Chapman's Discovery of Homer

Chapman's translation of the Iliad was undertaken in three distinct stages. In 1598 he published Seaven Bookes of the Iliades1 with a dedication 'To the most Honored now living Instance of the Achilleian vertues eternized by divine Homere, the Earle of Essexe'. In 1608 he made some minor revisions to the books already translated (I, II, VII-XI) and added the intervening books and Book XII to produce Homer ... in twelve Bookes. At a later stage he translated the second half of the poem in fifteen weeks and entirely re-translated the first two books (except for the catalogue of forces at the end of Book II). In the 'commentarius' added to the 161 1 edition of The Iliads of Homer, he tells the reader that it was only in this final phase that he clearly discovered his author: