Synopses & Reviews
"It should be very satisfying to sing hymns to gods whom everyone can agree exist, so tune up your pipes for Apollo, the archer and fair king of days, or for Venus, the soft skinned, because both beauty and sunshine deserve our adoration. How appropriate that the voice you can choose here should be Elizabethan, queen of the Enlightenment, and patron of the poets, George Chapman so much among them, who made the old world new, and heard the voice of heroes in all of Homer's songs."--William H. Gass
"Chapman's versions inspired English poets for centuries after his time. They rest on a minute and perceptive reading of the texts. And they retain their power to fascinate and provoke anyone interested in Homer and his afterlife, in Renaissance ideas about classical and modern poetry, or in the development of the language of English poetry."--Anthony T. Grafton, Princeton University
"Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold"--John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
Review
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told / That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; / Yet did I never breathe its pure serene / Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold
Synopsis
George Chapman's translations of Homer--immortalized by Keats's sonnet-- are the most famous in the English language. Swinburne praised their "romantic and sometimes barbaric grandeur," their "freshness, strength, and inextinguishable fire." And the great critic George Saintsbury wrote, "For more than two centuries they were the resort of all who, unable to read Greek, wished to know what the Greek was. Chapman is far nearer Homer than any modern translator in any modern language."
This volume presents the original text of Chapman's translation of the Homeric hymns. The hymns, believed to have been written not by Homer himself but by followers who emulated his style, are poems written to the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon. The collection, originally titled by Chapman "The Crowne of all Homers Workes," also includes epigrams and poems attributed to Homer and known as "The Lesser Homerica," as well as his famous "The Battle of Frogs and Mice."
About the Author
Stephen Scully is associate professor of classical studies at Boston University.
Table of Contents
The Homeric Hymns and George Chapman's Translation by Stephen Scully 1
Editor's Introduction by Allardyce Nicoll 41
The Crowne of all Homers Workes
To the Earle of Somerset 49
The Occasion of this Impos'd Crowne 54
AL THE HYMNES OF HOMER
An Hymne to Apollo 57
A Hymne to Hermes 83
A Hymne to Venus 114
To the Same 130
Bacchus, or The Pyrats 132
To Mars 136
To Diana 137
To Venus 137
To Pallas 138
To Juno 138
To Ceres 139
To the Mother of the Gods 139
To Lyon-Hearted Hercules 140
To Æsculapius 140
To Castor and Pollux 141
To Mercurie 141
To Pan 142
To Vulcan 144
To Phoebus 145
To Neptune 145
To Jove 146
To Vesta 146
To the Muses and Apollo 146
To Bacchus 147
To Diana 148
To Pallas 149
To Vesta and Mercurie 150
To Earth the Mother of All 151
To the Sun 152
To the Moone 153
To Castor and Pollux 154
To Men of Hospitalitie 155
BATRACHOMYOMACHIA 157
CERTAINE EPIGRAMMS AND OTHER POEMS OF HOMER
To Cuma 177
In His Returne, to Cuma 177
Upon the Sepulcher of Midus 177
Cuma, Refusing His Offer t'Eternise Their State 178
An Assaie of His Begunne Iliads 179
To Thestor's Sonne 179
To Neptune 180
To the Cittie Erythræa 180
To Mariners 180
The Pine 181
To Glaucus 181
Against the Samian Ministresse or Nunne 182
Written on the Counsaile Chamber 182
The Fornace, Call'd in to Sing by Potters 182
Eiresione, or The Olive Branch 184
To Certaine Fisher-Boyes Pleasing Him with Ingenious Riddles 185
[Final Verses] 186
Textual Notes 191
Commentary 205
Glossary 213