseys of Homer, together with the Shorter Poems by Homer (London: George Newnes Ltd.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons) Category:Epic poetry