"The Crowne of all Homers Worckes, Batrachomyomachia or the Battaile of Frogs and Mise. His Hymn's and Epigrams. Translated according to ye Originall. By George Chapman. London, Printed by Iohn Bill, his Maiesties Printer." The Hymns of Homer, &c. THE OCCASION OF THIS IMPOSED CROWN. AFTER this not only Prime of Poets, but Philosophers, had written his two great poems of Iliads and Odysses; which (for their first lights borne before all learning) were worthily called the Sun and Moon of the Earth; (finding no compensation), he writ, in contempt of men, this ridiculous poem of Vermin, giving them nobility of birth, valorous elocution not inferior to his heroes. At which the Gods themselves put in amaze, called councils about their assistance of either army, and the justice of their quarrels, even to the mounting of Jove's artillery against them, and discharge of his three-forked flashes; and all for the drowning of a mouse. After which slight and only recreative touch, he betook him seriously to the honour of the Gods; in Hymns resounding all their peculiar titles, jurisdiction, and dignities; which he illustrates at all parts, as he had been continually conversant amongst them; and whatsoever authentic Poesy he omitted in the episodes contained in his Iliads and Odysses, he comprehends and concludes in his Hymns and Epigrams. All his observance and honour of the Gods, rather moved their envies against him, than their rewards, or respects of his endeavours. And so like a man verecundi ingenii (which he witnesseth of himself) he lived unhonoured and needy till his death; yet notwithstanding all men's servile and manacled miseries, to his most absolute and never-equalled merit; yea, even bursten profusion to imposture and impiety, hear our ever-the-same intranced, and never-sleeping Master of the Muses, to his last accent, incomparably singing. BATRACHOMYOMACHIA. ENTERING the fields, first let my vows call | In glorious fight their forces, even the If worth fruition of my love and me, threat, Physignathus, adored of all Frogs here All their days' durance, and the empire bear Of all their beings. Mine own being begot By royal Peleus,2 mix'd in nuptial knot With fair Hydromedusa,3 on the bounds Near4 which Eridanus his race resounds. And thee mine eye makes my conceit inclined To reckon powerful both in form and mind, A sceptre-bearer, and past others far Advanced in all the fiery fights of war. Come then, thy race to my renown commend. The Mouse made answer : "Why inquires my friend? For what so well know men and Deities, And all the wing'd affecters of the skies? Psicharpax5 I am call'd; Troxartes'6 seed, Surnamed the Mighty-minded. She that freed Mine eyes from darkness was Lichomyle,7 King Pternotroctes's daughter, showing me Within an aged hovel, the young light: Fed me with figs and nuts, and all the height Of varied viands. But unfold the cause, Why, 'gainst similitude's most equal laws Observed in friendship, thou makest me thy friend? Thy life the waters only help t' extend ; Mine, whatsoever men are used to eat, Takes part with them at shore; their purest cheat, Thrice boulted, kneaded and subdued in paste, In clean round kymnels, cannot be so fast From my approaches kept but in I eat : Nor cheesecakes full of finest Indian wheat, 1 Dvoiyvabos, Genas et buccas inflans. 2 ПInλeús, qui ex luto nascitur. 3 Yspoμédovσa. Aquarum regina. The river Po, in Italy. xápas. Gather-crumb, or ravish-crumb. 6 Shear-crust. 7 Lick-mill. 8 Bacon-flitch-devourer, or gnawer. That crusty-weeds wear, large as ladies trains : Liverings, white-skinn'd as ladies; nor the strains Of press'd milk, renneted; nor collops cut Fresh from the flitch; nor junkets such as put Palates divine in appetite; nor any Of all men's delicates, though ne'er so many Their cooks devise them, who each dish see deck'd With all the dainties all strange soils affect. Yet am I not so sensual to fly Of fields embattled the most fiery cry, But rush out straight, and with the first in fight Mix in adventure. No man with affright Can daunt my forces, though his body be Of never so immense a quantity: But making up, even to his bed access, His fingers' ends dare with my teeth compress, His feet taint likewise, and so soft seize both They shall not taste th' impression of a tooth. Sweet sleep shall hold his own in every eye Where my tooth takes his tartest liberty. But two there are, that always, far and near, Extremely still, control my force with fear (The Cat, and Night-hawk), who much scathe confer On all the outrays where for food I err. Together with the straits-still-keeping trap,4 Where lurks deceitful and set-spleen'd mishap. But most of all the Cat constrains my fear, At that hole ever she commits my rape. |