The opening of CHAPMAN’S INTRODUCTION
TO THE MOST WORTHILY HONOURED,
MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, ROBERT,
EARL OF SOMERSET,
LORD CHAMBERLAIN, ETC.I have adventured, right noble Earl, out of my utmost and ever-vowed service to your virtues, to entitle their merits to the patronage of Homer’s English life, whose wished natural life the great Macedon would have protected as the spirit of his empire,
That he to his unmeasur’d mighty acts
Might add a fame as vast; and their extracts,
In fires as bright and endless as the stars,
His breast might breathe and thunder out his wars.
But that great monarch’s love of fame and praise
Receives an envious cloud in our foul days;
For since our great ones ceased themselves to do,
Deeds worth their praise, they hold it folly too
To feed their praise in others. But what can,
Of all the gifts that are, be giv’n to man
More precious than Eternity and Glory,
Singing their praises in unsilenc’d story?
Which no black day, no nation, nor no age,
No change of time or fortune, force nor rage,
Shall ever rase? All which the monarch knew,
Where Homer liv’d entitled, would ensue:
_Cuius de gurgite vivo …