The Odyssey
translated by George Chapman
London 1616

[Sample from the Opening of the Poem]

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,                                5

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,                       10

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               15

Of safe return. These acts, in some part left,

Tell us, as others, deified Seed of Jove.

Now all the rest that austere death outstrove

At Troy’s long siege at home safe anchor’d are,

Free from the malice both of sea and war;                  20

Only Ulysses is denied access

To wife and home. The grace of Goddesses,

The reverend nymph Calypso, did detain

Him in her caves, past all the race of men

Enflam’d to make him her lov’d lord and spouse.           25

And when the Gods had destin’d that his house,

Which Ithaca on her rough bosom bears,

 (The point of time wrought out by ambient years)

Should be his haven, Contention still extends

Her envy to him, even amongst his friends. 30

All Gods took pity on him; only he,

That girds earth in the cincture of the sea,

Divine Ulysses ever did envy,

And made the fix’d port of his birth to fly.

But he himself solemnized a retreat                           35

To th’ Æthiops, far dissunder’d in their seat,

 (In two parts parted, at the sun’s descent,

And underneath his golden orient,

The first and last of men) t’ enjoy their feast

Of bulls and lambs, in hecatombs address’d;      40

At which he sat, given over to delight.

The other Gods in heaven’s supremest height

Were all in council met; to whom began

The mighty Father both of God and man

Discourse, inducing matter that inclined                     45

To wise Ulysses, calling to his mind

Faultful Ægisthus, who to death was done

By young Orestes, Agamemnon’s son.

His memory to the Immortals then

Mov’d Jove thus deeply: “O how falsely men             50

Accuse us Gods as authors of their ill,

When by the bane their own bad lives instil

They suffer all the miseries of their states,

Past our inflictions, and beyond their fates.

As now Ægisthus, past his fate, did wed                     55

The wife of Agamemnon, and (in dread

To suffer death himself) to shun his ill,

Incurred it by the loose bent of his will,

In slaughtering Atrides in retreat.

Which we foretold him would so hardly set                 60

To his murderous purpose, sending Mercury

That slaughter’d Argus, our considerate spy,

To give him this charge: ‘Do not wed his wife,

Nor murder him; for thou shalt buy his life

With ransom of thine own, imposed on thee         65

By his Orestes, when in him shall be

Atrides’ self renew’d, and but the prime

Of youth’s spring put abroad, in thirst to climb

His haughty father’s throne by his high acts.’

These words of Hermes wrought not into facts           70

Ægisthus’ powers; good counsel he despised,

And to that good his ill is sacrificed.”

Review Comment

Chapman abandons the fourteen syllable lines of his Iliad for pentameter rhyming couplets.  His Odyssey, like his Iliad, is clear, vigorous, and still a pleasure to browse through (for all the liberties he takes with Homer’s text). For the full text of Chapman’s translation of the Odyssey, use the following link: Bartleby Chapman.

[List of Published English Translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey]