George Chapman (c.1560–1634) was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. An essential figure in the English Renaissance, he is primarily known for his translations of Homer; the complete Iliad and Odyssey were published in 1616 and long remained the standard English versions. Chapman has been speculated to be the Rival Poet of Shakespeare’s sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century.
Born near Hitchin, Hertfordshire, Chapman began to make a reputation in Elizabethan literary circles with his poem ‘The Shadow of the Night’ (1594,) and in 1595 saw the production of his original extant play, the popular comedy The Blind Beggar of Alexandria.
Chapman’s complete translation of The Whole Works of Homer: Prince of Poets, appeared in 1611, after which he set to work on the Odyssey (completed 1616.) Chapman’s Homer is known to many through John Keats’s poem ‘On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’ (1816.)
Chapman joined the dramatists Ben Jonson and John Marston in the composition of Eastward Hoe (1605,) in which slighting references to the Scots earned the authors a jail sentence. Other plays include The Gentleman Usher (1606,) the Tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron (1608,) The Widow’s Tears (1612,) and Caesar and Pompey (1631.)
Chapman and the dramatist James Shirley jointly produced The Ball (1632) and The Tragedie of Chabot (1639.) Among Chapman’s non-dramatic works are the epic philosophical poem Euthymiae & Raptus (1609,) Petrarch’s Seven Penitential Psalmes (1612,) The Divine Poem of Musaeus (1616,) and The Georgicks of Hesiod (1618.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by George Chapman
Your noblest natures are most credulous.
—George Chapman
We inherit nothing truly, but what our actions make us worthy of.
—George Chapman
Topics: Ancestry
Be free all worthy spirits, and stretch yourselves, for greatness and for height.
—George Chapman
Topics: Spirit, Spirituality
Promise is most given when the least is said.
—George Chapman
Topics: Promises
They’re only truly great who are truly good.
—George Chapman
Topics: Character, Honesty, Wisdom, Greatness & Great Things
Who to himself is law, no law doth need.
—George Chapman
Topics: Self-Control
And let a scholar all earth’s volumes carry, he will be but a walking dictionary: a mere articulate clock.
—George Chapman
Let no man value at a little price a virtuous woman’s counsel.
—George Chapman
Topics: Advice
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.
—George Chapman
Topics: Think, Now
Marriage is ever made by destiny.
—George Chapman
Topics: Marriage
Pure innovation is more gross than error.
—George Chapman
Topics: Innovation
O, innocence, the sacred amulet against all the poisons of infirmity, and all misfortunes, injury, and death.
—George Chapman
Topics: Innocence
Let pride go afore, shame will follow after.
—George Chapman
Topics: Pride
Blood, though it sleep a time, yet never dies.
—George Chapman
Topics: Murder
Danger, the spur of all great minds.
—George Chapman
Topics: Danger
Flatterers look like friends, as wolves like dogs.
—George Chapman
Topics: Candor, Compliments, Friendship, Flattery
Man is a name of honor for a king; additions take away from each chief thing.
—George Chapman
Topics: Titles
Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects.—Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold; extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license.
—George Chapman
For one heat, all know, doth drive out another,
One passion doth expel another still.
—George Chapman
Topics: Passion
Ignorance is the mother of admiration.
—George Chapman
Topics: Admiration
Envy is like a fly that passes all a body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores.
—George Chapman
Topics: Envy
Our lives, by acts exemplary, not only win ourselves good names, but do to others give matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.
—George Chapman
Topics: Example
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