Bussy D'Ambois: "Ignorance is the mother of admiration"

Bussy D'Ambois by George Chapman

George Chapman was born at Hitchin in Hertfordshire in about 1559.  There is some evidence that Chapman attended Oxford University but did not obtain a degree, but the evidence is rather scant.

During the first part of the early 1590s Chapman was in Europe, in military action in the Low Countries fighting under the famed English general Sir Francis Vere.

It is from this period that his earliest published works are found including the obscure philosophical poems The Shadow of Night (1594) and Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595).

By the end of the 1590s, Chapman had become a successful playwright, working for the Elizabethan Theatrical entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe, and later for the Children of the Chapel.

From 1598 he published his translation of the Iliad in installments. In 1616 the complete Iliad and Odyssey appeared in The Whole Works of Homer, the first complete English translation, which until Alexander Pope's, was the most popular in the English language and was the entry point for most English readers of these magnificent poems.

The great Ben Jonson was also using Chapman’s talents in the play Eastward Ho (1605), co-written with John Marston.  Both Chapman and Jonson landed in jail over some satirical references to the Scots in the play but both were quick to say that Marston was the culprit.

Chapman also wrote one of the most successful masques of the Jacobean era, The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn, performed on February 15th, 1613. Another masque, The Masque of the Twelve Months, performed on Twelfth Night 1619 is also now given as Chapman’s.

George Chapman died in London on May 12th, 1634 having lived his latter years in poverty and debt. He was buried at St Giles in the Fields.

Index of Contents

PREFACTORY NOTE

GEORGE CHAPMAN – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

THE TEXT

BUSSY D’AMBOIS - A TRAGEDIE:

PROLOGUE

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SCENE - Paris

ACTUS PRIMI

SCENA PRIMA

SCENA SECUNDA

ACTUS SECUNDI

SCENA PRIMA

SCENA SECUNDA

ACTUS TERTII

SCENA PRIMA

SCENA SECUNDA

ACTUS QUARTI

SCENA PRIMA

SCENA SECUNDA

ACTUS QUINTI

SCENA PRIMA

SCENA SECUNDA

SCENA TERTIA

SCENA QUARTA

EPILOGUE

GEORGE CHAPMAN – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

GEORGE CHAPMAN – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

PREFACTORY 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 Brantôme 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 Général 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.

GEORGE CHAPMAN – A SHORT 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 All Fooles (pr. 1605) under the earlier title of The World Runs on Wheels,[vi-1] were composed during this period.

Meanwhile he had begun the work with which his name is most closely linked, his translation of Homer. The first instalment, entitled Seaven Bookes of the Iliades of Homere, Prince of Poets, was published in 1598, and was dedicated to the Earl of Essex. After the Earl's execution Chapman found a yet more powerful patron, for, as we learn from the letters printed recently in The Athenæum (cf. Bibliography, sec. III), he was appointed about 1604 sewer (i. e. cupbearer) in ordinary, to Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. The Prince encouraged him to proceed with his translation, and about 1609 appeared the first twelve books of the Iliad (including the seven formerly published) with a fine Epistle Dedicatory, to the high-born Prince of men, Henry. In 1611 the version of the Iliad was completed, and that of the Odyssey was, at Prince Henry's desire, now taken in hand. But the untimely death of the Prince, on November 6th, 1612, dashed all Chapman's hopes of receiving the anticipated reward of his labours. According to a petition which he addressed to the Privy Council, the Prince had promised him on the conclusion of his translation £300, and uppon his deathbed a good pension during my life. Not only were both of these withheld, but he was deprived of his post of sewer by Prince Charles. Nevertheless he completed the version of the Odyssey in 1614, and in 1616 he published a folio volume entitled The Whole Works of Homer. The translation, in spite of its inaccuracies and its conceits, is, by virtue of its sustained dignity and vigour, one of the noblest monuments of Elizabethan genius.

By 1605, if not earlier, Chapman had resumed his work for the stage. In that year he wrote conjointly with Marston and Jonson the comedy of Eastward Hoe. On account of some passages reflecting on the Scotch, the authors were imprisoned. The details of the affair are obscure. According to Jonson, in his conversation later with Drummond, Chapman and Marston were responsible for the obnoxious passages, and he voluntarily imprisoned himself with them. But in one of the recently printed letters, which apparently refers to this episode, Chapman declares that he and Jonson lie under the Kings displeasure for two clawses and both of them not our owne, i. e., apparently, written by Marston.[vii-1] However this may be, the offenders were soon released, and Chapman continued energetically his dramatic work. In 1606 appeared two of his most elaborate comedies, The Gentleman Usher and Monsieur D'Olive, and in the next year was published his first and most successful tragedy, Bussy D'Ambois. In 1608 were produced two connected plays, The Conspiracie and Tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron, dealing with recent events in France, and based upon materials in E. Grimeston's translation (1607) of Jean de Serres' History. Again Chapman found himself in trouble with the authorities, for the French ambassador, offended by a scene in which Henry IV's Queen was introduced in unseemly fashion, had the performance of the plays stopped for a time. Chapman had to go into hiding to avoid arrest, and when he came out, he had great difficulty in getting the plays licensed for publication, even with the omission of the offending episodes. His fourth tragedy based on French history, The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, appeared in 1613. It had been preceded by two comedies, May-Day (1611), and The Widdowes' Teares (1612). Possibly, as Mr Dobell suggests (Athenæum, 23 March, 1901), the coarse satire of the latter play may have been due to its author's annoyance at the apparent refusal of his suit by a widow to whom some of the recently printed letters are addressed. In 1613 he produced his Maske of the Middle Temple and Lyncolns Inne, which was one of the series performed in honour of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine. Another hymeneal work, produced on a much less auspicious occasion, was an allegorical poem, Andromeda Liberata, celebrating the marriage of the Earl of Somerset with the divorced Lady Essex in December, 1613.

The year 1614, when the Odyssey was completed, marks the culminating point of Chapman's literary activity. Henceforward, partly perhaps owing to the disappointment of his hopes through Prince Henry's death, his production was more