To those who report I was a long time in finishing this Tragedy, I confesse I do not write with a goose-quill, winged with two feathers; and if they will needes make it my fault, I must answere them with that of Eurypides to Alcestides, a Tragicke Writer: Alcestides obiecting that 5 Eurypides had onely in three daies composed three verses, whereas himselfe had written three hundreth: Thou telst truth (quoth he) but heres the difference; thine shall onely bee read for three daies, whereas mine shall continue three ages.

For

ΙΟ

Detraction is the sworne friend to ignorance. mine owne part, I haue euer truly cherisht my good opinion of other mens worthy Labours; especially of that full and haightned stile of Maister Chapman: The labor'd and vnderstanding workes of Maister Iohnson: The no 15 lesse worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Maister Beamont & Maister Fletcher: And lastly (without wrong last to be named) the right happy and copious industry of M. Shake-speare, M. Decker, & M. Heywood; wishing what I write may be read by their light: Pro- 20 testing that, in the strength of mine owne iudgement, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my owne worke, yet to most of theirs I dare, without flattery, fix that of Martiall:

non norunt Hæc monumenta mori.

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5

GEORGE CHAPMAN

PREFACES TO HIS TRANSLATION OF HOMER

OF

1610-16?
I

THE PREFACE TO

THE READER

F all bookes extant in all kinds, Homer is the first All bookes and best: No one before his, Iosephus affirmes, nor wisedome. of humane before him, saith Velleius Paterculus, was there any whom he imitated, nor after him any that could imitate him. And that Poesie may be no cause of detraction from al the eminence we giue him, Spondanus (preferring it to all Arts and sciences) vnanswerably argues and proues.

the glory of God, and the singing of his glories, no man dares deny, man was chiefly made. And what art per10 formes this chiefe end of man with so much excitation and expression as Poesie,-Moses, Dauid, Salomon, Iob, Esay, Ieremy, &c., chiefly vsing that to the end aboue said? And since the excellence of it cannot be obtained by the labor and art of man, as all easily confesse it, it 15 must needs be acknowledged a diuine infusion. To proue which in a word, this distich, in my estimation, serues something nearely:

Great Poesie, blind Homer, makes all see
Thee capable of all Arts, none of thee;

20 For out of him, according to our most graue and iudicial
Plutarch, are all Arts deduced, confirmed, or illustrated.
It is not therfore the worlds vilifying of it that can make
it vile; for so we might argue, & blaspheme the most
incomparably sacred. It is not of the world indeed, but,
25 like Truth, hides it selfe from it. Nor is there any such

reality of wisdomes truth in all humane excellence as in Poets fictions: That most vulgar & foolish receipt of Poeticall licence being of all knowing men to be exploded (accepting it as if Poets had a tale-telling priuiledge aboue others),—no Artist being so strictly and inextricably con- 5 fined to all the lawes of learning, wisedome, and truth as a Poet. For were not his fictions composed of the sinewes and soules of all those, how could they differ farre from, and be combined with, eternitie? To all sciences, therefore, I must still, with our learned and ingenious Spondanus, 10 preferre it, as hauing a perpetuall commerce with the diuine Maiesty, embracing and illustrating al his most holy precepts, and enioying continuall discourse with his thrice perfect and most comfortable spirit. And as the contemplatiue life is most worthily & diuinely preferred by 15 Plato to the actiue, as much as the head to the foote, the eye to the hand, reason to sence, the soule to the bodie, the end it selfe to all things directed to the end, quiet to motion, and Eternitie to Time, so much preferre I diuine Poesie to all worldly wisedome. To the onely shadow of 20 whose worth, yet, I entitle not the bold rimes of euerie Apish and impudent Braggart, though he dares assume any thing (such I turne ouer to the weauing of Cobwebs), and shall but chatter on molehils, farre vnder the hill of the Muses, when their fortunat'st selfloue and ambition 25 hath aduanced them highest. Poesie is the flower of the Sunne, & disdains to open to the eye of a candle. So kings hide their treasures & counsels from the vulgar, ne euilescant (saith our Spond.): we haue example sacred enough, that true Poesies humility, pouerty, & contempt 30 are badges of diuinity, not vanity. Bray then, and barke against it, ye Wolf-fac't worldlings; that nothing but honours, riches, and magistracie, nescio quos turgidè spiratis (that I may vse the words of our friend still) Qui solas leges Iustinianas crepatis: paragraphum vnum aut alterum, 35

pluris quàm vos ipsos facitis, &c. I, for my part, shall euer esteeme it much more manly and sacred, in this harmelesse and pious studie, to sit till I sinke into my graue, then shine in your vainglorious bubbles and impieties,―al your 5 poore policies, wisedomes, and their trappings at no more valuing then a musty Nut. And much lesse I wey the frontlesse detractions of some stupide ignorants, that no more knowing me then their owne beastly ends, and I euer, to my knowledge, blest from their sight, whisper 10 behind me vilifyings of my translation; out of the French affirming them, when both in French and all other languages but his owne, our withall-skill enriched Poet is so poore and vnpleasing that no man can discerne from whence flowed his so generally giuen eminence and admiration. 15 And therfore, by any reasonable creatures conference of my sleight comment and conuersion, it will easily appeare how I shunne them, and whether the originall be my rule or not. In which he shall easily see, I vnderstand the vnderstandings of all other interpreters and commenters 20 in places of his most depth, importance, and rapture.

whose exposition and illustration, if I abhorre from the sence that others wrest and racke out of him, let my best detractor examine how the Greeke word warrants me. For my other fresh fry, let them fry in their foolish gals, 25 nothing so much weighed as the barkings of puppies or foistinghounds; too vile to thinke of our sacred Homer, or set their prophane feete within their liues lengths of his thresholds. If I faile in something, let my full performance in other some restore me, haste spurring me on with other 30 necessities. For as at my conclusion I protest, so here at my entrance, lesse then fifteene weekes was the time in which all the last twelue books were entirely new translated. No conference had with any one liuing in a the nouelties I presume I haue found. Only some one or two 35 places I haue shewed to my worthy and most learned

friend, M. Harriots, for his censure how much mine owne
weighed; whose iudgement and knowledge in all kinds
I know to be incomparable and bottomlesse; yea, to be
admired as much, as his most blameles life, and the right
sacred expence of his time, is to be honoured and reuer- 5
enced. Which affirmation of his cleare vnmatchednesse
in all manner of learning I make in contempt of that nastie
obiection often thrust vpon me,—that he that will iudge
must know more then he of whom he iudgeth,-for so
a man should know neither God nor himself. Another 10
right learned, honest, and entirely loued friend of mine,
M. Robert Hews, I must needs put into my confest con-
ference touching Homer, though very little more then
I had with M. Harriots. Which two, I protest, are all,
and preferred to all. Nor charge I their authorities with 15
any allowance of my generall labour, but onely of those
one or two places, which for instances of my innouation,
and how it shewed to them, I imparted. If any taxe me
for too much periphrasis or circumlocution in some places,
let them reade Laurentius Valla and Eobanus Hessus, 20
who either vse such shortnesse as cometh nothing home
to Homer, or, where they shun that fault, are ten parts
more paraphrastical then I. As, for example, one place
I will trouble you, if you please, to conferre with the
originall, and one interpreter for all. It is in the end 25
of the third booke, and is Hellens speech to Venus, fetch-
ing her to Paris, from seeing his cowardly combat with
Menelaus; part of which speech I will here cite:

οὖνεκα δὴ νῦν δῖον ̓Αλέξανδρον Μενέλαος
νικήσας, &c.

For auoiding the common readers trouble here, I must referre the more Greekish to the rest of the speech in Homer, whose translation ad verbum by Spondanus I will here cite, and then pray you to conferre it with that which followeth of Valla.

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