Chappy
Art Neuendorffer
<<Of Chapman's dramatic works, about a dozen plays survive,
chief of which are his tragedies: Bussy d'Ambois (1607), The
Conspiracie, & Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron . . . (1608), & The
Widdowes Teares (1612). Plutarch's moral treatises furnished Chapman
with numerous passages, and the stoic philosophy of Cleremont in
The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois is built up from passages in a Latin
translation of Epictetus. Bussy D'Ambois, Chapman's best tragedy, may
have been written as early as 1598, to judge from the names of the
characters in an inventory of garments to be found in Henslowe's
Diary for 1598. If so, it was revised before publication in 1607.
Possibly the play was inspired by Marlowe's Massacre at Paris, for
several of the same historical figures appear in the two, and there
is a not dissimilar portrayal of bold, arrogant characters. As in
other cases, Chapman must have had contemporary accounts for his
historical details, but the extant French works of importance
covering the field seem to have been printed after the play
was written--De Thou's Historiæ sui temporis,
formerly regarded as a possible source, the memoirs of Brantôme
and Marguerite de Valois, and Rosset's Histoires traguques.
Whatever his source, he has varied from historical fact, not only in a
convention like the introduction of THE GHOST, but in giving a logical
connection to the incidents chosen for plot, and in making Bussy a man
of lower social status and more truculent nature than seems warranted.
Bussy thus becomes an example of the aspiring spirits produced by the
Renaissance, who dared much to win recognition, as other historical
characters in the play have taken form as Renaissance types.
Chapman's later life was one of poverty.>>
http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc85.html
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_A Golden Book, bound richly up_ by Barbara Burris
<<Besides borrowing from the plot of Hamlet,
Chapman openly paraphrased lines from Shake-speare's play:
Clermont. (Like the ghost appearing to Hamlet)
My brother's spirit urging his revenge.
Guise. (Like Gertrude to Hamlet upon
the visitation of the ghost)
Standest thou still thus, and applyest thine
ears, and eyes to nothing?
Clermont. Saw you nothing there?
(lines100-105, V,i.)8
Clermont. (cf. Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech)
.this imperfect Bloud and flesh,
Shrincke at in spite of me; their solidst part
Melting like snow within me.
(lines 7-9, V.iv.)
...While this same sincke of sensualitie swels,
Who would live sinking in it? and not spring
Vp to the Starres, and leave this carrion here,
For Wolfes, and Vultures, and for Dogges to teare?
(lines 16-19, V.iv.)9
Noted Chapman commentator Thomas Marc Parrott, supports a similar
view of Chapman's characterization of Clermont, though not
perceiving the Oxford connection that Allen makes.
Parrott states that, "The connexion between Hamlet and The Revenge
of Bussy D'Ambois is a commonplace of criticism; but it does not
seem to have been noticed that this relation, except in certain
details, is not one of imitation. On the contrary, it is one of
deliberate and carefully planned contrast."
This same play which praises and names the Earl of Oxford, describes
the high born Poet's book, whose every detail fits exactly the book in
the Ashbourne portrait of Shakespeare, which X-rays revealed beneath
crude over-painting to be the poet and playwright Edward de Vere, Earl
of Oxford. In the portrait Oxford Shake-speare is holding this richly
bound book of his own verses as described in the play. Here we have
actual physical evidence of the gold bound and crimson stringed book
in the painting that is described in the play, which I will show that
there is reason to believe is Oxford's own specially bound copy of the
Sonnets.
As Parrott notes, parts of the passage about the high born "foolish
poet" in the Revenge paraphrase a mocking poem of the ancient Roman
lyric poet Catullus. In his poem Catullus attacked the poetry of
Alfenus Varus under the satirical name Suffenus. Catullus writes that
Suffenus is "a charming fellow, and has wit. He also makes many more
verses than anyone else. I suppose he has got 10,000 or more written
out in full imperial paper, new rolls, new bosses, red ties, parchment
wrappers; all ruled with lead and smoothed with pumice. When you come
to read these, the fashionable well-bred Suffenus I spoke of seems to
be nothing but any goatherd or ditcher the same man who was just now a
dinner table wit is more clumsy than the clumsy country whenever he
touches poetry and, at the same time he delights in himself and
admires himself so much."
In 1580 Gabriel Harvey used the words "apish" and Ape to lampoon
Oxford and the French and Italianate dress and tendencies that Oxford
brought back from his travels to the continent, in his satirical yet
equally admiring poem about the earl of Oxford, Speculum Tuscanismi,
which included the following lines:
"...A little apish flat couched fast to the pate
like an oyster, French Camerick ruffs, deep
with a whiteness starched to the purpose..."
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an Eagle,
[Percy Allen] draws attention to a passage in
_A Lover's Complaint_ similar to the description
of the sonnets book in The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois:
...of folded schedulls had she many a one,
Which she perusd, sighed, tore, and gave the flud;
Crackt many a ring of posied gold and bone,
Bidding them find their Sepulchers in mud,
Found yet mo letters sadly pend in blood,
With sleided silke, feate and affectedly
Enswath'd and seald to curious secrecy.
The Dutch painter Cornelius Ketel, whose initials Barrell found in the
painting through X-rays, was in England from 1573 to 1581. Hatton
introduced Ketel as a painter to Elizabeth's Court in 1578. Van Mander
notes Ketel painted a portrait of Oxford. In 1580 Harvey mocked
Oxford's wearing of large French Camerick ruffs. Barrell's X-ray
examination revealed a large circular ruff under the visible ruff.
Lord Russell's 1580 French ruff fits perfectly over the outlines of
this hidden ruff.
A 1578 Cornelius Ketel painting of Thomas Pead shows remarkable
similarities to the Ashbourne, particularly the skull sitting on a
partially-showing table, the sitter's black costume with white trim,
and a medium-brown background. In a time when portraits often
exhibited the sitter's social position and occupation which the
painter depicted with physical articles that were associated with or
symbolized these functions and states, the Dutch painter Ketel was
particularly prone to include these articles in his paintings.
So it is not surprising to see Oxford, the nobleman poet playwright
and courtier, holding a special book of his own poems in one hand and
a courtier's guantlet glove in the other hand in the Ashbourne
portrait of Shakespeare. It is absurd however to claim that this
golden book of verses and the courtier's gauntlet glove would define
either the Stratford grain dealer Shakspere or the London haberdasher
merchant Hamersley, whom the Folger Shakespeare Library now claims to
be the Ashbourne subject. This merchant Hamersley-who did not have a
coat of arms until 1614 and did not become Lord Mayor of London until
1627-would have been depicted with articles commonly associated with
his haberdasher merchant's trade at the supposed 1611 date shown on
this painting.
Cherrett notes in his letter that Hamersley was "one of those shrewd
and hard-working Elizabethan merchants and financiers who survived in
a tempestuous age and rose to considerable wealth, a title and civic
fame. He was closely associated with the Haberdashers' Company.
Clearly he was a very powerful figure in the commercial life of the
capital "and" was also very active in public life.". Records show
"him a regular and dutiful attender at meetings of his various
companies and civic bodies on which he served. But his greatest
interest was in the army. He was first Colonel of the City's forces
and President (1619-1633) of the Hon. Artillery Company."
Hardly the man to commission a portrait of himself in 1611 holding
an elaborately gilded book with crimson tie strings in one hand and
a courtier's gauntlet glove in his other hand. which connects the
ring to the boar of the Oxford's. Dr. Spielmann of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, who examined the Ashbourne in 1910, pointed out that "it
is rare to find it (a thumb ring) in the portraits of Englishmen not
of exalted rank, that of John Fletcher is the only one I can recall."
Oxford's positioning in the portrait indicates that the two remaining
symbols in the painting are closely connected together. He is shown
resting his right arm on the cranium of a skull on the table next to
him, with the book "bound richly up and strung with Crimson strings"
in his right hand, his index finger holding his place between the
pages. In a number of Queen Elizabeth's portraits she is shown with
books, including the 1590 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts portraying
the Queen with her hand resting on some books on a table. And the
learned Sir Thomas Smythe, who tutored the young Edward de Vere,
is shown in his burial monument holding a book.>>
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George Villiers [Buckingham] :
"The world's a forest, in which all lose their way;
though by a different path each goes astray."
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<<As a novelist Dumas began by writing short stories, but his happy
collaboration. with Auguste Maquet, which began in 1839, led to the
admirable series of historical novels in which he proposed to
reconstruct the whole course of French history. In 1844 he produced,
with Maquet's help, that most famous of "cloak and sword" romances,
Las Trois Mousquetaires (8 vols), the material
for which was discovered in the Mdmoires de M. d' Artagnan
(Cologne, 1701-I 702) of Courtils de Sandras. The adventures
of d'Artagnan and the three musketeers, the gigantic Porthos,
the clever Aramis, and the melancholy Athos,
who unite to defend the honour of Anne of Austria
against Richelieu and the machinations of "Milady,"
are brought down. to the murder of *Buckingham* in 1629.
Their admirers were gratified by two sequels,
Vingt ans aprés (to vols., 1845) and Dix ans plus tard, on le vicomte
de Bragelonne (26 pts., 1848-1850), which opens in 1660, showing
us a mature d'Artagnan, a respectable captain of musketeers,
and contains the magnificent account of the heroic death
of Porthos. The three musketeers are as famous in England
as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to
sunset with the utmost contentment of mind, and R. L. Stevenson.
and Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band in Memories
and Portraits and Letters to Dead Authors.
Before 1844 was out Dumas had completed a second great romance
in I 2 volumes, Le Comic de Monte-Cristo, in which he had help
from Fiorentino as well as from Maquet. The idea of the
intrigue was suggested by Peuchet's Police dévoilée,
and the stress laid on the earlier incidents,
Dantès, Danglars and the Chateau d'If, is said to have been an.
afterthought. Almost as famous as these two romances
is the set of Valois novels of which Henri IV.
is the central figure, beginning with La Reine Margot
(6 vols., 1845), which contains the history of the struggle between
Catherine of Medicis and Henry of Navarre; the history of the reign of
Henry III. is told in La Dame de Monsoreau (8 vols., 1846), generally
known in English as Chicot the *Jester* , from its principal
character; and in Les Quarante-cinq (10 vols., 1847-1848), in
which Diane de Monsoreau avenges herself on the duke of Anjou
for the death of her former lover, Bussy d' Amboise.>>
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Art Neuendorffer