SOURCE: A dedication to the Odyssey, in Chapman's Homer: The "Iliad," the "Odyssey," and the Lesser Homerica, Vol. 2, edited by Allardyce Nicoll, Pantheon Books, 1956, pp. 3-8.

A successful English dramatist and poet, Chapman is chiefly remembered as a scholar and translator of Homer's works. While his merits as a translator are often debated by scholars, his Iliad and Odyssey remain landmarks in Homer studies. In his 1614 dedication of the Odyssey to Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, Chapman deems Homer "the most wise and most divine Poet."

            TO THE
    MOST WORTHILY HONORED,
 MY SINGULAR GOOD LORD, ROBERT,
       EARLE OF SOMERSET,
    Lord Chamberlaine, & c

I have adventured, Right Noble Earle, out of my utmost and ever-vowed service to your Vertues, to entitle their Merits to the Patronage of Homer's English life—whose wisht naturall life the great Macedon would have protected as the spirit of his Empire—

That he to...