Which Translation: The Odyssey

George Chapman

1615 · Heroic couplets

Features

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677
Holdings
4
Reviews

Biography

George Chapman (c. 1559-1634) was an English poet, playwright, and translator. A contemporary of Shakespeare, he was later described by T.S. Eliot as ‘potentially the greatest artist’ of the Elizabethan dramatists.

Chapman produced the first complete English translation of Homer’s Odyssey, rendering the Greek dactylic hexameter into rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter (his earlier Iliad translation was in rhyming fourteeners). He spent twenty-six years translating works attributed to Homer, and aimed for vigorous English renderings that brought out the moral themes he saw in the textt.

Chapman’s Odyssey remained the most popular translation for over 100 years, until Alexander Pope’s dethroned it in the 18th century. Pope described Chapman’s work as ‘something like what one might imagine Homer himself would have writ’, but disapproved of its inaccuracies. John Keats wrote his famous sonnet ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ after reading Chapman’s Odyssey overnight. Chapman’s deficiences in understanding, and willingness to take significant liberties with the original, make his translation less useful for studying Homer today, but his poetic mastery continues to impress.

George Chapman on Wikipedia ↗

Publication History

  • 1612 — Nathaniell Butter, The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poetts; in his Iliads, and Odysses; translated according to the Greeke (first collected edition)
  • 1613 — Nathaniell Butter, The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poets; Iliads and Odysses, translated according to ye Greke, by George Chapman
  • 1614 — Rich Field, Homer's Odysses, translated according to ye Greeke by G. Chapman
  • 1616 — Rich Field, The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poetts; in his Iliads and Odysses, translated according to the Greeke, by Geo. Chapman
  • 1633 — Thomas Harper, The Whole Works of Homer ... in his Iliads and Odysses
  • 1857 — John Russell Smith, The Odysseys of Homer (ed. Richard Hooper)
  • 1865 — J. R. Smith, The Whole Works of Homer; with a comment on some of his chief places; done according to the Greek; with introduction and notes, by the Rev. Richard Hooper (2nd ed.; Library of Old Authors)
  • 1874 — Reeves and Turner, The Odysseys of Homer, Translated According to the Greek; with introduction and notes by the Rev. Richard Hooper (2nd ed.)
  • 1875 — Chatto and Windus, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; edited with notes by Richard Herne Shepherd
  • 1897 — J.M. Dent, The Odysseys of Homer Translated According to the Greek (2nd ed.)
  • 1897 — Reeves and Turner, The Odysseys of Homer Translated According to the Greek; with introduction and notes by the Rev. Richard Hooper (2nd ed.)
  • 1904 — G. Newnes / C. Scribner, The Odysseys of Homer; together with the shorter poems; translated according to the Greek
  • 1930 — Shakespeare Head Press, The Whole Works of Homer, Prince of Poetts, in his Iliads, and Odysses; translated according to the Greeke
  • 1956 — Pantheon Books, Chapman's Homer: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Lesser Homerica; edited, with introductions, textual notes, commentaries, and glossaries, by Allardyce Nicoll
  • 1957 — Routledge and Kegan Paul, Chapman's Homer: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Lesser Homerica; edited, with introductions, textual notes, commentaries, and glossaries, by Allardyce Nicoll
  • 1967 — Princeton University Press, Chapman's Homer: The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Lesser Homerica; edited, with introductions, textual notes, commentaries, and glossaries; edited by Allardyce Nicoll (2nd ed.)
  • 2002 — Wordsworth Editions, Chapman's Homer; with an introduction by Jan Parker ★

Reviews

The proem

1.1–11
The Man, O Muse, inform, that many a way
Wound with his wisdom to his wished stay,
That wandered wondrous far, when he the town
Of sacred Troy had sack’d and shivered 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 sustained, 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. These acts, in some part left,
Tell us, as others, deified seed of Jove.

Penelope's weaving trick

2.96–111
‘Youths, that seek my bed,
Since my divine spouse rests amongst the dead,
Hold on your suits but till I end, at most,
This funeral weed, lest what is done be lost.
Besides, I purpose, that when th’ austere fate
Of bitter death shall take into his state
Laertes the heroë, it shall deck
His royal corse, since I should suffer check
In ill report of every common dame,
If one so rich should show in death his shame.’
This speech she used; and this did soon persuade
Our gentle minds. But this a work she made
So hugely long, undoing still in night,
By torches, all she did by day’s broad light,
That three years her deceit div’d past our view,
And made us think that all she feign’d was true.
But when the fourth year came, and those sly hours
That still surprise at length dames’ craftiest pow’rs,
One of her women, that knew all, disclos’d
The secret to us, that she still unloos’d
Her whole day’s fair affair in depth of night.
And then no further she could force her sleight,
But, of necessity, her work gave end.

Calypso's double standard

5.118–131
‘Insatiate are ye gods, past all that live,
In all things you affect; which still converts
Your pow’rs to envies. It afflicts your hearts
That any goddess should, as you obtain
The use of earthly dames, enjoy the men,
And most in open marriage. So ye far’d,
When the delicious-finger’d Morning shar’d
Orion’s bed; you easy-living states
Could never satisfy your emulous hates,
Till in Ortygia the precise-liv’d dame,
Gold-thron’d Diana, on him rudely came,
And with her swift shafts slew him. And such pains,
When rich-hair’d Ceres pleas’d to give the reins
To her affections, and the grace did yield
Of love and bed amidst a three-cropp’d field,
To her Iasion, he paid angry Jove,
Who lost no long time notice of their love,
But with a glowing lightning was his death.
And now your envies labour underneath
A mortal’s choice of mine, whose life I took

Weeping on Calypso's shore

5.151–159
Whom she ashore found, drown’d in discontent,
His eyes kept never dry he did so mourn,
And waste his dear age for his wish’d return;
Which still without the cave he us’d to do,
Because he could not please the goddess so.
At night yet, forc’d, together took their rest
The willing goddess and th’ unwilling guest;
But he all day in rocks, and on the shore,
The vex’d sea view’d, and did his fate deplore.

Nausicaa finds Odysseus

6.127–141
With this, the wary peer
Crept forth the thicket, and an olive bough
Broke with his broad hand, which he did bestow
In covert of his nakedness, and then
Put hasty head out. Look how from his den
A mountain lion looks, that, all embru’d
With drops of trees, and weather-beaten-hu’d,
Bold of his strength, goes on, and in his eye
A burning furnace glows, all bent to prey
On sheep, or oxen, or the upland hart,
His belly charging him, and he must part
Stakes with the herdsman in his beast’s attempt,
Even where from rape their strengths are most exempt:
So wet, so weather-beat, so stung with need,
Even to the home-fields of the country’s breed
Ulysses was to force forth his access,
Though merely naked; and his sight did press
The eyes of soft-hair’d virgins. Horrid was
His rough appearance to them; the hard pass
He had at sea stuck by him. All in flight
The virgins scatter’d, frighted with this sight,
About the prominent windings of the flood.
All but Nausicaa fled; but she fast stood,
Pallas had put a boldness in her breast,
And in her fair limbs tender fear compress’d.

War-widow simile

8.521–532
In tears his feeling brain swet; for, in things
That move past utt’rance, tears ope all their springs.
Nor are there in the pow’rs that all life bears
More true interpreters of all than tears.
And as a lady mourns her sole-lov’d lord,
That’s fall’n before his city by the sword,
Fighting to rescue from a cruel fate
His town and children, and in dead estate,
Yet panting, seeing him, wraps him in her arms,
Weeps, shrieks, and pours her health into his arms,
Lies on him, striving to become his shield
From foes that still assail him, spears impell’d
Through back and shoulders, by whose points embru’d,
They raise and lead him into servitude,
Labour, and languor; for all which the dame
Eats down her cheeks with tears, and feeds life’s flame
With miserable suff’rance: so this king
Of tear-swet anguish op’d a boundless spring;

Cyclops eats the men

9.287–299
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-stuffed bones he eat,
And even th’ uncleans’d entrails made his meat.
We, weeping, cast our hands to heav’n, to view
A sight so horrid. Desperation flew,
With all our after lives, to instant death,
In our believ’d destruction. But when breath
The fury of his appetite had got,
Because the gulf his belly reach’d his throat,
Man’s flesh and goat’s milk laying layer on layer,
Till near chok’d up was all the pass for air,
Along his den, amongst his cattle, down
He rush’d, and streak’d him;

The Nobody trick

9.364–371
‘Cyclop! Now,
As thou demand’st, I’ll tell thee 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.’

Circe recognizes Odysseus

10.325–336
‘Who, of what high line,
Art thou the issue? Whence? What shores sustain
Thy native city? I amaz’d remain
That, drinking these my venoms, th’ art not turn’d.
Never drunk any this cup but he mourn’d
In other likeness, if it once had pass’d
The ivory bounders of his tongue and taste.
All but thyself are brutishly declin’d.
Thy breast holds firm yet, and unchanged thy mind.
Thou canst be therefore none else but the man
Of many virtues, Ithacensian,
Deep-soul’d Ulysses, who, I oft was told
By that sly god that bears the rod of gold,
Was to arrive here in retreat from Troy.
Sheathe then thy sword, and let my bed enjoy
So much a man, that when the bed we prove,
We may believe in one another’s love.’

Anticlea's shade

11.204–215
She thus; when I had great desire to prove
My arms the circle where her soul did move.
Thrice prov’d I, thrice she vanish’d like a sleep,
Or fleeting shadow, which struck much more deep
The wounds my woes made, and made ask her why
She would my love to her embraces fly,
And not vouchsafe that ev’n in hell we might
Pay pious Nature her unalter’d right,
And give vexation here her cruel fill?
‘Should not the queen here, to augment the ill
Of every suff’rance, which her office is,
Enforce thy idol to afford me this?’

Achilles in the underworld

11.488–501
‘Urge not my death to me, nor rub that wound.
I rather wish to live in earth a swain,
Or serve a swain for hire, that scarce can gain
Bread to sustain him, than, that life once gone,
Of all the dead sway the imperial throne.
But say, and of my son some comfort yield,
If he goes on in first fights of the field,
Or lurks for safety in the obscure rear?
Or of my father if thy royal ear
Hath been advertis’d, that the Phthian throne
He still commands, as greatest Myrmidon?
Or that the Phthian and Thessalian rage
(Now feet and hands are in the hold of age)
Despise his empire? Under those bright rays,
In which heav’n’s fervour hurls about the days,
Must I no more shine his revenger now,
Such as of old the Ilion overthrow
Witness’d my anger, th’ universal host
Sending before me to this shady coast,
In fight for Grecia.

The Sirens' song

12.184–192
‘Come here, thou worthy of a world of praise,
That dost so high the Grecian glory raise,
Ulysses! Stay thy ship, and that song hear
That none pass’d ever but it bent his ear,
But left him ravish’d, and instructed more
By us, than any ever heard before.
For we know all things whatsoever were
In wide Troy labour’d; whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Trojans both sustain’d
By those high issues that the gods ordain’d.
And whatsoever all the earth can show
T’ inform a knowledge of desert, we know.’

Hyperion's cattle

12.341–352
Every death
To us poor wretches that draw temporal breath
You know is hateful; but, all know, to die
The death of famine is a misery
Past all death loathsome. Let us, therefore, take
The chief of this fair herd, and offerings make
To all the deathless that in broad heav’n live,
And in particular vow, if we arrive
In natural Ithaca, to straight erect
A temple to the haughty-in-aspect,
Rich and magnificent, and all within
Deck it with relics many and divine.
If yet he stands incens’d, since we have slain
His high-brow’d herd, and therefore will sustain
Desire to wrack our ship, he is but one,
And all the other gods that we atone
With our divine rites will their suffrage give
To our design’d return, and let us live.
If not, and all take part, I rather crave
To serve with one sole death the yawning wave,
Than in a desert island lie and starve,
And with one pin’d life many deaths observe.’

Argos recognizes Odysseus

17.324–328
This said, he enter’d the well-builded towers,
Up bearing right upon the glorious wooers,
And left poor Argus dead; his lord’s first sight
Since that time twenty years bereft his light.

Sleepless Odysseus

20.25–34
You have not tried
A fellow roasting of a pig before
A hasty fire, his belly yielding store
Of fat and blood, turn faster, labour more
To have it roast, and would not have it burn,
Than this and that way his unrest made turn
His thoughts and body, would not quench the fire,
And yet not have it heighten his desire
Past his discretion, and the fit enough
Of haste and speed, that went to all the proof
His well-laid plots and his exploits requir’d,
Since he, but one, to all their deaths aspir’d.
In this contention Pallas stoop’d from heav’n,
Stood over him, and had her presence giv’n
A woman’s form, who sternly thus began:
‘Why, thou most sour and wretched-fated man
Of all that breathe, yet liest thou thus awake?

Stringing the bow

21.404–412
With these sharp jests did these
Delightsome woo’rs their fatal humours please.
But when the wise Ulysses once had laid
His fingers on it, and to proof survey’d
The still sound plight it held, as one of skill
In song and of the harp, doth at his will,
In tuning of his instrument, extend
A string out with his pin, touch all, and lend
To every well-wreath’d string his perfect sound,
Struck all together: with such ease drew round
The king the bow. Then twang’d he up the string,
That as a swallow in the air doth sing
With no continu’d tune, but, pausing still,
Twinks out her scatter’d voice in accents shrill:
So sharp the string sung when he gave it touch,
Once having bent and drawn it.

Odysseus reveals himself

22.1–8
The upper rags that wise Ulysses wore
Cast off, he rusheth to the great hall door
With bow and quiver full of shafts, which down
He pour’d before his feet, and thus made known
His true state to the wooers: ‘This strife thus
Hath harmless been decided; now for us
There rests another mark, more hard to hit,
And such as never man before hath smit;
Whose full point likewise my hands shall assay,
And try if Phoebus will give me his day.’

The disloyal maids

22.465–474
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 every 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.

The olive-tree bed

23.181–190
This said she to assay him, and did stir
Ev’n his establish’d patience, and to her;
Whom thus he answer’d: ‘Woman! Your words prove
My patience strangely. Who is it can move
My bed out of his place? It shall oppress
Earth’s greatest understander; and, unless
Ev’n god himself come, that can easily grace
Men in their most skills, it shall hold his place;
For man, he lives not that (as not most skill’d,
So not most young) shall easily make it yield,
If, building on the strength in which he flows,
He adds both levers too and iron crows.
For in the fixture of the bed is shown
A masterpiece, a wonder; and ’twas done
By me, and none but me, and thus was wrought:

Shipwrecked sailor simile

23.233–241
’Twixt winds and black waves, swimming for their lives,
A few escaped, 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,
Who still embrac’d his neck – and had, till light
Display’d her silver ensign, if the dame
That bears the blue sky intermix’d with flame