D'AMBOIS AND THE REVENGE OF BUSSY D'AMBOIS
BY GEORGE CHAPMAN



BUSSY D'AMBOIS

AND

THE REVENGE OF
BUSSY D'AMBOIS


BY GEORGE CHAPMAN


EDITED BY

FREDERICK S. BOAS, M.A.

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN
QUEEN'S COLLEGE, BELFAST


BOSTON, U.S.A., AND LONDON
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
1905


COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
D. C. HEATH & CO.




Prefatory Note


In this volume an attempt is made for the first time to edit _Bussy
D'Ambois_ and _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_ in a manner suitable to
the requirements of modern scholarship. Of the relations of this edition
to its predecessors some details are given in the Notes on the Text of
the two plays. But in these few prefatory words I should like to call
attention to one or two points, and make some acknowledgments.

The immediate source of _Bussy D'Ambois_ still remains undiscovered. But
the episodes in the career of Chapman's hero, vouched for by
contemporaries like BrantГґme and Marguerite of Valois, and related in
some detail in my _Introduction_, are typical of the material which the
dramatist worked upon. And an important clue to the spirit in which he
handled it is the identification, here first made, of part of Bussy's
dying speech with lines put by Seneca into the mouth of Hercules in his
last agony on Mount Oeta. The exploits of D'Ambois were in Chapman's
imaginative vision those of a semi-mythical hero rather than of a
Frenchman whose life overlapped with his own.

On the _provenance_ of _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_ I have been
fortunately able, with valuable assistance from others, to cast much new
light. In an article in _The Athenæum_, Jan. 10, 1903, I showed that the
immediate source of many of the episodes in the play was Edward
Grimeston's translation (1607) of Jean de Serres's _Inventaire GГ©nГ©ral
de l'Histoire de France_. Since that date I owe to Mr. H. Richards,
Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, the important discovery that a number
of speeches in the play are borrowed from the _Discourses_ of Epictetus,
from whom Chapman drew his conception of the character of Clermont
D'Ambois. My brother-in-law, Mr. S. G. Owen, Student of Christ Church,
has given me valuable help in explaining some obscure classical
allusions. Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the editor of the _New English
Dictionary_, has kindly furnished me with the interpretation of a
difficult passage in _Bussy D'Ambois_; and Mr. W. J. Craig, editor of
the _Arden_ Shakespeare, and Mr. Le Gay Brereton, of the University of
Sidney, have been good enough to proffer helpful suggestions. Finally I
am indebted to Professor George P. Baker, the General Editor of this
Series, for valuable advice and help on a large number of points, while
the proofs of this volume were passing through the press.

F. S. B.




Biography


George Chapman was probably born in the year after Elizabeth's
accession. Anthony Wood gives 1557 as the date, but the inscription on
his portrait, prefixed to the edition of _The Whole Works of Homer_ in
1616, points to 1559. He was a native of Hitchin in Hertfordshire, as we
learn from an allusion in his poem _Euthymiæ Raptus_ or _The Teares of
Peace_, and from W. Browne's reference to him in _Britannia's Pastorals_
as "the learned shepheard of faire Hitching Hill." According to Wood "in
1574 or thereabouts, he being well grounded in school learning was sent
to the University." Wood is uncertain whether he went first to Oxford or
to Cambridge, but he is sure, though he gives no authority for the
statement, that Chapman spent some time at the former "where he was
observed to be most excellent in the Latin & Greek tongues, but not in
logic or philosophy, and therefore I presume that that was the reason
why he took no degree there."

His life for almost a couple of decades afterwards is a blank, though it
has been conjectured on evidences drawn from _The Shadow of Night_ and
_Alphonsus Emperor of Germany_, respectively, that he served in one of
Sir F. Vere's campaigns in the Netherlands, and that he travelled in
Germany. _The Shadow of Night_, consisting of two "poeticall hymnes"
appeared in 1594, and is his first extant work. It was followed in 1595
by _Ovid's Banquet of Sence_, _The Amorous Zodiac_, and other poems.
These early compositions, while containing fine passages, are obscure
and crabbed in style.[v-1] In 1598 appeared Marlowe's fragmentary _Hero
and Leander_ with Chapman's continuation. By this year he had
established his position as a playwright, for Meres in his _Palladis
Tamia_ praises him both as a writer of tragedy and of comedy. We know
from Henslowe's _Diary_ that his earliest extant comedy _The Blinde
Begger of Alexandria_ was produced on February 12, 1596, and that for
the next two or three years he was working busily for this enterprising
manager. _An Humerous dayes Myrth_ (pr. 1599), and