ABSTRACT
The 1598 translation of books 1, 2, and 7-11 of the Iliad is George Chapman's extraordinary attempt to discover contemporary topical meaning in a text he seems to have worshipped. In order to understand the difficulties, and possibilities for success, in Chapman's endeavor, it is helpful to recall the ambiguities in Achilles' reputation during the Renaissance. The competition between different appraisals of Achilles' active virtues is perhaps tacitly recognized in Shakespeare's description of Achilles in The Rape of Lucrece. Political conditions in England around the time that Chapman registered his work would have made a complex view of Achillean virtue especially pertinent, for from late 1597 and throughout 1598 important trends in Elizabethan foreign policy and politics were converging toward a crisis catalyzed by Essex. Chapman's organization results in a convenient correspondence between the Greeks' desperate need for Achilles and England's need for the Achillean Essex.
