| Document Type | Modernised |
|---|---|
| Code | Mus.0001 |
| Printer | Isaac Jaggard |
| Type | |
| Year | 1616 |
| Place | London |
First of all books. Translated according to the original, by George Chapman.
London, printed by Isaac Jaggard. 1616.
To the most generally ingenious, and our only learned architect, my exceeding good Friend Inigo Jones, Esquire, Surveyor of His Majesty’s Works.
Ancient poesy, and ancient architecture, requiring to their excellence a like creating and proportionable rapture, and being alike over-topped by the monstrous Babels of our modern barbarism; their unjust obscurity, letting no glance of their truth and dignity appear, but to passing few: to passing few is their least appearance to be presented. Yourself then, being a chief of that few, by whom both are apprehended, and their beams worthily measured and valued, this little light of the one, I could not but object, and publish to your choice apprehension; especially for your most ingenuous love to all works, in which the ancient Greek souls have appeared to you. No less esteeming this, worth the presenting to any greatest, for the smallness of the work than the author himself hath been held therefore of the less estimation: having obtained as much preservation and honour, as the greatest of others: the smallness being supplied with so greatly-excellent invention and elocution. Nor lacks even the most youngly enamoured affection it contains, a temper grave enough, to become both the sight and acceptance of the gravest. And therefore, howsoever the mistaking world takes it (whose left hand ever received what I gave with my right). If you freely and nobly entertain it, I obtain my end: your judicious love’s continuance, being my only object: to which I at all parts commend.
Your ancient poor friend
George Chapman.
When you see Leander and Hero, the subjects of this pamphlet, I persuade myself, your prejudice will increase to the contempt of it; either headlong presupposing it, all one; or at no part matchable, with that partly excellent poem, of Master Marlowe’s. For your all one; the works are in nothing alike; a different character being held through, both the style, matter, and invention. For the match of it, let but your eyes be matches, and it will in many parts overmatch it. In the original, it being by all the most learned, the incomparable love-poem of the world. And I would be something sorry, you could justly tax me, with doing it any wrong in our English; though perhaps it will not so amble under your seizures and censures, as the before published.
Let the great comprehenders, and unable utterers of the Greek elocution in other language, drop under their unloadings, how humbly soever they please; and the rather disclaim their own strength, that my weakness may seem the more presumptuous: it can impose no scruple the more burthen on my shoulders, that I will feel, unless Reason chance to join Arbiter with Will, and appear to me: to whom I am ever prostrately subject. And if envious misconstruction could once leave tyrannizing over my infortunate innocence, both the charity it argued would render them that use it, the more Christian, and me industrious, to hale out of them the discharge of their own duties.
Musaeus was a renowned Greek poet, born at Athens, the son of Eumolpus. He lived in the time of Orpheus, and is said to be one of them that went the famous voyage to Colchos for the Golden Fleece. He wrote of the gods’ genealogy before any other, and invented the sphere. Whose opinion was, that all things were made of one matter, and resolved into one again. Of whose works, only this one Poem of Hero and Leander is extant; of himself in his sixth book of Aeneid, Virgil makes memorable mention, where in Elysium he makes Sybilla speak this of him.
Musaeum ante omnes (medium nam plurima turba
Hunc habet atque humeris extantem suspicit altis).
He was born in Falerum, a towne in the middle of Tuscia, or the famous country of Tuscany in Italy, called also Hetruria.
Abydus and Sestus were two ancient towns: one, in Europe, another in Asia; East and West, opposite: on both the shores of the Hellespont. Their names are extant in maps to this day. But in their places are two castles built, which the Turks call Bogazossar, that is, “castles situate by the seaside”. Seamen now call the place where Sestus stood Malido. It was likewise called Possidonium. But Abydus is called Aveo. They are both renowned in all writers, for nothing so much as the love of Leander and Hero.
Hellespont is the straits of the two Seas, Propontis and Aegeum running betwixt Abydus and Sestus. Over which, Xerxes built a bridge, and joined these two towns together, conveying over his army of 700,000 men. It is now called by some “the Straits of Gallipolis”. But by Frenchmen, Flemings, and others, “the Arm of Saint George”. It had his name of Hellespont, because Helle the daughter of Athamas, King of Thebes, was drowned in it. And therefore of one it is called, “the Virgin-Killing Sea”. Of another, “the Virgin-Sea”. It is but seven Italian furlongs broad, which is one of our miles, lacking a furlong.
Of Hero and Leander.
Goddess relate the witness-bearing-light
Of loves, that would not bear a human sight.
The seaman that transported marriages
Shipped in the night; his bosom ploughing th’ seas:
5 The love-joys that in gloomy cloud did fly
The clear beams of th’ immortal morning’s eye.
Abydus and fair Sestus, where I hear
The night-hid nuptials of young Hero were.
Leander’s swimming to her, and a light:
10 A light, that was administress of sight
To cloudy Venus; and did serve t’address
Night-wedding Hero’s nuptial offices.
A light that took the very form of love:
Which had been justice in aethereal Jove,
15 When the nocturnal duty had been done,
T’advance amongst the consort of the Sun;
And call the star, that nuptial loves did guide,
And to the bridegroom gave, and graced the bride
Because it was companion to the death
20 Of loves, whose kind cares cost their dearest breath:
And that fame-freighted ship from shipwreck kept,
That such sweet nuptials brought, they never slept,
Till air was with a bitter flood inflate,
That bore their firm loves as infixed a hate.
25 But (Goddess) forth; and both, one issue sing:
The light extinct, Leander perishing.
Two towns there were, that with one sea were walled;
Built near, and opposite: this, Sestus called;
Abydus that: then Love his bow bent high,
30 And at both cities, let one arrow fly
That two (a virgin and a youth) enflamed:
The youth was sweetly graced Leander named:
The virgin, Hero; Sestus she renowns,
Abydus he, in birth, of both which towns
35 Both were the beauty-circled stars; and both,
Graced with like looks, as with one love and troth.
If that way lie thy course, seek for my sake,
A tower, that Sestian Hero once did make
Her watch-tower: and a torch stood holding there,
40 By which Leander his sea-course did steer.
Seek likewise of Abydus’ ancient towers,
The roaring sea lamenting to these hours
Leander’s love and death. But say; how came
He (at Abydus born) to feel the flame
45 Of Hero’s love at Sestus? And to bind
In chains of equal fire bright Hero’s mind?
The graceful Hero, born of gentle blood,
Was Venus’ priest; and since she understood
No nuptial language, from her parents, she
50 Dwelt in a tower, that over-looked the sea.
For shamefastness and chastity, she reigned
Another goddess, nor was ever trained
In women’s companies; nor learned to tread
A graceful dance, to which such years are bred.
55 The envious spites of women she did fly,
(Women for beauty their own sex envy);
All her devotion was to Venus done,
And to his heavenly mother her great son
Would reconcile, with sacrifices ever;
60 And ever trembled at his flaming quiver.
Yet scaped not so his fiery shafts her Breast:
For now, the popular Venerean feast,
Which to Adonis, and great Cypria’s state,
The Sestians yearly used to celebrate,
65 Was come: and to that holy day came all,
That in the bordering isles the sea did wall.
To it in flocks they flew; from Cyprus these,
Environed with the rough Carpathian seas:
These from Haemonia; nor remain’d a man
70 Of all the towns, in th’ Isles Cytherian;
Not one was left, that used to dance upon
The tops of odoriferous Lebanon;
Not one of Phrygia, not one of all
The neighbours, seated near the festival;
75 Nor one of opposite Abydus’ shore:
None of all these, that virgins’ favours wore
Were absent: all such fill the flowing way,
When Fame proclaims a solemn holy day.
Not bent so much to offer holy flames,
80 As to the beauties of assembled dames.
The virgin Hero entered th’holy place,
And graceful beams cast round about her face,
Like to the bright orb of the rising moon.
The top-spheres of her snowy cheeks puts on
85 A glowing redness, like the two-hued rose,
Her odorous bud beginning to disclose.
You would have said, in all her lineaments
A meadow full of roses she presents
All over her she blushed; which (putting on
90 Her white robe, reaching to her ankles) shone,
(While she in passing, did her feet dispose)
As she had wholly been a moving rose.
Graces, in numbers, from her parts did flow:
The ancients therefore (since they did not know
95 Hero’s unbounded beauties) falsely feigned
Only three Graces: for when Hero strained
Into a smile her priestly modesty,
A hundred Graces, grew from either eye.
A fit one sure, the Cyprian goddess found
100 To be her ministress; and so highly crowned
With worth, her grace was, past all other dames,
That, of a priest made to the Queen of flames
A new queen of them, she in all eyes shined:
And did so undermine each tender mind
105 Of all the young men: that there was not one
But wished fair Hero were his wife, or none.
Nor could she stir about the well-built fane,
This way, or that, but every way she wan
A following mind in all men: which their eyes
110 Lighted with all their inmost faculties
Clearly confirmed: and one (admiring) said:
“All Sparta I have travelled, and surveyed
The city Lacedaemon; where we hear
All beauties labours, and contentions were:
115 A woman yet, so wise, and delicate
I never saw. It may be, Venus gat
One of the younger Graces to supply
The place of priesthood to her deity.
Even tired I am with sight, yet doth not find
120 A satisfaction by my sight my mind.
O could I once ascend sweet Hero’s bed,
Let me be straight found in her bosom dead:
I would not wish to be in heaven a god,
Were Hero here my wife: but, if forbod
125 To lay prophane hands on thy holy priest,
O Venus, with another such assist
My nuptial longings”. Thus prayed all that spake,
The rest their wounds hid, and in frenzies brake
Her beauties’ fire, being so suppressed, so raged.
130 But thou, Leander, more than all engaged,
Wouldst not when thou hadst viewed th’ amazing maid
Waste with close stings, and seek no open aid;
But, with the flaming arrows of her eyes
Wounded un’wares, thou wouldst in sacrifice
135 Vent th’ inflammation thy burnt blood did prove,
Or live with sacred medicine of her love.
But now the love-brand in his eyebeams burn’d,
And with th’ unconquered fire, his heart was turn’d
Into a coal: together wrought the flame;
140 The virtuous beauty of a spotless dame,
Sharper to men is than the swiftest shaft.
His eye the way by which his heart is caught:
And from the stroke his eye sustains, the wound
Opens within, and doth his entrails sound.
145 Amaze then took him, Impudence, and Shame
Made earthquakes in him, with their frost and flame:
His heart betwixt them tossed, till Reverence
Took all these prisoners in him: and from thence
Her matchless beauty, with astonishment
150 Increased his bands: ’til aguish Love, that lent
Shame, and Observance, licenc’st their remove;
And wisely liking impudence in love:
Silent he went, and stood against the maid,
And in side-glances faintly he conveyed
155 His crafty eyes about her; with dumb shows
Tempting her mind to error. And now grows
She to conceive his subtle flame, and joyed
Since he was graceful. Then herself employed
Her womanish cunning, turning from him quite
160 Her lovely count’nance; giving yet some light
Even by her dark signs, of her kindling fire;
With up- and down-looks, whetting his desire.
He joyed at heart to see love’s sense in her,
And no contempt of what he did prefer.
165 And while he wish’d unseen to urge the rest,
The day shrunk down her beams to lowest West
And East: the Even Star took vantage of her shade;
Then boldly he his kind approaches made:
And as he saw the russet clouds increase,
170 He strained her rosy hand, and held his peace:
But sighed, as silence had his bosom broke;
When she, as silent, put on anger’s cloak,
And drew her hand back. He discerning well
Her would, and would not: to her boldlier fell,
175 And her elaborate robe, with much cost wrought,
About her waist embracing: on he brought
His love to th’ in-parts of the reverend fane:
She (as her love-sparks more and more did wane)
Went slowly on, and with a woman’s words
180 Threat’ning Leander, thus his boldness boards.
“Why stranger, are you mad? Ill-fated Man,
Why hail you thus, a virgin Sestian?
Keep on your way: let go, fear to offend
The noblesse of my birthrights, either friend;
185 It ill becomes you to solicit thus
The priest of Venus; hopeless, dangerous
The barr’d up-way is to a virgin’s bed”.
Thus, for the maiden form, she menaced.
But he well knew, that when these female mines
190 Break out in fury, they are certain signs
Of their persuasions. Women’s threats once shown,
Shows in it, only, all you wish your own:
And therefore of the ruby-coloured maid,
The odorous neck he with a kiss assayed.
195 And stricken with the sting of Love, he prayed.
“Dear Venus, next to Venus you must go;
And next Minerva; trace Minerva too,
Your like, with earthly Dames no light can show:
To Jove’s great daughters, I must liken you.
200 Blessed was thy great begetter; blessed was she
Whose womb did bear thee: but most blessedly
The womb itself far’d, that thy throes did prove.
O hear my prayer: pity the need of love.
As priest of Venus, practice Venus’ rites.
205 Come, and instruct me in her bed’s delights.
It fits not you, a virgin, to vow aids
To Venus’ service; Venus loves no maids.
If Venus’ institutions you prefer,
And faithful ceremonies vow to her,
210 Nuptials, and beds they be. If her love binds,
Love loves sweet laws, that soften human minds.
Make me your servant: husband, if you pleased;
Whom Cupid with his burning shafts hath seized,
And hunted to you; as swift Hermes brave
215 With his gold rod, Jove’s bold son to be slave
To Lydia’s sovereign virgin; but for me,
Venus insulting, forced my feet to thee.
I was not guided by wise Mercury,
Virgin, you know, when Atalanta fled
220 Out of Arcadia kind Melanion’s bed,
(Affecting virgin life; your angry queen,
Whom first she used with a malignant spleen
At last possessed him of her complete heart).
And you (dear love) because I would avert
225 Your goddess’ anger; I would fain persuade”.
With these love-luring words, conformed he made
The maid recusant to his blood’s desire;
And set her soft mind on an erring fire.
Dumb she was struck: and down to earth she threw
230 Her rosy eyes: hid in vermillion hue,
Made red with shame. Oft with her foot she rac’d
Earth’s upper part; and oft (as quite ungraced)
About her shoulders gathered up her weed.
All these fore-tokens are that men shall speed.
235 Of a persuaded virgin to her bed,
Promise is most given, when the least is said.
And now she took in love’s sweet bitter sting:
Burned in a fire, that cooled her surfeiting.
Her beauties likewise, struck her friend amazed:
240 For while her eyes fixed on the pavement gazed,
Love, on Leander’s looks, shewed fury ceased.
Never enough his greedy eyes were pleased
To view the fair gloss of her tender neck.
At last this sweet voice passed, and out did break
245 A ruddy moisture from her bashful eyes.
“Stranger, perhaps thy words might exercise
Motion in flints, as well as my soft breast.
Who taught thee words, that err from East to West
In their wild liberty? O woe is me:
250 To this my native soil, who guided thee?
All thou hast said is vain; for how canst thou
(Not to be trusted: one, I do not know)
Hope to excite in me, a mixed Love?
’Tis clear, that law by no means will approve
255 Nuptials with us; for thou canst never gain
My parents’ graces. If thou wouldst remain
Close on my shore, as outcast from thine own;
Venus will be in darkest corners known.
Man’s tongue is friend to scandal; loose acts done
260 In surest secret, in the open sun
And every marketplace will burn thine ears.
But say, what name sustain’st thou? What soil bears
Name of thy country? Mine, I cannot hide;
My far-spread name is Hero: I abide
265 Housed in an all-seen-tower, whose tops touch heaven,
Built on a steep shore, that to sea is driven
Before the city Sestus. One sole maid
Attending, and this irksome life is laid
By my austere friends’ wills, on one so young;
270 No like-yeared virgins near; no youthful throng
To meet in some delights, dances, or so:
But day and night, the windy sea doth throw
Wilde murmuring cuffs about our deafen’d ears”.
This said, her white robe hid her cheeks like spheres.
275 And then (with shame-affected, since she used
Words, that desired youths, and her Friends accused)
She blamed herself for them, and them for her.
Mean space, Leander felt Love’s arrow err
Through all his thoughts; devising how he might
280 Encounter Love, that dared him so to fight.
Mind-changing Love wounds men, and cures again:
Those mortals, over whom he lists to reign,
Th’ All-Tamer stoops too: in advising how
They may with some ease bear the yoke, his bow.
285 So, our Leander, whom he hurt, he healed:
Who, having long his hidden fire concealed,
And vexed with thoughts, he thirsted to impart,
His stay he quitted, with this quickest art.
“Virgin, for thy love, I will swim a wave
290 That ships denies: and though with fire it rave,
In way to thy bed, all the seas in one
I would despise: the Hellespont were none.
All nights to swim to one sweet bed with thee,
Were nothing; if when love had landed me,
295 All hid in weeds, and in Venerean foam,
I brought (withal) bright Hero’s husband’s home.
Not far from hence, and just against thy town
Abydus stands, that my birth calls mine own.
Hold but a torch then in thy heaven-high tower:
300 (Which I beholding, to that starry power
May plough the dark seas, as the ship of love).
I will not care to see Boötes move
Down to the sea, nor sharp Orion trail
His never-wet car; but arrive my sail
305 Against my country, at thy pleasing shore.
But (dear) take heed, that no ungentle blore
Thy torch extinguish, bearing all the light
By which my life sails, lest I lose thee quite.
Wouldst thou my name know (as thou doest my house)
310 It is Leander, lovely Hero’s spouse”.
Thus this kind couple their close marriage made,
And friendship ever to be held in shade,
(Only by witness of one nuptial light).
Both vowed: agreed, that Hero every night,
315 Should hold her torch out; every night, her love
The tedious passage of the sea should prove
The whole even of the watchful nuptials spent,
Against their wills: the stern power of constraint
Enforced their parting. Hero to her tower;
320 Leander (minding his returning hour)
Took of the turret marks, for fear he failed,
And to well-founded broad Abydus sailed.
All night, both thirsted for the secret strife
Of each young-married, lovely man, and wife.
325 And all day after, no desire shot home,
But that the chamber-decking Night were come.
And now, Night’s sooty clouds clapped all sail on,
Fraught all with sleep: yet took Leander none.
But on th’ opposed shore of the noise-full seas,
330 The messenger of glittering marriages
Looked wishly for: or rather long’d to see,
The witness of their light to misery,
Far off discovered in their covert bed.
When Hero saw the blackest curtain spread
335 That veiled the dark night, her bright torch she showed,
Whose light no sooner th’ eager lover viewed,
But love his blood set on as bright a fire.
Together burn’d the torch, and his desire.
But hearing of the sea the horrid roar,
340 With which the tender air the mad waves tore:
At first he trembled, but at last he reared
High as the storm his spirit, and thus cheered
(Using these words to it) his resolute mind:
“Love dreadful is; the sea with nought inclined:
345 But sea is water; outward all his ire,
When Love lights his fear with an inward fire.
Take fire (my heart), fear nought that flits and raves:
Be Love himself to me, despise these waves.
Art thou to know, that Venus’ birth was here?
350 Commands the sea, and all that grieves us there?”.
This said, his fair limbs of his weed he stripped:
Which, at his head, with both hands bound, he shipped,
Leapt from the shore, and cast into the sea
His lovely body: thrusting all his way
355 Up to the torch, that still he thought did call;
He oars, he steerer, he the ship, and all,
Hero advanced upon a tower so high,
As soon would lose on it, the fixed’st eye.
And like her Goddess’ star, with her light shining:
360 The winds, that always (as at her repining,
Would blast her pleasures) with her veil she checked,
And from their envies did her torch protect.
And this she never left, till she had brought
Leander, to the havenful shore he sought.
365 Then down she ran, and up she lighted then
To her tower’s top, the weariest of men.
First, at the gates (without a syllable used)
She hugged her panting husband, all diffused
With foamy drops, still stilling from his hair:
370 Then brought she him in to the inmost fair
Of all, her virgin chamber; that (at best)
Was with her beauties ten times better dressed.
His body then she cleansed: his body oiled
With rosy odours: and his bosom (soiled
375 With the unsavoury sea) she rendered sweet.
Then, in the high-made bed (even panting yet)
Her self she poured about her husband’s breast,
And these words uttered. “With too much unrest,
O husband, you have bought this little peace:
380 Husband, no other man hath paid th’ increase
Of that huge sum of pains you took for me.
And yet I know, it is enough for thee
To suffer for my love the fishy savours
The working sea breathes. Come, lay all thy labours
385 On my all-thankful bosom”. All this said,
He straight ungirdled her; and both parts paid
To Venus what her gentle statutes bound.
Here weddings were. but not a musical sound,
Here bed-rites offered, but no hymns gave praise:
390 Nor poet sacred wedlock’s worth did raise.
No torches gilt the honoured nuptial bed:
Nor any youths much-moving dances led.
No father; nor no reverend mother sung
“Hymen, O Hymen”, blessing loves so young.
395 But when the consummating Hours had crowned
The downright nuptials, a calm bed was found.
Silence the room fixed; Darkness decked the bride,
But hymns, and such rites, far were laid aside.
Night, was sole gracer of this nuptial house:
400 Cheerful Aurora never saw the spouse
In any beds that were too broadly known,
Away he fled still, to his region,
And breath’d insatiate of the absent sun.
Hero kept all this from her parents still;
405 Her priestly weed was large, and would not fill:
A maid by day she was, a wife by night:
Which both so loved, they wished it never light.
And thus (both) hiding the strong need of love:
In Venus’ secret sphere rejoiced to move.
410 But soon their joy died; and that still-tossed state
Of their stolen nuptials, drew but little date.
For when the frosty winter kept his jousts,
Rousing together all the horrid gusts,
That from the ever-whirling pits arise:
415 And those weak deeps, that drive up to the skies,
Against the drenched foundations, making knock
Their curled foreheads: then with many a shock
The winds and seas met; made the storms aloud,
Beat all the rough sea with a pitchy cloud.
420 And then the black bark, buffeted with gales,
Earth checks so rudely, that in two it falls.,
The seaman flying winter’s faithless sea.
Yet (brave Leander) all this bent at thee,
Could not compel in thee one fit of fear.
425 But when the cruel faithless messenger
(The tower) appeared, and showed th’ accustomed light;
It stung thee on, secure of all the spite
The raging sea spit. But since winter came,
Unhappy Hero, should have cooled her flame,
430 And lie without Leander; no more lighting
Her short-lived bed-star: but strange fate exciting
As well as love, and both their powers combined
Enticing her, in her hand, never shined
The fatal love-torch (but this one hour) more.
435 Night came: and now, the sea against the shore
Mustered her winds up: from whose wintry jaws
They belched their rude breaths out, in bitterest flaws.
In midst of which, Leander, with the pride
Of his dear hope, to board his matchless bride:
440 Up, on the rough back of the high sea, leaps:
And then waves thrust up waves; the watery heaps
Jumbled together. Sea and sky were mixt,
The fighting winds the frame of earth unfixed.
Zephyr and Eurus flew in either’s face;
445 Notus and Boreas wrestler-like embrace,
And toss each other with their bristled backs.
Inevitable were the horrid cracks
The shaken sea gave: ruthful were the wracks
Leander suffered, in the savage gale,
450 Th’ inexorable whirl-pits did exhale.
Often he prayed to Venus, born of seas,
Neptune their king, and Boreas, that ’twould please
His godhead, for the nymph Atthea’s sake,
Not to forget, the like stealth he did make
455 For her dear love: touched then, with his sad state,
But none would help him: Love compels not Fate.
Every way tossed with waves, and air’s rude breath
Justling together, he was crushed to death.
No more his youthful force his feet commands,
460 Unmoved lay now his late all-moving hands.
His throat was turned free channel to the flood,
And drink went down, that did him far from good.
No more the false light for the cursed wind burned:
That of Leander ever-to-be-mourned,
465 Blew out the love, and soul, when Hero still
Had watchful eyes, and a most constant will
To guide the voyage: and the morning shined,
Yet not by her light she her love could find.
She stood distract with miserable woes;
470 And round about the sea’s broad shoulders throws
Her eye, to second the extinguished light:
And tried if any way her husband’s sight
Erring in any part, she could descry.
When, at her turret’s foot, she saw him lie,
475 Mangled with rocks, and all imbrued, she tore
About her breast the curious weed she wore,
And with a shriek, from off her turret’s height
Cast her fair body headlong, that fell right
On her dead husband: spent with him her breath,
480 And each won other, in the worst of death.
FINIS.