Laid on so weak a one, I will again
With joy receive thee: as I live, I will.

Nay, weep not, gentle boy; 'tis more than time
50 Thou didst attend the princess.

Bell.

I am gone;
But since I am to part with you, my lord,
And none knows whether I shall live to do
More service for you, take this little prayer:
Heaven bless your loves, your fights, all your designs.
55 May sick men, if they have your wish, be well;
And Heaven hate those you curse, though I be one.

SLEEP.

[From The Woman-hater (1607)]

Come, Sleep, and with thy sweet Though but a shadow, but a slid

WEEP NO MORE.

[From The Queen of Corinth, ab. 1647, Act III, Scene 2]

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that's gone:
Violets pluck'd, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a wound to woe,
Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.

GEO

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

EORGE CHAPMAN (1559?-1634) was a prolific writer for the stage. Alone or in conjunction with others, he wrote several tragedies, such as the French pieces on Bussy d'Ambois, on Charles, Duke of Byron, and on Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, or the classical drama of Cæsar and Pompey (1607); besides many humorous comedies, as All Fools (1599), Eastward Ho (in collaboration with Ben Jonson and Marston), May Day (1611), The Widow's Tears (1612). But his fame

now rests principally on his spirited version of Homer's Iliad (in fourteen-syllable rhyming couplets, publ. 1598-1611) and Odyssey (in heroic couplets, 1614-1615), which has been praised as 'the best translation into English verse of any classic'. Though clothed in the rich language of the English Renaissance, and sometimes very free and occasionally even incorrect, it certainly comes nearer to the Greek original than the more popular and polished translation of Pope.

From the ILIAD.

Bk. III (1610): Helen on the Rampart.

Thus went she forth, and took with her her women most of fame,
Æthra, Pittheus' lovely birth, and Clymene, whom fame

Hath for her fair eyes memorised. They reach'd the Scean towers,
Where Priam sat, to see the fight, with all his counsellors;

5 Panthous, Lampus, Clytius, and stout Hicetaon,

Thymates, wise Antenor, and profound Ucalegon:

All grave old men; and soldiers they had been, but for age Now left the wars; yet counsellors they were exceeding sage. And as in well-grown woods, on trees, cold spiny grasshoppers 10 Sit chirping, and send voices out that scarce can pierce our ears For softness, and their weak faint sounds; so, talking on the tower, These seniors of the people sate; who when they saw the power Of beauty, in the queen, ascend, even those cold-spirited peers, Those wise and almost wither'd men, found this heat in their years, 15 That they were forced (though whispering) to say: "What man can blame The Greeks and Trojans to endure, for so admired a dame,

So many miseries, and so long? In her sweet countenance shine

Looks like the Goddesses'. And yet (though never so divine)

Before we boast, unjustly still, of her enforced prize, 20 And justly suffer for her sake, with all our progenies, Labour and ruin, let her go; the profit of our land

Must pass the beauty." Thus, though these could bear so fit a hand On their affections, yet, when all their gravest powers were used, They could not choose but welcome her, and rather they accused 25 The Gods than beauty.

Book XII (1610): The Battle of the Grecian Wall.

[Cp. the same passage in Pope's translation on p. 188]

And as in winter time, when Jove his cold sharp javelins throws
Amongst us mortals, and is moved to white earth with his snows,
The winds asleep, he freely pours, till highest prominents,
Hill tops, low meadows, and the fields that crown with most contents
The toils of men, seaports, and shores, are hid, and every place,
But floods, that snow's fair tender flakes, as their own brood, embrace;
So both sides covered earth with stones, so both for life contend,
To show their sharpness; through the wall uproar stood up on end.
Nor had great Hector and his friends the rampire overrun,

10 If heaven's great Counsellor, high Jove, had not inflamed his son
Sarpedon (like the forest's king when he on oxen flies)

Against the Grecians; his round targe he to his arm applies,
Brass-leaved without, and all within thick ox-hides quilted hard,

The verge nailed round with rods of gold; and, with two darts prepared, 15 He leads his people. As ye see a mountain-lion fare,

Long kept from prey, in forcing which, his high mind makes him dare
Assault upon the whole full fold, though guarded never so
With well-armed men, and eager dogs; away he will not go,
But venture on, and either snatch a prey, or be a prey;
20 So fared divine Sarpedon's mind, resolved to force his way
Through all the fore-fights, and the wall; yet since he did not see
Others as great as he in name, as great in mind as he,

He spake to Glaucus: "Glaucus, say, why are we honoured more
Than other men of Lycia, in place; with greater store

25 Of meats and cups, with goodlier roofs, delightsome gardens, walks, More lands and better, so much wealth, that court and country talks Of us and our possessions, and every way we go,

Gaze on us as we were their gods? This where we dwell is so;
The shores of Xanthus ring of this; and shall we not exceed
30 As much in merit as in noise? Come, be we great in deed
As well as look; shine not in gold, but in the flames of fight;
That so our neat-armed Lycians may say: 'See, these are right
Our kings, our rulers; these deserve to eat and drink the best;
These govern not ingloriously; these, thus exceed the rest,

35 Do more than they command to do.' O friend, if keeping back
Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack
In this life's human sea at all, but that deferring now

We shunned death ever, nor would I half this vain valour show,

Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance;

40 But since we must go, though not here, and that, besides the chance. Proposed now, there are infinite fates of other sort in death,

Which, neither to be fled nor 'scaped, a man must sink beneath,
Come, try we, if this sort be ours, and either render thus
Glory to others, or make them resign the like to us."

From the ODYSSEY.

Book IV (1614): Odysseus' Speech to Nausicaa.
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:
5 Pallas had put a boldness in her breast,
And in her fair limbs tender fear comprest.
And still she stood him, as resolved to know
What man he was; or out of what should grow
His strange repair to them. And here was he
10 Put to his wisdom; if her virgin knee

He should be bold, but kneeling, to embrace;
Or keep aloof, and try with words of grace,
In humblest suppliance, if he might obtain
Some cover for his nakedness, and gain
15 Her grace to show and guide him to the town.
The last he best thought, to be worth his own,
In weighing both well; to keep still aloof,
And give with soft words his desires their proof;
Lest, pressing so near as to touch her knee,

20 He might incense her maiden modesty.

This fair and filed speech then shew'd this was he:
'Let me beseech, O queen, this truth of thee,
Are you of mortal, or the deified race?

If of the Gods, that th' ample heavens embrace,

25 I can resemble you to none above

So near as to the chaste-born birth of Jove,
The beamy Cynthia. Her you full present,
In grace of every godlike lineament,
Her goodly magnitude, and all th' address
30 You promise of her very perfectness.

If sprung of humans, that inhabit earth,
Thrice blest are both the authors of your birth;
Thrice blest your brothers, that in your deserts
Must, even to rapture, bear delighted hearts,
35 To see, so like the first trim of a tree,
Your form adorn a dance. But most blest he,
Of all that breathe, that hath the gift t' engage
Your bright neck in the yoke of marriage,

And deck his house with your commanding merit.
40 I have not seen a man of so much spirit,
Nor man, nor woman, I did ever see,
At all parts equal to the parts in thee.
T'enjoy your sight, doth admiration seize
My eyes, and apprehensive faculties.
45 Lately in Delos (with a charge of men
Arrived, that render'd me most wretched then,
Now making me thus naked) I beheld
The burthen of a palm, whose issue swell'd
About Apollo's fane, and that put on

50 A grace like thee; for Earth had never none
Of all her sylvan issue so adorn'd.
Into amaze my very soul was turn'd,
To give it observation; as now thee
To view, O virgin, a stupidity

65 Past admiration strikes me, join'd with fear
To do a suppliant's due, and press so near,
As to embrace thy knees.'

ANCIENT POPULAR BALLADS.

THE ANCIENT BALLAD OF CHEVY CHASE.
[Modernized from Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry I 1, 1 (1765)]