Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. I. Early Poetry: Chaucer to Donne

George Chapman (1559?–1634)

The Camp at Night (from Iliad VIII)

THE WINDS transferr’d into the friendly sky

Their supper’s savour; to the which they sat delightfully,

And spent all night in open field; fires round about them shined.

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,

And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the brows

Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows,

And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight,

When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,

And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd’s heart;

So many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part,

Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets show’d.

A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allow’d

Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats and hard white corn,

And all did wishfully expect the silver-throned morn.