Chapman's Homer

George Chapman, from his 1616 translation of The Odyssey Book V:

Then forth he came, his both knees faltering, 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 sank to death.
The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins
His toils had wracked t'a labouring woman's pains.

Alexander Pope, the same lines from his 1725 translation:

That moment, fainting as he touch'd the shore,
He dropp'd his sinewy arms: his knees no more
Perform'd their office, or his weight upheld:
His swoln heart heaved; his bloated body swell'd:
From mouth and nose the briny torrent ran,
And lost in lassitude lay all the man.


From Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

"He that imitates the divine Iliad, does not imitate Homer."

To create an original work of genius, Young advises authors to "take the same method, that Homer took . . . tread in his steps to the same Fountain of Immortality; drink where he drank, at the true Helicon, that is, at the breast of Nature: Imitate; but imitate not the Composition, but the Man" (20-1).