"Fate steals along with silent tread, Found oftenest in what least we dread, Frowns in the storm with angry brow, But in the sunshine strikes the blow."

"Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, While meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray."

"Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pockets."

"But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost."

"Man disobeys, and deity disowns me."

"Damned below Judas; more abhorred than he was."

"Absence from whom we love is worse than death, And frustrate hope severer than despair."

"No dancing bear was so genteel Or half so dégagé."

"Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'."

"Of all the English Play-writers, Chapman perhaps approaches nearest to Shakspeare in the descriptive and didactic, in passages which are less purely dramatic. Dramatic Imitation was not his talent. He could not go out of himself, as Shakspeare could shift at pleasure, to inform and animate other existences, but in himself he had an eye to perceive and a soul to embrace all forms. He would have made a great Epic Poet, if, indeed, he has not abundantly shown himself to be one; for his Homer is not so properly a Translation as the Stories of Achilles and Ulysses re-written. The earnestness and passion which he has put into every part of these poems would be incredible to a reader of mere modern translations. His almost Greek zeal for the honour of his heroes is only paralleled by that fierce spirit of Hebrew bigotry, with which Milton, as if personating one of the Zealots of the old law, clothed himself when he sate down to paint the acts of Samson against the Uncircumcised. The great obstacle to Chapman's Translations being read is their unconquerable quaintness. He pours out in the same breath the most just and natural and the most violent and forced expressions. He seems to grasp whatever words come first to hand during the impetus of inspiration, as if all other must be inadequate to the divine meaning. But passion (the all in all in Poetry) is everywhere present, raising the low, dignifying the mean, and putting sense into the absurd. He makes his readers glow, weep, tremble, take any affection which he pleases, be moved by words, or in spite of them, be disgusted and overcome their disgust. I have often thought that the vulgar misconception of Shakspeare, as of a wild irregular genius "in whom great faults are compensated by great beauties," would be really true applied to Chapman."

"Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

"Chapman, ... where he lays aside the gravity of the philosopher and poet, discovers an unexpected comic vein, distinguished by equal truth of nature and lively good humour."

"He has more thinking than many of the old dramatists; and the praise of one of his critics, though strongly worded, is not without some foundation, that we "seldom find richer contemplations on the nature of man and the world.""

"The translation of Homer, published by George Chapman, in the reign of queen Elizabeth and king James, is one of the greatest treasures the English language has to boast."

"If Homer could return from Elysium to read all the English renderings, he would surely find in Chapman his truest son, a man who has fed on lions' marrow."

"I know an Englishman, Being flattered, is a lamb; threatened, a lion."

"They're only truly great who are truly good."

"Words writ in waters."

"I am ashamed the law is such an ass."

"Our hopes, I see, resemble much the sun, That rising and declining cast large shadows; But when his beams are dressed in's midday brightness, Yields none at all: when they are farthest from Success, their guilt reflection does display The largest shows of events fair and prosperous."

"All fell upon the high-hair’d oaks, and down their curled brows Fell bustling to the earth; and up went all the boles and boughs."

"Within a thicket I reposed; when round I ruffled up fall’n leaves in heaps, and found, Let fall from heaven, a sleep interminate."

"The blest gods do not love Ungodly actions; but respect the right, And in the works of pious men delight."

"True courtiers should be modest, and not nice; Bold, but not impudent; pleasure love, not vice."

"Nothing so sweete is as our countrie’s earth, And joy of those from whom we claime our birth."

"The seas retain Not only their outrageous esture there, But supernatural mischief they expire."

"Yet hath the morning sprinkled through the clouds But half her tincture; and the sail of night Sticks still upon the bosom of the air."

"The isle Ææa, where the palace stands Of the early riser, with the rosy hands, Active Aurora; where she loves to dance."

"The morning, on her throne of gold, Survey’d the vast world, by whose orient light The nymph adorn’d me with attires as bright."

"Soon as the white and red mix’d finger’d dame Had gilt the mountains with her saffron flame."

"Men’s judgments sway on that side fortune leans."

"Swift men of foot, whose broad-set backs their trailing hair did hide."

"Friendship is the cement of two minds, As of one man the soul and body is; Of which one cannot sever but the other Suffers a needful separation."

"You shall die Twice now, where others, that mortality In her fair arms holds, shall but once decease."

"Two eagles, That mounted on the wings, together still Their strokes extended."

"Where ambition of place goes before fitness Of birth, contempt and disgrace follow."

"A race Of proud-lined loiterers, that never sow, Nor put a plant in earth, nor use a plough."

"As night the life-inclining stars best shows, So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose."

"Nor could the foole abstaine, But drunke as often."

"Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death. The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains. Dead weary was he."

"Mourne not inevitable things; thy teares can spring no deeds To helpe thee, nor recall thy sonne: impacience ever breeds Ill upon ill, makes worst things worse."

"As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind, And stars shine clear; to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows; And even the lowly valleys joy, to glitter in their sight, When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, And all the signs in heaven are seen that glad the shepherd's heart."

"As far as white Aurora's dews are sprinkled through the air."

"This said, he reached to take his son; who, of his arms afraid, And then the horse-hair plume, with which he was so overlaid, Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried. Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed and laid aside His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light; Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used, And all the other bench of gods: "O you that have infused Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star: Let his renown be clear as mine; equal his strength in war.""

"What man can blame The Greekes and Trojans to endure, for so admired a Dame, So many miseries, and so long? In her sweet countenance shine Lookes like the Godesses."

"The lady of the light, the rosy-fingered Morn, Rose from the hills."

"Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that imposed Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loosed From breasts heroic, sent them far to that invisible cave That no light comforts, and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave; To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son."

"He is at no end of his actions blest Whose ends will make him greatest, and not best."

"O Innocence, the sacred amulet 'Gainst all the poisons of infirmity; Of all misfortune, injury, and death, That makes a man in tune still in himself; Free from the hell to be his own accuser, Ever in quiet, endless joy enjoying; No strife nor no sedition in his powers; No motion in his will against his reason, No thought 'gainst thought— But (all parts in him, friendly and secure, Fruitful of all best things in all worst seasons) He can with every wish be in their plenty; When the infectious guilt of one foul crime Destroys the free content of all our time."

"There is no danger to the man that knows What life and death is; there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law. He goes before them, and commands them all, That to himself is a law rational."