Introduction

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 Brantome 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 Athenaeum, 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 General 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.

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 Euthymiae 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 Athenaeum (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 L300, 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 (Athenaeum, 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 intermittent. Translations of the Homeric Hymns, of the Georgicks of Hesiod, and other classical writings, mainly occupy the period till 1631. In that year he printed another tragedy, Caesar and Pompey, which, however, as we learn from the dedication, had been written "long since." The remaining plays with which his name has been connected did not appear during his lifetime. A comedy, The Ball, licensed in 1632, but not published till 1639, has the names of Chapman and Shirley on the title-page, but the latter was certainly its main author. Another play, however, issued in the same year, and ascribed to the same hands, The Tragedie of Chabot, Admiral of France makes the impression, from its subject-matter and its style, of being chiefly due to Chapman. In 1654 two tragedies, Alphonsus Emperour of Germany and The Revenge for Honour, were separately published under Chapman's name. Their authorship, however, is doubtful. There is nothing in the style or diction of Alphonsus which resembles Chapman's undisputed work, and it is hard to believe that he had a hand in it. The Revenge for Honour is on an Oriental theme, entirely different from those handled by Chapman in his other tragedies, and the versification is marked by a greater frequency of feminine endings than is usual with him; but phrases and thoughts occur which may be paralleled from his plays, and the work may be from his hand.

On May 12, 1634, he died, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles's in the Field, where his friend Inigo Jones erected a monument to his memory. According to Wood, he was a person of "most reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet." Though his material success seems to have been small, he gained the friendship of many of the most illustrious spirits of his time—Essex, Prince Henry, Bacon, Jonson, Webster, among the number—and it has been his good fortune to draw in after years splendid tributes from such successors in the poetic art as Keats and A. C. Swinburne.

[v-1] This Biography was written before the appearance of Mr. Acheson's volume, Shakespeare and the Rival Poet. Without endorsing all his arguments or conclusions, I hold that Mr. Acheson has proved that Shakespeare in a number of his Sonnets refers to these earlier poems of Chapman's. He has thus brought almost conclusive evidence in support of Minto's identification of Shakespeare's rival with Chapman—a conjecture with which I, in 1896, expressed strong sympathy in my Shakspere and his Predecessors.

[vi-1] This identification seems established by the entry in Henslowe's Diary, under date 2 July 1599. "Lent unto thomas Dowton to paye Mr Chapman, in full paymente for his boocke called the world rones a whelles, and now all foolles, but the foolle, some of xxxs."

The group of Chapman's plays based upon recent French history, to which Bussy D'Ambois and its sequel belong, forms one of the most unique memorials of the Elizabethan drama. The playwrights of the period were profoundly interested in the annals of their own country, and exploited them for the stage with a magnificent indifference to historical accuracy. Gorboduc and Locrine were as real to them as any Lancastrian or Tudor prince, and their reigns were made to furnish salutary lessons to sixteenth century "magistrates." Scarcely less interesting were the heroes of republican Greece and Rome: Caesar, Pompey, and Antony, decked out in Elizabethan garb, were as familiar to the playgoers of the time as their own national heroes, real or legendary. But the contemporary history of continental states had comparatively little attraction for the dramatists of the period, and when they handled it, they usually had some political or religious end in view. Under a thin veil of allegory, Lyly in Midas gratified his audience with a scathing denunciation of the ambition and gold-hunger of Philip II of Spain; and half a century later Middleton in a still bolder and more transparent allegory, The Game of Chess, dared to ridicule on the stage Philip's successor, and his envoy, Gondomar. But both plays were suggested by the elements of friction in the relations of England and Spain.

French history also supplied material to some of the London playwrights, but almost exclusively as it bore upon the great conflict between the forces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The Masaker of France, which Henslowe mentions as having been played on January 3, 1592-3, may or may not be identical with Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris, printed towards the close of the sixteenth century, but in all probability it expressed similarly the burning indignation of Protestant England at the appalling events of the Eve of St. Bartholomew. Whatever Marlowe's religious or irreligious views may have been, he acted on this occasion as the mouthpiece of the vast majority of his countrymen, and he founded on recent French history a play which, with all its defects, is of special interest to our present inquiry. For Chapman, who finished Marlowe's incompleted poem, Hero and Leander, must have been familiar with this drama, which introduced personages and events that were partly to reappear in the two Bussy plays. A brief examination of The Massacre at Paris will, therefore, help to throw into relief the special characteristics of Chapman's dramas.

It opens with the marriage, in 1572, of Henry of Navarre and Margaret, sister of King Charles IX, which was intended to assuage the religious strife. But the Duke of Guise, the protagonist of the play, is determined to counterwork this policy, and with the aid of Catherine de Medicis, the Queen-Mother, and the Duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry III), he arranges the massacre of the Huguenots. Of the events of the fatal night we get a number of glimpses, including the murder of a Protestant, Scroune, by Mountsorrell (Chapman's Montsurry), who is represented as one of the Guise's most fanatical adherents. Charles soon afterwards dies, and is succeeded by his brother Henry, but "his mind runs on his minions," and Catherine and the Guise wield all real power. But there is one sphere which Guise cannot control—his wife's heart, which is given to Mugeroun, one of the "minions" of the King. Another of the minions, Joyeux, is sent against Henry of Navarre, and is defeated and slain; but Henry, learning that Guise has raised an army against his sovereign "to plant the Pope and Popelings in the realm," joins forces with the King against the rebel, who is treacherously murdered and dies crying, "Vive la messe! perish Huguenots!" His brother, the Cardinal, meets a similar fate, but the house of Lorraine is speedily revenged by a friar, who stabs King Henry. He dies, vowing vengeance upon Rome, and sending messages to Queen Elizabeth, "whom God hath bless'd for hating papistry."

It is easy to see how a play on these lines would have appealed to an Elizabethan audience, while Marlowe, whether his religious sympathies were engaged or not, realized the dramatic possibilities of the figure of the Guise, one of the lawlessly aspiring brotherhood that had so irresistible a fascination for his genius. But it is much more difficult to understand why, soon after the accession of James I, Chapman should have gone back to the same period of French history, and reintroduced a number of the same prominent figures, Henry III, Guise, his Duchess, and Mountsorrell, not in their relation to great political and religious outbreaks, but grouped round a figure who can scarcely have been very familiar to the English theatre-going public—Louis de Clermont, Bussy d'Amboise.[xii-1]

This personage was born in 1549, and was the eldest son of Jacques de Clermont d'Amboise, seigneur de Bussy et de Saxe-Fontaine, by his first wife, Catherine de Beauvais. He followed the career of arms, and in 1568 we hear of him as a commandant of a company. He was in Paris during the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and took advantage of it to settle a private feud. He had had a prolonged lawsuit with his cousin Antoine de Clermont, a prominent Huguenot, and follower of the King of Navarre. While his rival was fleeing for safety he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Bussy, who dispatched him then and there. He afterwards distinguished himself in various operations against the Huguenots, and by his bravery and accomplishments won the favour of the Duke of Anjou, who, after the accession of Henry III in 1575, was heir to the throne. The Duke in this year appointed him his couronell, and henceforward he passed into his service. In 1576, as a reward for negotiating "la paix de Monsieur" with the Huguenots, the Duke received the territories of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry, and at once appointed Bussy governor of Anjou. In November the new governor arrived at Angers, the capital of the Duchy, and was welcomed by the citizens; but the disorders and exactions of his troops soon aroused the anger of the populace, and the King had to interfere in their behalf, though for a time Bussy set his injunctions at defiance. At last he retired from the city, and rejoined the Duke, in close intercourse with whom he remained during the following years, accompanying him finally on his unsuccessful expedition to the Low Countries in the summer of 1578. On Anjou's return to court in January, 1579, Bussy, who seems to have alienated his patron by his presumptuous behaviour, did not go with him, but took up his residence again in the territory of Anjou. He was less occupied, however, with his official duties than with his criminal passion for Francoise de Maridort, wife of the Comte de Monsoreau, who had been appointed grand-veneur to the Duke. The favorite mansion of the Comte was at La Coutanciere, and it was here that Bussy ardently pursued his intrigue with the Countess. But a jocular letter on the subject, which he sent to the Duke of Anjou, was shown, according to the historian, De Thou, by the Duke to the King, who, in his turn, passed it on to Montsoreau. The latter thereupon forced his wife to make a treacherous assignation with Bussy at the chateau on the night of the 18th of August, and on his appearance, with his companion in pleasure, Claude Colasseau, they were both assassinated by the retainers of the infuriated husband.

The tragic close of Bussy's life has given his career an interest disproportionate to his historical importance. But the drama of La Coutanciere was only the final episode in a career crowded with romantic incidents. The annalists and memoir-writers of the period prove that Bussy's exploits as a duellist and a gallant had impressed vividly the imagination of his contemporaries. Margaret of Valois, the wife of Henry IV, Brantome, who was a relative and friend of D'Ambois, and L'Estoile, the chronicler and journalist, are amongst those who have left us their impressions of this beau sabreur. Chapman must have had access to memorials akin to theirs as a foundation for his drama, and though, for chronological reasons, they cannot have been utilized by him, they illustrate the materials which he employed.

The first two Acts of the play are chiefly occupied with Bussy's arrival at court, his entry into the service of Monsieur, his quarrel with Guise, and the duel between himself and Barrisor, with two supporters on either side. Brantome, in his Discours sur les Duels, relates from personal knowledge an incident between Guise and Bussy, which took place shortly after the accession of Henry III. The Duke took occasion of a royal hunting party to draw Bussy alone into the forest, and to demand certain explanations of him. D'Ambois gave these in a satisfactory manner; but had he not done so, the Duke declared, in spite of their difference of rank, he would have engaged in single combat with him. The explanations demanded may well have concerned the honour of the Duchess, and we get at any rate a hint for the episode in Chapman's play (I, ii, 57-185).

For the duelling narrative (II, i, 35-137) we get considerably more than a hint. Our chief authority is again Brantome, in another work, the Discours sur les Couronnels de l'infanterie de France. He tells us that he was with Bussy at a play, when a dispute arose between him and the Marquis of Saint-Phal as to whether the jet embroidery on a certain muff represented XX or YY. The quarrel was appeased for the time being, but on the following day Bussy, meeting Saint-Phal at the house of a lady with whom he had had relations, and who was now the mistress of the Marquis, renewed the dispute. An encounter took place between Bussy, supported by five or six gentlemen, and Saint-Phal, assisted by an equal number of Scotchmen of the Royal Guard, one of whom wounded Bussy's hand. Thereupon Saint-Phal withdrew, but his fire-eating rival was anxious at all hazards for another encounter. It was only with the greatest difficulty, as Brantome relates in entertaining fashion, that the King was able to bring about a reconciliation between them. Such an episode, reported with exaggeration of details, might well have suggested the narrative in Act II of the triple encounter.

Brantome further relates a midnight attack upon Bussy, about a month later, by a number of his jealous rivals, when he had a narrow escape from death. Of this incident another account has been given by Margaret of Valois in her Memoires. Margaret and her brother, the Duke of Anjou, were devoted to one another, and Bussy was for a time a paramour of the Queen of Navarre. Though she denies the liaison, she says of him that there was not "en ce siecle-la de son sexe et de sa qualite rien de semblable en valeur, reputation, grace, et esprit." Margaret, L'Estoile, and Brantome all relate similar incidents during Bussy's sojourn at court in the year 1578, and the last-named adds:

It is plain, therefore, that Chapman in his picture of Bussy's quarrels and encounters-at-arms was deviating little, except in details of names and dates, from the actual facts of history. Bussy's career was so romantic that it was impossible for even the most inventive dramatist to embellish it. This was especially true of its closing episode, which occupies the later acts of Chapman's drama—the intrigue with the Countess of Montsoreau and the tragic fate which it involved. It is somewhat singular that the earliest narratives of the event which have come down to us were published subsequently to the play. The statement, accepted for a long time, that De Thou's Historiae sui Temporis was the basis of Chapman's tragedy, has been completely disproved. The passage in which he narrates the story of Bussy's death does not occur in the earlier editions of his work, and first found its way into the issue published at Geneva in 1620. A similar narrative appeared in the following year in L'Estoile's Journal, which first saw the light in 1621, ten years after its author's death. But under a thin disguise there had already appeared a detailed history of Bussy's last amour and his fall, though this, too, was later than Chapman's drama. A novelist, Francois de Rosset, had published a volume of tales entitled Les Histoires Tragiques de Nostre Temps. The earliest known edition is one of 1615, though it was preceded, probably not long, by an earlier edition full of "fautes insupportables," for which Rosset apologizes. He is careful to state in his preface that he is relating "des histoires autant veritables que tristes et funestes. Les noms de la pluspart des personnages sont seulement desguisez en ce Theatre, a fin de n'affliger pas tant les familles de ceux qui en ont donne le sujet." The fate of Bussy forms the subject of the seventeenth history, entitled "De la mort pitoyable du valeureux Lysis." Lysis was the name under which Margaret of Valois celebrated the memory of her former lover in a poem entitled "L'esprit de Lysis disant adieu a sa Flore." But apart from this proof of identification, the details given by Rosset are so full that there can be no uncertainty in the matter. Indeed, in some of his statements, as in his account of the first meeting between the lovers, Rosset probably supplies facts unrecorded by the historians of the period.

From a comparison of these more or less contemporary records it is evident that, whatever actual source Chapman may have used, he has given in many respects a faithful portrait of the historical Bussy D'Ambois. It happened that at the time of Bussy's death the Duke of Anjou, his patron, was in London, laying ineffective siege to the hand of Elizabeth. This coincidence may have given wider currency in England to Bussy's tragic story than would otherwise have been the case. But a quarter of a century later this adventitious interest would have evaporated, and the success of Chapman's play would be due less to its theme than to its qualities of style and construction. To these we must therefore now turn.

With Chapman's enthusiasm for classical literature, it was natural that he should be influenced by classical models, even when handling a thoroughly modern subject. His Bussy is, in certain aspects, the miles gloriosus of Latin drama, while in the tragic crisis of his fate he demonstrably borrows, as is shown in this edition for the first time, the accents of the Senecan Hercules on Mount Oeta (cf. notes on v, iv, 100 and 109). Hence the technique of the work is largely of the semi-Senecan type with which Kyd and his school had familiarized the English stage. Thus Bussy's opening monologue serves in some sort as a Prologue; the narrative by the Nuntius in Act II, i, 35-137, is in the most approved classical manner; an Umbra or Ghost makes its regulation entrance in the last Act, and though the accumulated horrors of the closing scenes violate every canon of classical art, they had become traditional in the semi-Senecan type of play, and were doubtless highly acceptable to the audiences of the period. But while the Senecan and semi-Senecan methods had their dangers, their effect on English dramatists was in so far salutary that they necessitated care in plot-construction. And it is doubtful whether Chapman has hitherto received due credit for the ingenuity and skill with which he has woven into the texture of his drama a number of varied threads. Bussy's life was, as has been shown, crowded with incidents, and the final catastrophe at La Coutanciere had no direct relation with the duels and intrigues of his younger days at Court. Chapman, however, has connected the earlier and the later episodes with much ingenuity. Departing from historical truth, he represents Bussy as a poor adventurer at Court, whose fortunes are entirely made by the patronage of Monsieur. His sudden elevation turns his head, and he insults the Duke of Guise by courting his wife before his face, thus earning his enmity, and exciting at the same time the ridicule of the other courtiers. Hence springs the encounter with Barrisor and his companions, and this is made to serve as an introduction to the amour between Bussy and Tamyra, as Chapman chooses to call the Countess of Montsurry. For Barrisor, we are told (II, ii, 202 ff.), had long wooed the Countess, and the report was spread that the "main quarrel" between him and Bussy "grew about her love," Barrisor thinking that D'Ambois's courtship of the Duchess of Guise was really directed towards "his elected mistress." On the advice of a Friar named Comolet, to whom Chapman strangely enough assigns the repulsive role of go-between, Bussy wins his way at night into Tamyra's chamber on the plea that he has come to reassure her that she is in no way guilty of Barrisor's blood. Thus the main theme of the play is linked with the opening incidents, and the action from first to last is laid in Paris, whither the closing scenes of Bussy's career are shifted. By another ingenious departure from historical truth the Duke of Anjou, to whom Bussy owes his rise, is represented as the main agent in his fall. He is angered at the favour shown by the King to the follower whom he had raised to serve his own ends, and he conspires with Guise for his overthrow. He is the more eagerly bent upon this when he discovers through Tamyra's waiting-woman that the Countess, whose favours he has vainly sought to win, has granted them to Bussy. It is he who, by means of a paper, convinces Montsurry of his wife's guilt, and it is he, together with Guise, who suggests to the Count the stratagem by which Tamyra is forced to decoy her paramour to his doom. All this is deftly contrived and does credit to Chapman's dramatic craftsmanship. It is true that the last two Acts are spun out with supernatural episodes of a singularly unconvincing type. The Friar's invocation of Behemoth, who proves a most unserviceable spirit, and the vain attempts of this scoundrelly ecclesiastic's ghost to shield D'Ambois from his fate, strike us as wofully crude and mechanical excursions into the occult. But they doubtless served their turn with audiences who had an insatiable craving for such manifestations, and were not particular as to the precise form they took.

In point of character-drawing the play presents a more complex problem. Bussy is a typically Renaissance hero and appealed to the sympathies of an age which set store above all things on exuberant vitality and prowess, and was readier than our own to allow them full rein. The King seems to be giving voice to Chapman's conception of Bussy's character, when he describes him in III, ii, 90 ff. as

And in certain aspects Bussy does not come far short of the ideal thus pictured. His bravery, versatility, frankness, and readiness of speech are all vividly portrayed, while his mettlesome temper and his arrogance are alike essential to his role, and are true to the record of the historical D'Ambois. But there is a coarseness of fibre in Chapman's creation, an occasional foul-mouthed ribaldry of utterance which robs him of sympathetic charm. He has in him more of the swashbuckler and the bully than of the courtier and the cavalier. Beaumont and Fletcher, one cannot help feeling, would have invested him with more refinement and grace, and would have given a tenderer note to the love-scenes between him and Tamyra. Bussy takes the Countess's affections so completely by storm, and he ignores so entirely the rights of her husband, that it is difficult to accord him the measure of sympathy in his fall, which the fate of a tragic hero should evoke.

Tamyra appeals more to us, because we see in her more of the conflict between passion and moral obligation, which is the essence of drama. Her scornful rejection of the advances of Monsieur (II, ii), though her husband palliates his conduct as that of "a bachelor and a courtier, I, and a prince," proves that she is no light o' love, and that her surrender to Bussy is the result of a sudden and overmastering passion. Even in the moment of keenest expectation she is torn between conflicting emotions (II, ii, 169-182), and after their first interview, Bussy takes her to task because her

But she masters her scruples sufficiently to play the thorough-going dissembler when she meets her husband, and she keeps up the pretence when she declares to Bussy before the Court (III, ii, 138), "Y'are one I know not," and speaks of him vaguely in a later scene as "the man." So, too, when Montsurry first tells her of the suspicions which Monsieur has excited in him, she protests with artfully calculated indignation against the charge of wrong-doing with this "serpent." But the brutal and deliberate violence of her husband when he knows the truth, and the perfidious meanness with which he makes her the reluctant instrument of her lover's ruin, win back for her much of our alienated sympathy. Yet at the close her position is curiously equivocal. It is at her prayer that Bussy has spared Montsurry when "he hath him down" in the final struggle; but when her lover is mortally wounded by a pistol shot, she implores his pardon for her share in bringing him to his doom. And when the Friar's ghost seeks to reconcile husband and wife, the former is justified in crying ironically (V, iv, 163-64):

Montsurry's portraiture, indeed, suffers from the same lack of consistency as his wife's. In his earlier relations with her he strikes a tenderer note than is heard elsewhere in the play, and his first outburst of fury, when his suspicions are aroused, springs, like Othello's, from the depth of his love and trust (IV, i, 169-70):

But there is nothing of Othello's noble agony of soul, nor of his sense that he is carrying out a solemn judicial act on the woman he still loves, in Montsurry's long-drawn torture of his wife. Indeed a comparison of the episodes brings into relief the restraint and purity of Shakespeare's art when handling the most terrible of tragic themes. Yet the Moor himself might have uttered Montsurry's cry (V, i, 183-85),

And there is something of pathetic dignity in his final forgiveness of his wife, coupled with the declaration that his honour demands that she must fly his house for ever.

Monsieur and the Guise are simpler types. The former is the ambitious villain of quality, chafing at the thought that there is but a thread betwixt him and a crown, and prepared to compass his ends by any means that fall short of the actual killing of the King. It is as a useful adherent of his faction that he elevates Bussy, and when he finds him favoured by Henry he ruthlessly strikes him down, all the more readily that he is his successful rival for Tamyra's love. He is the typical Renaissance politician, whose characteristics are expounded with characteristically vituperative energy by Bussy in III, ii, 439-94.

Beside this arch-villain, the Guise, aspiring and factious though he be, falls into a secondary place. Probably Chapman did not care to elaborate a figure of whom Marlowe had given so powerful a sketch in the Massacre at Paris. The influence of the early play may also be seen in the handling of the King, who is portrayed with an indulgent pen, and who reappears in the role of an enthusiastic admirer of the English Queen and Court. The other personages in the drama are colourless, though Chapman succeeds in creating the general atmosphere of a frivolous and dissolute society.

But the plot and portraiture in Bussy D'Ambois are both less distinctive than the "full and heightened" style, to which was largely due its popularity with readers and theatre-goers of its period, but which was afterwards to bring upon it such severe censure, when taste had changed. Dryden's onslaught in his Dedication to the Spanish Friar (1681) marks the full turn of the tide. The passage is familiar, but it must be reproduced here:

"I have sometimes wondered, in the reading, what has become of those glaring colours which annoyed me in Bussy D'Ambois upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened with a jelly; nothing but a cold dull mass, which glittered no longer than it was shooting; a dwarfish thought, dressed up in gigantic words, repetition in abundance, looseness of expression, and gross hyperboles; the sense of one line expanded prodigiously into ten; and, to sum up all, uncorrect English, and a hideous mingle of false poetry and true nonsense; or, at best, a scantling of wit, which lay gasping for life, and groaning beneath a heap of rubbish. A famous modern poet used to sacrifice every year a Statius to Virgil's manes; and I have indignation enough to burn a D'Ambois annually to the memory of Jonson."

Dryden's critical verdicts are never lightly to be set aside. He is singularly shrewd and unprejudiced in his judgements, and has a remarkable faculty of hitting the right nail on the head. But Chapman, in whom the barbarian and the pedant were so strongly commingled, was a type that fell outside the wide range of Dryden's appreciation. The Restoration writer fails, in the first place, to recognize that Bussy D'Ambois is pitched advisedly from first to last in a high key. Throughout the drama men and women are playing for great stakes. No one is ever at rest. Action and passion are both at fever heat. We move in an atmosphere of duels and state intrigues by day, of assignations and murders by night. Even the subordinate personages in the drama, the stewards and waiting-women, partake of the restless spirit of their superiors. They are constantly arguing, quarrelling, gossiping—their tongues and wits are always on the move. Thus Chapman aimed throughout at energy of expression at all costs. To this he sacrificed beauty of phrase and rhythm, even lucidity. He pushed it often to exaggerated extremes of coarseness and riotous fancy. He laid on "glaring colours" till eye and brain are fatigued. To this opening phrase of Dryden no exception can be taken. But can his further charges stand? Is it true to say of Bussy D'Ambois that it is characterised by "dwarfish thought dressed up in gigantic words," that it is "a hideous mingle of false poetry and true nonsense"? The accusation of "nonsense" recoils upon its maker. Involved, obscure, inflated as Chapman's phrasing not infrequently is, it is not mere rhodomontade, sound, and fury, signifying nothing. There are some passages (as the Notes testify) where the thread of his meaning seems to disappear amidst his fertile imagery, but even here one feels not that sense is lacking, but that one has failed to find the clue to the zigzag movements of Chapman's brain. Nor is it fair to speak of Chapman as dressing up dwarfish thoughts in stilted phrases. There is not the slightest tendency in the play to spin out words to hide a poverty of ideas; in fact many of the difficulties spring from excessive condensation. Where Chapman is really assailable is in a singular incontinence of imagery. Every idea that occurs to him brings with it a plethora of illustrations, in the way of simile, metaphor, or other figure of speech; he seems impotent to check the exuberant riot of his fancy till it has exhausted its whole store. The underlying thought in many passages, though not deserving Dryden's contemptuous epithet, is sufficiently obvious. Chapman was not dowered with the penetrating imagination that reveals as by a lightning flash unsuspected depths of human character or of moral law. But he has the gnomic faculty that can convey truths of general experience in aphoristic form, and he can wind into a debatable moral issue with adroit casuistry. Take for instance the discussion (II, i, 149-79) on the legitimacy of private vengeance, or (III, i, 10-30) on the nature and effect of sin, or (V, ii) on Nature's "blindness" in her workings. In lighter vein, but winged with the shafts of a caustic humour are Bussy's invectives against courtly practices (I, i, 84-104) and hypocrisy in high places (III, ii, 25-59), while the "flyting" between him and Monsieur is perhaps the choicest specimen of Elizabethan "Billingsgate" that has come down to us. It was a versatile pen that could turn from passages like these to the epic narrative of the duel, or Tamyra's lyric invocation of the "peaceful regents of the night" (II, ii, 158), or Bussy's stately elegy upon himself, as he dies standing, propped on his true sword.

It can only have been the ingrained prejudice of the Restoration period against "metaphysical" verse that deadened Dryden's ear to the charm of such passages as these. Another less notable poet and playwright of the time showed more discrimination. This was Thomas D'Urfey, who in 1691 brought out a revised version of the play at the Theatre Royal. In a dedication to Lord Carlisle which he prefixed to this version, on its publication in the same year, he testifies to the great popularity of the play after the reopening of the theatres.

"About sixteen years since, when first my good or ill stars ordained me a Knight Errant in this fairy land of poetry, I saw the Bussy d'Ambois of Mr. Chapman acted by Mr. Hart, which in spight of the obsolete phrases and intolerable fustian with which a great part of it was cramm'd, and which I have altered in these new sheets, had some extraordinary beauties, which sensibly charmed me; which being improved by the graceful action of that eternally renowned and best of actors, so attracted not only me, but the town in general, that they were obliged to pass by and excuse the gross errors in the writing, and allow it amongst the rank of the topping tragedies of that time."

If Chapman's plot needed to be "writ new" at all, D'Urfey deserves credit for having done his work with considerable skill and taste, though he hints in his dedication that there were detractors who did not view his version as favourably as Lord Carlisle. He had some difficulty, he tells us, in finding an actor to undertake the part, but at last prevailed upon Mountfort to do so, though he was diffident of appearing in a role in which Hart had made so great a reputation. Mrs. Bracegirdle, as we learn from the list of Dramatis Personae prefixed to the published edition, played Tamyra, and the revival seems to have been a success. But Mountfort was assassinated in the Strand towards the close of the following year, and apparently the career of Bussy upon the boards ended with his life.

In the same year as D'Urfey revised the play, Langbaine published his Account of the English Dramatick Poets, wherein (p. 59) he mentions that Bussy "has the preference" among all Chapman's writings and vindicates it against Dryden's attack:

"I know not how Mr. Dryden came to be so possest with indignation against this play, as to resolve to burn one annually to the memory of Ben Jonson: but I know very well that there are some who allow it a just commendation; and others that since have taken the liberty to promise a solemn annual sacrifice of The Hind and Panther to the memory of Mr. Quarles and John Bunyan."

But neither D'Urfey nor Langbaine could secure for Bussy D'Ambois a renewal of its earlier popularity. During the eighteenth century it fell into complete oblivion, and though (as the Bibliography testifies) nineteenth-century critics and commentators have sought to atone for the neglect of their predecessors, the faults of the play, obvious at a glance, have hitherto impaired the full recognition of its distinctive merits of design and thought. To bring these into clearer relief, and trace the relation of its plot to the recorded episodes of Bussy's career, has been the aim of the preceding pages. It must always count to Chapman's credit that he, an Englishman, realized to the full the fascination of the brilliant Renaissance figure, who had to wait till the nineteenth century to be rediscovered for literary purposes by the greatest romance-writer among his own countrymen. In Bussy, the man of action, there was a Titanic strain that appealed to Chapman's intractable and rough-hewn genius. To the dramatist he was the classical Hercules born anew, accomplishing similar feats, and lured to a similar treacherous doom. Thus the cardinal virtue of the play is a Herculean energy of movement and of speech which borrows something of epic quality from the Homeric translations on which Chapman was simultaneously engaged, and thereby links Bussy D'Ambois to his most triumphant literary achievement.

Six years after the publication of the first Quarto of Bussy D'Ambois Chapman issued a sequel, The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, which, as we learn from the title-page, had been "often presented at the private Playhouse in the White-Fryers." But in the interval he had written two other plays based on recent French history, Byrons Conspiracie and The Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron, and in certain aspects The Revenge is more closely related to these immediate forerunners than to the piece of which it is the titular successor. The discovery which I recently was fortunate enough to make of a common immediate source of the two Byron plays and of The Revenge accentuates the connection between them, and at the same time throws fresh light on the problem of the provenance of the second D'Ambois drama.

In his scholarly monograph Quellen Studien zu den Dramen George Chapmans, Massingers, und Fords (1897), E. Koeppel showed that the three connected plays were based upon materials taken from Jean de Serres's Inventaire General de l'Histoire de France (1603), Pierre Matthieu's Histoire de France durant Sept Annees de Paix du Regne de Henri IV (1605), and P. V. Cayet's Chronologie Septenaire de l'Histoire de la Paix entre les Roys de France et d'Espagne (1605). The picture suggested by Koeppel's treatise was of Chapman collating a number of contemporary French historical works, and choosing from each of them such portions as suited his dramatic purposes. But this conception, as I have shown in the Athenaeum for Jan. 10, 1903, p. 51, must now be abandoned. Chapman did not go to the French originals at all, but to a more easily accessible source, wherein the task of selection and rearrangement had already been in large measure performed. In 1607 the printer, George Eld, published a handsome folio, of which the British Museum possesses a fine copy (c. 66, b. 14), originally the property of Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. Its title is: "A General Inventorie of the Historie of France, from the beginning of that Monarchie, unto the Treatie of Vervins, in the Yeare 1598. Written by Jhon de Serres. And continued unto these Times, out of the best Authors which have written of that Subiect. Translated out of French into English by Edward Grimeston, Gentleman." This work, the popularity of which is attested by the publication of a second, enlarged, edition in 1611, was the direct source of the "Byron" plays, and of The Revenge.

In a dedication addressed to the Earls of Suffolk and Salisbury, Grimeston states that having retired to "private and domesticke cares" after "some years expence in France, for the publike service of the State," he has translated "this generall Historie of France written by John de Serres." In a preface "to the Reader" he makes the further important statement:

"The History of John de Serres ends with the Treatie at Vervins betwixt France and Spaine in the yeare 1598. I have been importuned to make the History perfect, and to continue it unto these times, whereunto I have added (for your better satisfaction) what I could extract out of Peter Mathew and other late writers touching this subject. Some perchance will challenge me of indiscretion, that I have not translated Peter Mathew onely, being reputed so eloquent and learned a Writer. To them I answere first, that I found many things written by him that were not fit to be inserted, and some things belonging unto the Historie, related by others, whereof he makes no mention. Secondly his style is so full and his discourse so copious, as the worke would have held no proportion, for that this last addition of seven years must have exceeded halfe Serres Historie. Which considerations have made me to draw forth what I thought most materiall for the subject, and to leave the rest as unnecessarie."

From this we learn that Grimeston followed Jean de Serres till 1598, and that from then till 1604 (his time-limit in his first edition) his principal source was P. Matthieu's Histoire de France, rigorously condensed, and, at the same time, supplemented from other authorities. A collation of Grimeston's text with that of the "Byron" plays and The Revenge proves that every passage in which the dramatist draws upon historical materials is to be found within the four corners of the folio of 1607. The most striking illustrations of this are to be found in the "Byron" plays, and I have shown elsewhere (Athenaeum, loc. cit.) that though Chapman in handling the career of the ill-fated Marshal of France is apparently exploiting Pierre Matthieu, Jean de Serres, and Cayet in turn, he is really taking advantage of the labours of Grimeston, who had rifled their stores for his skilful historical mosaic. Grimeston must thus henceforward be recognized as holding something of the same relation to Chapman as Sir T. North does to Shakespeare, with the distinction that he not only provides the raw material of historical tragedy, but goes some way in the refining process.

The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois follows historical lines less closely than the "Byron" plays, but here, too, Grimeston's volume was Chapman's inspiring source, and the perusal of its closing pages gives a clue to the origin of this most singular of the dramatist's serious plays. The final episode included in the folio of 1607 was the plot by which the Count d'Auvergne, who had been one of Byron's fellow conspirators, and who had fallen under suspicion for a second time in 1604, was treacherously arrested by agents of the King while attending a review of troops. The position of this narrative (translated from P. Matthieu) at the close of the folio must have helped to draw Chapman's special attention to it, and having expended his genius so liberally on the career of the arch-conspirator of the period, he was apparently moved to handle also that of his interesting confederate. But D'Auvergne's fortunes scarcely furnished the stuff for a complete drama, on Chapman's customary broad scale, and he seems therefore to have conceived the ingenious idea of utilising them as the groundwork of a sequel to his most popular play, Bussy D'Ambois.

He transformed the Count into an imaginary brother of his former hero. For though D'Ambois had two younger brothers, Hubert, seigneur de Moigneville, and Georges, baron de Bussy, it is highly improbable that Chapman had ever heard of them, and there was nothing in the career of either to suggest the figure of Clermont D'Ambois. The name given by Chapman to this unhistorical addition to the family was, I believe, due to a mere chance, if not a misunderstanding. In Grimeston's narrative of the plot against D'Auvergne he mentions that one of the King's agents, D'Eurre, "came to Clermont on Monday at night, and goes unto him [D'Auvergne] where he supped." Here the name Clermont denotes, of course, a place. But Chapman may have possibly misconceived it to refer to the Count, and, in any case, its occurrence in this context probably suggested its bestowal upon the hero of the second D'Ambois play.

A later passage in Grimeston's history gives an interesting glimpse of D'Auvergne's character. We are told that after he had been arrested, and was being conducted to Paris, "all the way he seemed no more afflicted, then when he was at libertie. He tould youthfull and idle tales of his love, and the deceiving of ladies. Hee shott in a harquebuse at birds, wherein hee was so perfect and excellent, as hee did kill larkes as they were flying."

From this hint of a personality serenely proof against the shocks of adversity Chapman elaborated the figure of the "Senecall man," Clermont D'Ambois. In developing his conception he drew, however, not primarily, as this phrase suggests, from the writings of the Roman senator and sage, but from those of the lowlier, though not less authoritative exponent of Stoic doctrine, the enfranchised slave, Epictetus. As is shown, for the first time, in the Notes to this edition, the Discourses of "the grave Greek moralist," known probably through a Latin version (cf. II, i, 157), must have been almost as close to Chapman's hand while he was writing The Revenge as Grimeston's compilation. Five long passages in the play (I, i, 336-42, II, i, 157-60, II, i, 211-32, III, iv, 58-75, and III, iv, 127-41) are translated or adapted from specific dicta in the Discourses, while Epictetus's work in its whole ethical teaching furnished material for the delineation of the ideal Stoic (IV, iv, 14-46) who

"May with heavens immortall powers compare, To whom the day and fortune equall are; Come faire or foule, what ever chance can fall, Fixt in himselfe, hee still is one to all."

But in the character of Clermont there mingle other elements than those derived from either the historical figure of D'Auvergne, or the ideal man of Stoic speculation. Had Hamlet never faltered in the task of executing justice upon the murderer of his father, it is doubtful if a brother of Bussy would ever have trod the Jacobean stage. Not indeed that the idea of vengeance being sought for D'Ambois's fate by one of his nearest kith and kin was without basis in fact. But it was a sister, not a brother, who had devoted her own and her husband's energies to the task, though finally the matter had been compromised. De Thou, at the close of his account of Bussy's murder, relates (vol. III, lib. LXVII, p. 330):

In a later passage (vol. V, lib. CXVIII, p. 558) he is even more explicit. After referring to Bussy's treacherous assassination, he continues:

"Quam injuriam Renata ejus soror, generosa foemina et supra sexum ambitiosa, a fratre proximisque neglectam, cum inultam manere impatientissime ferret, Balagnio se ultorem profitente, spretis suorum monitis in matrimonium cum ipso consensit."[xxxvii-2]

As these passages first appeared in De Thou's History in the edition of 1620, they cannot have been known to Chapman, when he was writing The Revenge. But the circumstances must have been familiar to him from some other source, probably that which supplied the material for the earlier play. He accordingly introduces Renee D'Ambois (whom he rechristens Charlotte) with her husband into his drama, but with great skill he makes her fiery passion for revenge at all costs a foil to the scrupulous and deliberate procedure of the high-souled Clermont. Like Hamlet, the latter has been commissioned by the ghost of his murdered kinsman to the execution of a task alien to his nature.

Though he sends a challenge to Montsurry, and is not lacking in "the D'Ambois spirit," the atmosphere in which he lingers with whole-hearted zest is that of the philosophical schools. He is eager to draw every chance comer into debate on the first principles of action. Absorbed in speculation, he is indifferent to external circumstances. As Hamlet at the crisis of his fate lets himself be shipped off to England, so Clermont makes no demur when the King, who suspects him of complicity with Guise's traitorous designs, sends him to Cambray, of which his brother-in-law, Baligny, has been appointed Lieutenant. When on his arrival, his sister, the Lieutenant's wife, upbraids him with "lingering" their "dear brother's wreak," he makes the confession (III, ii, 112-15):

"I repent that ever (By any instigation in th'appearance My brothers spirit made, as I imagin'd) That e'er I yeelded to revenge his murther."

Like Hamlet, too, Clermont, "generous and free from all contriving," is slow to suspect evil in others, and though warned by an anonymous letter—here Chapman draws the incidents from the story of Count D'Auvergne—he lets himself be entrapped at a "muster" or review of troops by the King's emissaries. But the intervention of Guise soon procures his release. In the dialogue that follows between him and his patron the influence of Shakespeare's tragedy is unmistakably patent. The latter is confiding to Clermont his apprehensions for the future, when the ghost of Bussy appears, and chides his brother for his delay in righting his wrongs. That the Umbra of the elder D'Ambois is here merely emulating the attitude of the elder Hamlet's spirit would be sufficiently obvious, even if it were not put beyond doubt by the excited dialogue between Guise, to whom the Ghost is invisible, and Clermont, which is almost a verbal echo of the parallel dialogue between the Danish Prince and the Queen. This second visitation from the unseen world at last stirs up Clermont to execute the long-delayed vengeance upon Montsurry, though he is all but forestalled by Charlotte, who has donned masculine disguise for the purpose. But hard upon the deed comes the news of Guise's assassination, and impatient of the earthly barriers that now sever him from his "lord," Clermont takes his own life in the approved Stoic fashion. So passes from the scene one of the most original and engaging figures in our dramatic literature, and the more thorough our analysis of the curiously diverse elements out of which he has been fashioned, the higher will be our estimate of Chapman's creative power.

Was it primarily with the motive of providing Clermont with a plausible excuse for suicide that Chapman so startlingly transformed the personality of Henry of Guise? The Duke as he appears in The Revenge has scarcely a feature in common either with the Guise of history or of the earlier play. Instead of the turbulent and intriguing noble we see a "true tenth worthy," who realizes that without accompanying virtues "greatness is a shade, a bubble," and who drinks in from the lips of Clermont doctrines "of stability and freedom." To such an extent does Chapman turn apologist for Guise that in a well-known passage (II, i, 205 ff.) he goes out of his way to declare that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was "hainous" only "to a brutish sense, But not a manly reason," and to argue that the blame lay not with "religious Guise," but with those who had played false to "faith and true religion." So astonishing is the dramatist's change of front that, but for the complete lack of substantiating evidence, one would infer that, like Dryden in the interval between Religio Laici and The Hind and Panther, he had joined the Church of Rome. In any case the change is not due to the influence of Grimeston's volume, whence Chapman draws his material for the account of Guise's last days. For Jean de Serres (whom the Englishman is here translating) sums up the Duke's character in an "appreciation," where virtues and faults are impartially balanced and the latter are in no wise extenuated. It is another tribute to Chapman's skill, which only close study of the play in relation to its source brings out, that while he borrows, even to the most minute particulars, from the annalist, he throws round the closing episodes of Guise's career a halo of political martyrdom which there is nothing in the original to suggest. This metamorphosis of Guise is all the more remarkable, because Monsieur, his former co-partner in villany, reappears, in the one scene where he figures, in the same ribald, blustering vein as before, and his death is reported, at the close of Act IV, as a fulfilment of Bussy's dying curse.

While Guise is transfigured, and Monsieur remains his truculent, vainglorious self, Montsurry has suffered a strange degeneration. It is sufficiently remarkable, to begin with, after his declaration at the end of Bussy D'Ambois,

to find him ready to receive back Tamyra as his wife, though her sole motive in rejoining him is to precipitate vengeance on his head. Nor had anything in the earlier play prepared us for the spectacle of him as a poltroon, who has "barricado'd" himself in his house to avoid a challenge, and who shrieks "murther!" at the entrance of an unexpected visitor. In the light of such conduct it is difficult to regard as merely assumed his pusillanimity in the final scene, where he at first grovels before Clermont on the plea that by his baseness he will "shame" the avenger's victory. And when he does finally nerve himself to the encounter, and dies with words of forgiveness for Clermont and Tamyra on his lips, the episode of reconciliation, though evidently intended to be edifying, is so huddled and inconsecutive as to be well-nigh ridiculous.

Thus the two Bussy plays, when critically examined, are seen to be essentially unlike in spite of their external similarity. The plot of the one springs from that of the other; both are laid in the same period and milieu; in technique they are closely akin. The diction and imagery are, indeed, simpler, and the verse is of more liquid cadence in The Revenge than in Bussy D'Ambois. But the true difference lies deeper,—in the innermost spirit of the two dramas. Bussy D'Ambois is begotten of "the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind" of passion; it throbs with the stress of an over-tumultuous life. The Revenge is the offspring of the meditative impulse, that averts its gaze from the outward pageant of existence, to peer into the secrets of Man's ultimate destiny, and his relation to the "Universal," of which he involuntarily finds himself a part.

[xxxvii-1] "Hence a deadly feud arose between the kin of Bussy and Montsurry. The task of carrying this into action was undertaken by Jean Montluc Baligny, who had married the murdered man's sister, a high-spirited woman who fanned the flame of her husband's wrath. With difficulty, after a period of nine years, was an arrangement come to between him and Montsurry on specified terms by the order of the King."

[xxxvii-2] "Renee, his sister, a high-souled woman, and of aspirations loftier than those of her sex, brooked it very ill that this injury, of which his brother and nearest kin took no heed, should remain unavenged. When, therefore, Baligny profferred himself as an avenger, she agreed to marry him, in defiance of the admonitions of her family."

Bussy D'Ambois was first printed in quarto in 1607 by W. Aspley, and was reissued in 1608. In 1641, seven years after Chapman's death, Robert Lunne published another edition in quarto of the play, which, according to the title-page, was "much corrected and amended by the Author before his death." This quarto differs essentially from its predecessors. It omits and adds numerous passages, and makes constant minor changes in the text. The revised version is not appreciably superior to the original draft, but, on the evidence of the title-page, it must be accepted as authoritative. It was reissued by Lunne, with a different imprint, in 1646, and by J. Kirton, with a new title-page, in 1657. Copies of the 1641 quarto differ in unimportant details such as articular, articulat, for evidently some errors were corrected as the edition passed through the press. Some copies of the 1646 quarto duplicate the uncorrected copies of the 1641 quarto.

In a reprint of Chapman's Tragedies and Comedies, published by J. Pearson in 1873, the anonymous editor purported to "follow mainly" the text of 1641, but collation with the originals shows that he transcribed that of 1607, substituting the later version where the two quartos differed, but retaining elsewhere the spelling of the earlier one. Nor is his list of variants complete. There have been also three editions of the play in modernized spelling by C. W. Dilke in 1814, R. H. Shepherd in 1874, and W. L. Phelps in 1895, particulars of which are given in the Bibliography. The present edition is therefore the first to reproduce the authoritative text unimpaired. The original spelling has been retained, though capitalization has been modernized, and the use of italics for personal names has not been preserved. But the chaotic punctuation has been throughout revised, though, except to remove ambiguity, I have not interfered with one distinctive feature, an exceptionally frequent use of brackets. In a few cases of doubtful interpretation, the old punctuation has been given in the footnotes.

Dilke, though the earliest of the annotators, contributed most to the elucidation of allusions and obsolete phrases. While seeking to supplement his and his successors' labours in this direction, I have also attempted a more perilous task—the interpretation of passages where the difficulty arises from the peculiar texture of Chapman's thought and style. Such a critical venture seems a necessary preliminary if we are ever to sift truth from falsehood in Dryden's indictment—indolently accepted by many critics as conclusive—of Bussy D'Ambois.

The group of quartos of 1641, 1646, and 1657, containing Chapman's revised text, is denoted by the symbol "B"; those of 1607 and 1608 by "A." In the footnotes all the variants contained in A are given except in a few cases where the reading of A has been adopted in the text and that of B recorded as a variant. I have preferred the reading of A to B, when it gives an obviously better sense, or is metrically superior. I have also included in the Text fifty lines at the beginning of Act II, Scene 2, which are found only in A. Some slight conjectural emendations have been attempted which are distinguished by "emend. ed." in the footnotes. In these cases the reading of the quartos, if unanimous, is denoted by "Qq."

In the quartos the play is simply divided into five Acts. These I have subdivided into Scenes, within which the lines have been numbered to facilitate reference. The stage directions in B are numerous and precise, and I have made only a few additions, which are enclosed in brackets. The quartos vary between Bussy and D'Ambois, and between Behemoth and Spiritus, as a prefix to speeches. I have kept to the former throughout in either case.

The immediate source of the play has not been identified, but in the Introduction attention has been drawn to passages in the writings of Bussy's contemporaries, especially Brantome and Marguerite de Valois, which narrate episodes similar to those in the earlier Acts. Extracts from De Thou's Historiae sui temporis and Rosset's Histoires Tragiques, which tell the tale of Bussy's amorous intrigue and his assassination, have also been reprinted as an Appendix. But both these narratives are later than the play. Seneca's representation in the Hercules Oetaeus of the Greek hero's destruction by treachery gave Chapman suggestions for his treatment of the final episode in Bussy's career (cf. V, 4, 100-108, and note).

Not out of confidence that none but wee Are able to present this tragedie, Nor out of envie at the grace of late It did receive, nor yet to derogate From their deserts, who give out boldly that 5 They move with equall feet on the same flat; Neither for all, nor any of such ends, We offer it, gracious and noble friends, To your review; wee, farre from emulation, And (charitably judge) from imitation, 10 With this work entertaine you, a peece knowne, And still beleev'd, in Court to be our owne. To quit our claime, doubting our right or merit, Would argue in us poverty of spirit Which we must not subscribe to: Field is gone, 15 Whose action first did give it name, and one Who came the neerest to him, is denide By his gray beard to shew the height and pride Of D'Ambois youth and braverie; yet to hold Our title still a foot, and not grow cold 20 By giving it o're, a third man with his best Of care and paines defends our interest; As Richard he was lik'd, nor doe wee feare, In personating D'Ambois, hee'le appeare To faint, or goe lesse, so your free consent, 25 As heretofore, give him encouragement.

To your review, we farre from emulation (And charitably judge from imitation) With this work entertaine you, a peece knowne And still beleev'd in Court to be our owne, To quit our claime, doubting our right or merit, Would argue in us poverty of spirit Which we must not subscribe to.

ELENOR, Duchess of Guise. TAMYRA, Countess of Montsurry. BEAUPRE, niece to ELENOR. ANNABLE, maid to ELENOR. PERO, maid to TAMYRA. CHARLOTTE, maid to BEAUPRE. PYRA, a court lady. Courtiers, Ladies, Pages, Servants, Spirits, &c.

[4:1] The Quartos contain no list of Dramatis Personae. One is however prefixed to D'Urfey's version (1691), with the names of the performers added. C. W. Dilke prefixed a somewhat imperfect one to his edition in vol. III of Old English Plays (1814). W. L. Phelps, who did not know of Dilke's list, supplied a more correct one in his edition in the Mermaid Series (1895). The subjoined list adds some fresh details, especially concerning the subordinate characters.

[Bussy.] Fortune, not Reason, rules the state of things, Reward goes backwards, Honor on his head, Who is not poore is monstrous; only Need Gives forme and worth to every humane seed. As cedars beaten with continuall stormes, 5 So great men flourish; and doe imitate Unskilfull statuaries, who suppose (In forming a Colossus) if they make him Stroddle enough, stroot, and look bigg, and gape, Their work is goodly: so men meerely great 10 In their affected gravity of voice, Sowrnesse of countenance, manners cruelty, Authority, wealth, and all the spawne of Fortune, Think they beare all the Kingdomes worth before them; Yet differ not from those colossick statues, 15 Which, with heroique formes without o're-spread, Within are nought but morter, flint and lead. Man is a torch borne in the winde; a dreame But of a shadow, summ'd with all his substance; And as great seamen using all their wealth 20 And skills in Neptunes deepe invisible pathes, In tall ships richly built and ribd with brasse, To put a girdle round about the world, When they have done it (comming neere their haven) Are faine to give a warning peece, and call 25 A poore staid fisher-man, that never past His countries sight, to waft and guide them in: So when we wander furthest through the waves Of glassie Glory, and the gulfes of State, Topt with all titles, spreading all our reaches, 30 As if each private arme would sphere the earth, Wee must to vertue for her guide resort, Or wee shall shipwrack in our safest port. Procumbit.

[Monsieur.] There is no second place in numerous state That holds more than a cypher: in a King 35 All places are contain'd. His words and looks Are like the flashes and the bolts of Jove; His deeds inimitable, like the sea That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts, Nor prints of president for meane mens facts: 40 There's but a thred betwixt me and a crowne; I would not wish it cut, unlesse by nature; Yet to prepare me for that possible fortune, 'Tis good to get resolved spirits about mee. I follow'd D'Ambois to this greene retreat; 45 A man of spirit beyond the reach of feare, Who (discontent with his neglected worth) Neglects the light, and loves obscure abodes; But hee is young and haughty, apt to take Fire at advancement, to beare state, and flourish; 50 In his rise therefore shall my bounties shine: None lothes the world so much, nor loves to scoffe it, But gold and grace will make him surfet of it. What, D'Ambois!—

Mons. Callest thou men great in state, motes in the sunne? They say so that would have thee freeze in shades, That (like the grosse Sicilian gurmundist) Empty their noses in the cates they love, 60 That none may eat but they. Do thou but bring Light to the banquet Fortune sets before thee And thou wilt loath leane darknesse like thy death. Who would beleeve thy mettall could let sloth Rust and consume it? If Themistocles 65 Had liv'd obscur'd thus in th'Athenian State, Xerxes had made both him and it his slaves. If brave Camillus had lurckt so in Rome, He had not five times beene Dictator there, Nor foure times triumpht. If Epaminondas 70 (Who liv'd twice twenty yeeres obscur'd in Thebs) Had liv'd so still, he had beene still unnam'd, And paid his country nor himselfe their right: But putting forth his strength he rescu'd both From imminent ruine; and, like burnisht steele, 75 After long use he shin'd; for as the light Not only serves to shew, but render us Mutually profitable, so our lives In acts exemplarie not only winne Our selves good names, but doe to others give 80 Matter for vertuous deeds, by which wee live.

Buss. At the well head? Alas! what should I doe With that enchanted glasse? See devils there? 85 Or (like a strumpet) learne to set my looks In an eternall brake, or practise jugling, To keep my face still fast, my heart still loose; Or beare (like dames schoolmistresses their riddles) Two tongues, and be good only for a shift; 90 Flatter great lords, to put them still in minde Why they were made lords; or please humorous ladies With a good carriage, tell them idle tales, To make their physick work; spend a man's life In sights and visitations, that will make 95 His eyes as hollow as his mistresse heart: To doe none good, but those that have no need; To gaine being forward, though you break for haste All the commandements ere you break your fast; But beleeve backwards, make your period 100 And creeds last article, "I beleeve in God": And (hearing villanies preacht) t'unfold their art, Learne to commit them? Tis a great mans part. Shall I learne this there?

Buss. I, in a thrid-bare suit; when men come there, They must have high naps, and goe from thence bare: A man may drowne the parts of ten rich men In one poore suit; brave barks, and outward glosse Attract Court loves, be in parts ne're so grosse. 110

Mons. Thou shalt have glosse enough, and all things fit T'enchase in all shew thy long smothered spirit: Be rul'd by me then. The old Scythians Painted blinde Fortunes powerfull hands with wings, To shew her gifts come swift and suddenly, 115 Which if her favorite be not swift to take, He loses them for ever. Then be wise;

Buss. What will he send? some crowns? It is to sow them Upon my spirit, and make them spring a crowne 120 Worth millions of the seed crownes he will send. Like to disparking noble husbandmen, Hee'll put his plow into me, plow me up; But his unsweating thrift is policie, And learning-hating policie is ignorant 125 To fit his seed-land soyl; a smooth plain ground Will never nourish any politick seed. I am for honest actions, not for great: If I may bring up a new fashion, And rise in Court for vertue, speed his plow! 130 The King hath knowne me long as well as hee, Yet could my fortune never fit the length Of both their understandings till this houre. There is a deepe nicke in Times restlesse wheele For each mans good, when which nicke comes, it strikes; 135 As rhetorick yet workes not perswasion, But only is a meane to make it worke: So no man riseth by his reall merit, But when it cries "clincke" in his raisers spirit. Many will say, that cannot rise at all, 140 Mans first houres rise is first step to his fall. I'le venture that; men that fall low must die, As well as men cast headlong from the skie.

[Maffe.] Humor of Princes! Is this wretch indu'd With any merit worth a thousand crownes? 145 Will my lord have me be so ill a steward Of his revenue, to dispose a summe So great, with so small cause as shewes in him? I must examine this. Is your name D'Ambois?

Maff. Sir, y'are very hot. I doe serve the Monsieur; But in such place as gives me the command Of all his other servants: and because His Graces pleasure is to give your good 155 His passe through my command, me thinks you might Use me with more respect.

Buss. Crie you mercy! Now you have opened my dull eies, I see you, And would be glad to see the good you speake of: What might I call your name?

Maff. Pray doe so, That you may use me better. For your selfe, By your no better outside, I would judge you To be some poet. Have you given my lord 165 Some pamphlet?

Maff. Why, very good, sir; I pray, then, give me leave. If for no pamphlet, May I not know what other merit in you Makes his compunction willing to relieve you? 175

Maff. I see the man: a hundred crownes will make him Swagger, and drinke healths to his Graces bountie, 180 And sweare he could not be more bountifull; So there's nine hundred crounes sav'd. Here, tall souldier, His Grace hath sent you a whole hundred crownes.

Buss. A hundred, sir! Nay, doe his Highnesse right; I know his hand is larger, and perhaps 185 I may deserve more than my outside shewes. I am a poet as I am a souldier, And I can poetise; and (being well encourag'd) May sing his fame for giving; yours for delivering (Like a most faithfull steward) what he gives. 190

Buss. I care not much If to his bounteous Grace I sing the praise Of faire great noses, and to you of long ones. What qualities have you, sir, (beside your chaine And velvet jacket)? Can your Worship dance? 195

Maff. A pleasant fellow, faith; it seemes my lord Will have him for his jester; and, berlady, Such men are now no fooles; 'tis a knights place. If I (to save his Grace some crounes) should urge him T'abate his bountie, I should not be heard; 200 I would to heaven I were an errant asse, For then I should be sure to have the eares Of these great men, where now their jesters have them. Tis good to please him, yet Ile take no notice Of his preferment, but in policie 205 Will still be grave and serious, lest he thinke I feare his woodden dagger. Here, Sir Ambo!

Maff. I cry thee mercy, D'Amboys. 210 A thousand crownes I bring you from my lord; If you be thriftie, and play the good husband, you may make This a good standing living; 'tis a bountie, His Highnesse might perhaps have bestow'd better.

Buss. Hence! prate no more! Or, by thy villans bloud, thou prat'st thy last! A barbarous groome grudge at his masters bountie! But since I know he would as much abhorre His hinde should argue what he gives his friend, 220 Take that, Sir, for your aptnesse to dispute. Exit.

153 After this line B inserts: Table, Chesbord & Tapers behind the Arras. This relates not to the present Scene, but to Scene 2, where the King and Guise play chess (cf. I, 2, 184). Either it has been inserted, by a printer's error, prematurely; or, more probably, it may be an instruction to the "prompter" to see that the properties needed in the next Scene are ready, which has crept from an acting version of the play into the Quartos.

Henry. Duchesse of Guise, your Grace is much enricht In the attendance of that English virgin, That will initiate her prime of youth, (Dispos'd to Court conditions) under the hand Of your prefer'd instructions and command, 5 Rather than any in the English Court, Whose ladies are not matcht in Christendome For gracefull and confirm'd behaviours, More than the Court, where they are bred, is equall'd.

Guise. I like not their Court-fashion; it is too crestfalne 10 In all observance, making demi-gods Of their great nobles; and of their old Queene An ever-yong and most immortall goddesse.

Henr. Assure you, cosen Guise, so great a courtier, So full of majestic and roiall parts, No Queene in Christendome may vaunt her selfe. Her Court approves it: that's a Court indeed, Not mixt with clowneries us'd in common houses; 20 But, as Courts should be th'abstracts of their Kingdomes, In all the beautie, state, and worth they hold, So is hers, amplie, and by her inform'd. The world is not contracted in a man, With more proportion and expression, 25 Than in her Court, her kingdome. Our French Court Is a meere mirror of confusion to it: The king and subject, lord and every slave, Dance a continuall haie; our roomes of state Kept like our stables; no place more observ'd 30 Than a rude market-place: and though our custome Keepe this assur'd confusion from our eyes, 'Tis nere the lesse essentially unsightly, Which they would soone see, would they change their forme To this of ours, and then compare them both; 35 Which we must not affect, because in kingdomes, Where the Kings change doth breed the subjects terror, Pure innovation is more grosse than error.

Mont. No question we shall see them imitate (Though a farre off) the fashions of our Courts, 40 As they have ever ap't us in attire; Never were men so weary of their skins, And apt to leape out of themselves as they; Who, when they travell to bring forth rare men, Come home delivered of a fine French suit: 45 Their braines lie with their tailors, and get babies For their most compleat issue; hee's sole heire To all the morall vertues that first greetes The light with a new fashion, which becomes them Like apes, disfigur'd with the attires of men. 50

Henr. No question they much wrong their reall worth In affectation of outlandish scumme; But they have faults, and we more: they foolish-proud To jet in others plumes so haughtely; We proud that they are proud of foolerie, 55 Holding our worthes more compleat for their vaunts.

Monsieur. Come, mine owne sweet heart, I will enter thee. Sir, I have brought a gentleman to court; And pray, you would vouchsafe to doe him grace.

Henr. We like your alteration, and must tell you, We have expected th'offer of your service; For we (in feare to make mild vertue proud) Use not to seeke her out in any man. 65

Mons. Th'art mine, sweet heart! See, here's the Guises Duches; The Countesse of Mountsurreaue, Beaupre. Come, I'le enseame thee. Ladies, y'are too many To be in counsell: I have here a friend That I would gladly enter in your graces. 75

Buss. Thinke me not impudent, lady; I am yet no courtier; I desire to be one and would gladly take entrance, madam, under your princely colours.

Duch. Soft sir, you must rise by degrees, first 100 being the servant of some common Lady or Knights wife, then a little higher to a Lords wife; next a little higher to a Countesse; yet a little higher to a Duchesse, and then turne the ladder. 105

Buss. Saucie! Companion! tis the Guise, but yet those termes might have beene spar'd of the guiserd. Companion! He's jealous, by this light. Are you blind of that side, Duke? Ile to her againe for that. Forth, princely mistresse, 125 for the honour of courtship. Another riddle.

Buss. That hand dares not doe't; y'ave cut too many throats already, Guise, and robb'd the realme of many thousand soules, more precious than thine owne. Come, madam, talk on. Sfoot, can you not talk? Talk on, I say. Another 145 riddle.

Buss. I will not. I say, mistresse, and I will stand unto it, that if a woman may have three servants, a man may have threescore mistresses. 160

Buss. I wil not: Ile court her in despight of 170 him. Not court her! Come madam, talk on; feare me nothing. [To Guise.] Well mai'st thou drive thy master from the Court, but never D'Ambois.

Mons. His great heart will not down, tis like the sea, 175 That partly by his owne internall heat, Partly the starrs daily and nightly motion, Their heat and light, and partly of the place The divers frames, but chiefly by the moone, Bristled with surges, never will be wonne, 180 (No, not when th'hearts of all those powers are burst) To make retreat into his setled home, Till he be crown'd with his owne quiet fome.

Bar. Why here's the lion skar'd with the 185 throat of a dunghill cock, a fellow that has newly shak'd off his shackles; now does he crow for that victory.

Bar. I have heard of a fellow, that by a fixt imagination looking upon a bulbaiting, had a visible paire of hornes grew out of his forhead: and I beleeve this gallant overjoyed with the conceit of Monsieurs cast suit, imagines himselfe 200 to be the Monsieur.

L'An. And why not? as well as the asse stalking in the lions case, bare himselfe like a lion, braying all the huger beasts out of the forrest? 205

Bar. O miraculous jealousie! Doe you think your selfe such a singular subject for laughter that none can fall into the matter of our merriment but you? 230

Buss. So, sir? Your descants doe marvellous well fit this ground; we shall meet where your buffonly laughters will cost ye the best blood in your bodies. 240

Buss. I should thank you for this kindnesse, 260 if I thought these perfum'd musk-cats (being out of this priviledge) durst but once mew at us.

Henr. Lesse than either Will make the gall of envie overflow; She feeds on outcast entrailes like a kite: 5 In which foule heape, if any ill lies hid, She sticks her beak into it, shakes it up, And hurl's it all abroad, that all may view it. Corruption is her nutriment; but touch her With any precious oyntment, and you kill her. 10 Where she finds any filth in men, she feasts, And with her black throat bruits it through the world Being sound and healthfull; but if she but taste The slenderest pittance of commended vertue, She surfets of it, and is like a flie 15 That passes all the bodies soundest parts, And dwels upon the sores; or if her squint eie Have power to find none there, she forges some: She makes that crooked ever which is strait; Calls valour giddinesse, justice tyrannie: 20 A wise man may shun her, she not her selfe; Whither soever she flies from her harmes, She beares her foe still claspt in her own armes: And therefore, cousen Guise, let us avoid her.

Nuncius. What Atlas or Olympus lifts his head 25 So farre past covert, that with aire enough My words may be inform'd, and from their height I may be seene and heard through all the world? A tale so worthy, and so fraught with wonder, Sticks in my jawes, and labours with event. 30

Nun. I saw fierce D'Ambois and his two brave friends 35 Enter the field, and at their heeles their foes; Which were the famous souldiers, Barrisor, L'Anou, and Pyrrhot, great in deeds of armes. All which arriv'd at the evenest peece of earth The field afforded, the three challengers 40 Turn'd head, drew all their rapiers, and stood ranck't; When face to face the three defendants met them, Alike prepar'd, and resolute alike. Like bonfires of contributorie wood Every mans look shew'd, fed with eithers spirit; 45 As one had beene a mirror to another, Like formes of life and death each took from other; And so were life and death mixt at their heights, That you could see no feare of death, for life, Nor love of life, for death: but in their browes 50 Pyrrho's opinion in great letters shone: That life and death in all respects are one.

Nun. As Hector, twixt the hosts of Greece and Troy, (When Paris and the Spartane King should end 55 The nine yeares warre) held up his brasen launce For signall that both hosts should cease from armes, And heare him speak; so Barrisor (advis'd) Advanc'd his naked rapier twixt both sides, Ript up the quarrell, and compar'd six lives 60 Then laid in ballance with six idle words; Offer'd remission and contrition too, Or else that he and D'Ambois might conclude The others dangers. D'Ambois lik'd the last; But Barrisors friends (being equally engag'd 65 In the maine quarrell) never would expose His life alone to that they all deserv'd. And for the other offer of remission D'Ambois (that like a lawrell put in fire Sparkl'd and spit) did much much more than scorne 70 That his wrong should incense him so like chaffe, To goe so soone out, and like lighted paper Approve his spirit at once both fire and ashes. So drew they lots, and in them Fates appointed, That Barrisor should fight with firie D'Ambois; 75 Pyrhot with Melynell, with Brisac L'Anou; And then, like flame and powder, they commixt So spritely, that I wisht they had beene spirits, That the ne're shutting wounds they needs must open Might, as they open'd, shut, and never kill. 80 But D'Ambois sword (that lightned as it flew) Shot like a pointed comet at the face Of manly Barrisor, and there it stucke: Thrice pluckt he at it, and thrice drew on thrusts From him that of himselfe was free as fire, 85 Who thrust still as he pluckt; yet (past beliefe!) He with his subtile eye, hand, body, scap't. At last, the deadly bitten point tugg'd off, On fell his yet undaunted foe so fiercely, That (only made more horrid with his wound) 90 Great D'Ambois shrunke, and gave a little ground; But soone return'd, redoubled in his danger, And at the heart of Barrisor seal'd his anger. Then, as in Arden I have seene an oke Long shooke with tempests, and his loftie toppe 95 Bent to his root, which being at length made loose (Even groaning with his weight), he gan to nodde This way and that, as loth his curled browes (Which he had oft wrapt in the skie with stormes) Should stoope: and yet, his radicall fivers burst, 100 Storme-like he fell, and hid the feare-cold earth— So fell stout Barrisor, that had stood the shocks Of ten set battels in your Highnesse warre, 'Gainst the sole souldier of the world, Navarre.

Nun. Sorrow and fury, like two opposite fumes 110 Met in the upper region of a cloud, At the report made by this worthies fall, Brake from the earth, and with them rose Revenge, Entring with fresh powers his two noble friends; And under that ods fell surcharg'd Brisac, 115 The friend of D'Ambois, before fierce L'Anou; Which D'Ambois seeing, as I once did see, In my young travels through Armenia, An angrie unicorne in his full cariere Charge with too swift a foot a jeweller, 120 That watcht him for the treasure of his brow, And, ere he could get shelter of a tree, Naile him with his rich antler to the earth: So D'Ambois ranne upon reveng'd L'Anou, Who eying th'eager point borne in his face, 125 And giving backe, fell back; and, in his fall, His foes uncurbed sword stopt in his heart: By which time all the life strings of th'tw'other Were cut, and both fell, as their spirit flew, Upwards, and still hunt Honour at the view. 130 And now (of all the six) sole D'Ambois stood Untoucht, save only with the others bloud.

Nun. All slaine outright but he, Who kneeling in the warme life of his friends, (All freckled with the bloud his rapier raind) 135 He kist their pale lips, and bade both farewell: And see the bravest man the French earth beares! [Exit Nuntius.]

Monsieur. Else Heaven forgive not me! Come on, brave friend! 140 If ever Nature held her selfe her owne, When the great triall of a King and subject Met in one bloud, both from one belly springing, Now prove her vertue and her greatnesse one, Or make the t'one the greater with the t'other, 145 (As true Kings should) and for your brothers love (Which is a speciall species of true vertue) Doe that you could not doe, not being a King.

Mons. Manly slaughter 150 Should never beare th'account of wilfull murther, It being a spice of justice, where with life Offending past law equall life is laid In equall ballance, to scourge that offence By law of reputation, which to men 155 Exceeds all positive law; and what that leaves To true mens valours (not prefixing rights Of satisfaction suited to their wrongs) A free mans eminence may supply and take.

Henr. This would make every man that thinks him wrong'd, 160 Or is offended, or in wrong or right, Lay on this violence; and all vaunt themselves Law-menders and supplyers, though meere butchers, Should this fact, though of justice, be forgiven.

Mons. O no, my Lord! it would make cowards feare 165 To touch the reputations of true men. When only they are left to impe the law, Justice will soone distinguish murtherous minds From just revengers. Had my friend beene slaine, His enemy surviving, he should die, 170 Since he had added to a murther'd fame (Which was in his intent) a murthered man; And this had worthily beene wilfull murther; But my friend only sav'd his fames deare life, Which is above life, taking th'under value 175 Which in the wrong it did was forfeit to him; And in this fact only preserves a man In his uprightnesse, worthy to survive Millions of such as murther men alive.

Henr. Well, brother, rise, and raise your friend withall 180 From death to life: and, D'Ambois, let your life (Refin'd by passing through this merited death) Be purg'd from more such foule pollution; Nor on your scape, nor valour, more presuming To be again so violent.

Buss. My Lord, 185 I lothe as much a deed of unjust death, As law it selfe doth; and to tyrannise, Because I have a little spirit to dare, And power to doe, as to be tyranniz'd. This is a grace that (on my knees redoubled) 190 I crave, to double this my short lifes gift, And shall your royal bountie centuple, That I may so make good what Law and Nature Have given me for my good: since I am free, (Offending no just law) let no law make, 195 By any wrong it does, my life her slave: When I am wrong'd, and that Law failes to right me, Let me be King my selfe (as man was made) And doe a justice that exceeds the Law: If my wrong passe the power of single valour 200 To right and expiate, then be you my King, And doe a right, exceeding Law and Nature. Who to himselfe is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a King indeed.

Mons. Now vanish horrors into Court attractions For which let this balme make thee fresh and faire! And now forth with thy service to the Duchesse, 210 As my long love will to Monsurries Countesse. Exit.

Buss. To whom my love hath long been vow'd in heart, Although in hand, for shew, I held the Duchesse. And now through bloud and vengeance, deeds of height, And hard to be atchiev'd, tis fit I make 215 Attempt of her perfection. I need feare No check in his rivality, since her vertues Are so renown'd, and hee of all dames hated. Exit.

Tamyra. Twere pittie else: For though his great spirit something overflow, All faults are still borne, that from greatnesse grow: But such a sudden courtier saw I never.

Tam. True, for it argued his no due conceit Both of the place, and greatnesse of the persons, Nor of our sex: all which (we all being strangers To his encounter) should have made more maners Deserve more welcome.

Tam. Ahlas, love give her joy! I am so farre From envie of her honour, that I sweare, Had he encounterd me with such proud sleight, I would have put that project face of his 15 To a more test than did her Dutchesship.

Beau. Why (by your leave, my lord) Ile speake it heere, (Although she be my ante) she scarce was modest, When she perceived the Duke, her husband, take Those late exceptions to her servants courtship, 20 To entertaine him.

[Guise.] D'Ambois is pardond! wher's a King? where law? See how it runnes, much like a turbulent sea; 25 Heere high and glorious, as it did contend To wash the heavens, and make the stars more pure; And heere so low, it leaves the mud of hell To every common view. Come, Count Montsurry, We must consult of this.

Tam. I cannot cloake it; but, as when a fume, Hot, drie, and grosse, within the wombe of earth 35 Or in her superficies begot, When extreame cold hath stroke it to her heart, The more it is comprest, the more it rageth, Exceeds his prisons strength that should containe it, And then it tosseth temples in the aire, 40 All barres made engines to his insolent fury: So, of a sudden, my licentious fancy Riots within me: not my name and house, Nor my religion to this houre observ'd, Can stand above it; I must utter that 45 That will in parting breake more strings in me, Than death when life parts; and that holy man That, from my cradle, counseld for my soule, I now must make an agent for my bloud.

Mons. Pray thee regard thine owne good, if not mine, And cheere my love for that: you doe not know What you may be by me, nor what without me; I may have power t'advance and pull downe any.

Tam. That's not my study. One way I am sure 55 You shall not pull downe me; my husbands height Is crowne to all my hopes, and his retiring To any meane state, shall be my aspiring. Mine honour's in mine owne hands, spite of kings.

Mons. Honour, what's that? your second maydenhead: 60 And what is that? a word: the word is gone, The thing remaines; the rose is pluckt, the stalk Abides: an easie losse where no lack's found. Beleeve it, there's as small lack in the losse As there is paine ith' losing. Archers ever 65 Have two strings to a bow, and shall great Cupid (Archer of archers both in men and women) Be worse provided than a common archer? A husband and a friend all wise wives have.

Mons. Still you stand on your husband; so doe all The common sex of you, when y'are encounter'd With one ye cannot fancie: all men know You live in Court here by your owne election, 75 Frequenting all our common sports and triumphs, All the most youthfull company of men. And wherefore doe you this? To please your husband? Tis grosse and fulsome: if your husbands pleasure Be all your object, and you ayme at honour 80 In living close to him, get you from Court, You may have him at home; these common put-ofs For common women serve: "my honour! husband!" Dames maritorious ne're were meritorious: Speak plaine, and say "I doe not like you, sir, 85 Y'are an ill-favour'd fellow in my eye," And I am answer'd.

Mons. Then have at you here! Take (with a politique hand) this rope of pearle; 90 And though you be not amorous, yet be wise: Take me for wisedom; he that you can love Is nere the further from you.

Tam. Now it comes So ill prepar'd, that I may take a poyson Under a medicine as good cheap as it: 95 I will not have it were it worth the world.

Tam. By this light, my lord, Y'are a vile fellow; and Ile tell the King 100 Your occupation of dishonouring ladies, And of his Court. A lady cannot live As she was borne, and with that sort of pleasure That fits her state, but she must be defam'd With an infamous lords detraction: 105 Who would endure the Court if these attempts, Of open and profest lust must be borne?— Whose there? come on, dame, you are at your book When men are at your mistresse; have I taught you Any such waiting womans quality? 110

Tam. Matter of death, were I some husbands wife: 115 I cannot live at quiet in my chamber For oportunities almost to rapes Offerd me by him.

Mont. Pray thee beare with him: Thou know'st he is a bachelor, and a courtier, I, and a Prince: and their prerogatives 120 Are to their lawes, as to their pardons are Their reservations, after Parliaments— One quits another; forme gives all their essence. That Prince doth high in vertues reckoning stand That will entreat a vice, and not command: 125 So farre beare with him; should another man Trust to his priviledge, he should trust to death: Take comfort then (my comfort), nay, triumph, And crown thy selfe; thou part'st with victory: My presence is so onely deare to thee 130 That other mens appeare worse than they be: For this night yet, beare with my forced absence: Thou know'st my businesse; and with how much weight My vow hath charged it.

Tam. True, my lord, and never My fruitlesse love shall let your serious honour; 135 Yet, sweet lord, do no stay; you know my soule Is so long time with out me, and I dead, As you are absent.

Tam. Farewell, my light and life! but not in him, 145 In mine owne dark love and light bent to another. Alas! that in the wane of our affections We should supply it with a full dissembling, In which each youngest maid is grown a mother. Frailty is fruitfull, one sinne gets another: 150 Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine When they goe out; most vice shewes most divine. Goe, maid, to bed; lend me your book, I pray, Not, like your selfe, for forme. Ile this night trouble None of your services: make sure the dores, 155 And call your other fellowes to their rest.

Tam. Now all yee peacefull regents of the night, Silently-gliding exhalations, Languishing windes, and murmuring falls of waters, 160 Sadnesse of heart, and ominous securenesse, Enchantments, dead sleepes, all the friends of rest, That ever wrought upon the life of man, Extend your utmost strengths, and this charm'd houre Fix like the Center! make the violent wheeles 165 Of Time and Fortune stand, and great Existens, (The Makers treasurie) now not seeme to be To all but my approaching friends and me! They come, alas, they come! Feare, feare and hope Of one thing, at one instant, fight in me: 170 I love what most I loath, and cannot live, Unlesse I compasse that which holds my death; For life's meere death, loving one that loathes me, And he I love will loath me, when he sees I flie my sex, my vertue, my renowne, 175 To runne so madly on a man unknowne. The Vault opens. See, see, a vault is opening that was never Knowne to my lord and husband, nor to any But him that brings the man I love, and me. How shall I looke on him? how shall I live, 180 And not consume in blushes? I will in; And cast my selfe off, as I ne're had beene. Exit.

Friar. Come, worthiest sonne, I am past measure glad That you (whose worth I have approv'd so long) Should be the object of her fearefull love; 185 Since both your wit and spirit can adapt Their full force to supply her utmost weaknesse. You know her worths and vertues, for report Of all that know is to a man a knowledge: You know besides that our affections storme, 190 Rais'd in our blood, no reason can reforme. Though she seeke then their satisfaction (Which she must needs, or rest unsatisfied) Your judgement will esteeme her peace thus wrought Nothing lesse deare than if your selfe had sought: 195 And (with another colour, which my art Shall teach you to lay on) your selfe must seeme The only agent, and the first orbe move In this our set and cunning world of love.

Fri. Tis this, good sonne:—Lord Barrisor (whom you slew) Did love her dearely, and with all fit meanes Hath urg'd his acceptation, of all which Shee keepes one letter written in his blood: 205 You must say thus, then: that you heard from mee How much her selfe was toucht in conscience With a report (which is in truth disperst) That your maine quarrell grew about her love, Lord Barrisor imagining your courtship 210 Of the great Guises Duchesse in the Presence Was by you made to his elected mistresse: And so made me your meane now to resolve her, Chosing by my direction this nights depth, For the more cleare avoiding of all note 215 Of your presumed presence. And with this (To cleare her hands of such a lovers blood) She will so kindly thank and entertaine you (Me thinks I see how), I, and ten to one, Shew you the confirmation in his blood, 220 Lest you should think report and she did faine, That you shall so have circumstantiall meanes To come to the direct, which must be used: For the direct is crooked; love comes flying; The height of love is still wonne with denying. 225

Fri. Shee must never know That you know any thing of any love Sustain'd on her part: for, learne this of me, In any thing a woman does alone, If she dissemble, she thinks tis not done; 230 If not dissemble, nor a little chide, Give her her wish, she is not satisfi'd; To have a man think that she never seekes Does her more good than to have all she likes: This frailty sticks in them beyond their sex, 235 Which to reforme, reason is too perplex: Urge reason to them, it will doe no good; Humour (that is the charriot of our food In every body) must in them be fed, To carrie their affections by it bred. 240 Stand close!

Tam. Alas, I fear my strangenesse will retire him. If he goe back, I die; I must prevent it, And cheare his onset with my sight at least, And that's the most; though every step he takes 245 Goes to my heart. Ile rather die than seeme Not to be strange to that I most esteeme.

Fri. You will pardon me, I hope, That so beyond your expectation, (And at a time for visitants so unfit) 250 I (with my noble friend here) visit you: You know that my accesse at any time Hath ever beene admitted; and that friend, That my care will presume to bring with me, Shall have all circumstance of worth in him 255 To merit as free welcome as myselfe.

Tam. O father, but at this suspicious houre You know how apt best men are to suspect us In any cause that makes suspicious shadow No greater than the shadow of a haire; 260 And y'are to blame. What though my lord and husband Lie forth to night, and since I cannot sleepe When he is absent I sit up to night; Though all the dores are sure, and all our servants As sure bound with their sleepes; yet there is One 265 That wakes above, whose eye no sleepe can binde: He sees through dores, and darknesse, and our thoughts; And therefore as we should avoid with feare To think amisse our selves before his search, So should we be as curious to shunne 270 All cause that other think not ill of us.

Buss. Madam, 'tis farre from that: I only heard By this my honour'd father that your conscience Made some deepe scruple with a false report That Barrisors blood should something touch your honour, 275 Since he imagin'd I was courting you When I was bold to change words with the Duchesse, And therefore made his quarrell, his long love And service, as I heare, beeing deepely vowed To your perfections; which my ready presence, 280 Presum'd on with my father at this season For the more care of your so curious honour, Can well resolve your conscience is most false.

Tam. And is it therefore that you come, good sir? Then crave I now your pardon and my fathers, 285 And sweare your presence does me so much good That all I have it bindes to your requitall. Indeed sir, 'tis most true that a report Is spread, alleadging that his love to me Was reason of your quarrell; and because 290 You shall not think I faine it for my glory That he importun'd me for his Court service, I'le shew you his own hand, set down in blood, To that vaine purpose: good sir, then come in. Father, I thank you now a thousand fold. 295 Exit Tamyra and D'Amb[ois].

Tamyra. O, my deare servant, in thy close embraces I have set open all the dores of danger To my encompast honour, and my life: 5 Before I was secure against death and hell; But now am subject to the heartlesse feare Of every shadow, and of every breath, And would change firmnesse with an aspen leafe: So confident a spotlesse conscience is, 10 So weake a guilty. O, the dangerous siege Sinne layes about us, and the tyrannie He exercises when he hath expugn'd! Like to the horror of a winter's thunder, Mixt with a gushing storme, that suffer nothing 15 To stirre abroad on earth but their own rages, Is sinne, when it hath gathered head above us; No roofe, no shelter can secure us so, But he will drowne our cheeks in feare or woe.

Buss. Sin is a coward, madam, and insults 20 But on our weaknesse, in his truest valour: And so our ignorance tames us, that we let His shadowes fright us: and like empty clouds In which our faulty apprehensions forge The formes of dragons, lions, elephants, 25 When they hold no proportion, the slie charmes Of the witch policy makes him like a monster Kept onely to shew men for servile money: That false hagge often paints him in her cloth Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth. 30 In three of us the secret of our meeting Is onely guarded, and three friends as one Have ever beene esteem'd, as our three powers That in our one soule are as one united: Why should we feare then? for my selfe, I sweare, 35 Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure, And health be grievous to one long time sick, Than the deare jewell of your fame in me Be made an out-cast to your infamy; Nor shall my value (sacred to your vertues) 40 Onely give free course to it from my selfe, But make it flie out of the mouths of Kings In golden vapours, and with awfull wings.

Tam. It rests as all Kings seales were set in thee. Now let us call my father, whom I sweare 45 I could extreamly chide, but that I feare To make him so suspicious of my love, Of which (sweet servant) doe not let him know For all the world.

Tam. Indeed you did; you should have stayed; Had not your worthy friend beene of your bringing, And that containes all lawes to temper me, 55 Not all the fearefull danger that besieged us Had aw'd my throat from exclamation.

Tam. And you this chaine of pearle, and my love onely! Descendit Frier and D'Amb[ois]. It is not I, but urgent destiny That (as great states-men for their generall end In politique justice make poore men offend) Enforceth my offence to make it just. 65 What shall weak dames doe, when th' whole work of Nature Hath a strong finger in each one of us? Needs must that sweep away the silly cobweb Of our still-undone labours, that layes still Our powers to it, as to the line, the stone, 70 Not to the stone, the line should be oppos'd. We cannot keepe our constant course in vertue: What is alike at all parts? every day Differs from other, every houre and minute; I, every thought in our false clock of life 75 Oft times inverts the whole circumference: We must be sometimes one, sometimes another. Our bodies are but thick clouds to our soules, Through which they cannot shine when they desire. When all the starres, and even the sunne himselfe, 80 Must stay the vapours times that he exhales Before he can make good his beames to us, O how can we, that are but motes to him, Wandring at random in his ordered rayes, Disperse our passions fumes, with our weak labours, 85 That are more thick and black than all earths vapours?

Mont. Alas, what troubled my true love, my peace, 90 From being at peace within her better selfe? Or how could sleepe forbeare to seize thine eyes, When he might challenge them as his just prise?

Tam. I am in no powre earthly, but in yours. To what end should I goe to bed, my lord, 95 That wholly mist the comfort of my bed? Or how should sleepe possesse my faculties, Wanting the proper closer of mine eyes?

Mont. Then will I never more sleepe night from thee: All mine owne businesse, all the Kings affaires, 100 Shall take the day to serve them; every night Ile ever dedicate to thy delight.

Tam. Nay, good my lord, esteeme not my desires Such doters on their humours that my judgement Cannot subdue them to your worthier pleasure: 105 A wives pleas'd husband must her object be In all her acts, not her sooth'd fantasie.

Tam. O no, my lord! your holy frier sayes 110 All couplings in the day that touch the bed Adulterous are, even in the married; Whose grave and worthy doctrine, well I know, Your faith in him will liberally allow.

Mont. Hee's a most learned and religious man. 115 Come to the Presence then, and see great D'Ambois (Fortunes proud mushrome shot up in a night) Stand like an Atlas under our Kings arme; Which greatnesse with him Monsieur now envies As bitterly and deadly as the Guise. 120

Mont. Even the same. Each naturall agent works but to this end, To render that it works on like it selfe; Which since the Monsieur in his act on D'Ambois 125 Cannot to his ambitious end effect, But that (quite opposite) the King hath power (In his love borne to D'Ambois) to convert The point of Monsieurs aime on his owne breast, He turnes his outward love to inward hate: 130 A princes love is like the lightnings fume, Which no man can embrace, but must consume. Exeunt.

Henry. Speak home, my Bussy! thy impartiall words Are like brave faulcons that dare trusse a fowle Much greater than themselves; flatterers are kites That check at sparrowes; thou shalt be my eagle, And beare my thunder underneath thy wings: 5 Truths words like jewels hang in th'eares of kings.

Bussy. Would I might live to see no Jewes hang there In steed of jewels—sycophants, I meane, Who use Truth like the Devill, his true foe, Cast by the angell to the pit of feares, 10 And bound in chaines; Truth seldome decks kings eares. Slave flattery (like a rippiers legs rowl'd up In boots of hay-ropes) with kings soothed guts Swadled and strappl'd, now lives onely free. O, tis a subtle knave; how like the plague 15 Unfelt he strikes into the braine of man, And rageth in his entrailes when he can, Worse than the poison of a red hair'd man.

Buss. Ile make you sport enough, then. Let me have My lucerns too, or dogs inur'd to hunt Beasts of most rapine, but to put them up, And if I trusse not, let me not be trusted. Shew me a great man (by the peoples voice, 25 Which is the voice of God) that by his greatnesse Bumbasts his private roofes with publique riches; That affects royaltie, rising from a clapdish; That rules so much more than his suffering King, That he makes kings of his subordinate slaves: 30 Himselfe and them graduate like woodmongers Piling a stack of billets from the earth, Raising each other into steeples heights; Let him convey this on the turning props Of Protean law, and (his owne counsell keeping) 35 Keepe all upright—let me but hawlk at him, Ile play the vulture, and so thump his liver That (like a huge unlading Argosea) He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a clergie man that is in voice 40 A lark of heaven, in heart a mowle of earth; That hath good living, and a wicked life; A temperate look, and a luxurious gut; Turning the rents of his superfluous cures Into your phesants and your partriches; 45 Venting their quintessence as men read Hebrew— Let me but hawlk at him, and like the other, He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a lawyer that turnes sacred law (The equall rendrer of each man his owne, 50 The scourge of rapine and extortion, The sanctuary and impregnable defence Of retir'd learning and besieged vertue) Into a Harpy, that eates all but's owne, Into the damned sinnes it punisheth, 55 Into the synagogue of theeves and atheists; Blood into gold, and justice into lust:— Let me but hawlk at him, as at the rest, He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him.

Gui. Come, y'are a glorious ruffin and runne proud Of the Kings headlong graces; hold your breath, Or, by that poyson'd vapour, not the King Shall back your murtherous valour against me. 65

Buss. I would the King would make his presence free But for one bout betwixt us: by the reverence Due to the sacred space twixt kings and subjects, Here would I make thee cast that popular purple In which thy proud soule sits and braves thy soveraigne. 70

Buss. Still shall we chide, and fome upon this bit? Is the Guise onely great in faction? Stands he not by himselfe? Proves he th'opinion 85 That mens soules are without them? Be a duke, And lead me to the field.

Henr. Stay them! stay, D'Ambois! Cosen Guise, I wonder Your honour'd disposition brooks so ill A man so good that only would uphold 90 Man in his native noblesse, from whose fall All our dissentions rise; that in himselfe (Without the outward patches of our frailty, Riches and honour) knowes he comprehends Worth with the greatest. Kings had never borne 95 Such boundlesse empire over other men, Had all maintain'd the spirit and state of D'Ambois; Nor had the full impartiall hand of Nature, That all things gave in her originall Without these definite terms of Mine and Thine, 100 Beene turn'd unjustly to the hand of Fortune, Had all preserv'd her in her prime like D'Ambois; No envie, no disjunction had dissolv'd, Or pluck'd one stick out of the golden faggot In which the world of Saturne bound our lifes, 105 Had all beene held together with the nerves, The genius, and th'ingenious soule of D'Ambois. Let my hand therefore be the Hermean rod To part and reconcile, and so conserve you, As my combin'd embracers and supporters. 110

Buss. Tis our Kings motion, and we shall not seeme To worst eies womanish, though we change thus soone Never so great grudge for his greater pleasure.

Gui. I seale to that, and so the manly freedome, That you so much professe, hereafter prove not 115 A bold and glorious licence to deprave, To me his hand shall hold the Hermean vertue His grace affects, in which submissive signe On this his sacred right hand I lay mine.

Buss. Tis well, my lord, and so your worthy greatnesse 120 Decline not to the greater insolence, Nor make you think it a prerogative To rack mens freedomes with the ruder wrongs, My hand (stuck full of lawrell, in true signe Tis wholly dedicate to righteous peace) 125 In all submission kisseth th'other side.

Henr. Thanks to ye both: and kindly I invite ye Both to a banquet where weele sacrifice Full cups to confirmation of your loves; At which (faire ladies) I entreat your presence; 130 And hope you, madam, will take one carowse For reconcilement of your lord and servant.

Mons. Tis true, my lord; and as this doting hand Even out of earth (like Juno) struck this giant, 145 So Joves great ordinance shall be here implide To strike him under th'AEtna of his pride. To which work lend your hands, and let us cast Where we may set snares for his ranging greatnes. I think it best, amongst our greatest women: 150 For there is no such trap to catch an upstart As a loose downfall; for, you know, their falls Are th'ends of all mens rising. If great men And wise make scapes to please advantage, Tis with a woman—women that woorst may 155 Still hold mens candels: they direct and know All things amisse in all men, and their women All things amisse in them; through whose charm'd mouthes We may see all the close scapes of the Court. When the most royall beast of chase, the hart, 160 Being old, and cunning in his layres and haunts, Can never be discovered to the bow, The peece, or hound—yet where, behind some queich, He breaks his gall, and rutteth with his hinde, The place is markt, and by his venery 165 He still is taken. Shall we then attempt The chiefest meane to that discovery here, And court our greatest ladies chiefest women With shewes of love, and liberall promises? Tis but our breath. If something given in hand 170 Sharpen their hopes of more, 'twill be well ventur'd.

Mons. I have broken The yce to it already with the woman Of your chast lady, and conceive good hope 175 I shall wade thorow to some wished shore At our next meeting.

Mons. Well said! a spirit of courtship of all hands. Now, mine owne Pero, hast thou remembred 190 me for the discovery I entreated thee to make of thy mistresse? Speak boldly, and be sure of all things I have sworne to thee.

Pero. Building on that assurance (my lord) I may speak; and much the rather because my 195 lady hath not trusted me with that I can tell you; for now I cannot be said to betray her.

Per. Tis thus, then: this last night my lord lay forth, and I, watching my ladies sitting up, 205 stole up at midnight from my pallat, and (having before made a hole both through the wall and arras to her inmost chamber) I saw D'Ambois and her selfe reading a letter!

Mons. The devill he is, and thy lady his dam! Why this was the happiest shot that ever flewe; 215 the just plague of hypocrisie level'd it. Oh, the infinite regions betwixt a womans tongue and her heart! is this our Goddesse of chastity? I thought I could not be so sleighted, if she had not her fraught besides, and therefore plotted this 220 with her woman, never dreaming of D'Amboys. Deare Pero, I will advance thee for ever: but tell me now—Gods pretious, it transformes mee with admiration—sweet Pero, whom should she trust with this conveyance? Or, all the dores 225 being made sure, how should his conveyance be made?

Mons. Well, let's favour our apprehensions 230 with forbearing that a little; for, if my heart were not hoopt with adamant, the conceipt of this would have burst it: but heark thee. Whispers.

An. No, my lord, D'Ambois neglects her (as shee takes it) and is therefore suspicious that either your lady, or the lady Beaupre, hath closely entertain'd him. 240

Mons. Come, we'l disguise all with seeming onely to have courted.—Away, dry palm! sh'as a livor as dry as a bisket; a man may goe a 245 whole voyage with her, and get nothing but tempests from her windpipe.

Per. You shall, my lord. What's that, that being most rar's most cheap? That when you sow, you never reap? That when it growes most, most you [th]in it, And still you lose it, when you win it? 270 That when tis commonest, tis dearest, And when tis farthest off, 'tis neerest?

Per. Why, my lord, when you cannot get it, it goes to th'heart on you; and that I think comes most neere you: and I am sure it shall be farre enough off. And so wee leave you to our mercies. Exeunt Women.

Mont. Nothing but this: D'Ambois is thought negligent in observing the Duchesse, and therefore she is suspicious that your neece or my wife closely entertaines him.

Mont. That's not worth the answering. Tis miraculous to think with what monsters womens imaginations engrosse them when they are once enamour'd, and what wonders they will work 305 for their satisfaction. They will make a sheepe valiant, a lion fearefull.

Mons. O the unsounded sea of womens bloods, That when tis calmest, is most dangerous! Not any wrinkle creaming in their faces, 315 When in their hearts are Scylla and Caribdis, Which still are hid in dark and standing foggs, Where never day shines, nothing ever growes But weeds and poysons that no states-man knowes; Nor Cerberus ever saw the damned nookes 320 Hid with the veiles of womens vertuous lookes. But what a cloud of sulphur have I drawne Up to my bosome in this dangerous secret! Which if my hast with any spark should light Ere D'Ambois were engag'd in some sure plot, 325 I were blowne up; he would be, sure, my death. Would I had never knowne it, for before I shall perswade th'importance to Montsurry, And make him with some studied stratagem Train D'Ambois to his wreak, his maid may tell it; 330 Or I (out of my fiery thirst to play With the fell tyger up in darknesse tyed, And give it some light) make it quite break loose. I feare it, afore heaven, and will not see D'Ambois againe, till I have told Montsurry, 335 And set a snare with him to free my feares. Whose there?

Maf. See, even by this there's one exception more; Your Grace must be more firme in the command, 345 Or else shall I as weakly execute. The Guise shall speak with you?

Maf. Your Grace must pardon me, that I am bold To urge the cleare and full sence of your pleasure; 350 Which when so ever I have knowne, I hope Your Grace will say I hit it to a haire.

Mons. I pray thee, get thee gone; thou art so tedious In the strick't forme of all thy services 355 That I had better have one negligent. You hit my pleasure well, when D'Ambois hit you; Did you not, think you?

Mons. Precious! then it is a fate that plagues me In this mans foolery; I may be murthered, While he stands on protection of his folly. Avant, about thy charge!

Maf. I goe, my lord.— 365 I had my head broke in his faithfull service; I had no suit the more, nor any thanks, And yet my teeth must still be hit with D'Ambois. D'Ambois, my lord, shall know—

Mons. The devill and D'Ambois! Exit Maffe. How am I tortur'd with this trusty foole! 370 Never was any curious in his place To doe things justly, but he was an asse: We cannot finde one trusty that is witty, And therefore beare their disproportion. Grant, thou great starre, and angell of my life, 375 A sure lease of it but for some few dayes, That I may cleare my bosome of the snake I cherisht there, and I will then defie All check to it but Natures; and her altars Shall crack with vessels crown'd with ev'ry liquor 380 Drawn from her highest and most bloudy humors. I feare him strangely; his advanced valour Is like a spirit rais'd without a circle, Endangering him that ignorantly rais'd him, And for whose fury he hath learnt no limit. 385

Maf. I cannot help it; what should I do more? As I was gathering a fit guard to make My passage to the dores, and the dores sure, The man of bloud is enter'd.

Mons. Well, leave these jests! how I am over-joyed With thy wish'd presence, and how fit thou com'st, For, of mine honour, I was sending for thee.

Mons. Onely for thy company, 405 Which I have still in thought; but that's no payment On thy part made with personall appearance. Thy absence so long suffered oftentimes Put me in some little doubt thou do'st not love me. Wilt thou doe one thing therefore now sincerely? 410

Mons. I will not then; to prove which, by my love Shewne to thy vertues, and by all fruits else Already sprung from that still flourishing tree, With whatsoever may hereafter spring, 420 I charge thee utter (even with all the freedome Both of thy noble nature and thy friendship) The full and plaine state of me in thy thoughts.

Buss. Why this swims quite against the stream of greatnes: Great men would rather heare their flatteries, And if they be not made fooles, are not wise.

Buss. Since you affect it in such serious termes, If your selfe first will tell me what you think As freely and as heartily of me, I'le be as open in my thoughts of you.

Mons. I will, I sweare. I think thee, then, a man That dares as much as a wilde horse or tyger, 440 As headstrong and as bloody; and to feed The ravenous wolfe of thy most caniball valour (Rather than not employ it) thou would'st turne Hackster to any whore, slave to a Jew, Or English usurer, to force possessions 445 (And cut mens throats) of morgaged estates; Or thou would'st tire thee like a tinkers strumpet, And murther market folks; quarrell with sheepe, And runne as mad as Ajax; serve a butcher; Doe any thing but killing of the King. 450 That in thy valour th'art like other naturalls That have strange gifts in nature, but no soule Diffus'd quite through, to make them of a peece, But stop at humours, that are more absurd, Childish and villanous than that hackster, whore, 455 Slave, cut-throat, tinkers bitch, compar'd before; And in those humours would'st envie, betray, Slander, blaspheme, change each houre a religion, Doe any thing, but killing of the King: That in thy valour (which is still the dunghill, 460 To which hath reference all filth in thy house) Th'art more ridiculous and vaine-glorious Than any mountibank, and impudent Than any painted bawd; which not to sooth, And glorifie thee like a Jupiter Hammon, 465 Thou eat'st thy heart in vinegar, and thy gall Turns all thy blood to poyson, which is cause Of that toad-poole that stands in thy complexion, And makes thee with a cold and earthy moisture, (Which is the damme of putrifaction) 470 As plague to thy damn'd pride, rot as thou liv'st: To study calumnies and treacheries; To thy friends slaughters like a scrich-owle sing, And to all mischiefes—but to kill the King.

Buss. That ever any man was blest withall. So here's for me! I think you are (at worst) No devill, since y'are like to be no King; Of which with any friend of yours Ile lay 480 This poore stillado here gainst all the starres, I, and 'gainst all your treacheries, which are more: That you did never good, but to doe ill, But ill of all sorts, free and for it selfe: That (like a murthering peece making lanes in armies, 485 The first man of a rank, the whole rank falling) If you have wrong'd one man, you are so farre From making him amends that all his race, Friends, and associates fall into your chace: That y'are for perjuries the very prince 490 Of all intelligencers; and your voice Is like an easterne winde, that, where it flies, Knits nets of catterpillars, with which you catch The prime of all the fruits the kingdome yeelds: That your politicall head is the curst fount 495 Of all the violence, rapine, cruelty, Tyrannie, & atheisme flowing through the realme: That y'ave a tongue so scandalous, 'twill cut The purest christall, and a breath that will Kill to that wall a spider; you will jest 500 With God, and your soule to the Devill tender For lust; kisse horror, and with death engender: That your foule body is a Lernean fenne Of all the maladies breeding in all men: That you are utterly without a soule; 505 And for your life, the thred of that was spunne When Clotho slept, and let her breathing rock Fall in the durt; and Lachesis still drawes it, Dipping her twisting fingers in a boule Defil'd, and crown'd with vertues forced soule: 510 And lastly (which I must for gratitude Ever remember) that of all my height And dearest life you are the onely spring, Onely in royall hope to kill the King.

Char. I sweare to your Grace, all that I can conjecture touching my lady, your neece, is a strong affection she beares to the English Mylor.

I will conceale all yet, and give more time To D'Ambois triall, now upon my hooke; He awes my throat; else, like Sybillas cave, It should breath oracles; I feare him strangely, And may resemble his advanced valour Unto a spirit rais'd without a circle, Endangering him that ignorantly rais'd him, And for whose furie he hath learn'd no limit.

Henry. Ladies, ye have not done our banquet right, Nor lookt upon it with those cheereful rayes That lately turn'd your breaths to flouds of gold; Your looks, me thinks, are not drawne out with thoughts So cleare and free as heretofore, but foule 5 As if the thick complexions of men Govern'd within them.

Bussy. 'Tis not like, my lord, That men in women rule, but contrary; For as the moone, of all things God created Not only is the most appropriate image 10 Or glasse to shew them how they wax and wane, But in her height and motion likewise beares Imperiall influences that command In all their powers, and make them wax and wane: So women, that, of all things made of nothing, 15 Are the most perfect idols of the moone, Or still-unwean'd sweet moon-calves with white faces, Not only are paterns of change to men, But as the tender moon-shine of their beauties Cleares or is cloudy, make men glad or sad. 20 So then they rule in men, not men in them.

Monsieur. But here the moons are chang'd (as the King notes) And either men rule in them, or some power Beyond their voluntary faculty, For nothing can recover their lost faces. 25

Montsurry. None can be alwayes one: our griefes and joyes Hold severall scepters in us, and have times For their divided empires: which griefe now in them Doth prove as proper to his diadem.

Buss. And griefe's a naturall sicknesse of the bloud, 30 That time to part asks, as his comming had; Onely sleight fooles griev'd suddenly are glad. A man may say t'a dead man, "be reviv'd," As well as to one sorrowfull, "be not griev'd." And therefore (princely mistresse) in all warres 35 Against these base foes that insult on weaknesse, And still fight hous'd behind the shield of Nature, Of priviledge law, treachery, or beastly need, Your servant cannot help; authority here Goes with corruption, something like some states 40 That back woorst men; valour to them must creepe That to themselves left would feare him asleepe.

Tam. Man is a name of honour for a King: Additions take away from each chiefe thing. 50 The schoole of modesty not to learne learnes dames: They sit in high formes there that know mens names.

Mons. [to Bussy.] Heark, sweet heart, here's a bar set to your valour! It cannot enter here, no, not to notice Of what your name is; your great eagles beak 55 (Should you flie at her) had as good encounter An Albion cliffe as her more craggy liver.

Henr. But me thinks Her courtship is more pure then heretofore. True courtiers should be modest, and not nice; 65 Bold, but not impudent; pleasure love, not vice.

Mons. Sweet heart, come hither! what if one should make Horns at Mountsurry, would it not strike him jealous Through all the proofes of his chaste ladies vertues?

Buss. So the large licence that your greatnesse uses To jest at all men may be taught indeed To make a difference of the grounds you play on, 75 Both in the men you scandall and the matter.

Buss. Were your King brother in you; all your powers (Stretcht in the armes of great men and their bawds) Set close downe by you; all your stormy lawes Spouted with lawyers mouthes, and gushing bloud, Like to so many torrents; all your glories 85 Making you terrible, like enchanted flames, Fed with bare cockscombs and with crooked hammes, All your prerogatives, your shames, and tortures, All daring heaven and opening hell about you— Were I the man ye wrong'd so and provok'd, 90 (Though ne're so much beneath you) like a box tree I would out of the roughnesse of my root Ramme hardnesse in my lownesse, and, like death Mounted on earthquakes, I would trot through all Honors and horrors, thorow foule and faire, 95 And from your whole strength tosse you into the aire.

Mons. Goe, th'art a devill! such another spirit Could not be still'd from all th'Armenian dragons. O, my loves glory! heire to all I have (That's all I can say, and that all I sweare) 100 If thou out-live me, as I know thou must, Or else hath Nature no proportion'd end To her great labours; she hath breath'd a minde Into thy entrails, of desert to swell Into another great Augustus Caesar; 105 Organs and faculties fitted to her greatnesse; And should that perish like a common spirit, Nature's a courtier and regards no merit.

Henr. Here's nought but whispering with us; like a calme Before a tempest, when the silent ayre 110 Layes her soft eare close to the earth to hearken For that she feares steales on to ravish her; Some fate doth joyne our eares to heare it comming. Come, my brave eagle, let's to covert flie! I see almighty AEther in the smoak 115 Of all his clowds descending, and the skie Hid in the dim ostents of tragedy. Exit Henr[y] with D'Amb[ois] & Ladies.

Mons. Not I, it is a work without my power, Married mens ensignes are not made with fingers; Of divine fabrique they are, not mens hands: 125 Your wife, you know, is a meere Cynthia, And she must fashion hornes out of her nature.

Mons. I must not speak, my lord; but if you'l use The learning of a noble man, and read, 130 Here's something to those points. Soft, you must pawne Your honour, having read it, to return it.

Pero. What does your lordship meane? Madam, be comforted; my lord but tries you. Madam! Help, good my lord, are you not mov'd? Doe your set looks print in your words your thoughts? 150 Sweet lord, cleare up those eyes, Unbend that masking forehead. Whence is it You rush upon her with these Irish warres, More full of sound then hurt? But it is enough; You have shot home, your words are in her heart; 155 She has not liv'd to beare a triall now.

Mont. 'Twas from my troubled bloud, and not from me. I know not how I fare; a sudden night Flowes through my entrailes, and a headlong chaos Murmurs within me, which I must digest, And not drowne her in my confusions, 165 That was my lives joy, being best inform'd. Sweet, you must needs forgive me, that my love (Like to a fire disdaining his suppression) Rag'd being discouraged; my whole heart is wounded When any least thought in you is but touch't, 170 And shall be till I know your former merits, Your name and memory, altogether crave In just oblivion their eternall grave; And then, you must heare from me, there's no meane In any passion I shall feele for you. 175 Love is a rasor, cleansing, being well us'd, But fetcheth blood still, being the least abus'd. To tell you briefly all—the man that left me When you appear'd, did turne me worse than woman, And stab'd me to the heart, thus, with his fingers. 180

Tam. O happy woman! comes my stain from him, It is my beauty, and that innocence proves That slew Chymaera, rescued Peleus From all the savage beasts in Peleon, And rais'd the chaste Athenian prince from hell: 185 All suffering with me, they for womens lusts, I for a mans, that the Egean stable Of his foule sinne would empty in my lap. How his guilt shunn'd me! Sacred innocence That, where thou fear'st, are dreadfull, and his face 190 Turn'd in flight from thee that had thee in chace! Come, bring me to him. I will tell the serpent Even to his venom'd teeth (from whose curst seed A pitcht field starts up 'twixt my lord and me) That his throat lies, and he shall curse his fingers 195 For being so govern'd by his filthy soule.

Mont. I know not if himselfe will vaunt t'have beene The princely author of the slavish sinne, Or any other; he would have resolv'd me, Had you not come, not by his word, but writing, 200 Would I have sworne to give it him againe, And pawn'd mine honour to him for a paper.

Tam. See, how he flies me still! tis a foule heart That feares his owne hand. Good my lord, make haste To see the dangerous paper: papers hold 205 Oft-times the formes and copies of our soules, And (though the world despise them) are the prizes Of all our honors; make your honour then A hostage for it, and with it conferre My neerest woman here in all she knowes; 210 Who (if the sunne or Cerberus could have seene Any staine in me) might as well as they. And, Pero, here I charge thee, by my love, And all proofes of it (which I might call bounties); By all that thou hast seene seeme good in mee, 215 And all the ill which thou shouldst spit from thee; By pity of the wound this touch hath given me, Not as thy mistresse now, but a poore woman To death given over, rid me of my paines; Powre on thy powder; cleare thy breast of me. 220 My lord is only here: here speak thy worst; Thy best will doe me mischiefe; if thou spar'st me, Never shine good thought on thy memory! Resolve my lord, and leave me desperate.

Per. My lord!—my lord hath plaid a prodigals part, 225 To break his stock for nothing, and an insolent, To cut a Gordian when he could not loose it. What violence is this, to put true fire To a false train; to blow up long crown'd peace With sudden outrage; and beleeve a man, 230 Sworne to the shame of women, 'gainst a woman Borne to their honours? But I will to him.

Tam. No, I will write (for I shall never more Meet with the fugitive) where I will defie him, Were he ten times the brother of my King. 235 To him, my lord,—and ile to cursing him. Exeunt.

Bussy. I am suspitious, my most honour'd father, By some of Monsieurs cunning passages, That his still ranging and contentious nose-thrils To scent the haunts of mischiefe have so us'd The vicious vertue of his busie sence 5 That he trails hotly of him, and will rowze him, Driving him all enrag'd and foming on us; And therefore have entreated your deepe skill In the command of good aeriall spirits, To assume these magick rites, and call up one, 10 To know if any have reveal'd unto him Any thing touching my deare love and me.

Friar. Good sonne, you have amaz'd me but to make The least doubt of it, it concernes so neerely The faith and reverence of my name and order. 15 Yet will I justifie upon my soule All I have done; If any spirit i'th[e] earth or aire Can give you the resolve, doe not despaire.

Tamyra. Away, deliver it. Exit Pero. O may my lines, 20 Fill'd with the poyson of a womans hate, When he shall open them, shrink up his curst eyes With torturous darknesse, such as stands in hell, Stuck full of inward horrors, never lighted; With which are all things to be fear'd, affrighted. 25

Tam. O, servant, help, and save me from the gripes Of shame and infamy. Our love is knowne; Your Monsieur hath a paper where is writ Some secret tokens that decipher it. 30

Buss. What cold dull Northern brain, what foole but he, Durst take into his Epimethean breast A box of such plagues as the danger yeelds Incur'd in this discovery? He had better Ventur'd his breast in the consuming reach 35 Of the hot surfets cast out of the clouds, Or stood the bullets that (to wreak the skie) The Cyclops ramme in Joves artillerie.

Fri. We soone will take the darknesse from his face That did that deed of darknesse; we will know 40 What now the Monsieur and your husband doe; What is contain'd within the secret paper Offer'd by Monsieur, and your loves events. To which ends (honour'd daughter) at your motion I have put on these exorcising rites, 45 And, by my power of learned holinesse Vouchsaft me from above, I will command Our resolution of a raised spirit.

Occidentalium legionum spiritualium imperator (magnus ille Behemoth) veni, veni, comitatus cum Asaroth locotenente invicto. Adjuro te, per Stygis 55 inscrutabilia arcana, per ipsos irremeabiles anfractus Averni: adesto o Behemoth, tu cui pervia sunt Magnatum scrinia; veni, per Noctis & tenebrarum abdita profundissima; per labentia sydera; per ipsos motus horarum furtivos, Hecatesq[ue] altum silentium! 60 Appare in forma spiritali, lucente, splendida, & amabili!

Fri. I would see What now the Monsieur and Mountsurrie doe, And see the secret paper that the Monsieur 65 Offer'd to Count Montsurry; longing much To know on what events the secret loves Of these two honour'd persons shall arrive.

Beh. Why calledst thou me to this accursed light, To these light purposes? I am Emperor 70 Of that inscrutable darknesse, where are hid All deepest truths, and secrets never seene, All which I know; and command legions Of knowing spirits that can doe more then these. Any of this my guard that circle me 75 In these blew fires, and out of whose dim fumes Vast murmurs use to break, and from their sounds Articulat voyces, can doe ten parts more Than open such sleight truths as you require.

Fri. From the last nights black depth I call'd up one 80 Of the inferiour ablest ministers, And he could not resolve mee. Send one, then, Out of thine owne command to fetch the paper That Monsieur hath to shew to Count Montsurry.

Beh. I will. Cartophylax! thou that properly 85 Hast in thy power all papers so inscrib'd, Glide through all barres to it, and fetch that paper.

Beh. This is your slacknesse, not t'invoke our powers When first your acts set forth to their effects. 100 Yet shall you see it and themselves. Behold They come here, & the Earle now holds the paper.

Fri. Doe not stirre. There's too much distance, and too many locks 105 Twixt you and them (how neere so e're they seeme) For any man to interrupt their secrets.

Monsieur. There is a glasse of ink where you may see How to make ready black fac'd tragedy: You now discerne, I hope, through all her paintings, 115 Her gasping wrinkles and fames sepulchres.

Mons. What, stricken dumb! Nay fie, lord, be not danted: Your case is common; were it ne're so rare, 120 Beare it as rarely! Now to laugh were manly. A worthy man should imitate the weather, That sings in tempests, and being cleare, is silent.

Mons. Doe, my lord, And make her name her conceal'd messenger, That close and most inennerable pander, That passeth all our studies to exquire: By whom convay the letter to her love; 130 And so you shall be sure to have him come Within the thirsty reach of your revenge. Before which, lodge an ambush in her chamber, Behind the arras, of your stoutest men All close and soundly arm'd; and let them share 135 A spirit amongst them that would serve a thousand.

Mons. You shall presently: how fares my Pero? Enter Servant. Who's there? Take in this maid, sh'as caught a clap, And fetch my surgeon to her. Come, my lord, We'l now peruse our letter. Exeunt Mons[ieur], Guise. Lead her out.

Beh. All I can say, Being call'd thus late, is briefe, and darkly this:— If D'Ambois mistresse die not her white hand 155 In her forc'd bloud, he shall remaine untoucht: So, father, shall your selfe, but by your selfe. To make this augurie plainer, when the voyce Of D'Amboys shall invoke me, I will rise Shining in greater light, and shew him all 160 That will betide ye all. Meane time be wise, And curb his valour with your policies. Descendit cum suis.

Tam. In meane time, Deare servant, till your powerfull voice revoke him, Be sure to use the policy he advis'd; Lest fury in your too quick knowledge taken Of our abuse, and your defence of me, 170 Accuse me more than any enemy. And, father, you must on my lord impose Your holiest charges, and the Churches power, To temper his hot spirit, and disperse The cruelty and the bloud I know his hand 175 Will showre upon our heads, if you put not Your finger to the storme, and hold it up, As my deare servant here must doe with Monsieur.

Buss. Ile sooth his plots, and strow my hate with smiles, Till all at once the close mines of my heart 180 Rise at full date, and rush into his bloud: Ile bind his arme in silk, and rub his flesh To make the veine swell, that his soule may gush Into some kennell where it longs to lie; And policy shall be flanckt with policy. 185 Yet shall the feeling Center where we meet Groane with the wait of my approaching feet: Ile make th'inspired threshals of his Court Sweat with the weather of my horrid steps, Before I enter: yet will I appeare 190 Like calme security before a ruine. A politician must, like lightning, melt The very marrow, and not taint the skin: His wayes must not be seene; the superficies Of the greene Center must not taste his feet, 195 When hell is plow'd up with his wounding tracts, And all his harvest reap't by hellish facts. Exeunt.

Fri. My lord, remember that your soule must seek 5 Her peace as well as your revengefull bloud. You ever to this houre have prov'd your selfe A noble, zealous, and obedient sonne T'our holy mother: be not an apostate. Your wives offence serves not (were it the worst 10 You can imagine) without greater proofes To sever your eternall bonds and hearts; Much lesse to touch her with a bloudy hand. Nor is it manly (much lesse husbandly) To expiate any frailty in your wife 15 With churlish strokes, or beastly ods of strength. The stony birth of clowds will touch no lawrell, Nor any sleeper: your wife is your lawrell, And sweetest sleeper; doe not touch her, then; Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour 20 To her that is more gentle than that rude; In whom kind nature suffer'd one offence But to set off her other excellence.

Mont. Good father, leave us: interrupt no more The course I must runne for mine honour sake. 25 Rely on my love to her, which her fault Cannot extinguish. Will she but disclose Who was the secret minister of her love, And through what maze he serv'd it, we are friends.

Fri. It is a damn'd work to pursue those secrets 30 That would ope more sinne, and prove springs of slaughter; Nor is't a path for Christian feet to tread, But out of all way to the health of soules; A sinne impossible to be forgiven, Which he that dares commit—

Mont. Good father, cease your terrors. 35 Tempt not a man distracted; I am apt To outrages that I shall ever rue: I will not passe the verge that bounds a Christian, Nor break the limits of a man nor husband.

Fri. I warrant thee, my dearest daughter, He will not touch thee; think'st thou him a pagan? His honor and his soule lies for thy safety. Exit.

Mont. Who shall remove the mountaine from my brest, 45 Stand [in] the opening furnace of my thoughts, And set fit out-cries for a soule in hell? Mont[surry] turnes a key. For now it nothing fits my woes to speak, But thunder, or to take into my throat The trump of Heaven, with whose determinate blasts 50 The windes shall burst and the devouring seas Be drunk up in his sounds, that my hot woes (Vented enough) I might convert to vapour Ascending from my infamie unseene; Shorten the world, preventing the last breath 55 That kils the living, and regenerates death.

Tam. My lord, my fault (as you may censure it With too strong arguments) is past your pardon. But how the circumstances may excuse mee, Heaven knowes, and your more temperate minde hereafter 60 May let my penitent miseries make you know.

Mont. Hereafter! tis a suppos'd infinite That from this point will rise eternally. Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities 65 Enrag'd with those winds that lesse lights extinguish. Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffin gally rig'd with quench for lust: Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap 70 The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc'd; That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe, And quit his manhood with a womans sleight, Who never is deceiv'd in her deceit. Sing (that is, write); and then take from mine eyes 75 The mists that hide the most inscrutable pander That ever lapt up an adulterous vomit, That I may see the devill, and survive To be a devill, and then learne to wive! That I may hang him, and then cut him downe, 80 Then cut him up, and with my soules beams search The cranks and cavernes of his braine, and study The errant wildernesse of a womans face, Where men cannot get out, for all the comets That have beene lighted at it. Though they know 85 That adders lie a sunning in their smiles, That basilisks drink their poyson from their eyes, And no way there to coast out to their hearts, Yet still they wander there, and are not stay'd Till they be fetter'd, nor secure before 90 All cares devoure them, nor in humane consort Till they embrace within their wives two breasts All Pelion and Cythaeron with their beasts.— Why write you not?

Mont. It followes needfully as childe and parent; The chaine-shot of thy lust is yet aloft, And it must murther; tis thine owne deare twinne. No man can adde height to a womans sinne. 100 Vice never doth her just hate so provoke, As when she rageth under vertues cloake. Write! for it must be—by this ruthlesse steele, By this impartiall torture, and the death Thy tyrannies have invented in my entrails, 105 To quicken life in dying, and hold up The spirits in fainting, teaching to preserve Torments in ashes that will ever last. Speak: will you write?

Tam. Sweet lord, enjoyne my sinne Some other penance than what makes it worse: 110 Hide in some gloomie dungeon my loth'd face, And let condemned murtherers let me downe (Stopping their noses) my abhorred food: Hang me in chaines, and let me eat these armes That have offended: binde me face to face 115 To some dead woman, taken from the cart Of execution?—till death and time In graines of dust dissolve me, Ile endure; Or any torture that your wraths invention Can fright all pitie from the world withall. 120 But to betray a friend with shew of friendship, That is too common for the rare revenge Your rage affecteth; here then are my breasts, Last night your pillowes; here my wretched armes, As late the wished confines of your life: 125 Now break them, as you please, and all the bounds Of manhood, noblesse, and religion.

Mont. Where all these have bin broken, they are kept In doing their justice there with any shew Of the like cruell cruelty: thine armes have lost 130 Their priviledge in lust, and in their torture Thus they must pay it. Stabs her.

Tam. O kill me, kill me! Deare husband, be not crueller than death! 135 You have beheld some Gorgon: feele, O feele How you are turn'd to stone. With my heart blood Dissolve your selfe againe, or you will grow Into the image of all tyrannie.

Mont. I, for thy monstrous idoll is not done yet. This toole hath wrought enough. Now, Torture, use Ent[er] Servants. This other engine on th'habituate powers 145 Of her thrice damn'd and whorish fortitude: Use the most madding paines in her that ever Thy venoms sok'd through, making most of death, That she may weigh her wrongs with them—and then Stand, vengeance, on thy steepest rock, a victor! 150

Tam. O who is turn'd into my lord and husband? Husband! my lord! None but my lord and husband! Heaven, I ask thee remission of my sinnes, Not of my paines: husband, O help me, husband!

Mont. Author of prodigies! What new flame breakes out of the firmament That turnes up counsels never knowne before? 160 Now is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still; Even heaven it selfe must see and suffer ill. The too huge bias of the world hath sway'd Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves This hemisphere that long her mouth hath mockt: 165 The gravity of her religious face (Now growne too waighty with her sacriledge, And here discern'd sophisticate enough) Turnes to th'Antipodes; and all the formes That her illusions have imprest in her 170 Have eaten through her back; and now all see How she is riveted with hypocrisie. Was this the way? was he the mean betwixt you?

Mont. Well might he die for thought: methinks the frame And shaken joynts of the whole world should crack To see her parts so disproportionate; 180 And that his generall beauty cannot stand Without these staines in the particular man. Why wander I so farre? here, here was she That was a whole world without spot to me, Though now a world of spots. Oh what a lightning 185 Is mans delight in women! What a bubble He builds his state, fame, life on, when he marries! Since all earths pleasures are so short and small, The way t'enjoy it is t'abjure it all. Enough! I must be messenger my selfe, 190 Disguis'd like this strange creature. In, Ile after, To see what guilty light gives this cave eyes, And to the world sing new impieties.

Monsieur. Now shall we see that Nature hath no end In her great works responsive to their worths; That she, that makes so many eyes and soules To see and fore-see, is stark blind her selfe; And as illiterate men say Latine prayers 5 By rote of heart and dayly iteration, Not knowing what they say, so Nature layes A deale of stuffe together, and by use, Or by the meere necessity of matter, Ends such a work, fills it, or leaves it empty 10 Of strength, or vertue, error, or cleare truth, Not knowing what she does; but usually Gives that which we call merit to a man, And beliefe must arrive him on huge riches, Honour and happinesse, that effects his ruine. 15 Even as in ships of warre whole lasts of powder Are laid, me thinks, to make them last, and gard them, When a disorder'd spark, that powder taking, Blowes up, with sodaine violence and horror, Ships that (kept empty) had sayl'd long, with terror. 20

Guise. He that observes but like a worldly man That which doth oft succeed and by th'events Values the worth of things, will think it true That Nature works at random, just with you: But with as much proportion she may make 25 A thing that from the feet up to the throat Hath all the wondrous fabrique man should have, And leave it headlesse, for a perfect man, As give a full man valour, vertue, learning, Without an end more excellent then those 30 On whom she no such worthy part bestowes.

Mons. Yet shall you see it here; here will be one Young, learned, valiant, vertuous, and full mann'd; One on whom Nature spent so rich a hand That with an ominous eye she wept to see 35 So much consum'd her vertuous treasurie. Yet as the winds sing through a hollow tree, And (since it lets them passe through) let's it stand; But a tree solid (since it gives no way To their wild rage) they rend up by the root: 40 So this whole man (That will not wind with every crooked way Trod by the servile world) shall reele and fall Before the frantick puffes of blind borne chance, That pipes through empty men and makes them dance. 45 Not so the sea raves on the Libian sands, Tumbling her billowes in each others neck: Not so the surges of the Euxian Sea (Neere to the frosty pole, where free Bootes From those dark deep waves turnes his radiant teame) 50 Swell, being enrag'd even from their inmost drop, As fortune swings about the restlesse state Of vertue now throwne into all mens hate.

Mons. Resolve, my masters, you shall meet with one Will try what proofes your privy coats are made on: When he is entred, and you heare us stamp, Approach, and make all sure.

In whose hot zeale a man would thinke they knew What they ranne so away with, and were sure To have rewards proportion'd to their labours; Yet may implore their owne confusions For anything they know, which oftentimes It fals out they incurre.

Buss. What violent heat is this? me thinks the fire Of twenty lives doth on a suddaine flash Through all my faculties: the ayre goes high 5 In this close chamber and the frighted earth Thunder. Trembles and shrinks beneath me; the whole house Nods with his shaken burthen.

Umb[ra Friar]. Note what I want, deare sonne, and be fore-warn'd. O there are bloudy deeds past and to come. 10 I cannot stay; a fate doth ravish me; Ile meet thee in the chamber of thy love. Exit.

Buss. What dismall change is here! the good old Frier Is murther'd, being made knowne to serve my love; And now his restlesse spirit would fore-warne me 15 Of some plot dangerous, and imminent. Note what he wants! He wants his upper weed, He wants his life, and body: which of these Should be the want he meanes, and may supply me With any fit fore-warning? This strange vision, 20 (Together with the dark prediction Us'd by the Prince of Darknesse that was rais'd By this embodied shadow) stirre my thoughts With reminiscion of the Spirits promise, Who told me that by any invocation 25 I should have power to raise him, though it wanted The powerfull words and decent rites of art. Never had my set braine such need of spirit T'instruct and cheere it; now then I will claime Performance of his free and gentle vow 30 T'appeare in greater light, and make more plain His rugged oracle. I long to know How my deare mistresse fares, and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled bloud Of her incensed lord: me thought the Spirit 35 (When he had utter'd his perplext presage) Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds; His forehead bent, as it would hide his face, He knockt his chin against his darkned breast, And struck a churlish silence through his pow'rs. 40 Terror of darknesse! O, thou King of flames! That with thy musique-footed horse dost strike The cleare light out of chrystall on dark earth, And hurlst instructive fire about the world, Wake, wake, the drowsie and enchanted night 45 That sleepes with dead eyes in this heavy riddle! Or thou great Prince of Shades, where never sunne Stickes his far-darted beames, whose eyes are made To shine in darknesse, and see ever best Where men are blindest, open now the heart 50 Of thy abashed oracle, that, for feare Of some ill it includes, would faine lie hid, And rise thou with it in thy greater light!

Behemoth. Thus, to observe my vow of apparition In greater light, and explicate thy fate, 55 I come; and tell thee that, if thou obey The summons that thy mistresse next will send thee, Her hand shall be thy death.

Buss. A fit paire of sheeres To cut the threds of kings and kingly spirits, 65 And consorts fit to sound forth harmony Set to the fals of kingdomes. Shall the hand Of my kind mistresse kill me?

Buss. I must fare well, how ever, though I die, 70 My death consenting with his augurie. Should not my powers obay when she commands, My motion must be rebell to my will, My will to life; if, when I have obay'd, Her hand should so reward me, they must arme it, 75 Binde me, or force it; or, I lay my life, She rather would convert it many times On her owne bosome, even to many deaths. But were there danger of such violence, I know 'tis farre from her intent to send: 80 And who she should send is as farre from thought, Since he is dead whose only mean she us'd. Knocks. Whose there? Look to the dore, and let him in, Though politick Monsieur, or the violent Guise.

Buss. O lying Spirit, 85 To say the Frier was dead! Ile now beleeve Nothing of all his forg'd predictions. My kinde and honour'd father, well reviv'd! I have beene frighted with your death and mine, And told my mistresse hand should be my death, 90 If I obeyed this summons.

Mont. I beleev'd Your love had bin much clearer then to give Any such doubt a thought, for she is cleare, And having freed her husbands jealousie (Of which her much abus'd hand here is witnesse) 95 She prayes, for urgent cause, your instant presence.

Buss. O, 'tis a sacred witnesse of her love. 100 So much elixer of her bloud as this, Dropt in the lightest dame, would make her firme As heat to fire; and, like to all the signes, Commands the life confinde in all my veines. O, how it multiplies my bloud with spirit, 105 And makes me apt t'encounter death and hell. But come, kinde father; you fetch me to heaven, And to that end your holy weed was given. Exeunt.

Mont. Well as ever, Being well as ever thought on by her lord: Wherof she sends this witnesse in her hand, And praies, for urgent cause, your speediest presence.

[Umbra] Friar. Up with these stupid thoughts, still loved daughter, And strike away this heartlesse trance of anguish: Be like the sunne, and labour in eclipses. Look to the end of woes: oh, can you sit Mustering the horrors of your servants slaughter 5 Before your contemplation, and not study How to prevent it? Watch when he shall rise, And, with a suddaine out-crie of his murther, Blow his retreat before he be revenged.

Tamyra. O father, have my dumb woes wak'd your death? 10 When will our humane griefes be at their height? Man is a tree that hath no top in cares, No root in comforts; all his power to live Is given to no end but t'have power to grieve.

Bussy. Murther'd! I know not what that Hebrew means: That word had ne're bin nam'd had all bin D'Ambois. 25 Murther'd! By heaven, he is my murtherer That shewes me not a murtherer: what such bugge Abhorreth not the very sleepe of D'Amboys? Murther'd! Who dares give all the room I see To D'Ambois reach? or look with any odds 30 His fight i'th' face, upon whose hand sits death, Whose sword hath wings, and every feather pierceth? If I scape Monsieurs pothecarie shops, Foutir for Guises shambles! 'Twas ill plotted; They should have mall'd me here 35 When I was rising. I am up and ready. Let in my politique visitants, let them in, Though entring like so many moving armours. Fate is more strong than arms and slie than treason, And I at all parts buckl'd in my fate. 40

Buss. That was a speeding sleight, and well resembled. Where is that angry Earle? My lord! come forth, And shew your owne face in your owne affaire; Take not into your noble veines the blood 55 Of these base villaines, nor the light reports Of blister'd tongues for cleare and weighty truth: But me against the world, in pure defence Of your rare lady, to whose spotlesse name I stand here as a bulwark, and project 60 A life to her renowne that ever yet Hath been untainted, even in envies eye, And, where it would protect, a sanctuarie. Brave Earle, come forth, and keep your scandall in! 'Tis not our fault, if you enforce the spot; 65 Nor the wreak yours, if you performe it not.

Montsurry. Cowards! a fiend or spirit beat ye off! They are your owne faint spirits that have forg'd The fearefull shadowes that your eyes deluded: The fiend was in you; cast him out, then, thus! 70

Buss. I will not touch him. Take your life, my lord, And be appeas'd. Pistolls shot within. O then the coward Fates Have maim'd themselves, and ever lost their honour!

Buss. Forbeare them, father; 'tis enough for me That Guise and Monsieur, death and destinie, Come behind D'Ambois. Is my body, then, But penetrable flesh, and must my mind Follow my blood? Can my divine part adde 80 No ayd to th'earthly in extremity? Then these divines are but for forme, not fact; Man is of two sweet courtly friends compact, A mistresse and a servant. Let my death Define life nothing but a courtiers breath. 85 Nothing is made of nought, of all things made Their abstract being a dreame but of a shade. Ile not complaine to earth yet, but to heaven, And (like a man) look upwards even in death. And if Vespasian thought in majestie 90 An Emperour might die standing, why not I? She offers to help him. Nay, without help, in which I will exceed him; For he died splinted with his chamber groomes. Prop me, true sword, as thou hast ever done! The equall thought I beare of life and death 95 Shall make me faint on no side; I am up. Here, like a Roman statue, I will stand Till death hath made me marble. O my fame Live in despight of murther! take thy wings And haste thee where the gray-ey'd morn perfumes 100 Her rosie chariot with Sabaean spices! Fly where the evening from th'Iberean vales Takes on her swarthy shoulders Heccate Crown'd with a grove of oakes! flie where men feele The burning axeltree; and those that suffer 105 Beneath the chariot of the snowy Beare: And tell them all that D'Ambois now is hasting To the eternall dwellers; that a thunder Of all their sighes together (for their frailties Beheld in me) may quit my worthlesse fall 110 With a fit volley for my funerall.

Buss. I forgive them all; And you, my lord, their fautor; for true signe Of which unfain'd remission, take my sword; Take it, and onely give it motion, 115 And it shall finde the way to victory By his owne brightnesse, and th'inherent valour My fight hath still'd into't with charmes of spirit. Now let me pray you that my weighty bloud, Laid in one scale of your impertiall spleene, 120 May sway the forfeit of my worthy love Waid in the other: and be reconcil'd With all forgivenesse to your matchlesse wife.

Tam. Forgive thou me, deare servant, and this hand That lead thy life to this unworthy end; 125 Forgive it for the bloud with which 'tis stain'd, In which I writ the summons of thy death— The forced summons—by this bleeding wound, By this here in my bosome, and by this That makes me hold up both my hands embrew'd 130 For thy deare pardon.

Buss. O, my heart is broken. Fate nor these murtherers, Monsieur nor the Guise, Have any glory in my death, but this, This killing spectacle, this prodigie. My sunne is turn'd to blood, in whose red beams 135 Pindus and Ossa (hid in drifts of snow Laid on my heart and liver), from their veines Melt, like two hungry torrents eating rocks, Into the ocean of all humane life, And make it bitter, only with my bloud. 140 O fraile condition of strength, valour, vertue In me (like warning fire upon the top Of some steepe beacon, on a steeper hill) Made to expresse it: like a falling starre Silently glanc't, that like a thunderbolt 145 Look't to have struck, and shook the firmament! Moritur.

Umb. Fri. Farewell! brave reliques of a compleat man, Look up, and see thy spirit made a starre. Joine flames with Hercules, and when thou set'st Thy radiant forehead in the firmament, 150 Make the vast chrystall crack with thy receipt; Spread to a world of fire, and the aged skie Cheere with new sparks of old humanity. [To Montsurry.] Son of the earth, whom my unrested soule Rues t'have begotten in the faith of heaven, 155 Assay to gratulate and pacifie The soule fled from this worthy by performing The Christian reconcilement he besought Betwixt thee and thy lady; let her wounds, Manlessly digg'd in her, be eas'd and cur'd 160 With balme of thine owne teares; or be assur'd Never to rest free from my haunt and horror.

Tam. O wretched piety, that art so distract In thine owne constancie, and in thy right Must be unrighteous. If I right my friend, I wrong my husband; if his wrong I shunne, 170 The duty of my friend I leave undone. Ill playes on both sides; here and there it riseth; No place, no good, so good, but ill compriseth. O had I never married but for forme; Never vow'd faith but purpos'd to deceive; 175 Never made conscience of any sinne, But clok't it privately and made it common; Nor never honour'd beene in bloud or mind; Happy had I beene then, as others are Of the like licence; I had then beene honour'd, 180 Liv'd without envie; custome had benumb'd All sense of scruple and all note of frailty; My fame had beene untouch'd, my heart unbroken: But (shunning all) I strike on all offence. O husband! deare friend! O my conscience! 185

Mont. I must not yeeld to pity, nor to love So servile and so trayterous: cease, my bloud, To wrastle with my honour, fame, and judgement. 190 Away! forsake my house; forbeare complaints Where thou hast bred them: here all things [are] full Of their owne shame and sorrow—leave my house.

Tam. Sweet lord, forgive me, and I will be gone; And till these wounds (that never balme shall close 195 Till death hath enterd at them, so I love them, Being opened by your hands) by death be cur'd, I never more will grieve you with my sight; Never endure that any roofe shall part Mine eyes and heaven; but to the open deserts 200 (Like to a hunted tygres) I will flie, Eating my heart, shunning the steps of men, And look on no side till I be arriv'd.

Mont. I doe forgive thee, and upon my knees (With hands held up to heaven) wish that mine honour 205 Would suffer reconcilement to my love: But, since it will not, honour never serve My love with flourishing object, till it sterve! And as this taper, though it upwards look, Downwards must needs consume, so let our love! 210 As, having lost his hony, the sweet taste Runnes into savour, and will needs retaine A spice of his first parents, till (like life) It sees and dies, so let our love! and, lastly, As when the flame is suffer'd to look up 215 It keepes his luster, but being thus turn'd downe (His naturall course of usefull light inverted) His owne stuffe puts it out, so let our love! Now turne from me, as here I turne from thee; And may both points of heavens strait axeltree 220 Conjoyne in one, before thy selfe and me! Exeunt severally.

Revive those stupid thoughts, and sit not thus, Gathering the horrors of your servants slaughter (So urg'd by your hand, and so imminent) Into an idle fancie; but devise.

Umb. Tis the just curse of our abus'd creation, Which wee must suffer heere, and scape heereafter: He hath the great mind that submits to all He sees inevitable; he the small That carps at earth, and her foundation shaker, And rather than himselfe, will mend his maker.

With many hands you have seene D'Ambois slaine; Yet by your grace he may revive againe, And every day grow stronger in his skill To please, as we presume he is in will. The best deserving actors of the time 5 Had their ascents, and by degrees did clime To their full height, a place to studie due. To make him tread in their path lies in you; Hee'le not forget his makers, but still prove His thankfulnesse, as you encrease your love. 10

=Prologue.= The allusions in these lines can be only partially explained. The play had evidently been performed, not long before 1641, by a company which had not possessed original acting rights in it. The performance had been successful (cf. ll. 3-4 "the grace of late It did receive"), and the "King's men," while not claiming a monopoly in it, nor seeking to detract from their rivals' merits, felt bound to revive the play on their own account, lest they should seem to be letting their claim go by default. It is possible that in ll. 11-12, they refer to a performance that in vindication of this claim they had given at Court, while, as further evidence of their priority of interest, they remind the audience of the actors belonging to the company who had appeared in the title-role. Nathaniel Field (l. 15), born in 1587, had as a boy been one of the "Children of the Queen's Revels," and had performed in Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, 1600, and Poetaster, 1601. He seems to have joined the King's players soon after 1614, and his name appears in the list of "the principall actors in all these playes" prefixed to the first Shakespearean Folio of 1623. Not long after this period, Field, who by his Woman is a Weathercock (1612) and his Amends for Ladies (1618) had made a reputation as a dramatist as well as an actor, is believed to have retired from the stage, though he lived till 1633. If, however, he did not appear as Bussy till after 1614, when the play had already been at least seven years, perhaps considerably longer, on the boards, it can scarcely be said with truth that his "action first did give it name" (l. 16). His successor in the part, whom the "gray beard" (l. 18) of advancing years had now disqualified, cannot be identified; but the "third man" (l. 21) is probably Ilyard Swanston, who, according to Fleay (Biog. Chron. of Drama, vol. I, p. 60), was one of the "King's men" from 1625 to 1642. His impersonation of Bussy is favourably referred to by Edmund Gayton in his Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote (1654), p. 25 and his previous role of "Richard" (l. 23) may have been that of Ricardo in Massinger's Picture, which he had played in 1629 (cf. Phelps, Geo. Chap. p. 125). The earlier editors thought that Charles Hart was here alluded to, but Wright in his Historia Histrionica states it was the part of the Duchess in Shirley's Cardinal, licensed 1641, that first gave him any reputation. Hence he cannot at this date have performed Bussy; his fame in the part was made after the Restoration (cf. Introduction, p. xxv).

=9=, 86-87. =set my looks In an eternall brake:= keep my countenance perpetually immoveable. A "brake" is a piece of framework for holding something steady.

=15=, 187. =I am a poet.= This is historically true. A poem of some length, Stances faictes par M. de Bussy, is quoted by Joubert in his Bussy D'Amboise, pp. 205-09.

=16=, 207. =his woodden dagger.= The Elizabethan jester carried the wooden dagger or sword, which was often one of the properties of the "Vice" in the later Moralities and the Interludes.

=21=, 85. =Tis leape yeare.= F. G. Fleay (Biog. Chron. I, 59) considers that this refers "to the date of production, as Bussy's introduction at Court was in 1569, not a Leap Year," and that it "fixes the time of representation to 1604." See Introduction.

=22=, 110. =the groome-porters.= Chapman here transfers to the French Court an official peculiar to the English Royal Household till his abolition under George III. The function of the groom-porter was to furnish cards and dice for all gaming at Court, and to decide disputes arising at play.

=23=, 133. =mate:= either match or put down, overcome. The latter sense is more probable, with a punning allusion to the use of the word in chess, at which Guise seems to be engaged with the King. Cf. l. 184.

=23=, 135-36. =of the new edition:= of the recent creation. An allusion to the lavish creation of knights by James, shortly after his accession.

=24=, 141-42. =y'ave cut too many throats.= An allusion to Guise's share in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Contrast the references to the episode in The Revenge, II, 1, 198-234.

=24=, 149. =the Knights ward.= Dilke thought that the allusion here was to the "poor knights of Windsor," but it really refers to a part of the "Counter" prison in London. Cf. Eastward Hoe, V, 2, 54, where Wolf says of Sir Petronel Flash, "The knight will i' the Knights-Ward, doe what we can, sir." (See Schelling's note.)

=25=, 178-79. =of the place The divers frames.= An obscure expression, which may mean: the varied character in different places of the bed of the sea.

=28=, 243-44. =Ile be your ghost to haunt you.= May this be an early reference to Banquo's ghost? Macbeth was probably produced in 1606, the year before Bussy D'Ambois was printed.

Dilke in his edition in 1814 thought Beaumond a misprint for Beaupre, who appears in other scenes, and whom he took to be a man, instead of a woman. Hence he reads Montsurry, Beaupre and Attendants both here and after l. 206. The other editors have not realized that there is any discrepancy to be explained.

=32=, 63-64. =conclude The others dangers:= might put an end to the risks of their companions by making their single combat cover the whole quarrel. Conclude here unites the Elizabethan sense include with the ordinary meaning finish.

=33=, 90. =only made more horrid with his wound:= Barrisor being only rendered fiercer by his wound. The construction is loose, as grammatically the words should qualify D'Ambois.

=33=, 92. =redoubled in his danger:= thrusting himself into danger for the second time. For this peculiar use of redoubled cf. l. 190, "on my knees redoubled," and note.

=33=, 94. =Arden.= Probably to be no more identified here with the Warwickshire district of this name than in As You Like It. Ardennes would be more appropriate on a Frenchman's lips, but the district belongs to the realm of fancy as much as Armenia in l. 117.

=33=, 97. =he gan to nodde.= An anacoluthon. The construction should be "begin to nodde" after "I have seene an oke" in l. 94, but the intervening participial clauses produce irregularity. Similarily in l. 101 "he fell" should be "fall" and "hid" should be "hide."

=34=, 122. =shelter of a tree.= Unicorns were supposed to be worsted in encounters by their adversaries sheltering behind trees, in which they impaled themselves. Spenser, F. Q. II, 5, 10, describes how a lion defeats a unicorn by this stratagem. Cf. Jul. Caes. II, 1, 303-04.

=35.= [=Exit Nuntius.=] The editor has inserted this, as the Qq do not indicate when the Nuncius departs, and, with the entrance of Bussy, there is no further need of him. =bare:= bareheaded.

=37=, 190. =This is a grace.= The grace or boon for which Bussy asks is explained by him in ll. 193-203. "This" usually refers to something that has gone before, =on my knees redoubled:= going down for the second time on my knees—from which he had risen after l. 179.

And what's a prince? Had all been virtuous men, There never had been prince upon the earth, And so no subject: all men had been princes. A virtuous man is subject to no prince, But to his soul and honour.

=40=, 18. =Although she be my ante.= From these words we learn that Beaupre is niece to the Duke and Duchess of Guise. Compare III, ii, 188, and the reference to "my lady, your niece" in the passage in Qq 1607 and 1608 quoted in the textual note on III, ii, 233.

While I sit like a well-taught writing-woman Turning her eyes upon some work or picture, Read in a book, or take a feigned nap, While her kind lady takes one to her lap.

=45=, 117. =oportunities:= importunities, which Dilke wished to substitute. But "opportunity" was used in this sense. Cf. Mer. Wiv. Wind. III, 4, 20-2.

=49=, 198. =the first orbe move.= An allusion to the Primum Mobile, which, in the Ptolemaic system, was the tenth sphere "of a most pure and cleare substance and without starres," which revolved in twenty-four hours, and carried round in its course all the inner spheres.

=62=, 18. =a redhair'd man:= a deceiver, traitor; so called from the representation of Judas in tapestries, and probably on the stage of the Miracle plays, with red hair.

=65=, 76. =He's noblier borne.= "Noblier" has been here substituted for "nobly." The parallel phrases in the preceding lines are all comparatives, "better," "more," "greater," and Bussy, in the second half of this line, cannot mean to deny that Guise is of noble birth.

=67=, 108. =the Hermean rod:= the caduceus or rod of Hermes, with which he parted two fighting serpents, whereupon they embraced and stuck to the rod.

=81=, 383. =rais'd without a circle.= If a necromancer, before raising a spirit, drew a circle within which he stood, he was secure against its power.

=87=, 507. =her breathing rock.= Dilke explains this as "the distaff from whence she draws the thread of life," but though this is evidently the meaning required, it is difficult to extract it from this obscure phrase.

=98=, 183. =Chymaera.= A fire-breathing monster, brought up by Amisodarus, King of Caria. She was slain by Bellerophon. This Corinthian prince, to purify himself from a murder he had committed, had fled to the court of Proetus of Argos, whose wife, Anteia, fell in love with him. On his rejection of her advances, she made false accusations against him, whereupon Proetus sent him to his father-in-law, Iobates, King of Lycia, with a sealed letter, requesting him to put him to death. Iobates sent him to kill Chimaera, thinking he would be certain to perish in the attempt. But mounted on the winged horse Pegasus, he killed her from on high with his arrows.

=98=, 185. =the chaste Athenian prince:= Hippolytus, son of Theseus and Hippolyta, with whom his step-mother Phaedra fell in love. On his rejection of her advances, she accused him to Theseus, at whose prayer Poseidon caused his destruction, by frightening his horses, when he was driving along the seacoast, and overturning his chariot. Afterwards, on the discovery of his innocence, Asclepius restored him to the upper world.

=104=, 54. =Behemoth.= The editor has been unable to find any precedent for Chapman's application of this name—which in the Book of Job denotes the whale or hippopotamus—to the chief of the powers of darkness.

=104=, 55. =Asaroth.= Apparently a variant of Ashtaroth, the plural of Ashtoreth, the Phoenician moon-goddess; here mistakenly used for the name of a male spirit.

=109=, 156. =In her forc'd bloud.= Dilke is followed in the substitution of her for his. The allusion is evidently to the letter that Tamyra afterwards writes to D'Ambois in her own blood. Cf. V, 1, 176-77.

=111=, 186. =Center.= Here and in l. 192 this word, though strictly meaning the central point of the earth, seems used for the earth itself, as the centre of the universe. For this use cf. Shaks. Tro. and Cress. I, 3, 85-86.

=114=, 50. =determinate:= apparently used in the sense of final, though the sense is rare, except as qualifying a word which implies previous deliberation.

=120=, 181. =his.= We should expect a repetition of her in l. 180. His, however seems to be equivalent to man's, anticipating man in l. 182. Possibly we should read this.

Non sic Libycis Syrtibus aequor Furit alternos volvere fluctus, Non Euxini turget ab imis Commota vadis unda, nivali Vicina polo; Ubi, caeruleis immunis aquis, Lucida versat plaustra Bootes, Ut praecipites regum casus Fortuna rotat.

O decus mundi, radiate Titan, Cujus ad primos Hecate vapores Lassa nocturnae levat ora bigae, Dic sub Aurora positis Sabaeis, Dic sub Occasu positis Iberis, Quique ferventi quatiuntur axe, Quique sub plaustro patiuntur Ursae; Dic ad aeternos, properare Manes Herculem.

=139=, 146. =struck.= The Qq, and all editors, read stuck, but the word seems inapplicable to a thunderbolt. The editor has conjectured struck, which, with a minimum of change, gives the sense required.

=139=, 149 =Joine flames with Hercules.= Here the quartos of 1607 and 1608 contain the right reading. D'Ambois, who has met death in the spirit of Hercules (cf. ll. 100-108), is now to share his translation to the skies. For the description of Hercules as a star see Seneca, Her. Oet. 1564-1581.

The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois was printed in quarto in 1613 by T. S. for John Helme. No reprint appeared till 1873, when it was included in the edition of Chapman's Tragedies and Comedies published by J. Pearson. The text of the quarto was reproduced, with the original spelling and punctuation, but with a few errors. There have been two later editions in modernized spelling, and with slight emendations, by R. H. Shepherd in 1874, and W. L. Phelps in 1895.

In the present edition the text of the quarto has been reproduced, with some additional emendations, and the original spelling has been retained. As regards punctuation, the use of capital letters and italics, and the division of the Acts into Scenes, the same methods have been followed as in the case of Bussy D'Ambois.

The story of a plot by Bussy D'Ambois's kinsfolk to avenge his murder is, in the main, of Chapman's own invention. But he had evidently read an account similar to that given later by De Thou of the design entertained for a time by Bussy's sister Renee (whom Chapman calls Charlotte) and her husband, Baligny, to take vengeance on Montsurry. Clermont D'Ambois is himself a fictitious character, but the episodes in which he appears in Acts II-IV are drawn from the account of the treacherous proceedings against the Count d'Auvergne in Edward Grimeston's translation of Jean de Serres's Inventaire General de l'Histoire de France. This narrative, however, is not by De Serres, but by Pierre Matthieu, whose Histoire de France was one of the sources used by Grimeston for events later than 1598.

The portraiture of Clermont throughout the play as the high-souled philosopher is inspired by Epictetus's delineation in his Discourses of the ideal Stoic. But in his reluctance to carry out his duty of revenge he is evidently modelled upon Hamlet. In Act V, Scene i, the influence of Shakespeare's tragedy is specially manifest.

The passages in Grimeston's volume which recount the Duke's murder, and those which tell the story of the Count d'Auvergne, are reprinted as an Appendix.

The frontispiece to this volume, the Chateau of La Coutanciere, at which Bussy D'Ambois was killed, is reproduced from an illustration in A. Joubert's Louis de Clermont.

Since workes of this kinde have beene lately esteemed worthy the patronage of some of our worthiest Nobles, I have made no doubt to preferre this of mine to your undoubted vertue and exceeding true noblesse, as contayning matter no lesse deserving your reading, 5 and excitation to heroycall life, then any such late dedication. Nor have the greatest Princes of Italie and other countries conceived it any least diminution to their greatnesse to have their names wing'd with these tragicke plumes, and disperst by way of patronage through the 10 most noble notices of Europe.

Howsoever, therefore, in the scaenicall presentation it might meete with some maligners, yet, considering even therein it past with approbation of more worthy judgements, the ballance of their side (especially being held 15 by your impartiall hand) I hope will to no graine abide the out-weighing. And for the autenticall truth of eyther person or action, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poeme, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poore envious soules they are that cavill at truths 20 want in these naturall fictions: materiall instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to vertue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soule, lims, and limits of an autenticall tragedie. But whatsoever merit of your full countenance and favour suffers defect in this, I shall soone 25 supply with some other of more generall account; wherein your right vertuous name made famous and preserved to posteritie, your future comfort and honour in your present acceptation and love of all vertuous and divine expression may be so much past others of your rancke encreast, as 30 they are short of your judiciall ingenuitie, in their due estimation.

For howsoever those ignoble and sowre-brow'd worldlings are carelesse of whatsoever future or present opinion spreads of them; yet (with the most divine 35 philosopher, if Scripture did not confirme it) I make it matter of my faith, that we truely retaine an intellectuall feeling of good or bad after this life, proportionably answerable to the love or neglect we beare here to all vertue and truely-humane instruction: in whose favour 40 and honour I wish you most eminent, and rest ever,

Henry, the King. Monsieur, his Brother. Guise, D[uke]. Renel, a Marquesse. Montsureau, an Earle. Baligny, Lord Lieutenant [of Cambray]. Clermont D'Ambois. Maillard. } Challon. } Captaines. Aumal. } Espernone. Soissone. Perricot, [An Usher.] [A Messenger.] The Guard. Souldiers. Servants.

Baligny. To what will this declining kingdome turne, Swindging in every license, as in this Stupide permission of brave D'Ambois Murther? Murther made paralell with Law! Murther us'd To serve the kingdome, given by sute to men 5 For their advancement! suffered scarcrow-like To fright adulterie! what will policie At length bring under his capacitie?

Renel. All things; for as, when the high births of Kings, Deliverances, and coronations, 10 We celebrate with all the cities bels Jangling together in untun'd confusion, All order'd clockes are tyed up; so, when glory, Flatterie, and smooth applauses of things ill, Uphold th'inordinate swindge of downe-right power, 15 Justice, and truth that tell the bounded use, Vertuous and well distinguisht formes of time, Are gag'd and tongue-tide. But wee have observ'd Rule in more regular motion: things most lawfull Were once most royall; Kings sought common good, 20 Mens manly liberties, though ne'er so meane, And had their owne swindge so more free, and more. But when pride enter'd them, and rule by power, All browes that smil'd beneath them, frown'd; hearts griev'd By imitation; vertue quite was vanisht, 25 And all men studi'd selfe-love, fraud, and vice. Then no man could be good but he was punisht. Tyrants, being still more fearefull of the good Then of the bad, their subjects vertues ever Manag'd with curbs and dangers, and esteem'd 30 As shadowes and detractions to their owne.

Bal. Now all is peace, no danger, now what followes? Idlenesse rusts us, since no vertuous labour Ends ought rewarded; ease, securitie, Now all the palme weares. Wee made warre before 35 So to prevent warre; men with giving gifts, More then receiving, made our countrey strong; Our matchlesse race of souldiers then would spend In publike warres, not private brawles, their spirits; In daring enemies, arm'd with meanest armes, 40 Not courting strumpets, and consuming birth-rights In apishnesse and envy of attire. No labour then was harsh, no way so deepe, No rocke so steepe, but if a bird could scale it, Up would our youth flie to. A foe in armes 45 Stirr'd up a much more lust of his encounter Then of a mistresse never so be-painted. Ambition then was onely scaling walles, And over-topping turrets; fame was wealth; Best parts, best deedes, were best nobilitie; 50 Honour with worth, and wealth well got or none. Countries we wonne with as few men as countries: Vertue subdu'd all.

Ren. Just: and then our nobles Lov'd vertue so, they prais'd and us'd it to; Had rather doe then say; their owne deedes hearing 55 By others glorified, then be so barraine That their parts onely stood in praising others.

Bal. Who could not doe, yet prais'd, and envi'd not; Civile behaviour flourisht; bountie flow'd; Avarice to upland boores, slaves, hang-men banisht. 60

Ren. Tis now quite otherwise. But to note the cause Of all these foule digressions and revolts From our first natures, this tis in a word: Since good arts faile, crafts and deceits are us'd: Men ignorant are idle; idle men 65 Most practise what they most may doe with ease, Fashion and favour; all their studies ayming At getting money, which no wise man ever Fed his desires with.

Bal. Yet now none are wise That thinke not heavens true foolish, weigh'd with that. 70 Well, thou most worthy to be greatest Guise, Make with thy greatnesse a new world arise. Such deprest nobles (followers of his) As you, my selfe, my lord, will finde a time When to revenge your wrongs.

Bal. That one accident was made my charge. My brother Bussy's sister (now my wife) By no suite would consent to satisfie 80 My love of her with marriage, till I vow'd To use my utmost to revenge my brother: But Clermont D'Ambois (Bussy's second brother) Had, since, his apparition, and excitement To suffer none but his hand in his wreake; 85 Which hee hath vow'd, and so will needes acquite Me of my vow made to my wife, his sister, And undertake himselfe Bussy's revenge. Yet loathing any way to give it act, But in the noblest and most manly course, 90 If th'Earle dares take it, he resolves to send A challenge to him, and my selfe must beare it; To which deliverie I can use no meanes, He is so barricado'd in his house, And arm'd with guard still.

Ren. That meanes lay on mee, 95 Which I can strangely make. My last lands sale, By his great suite, stands now on price with him, And hee (as you know) passing covetous, With that blinde greedinesse that followes gaine, Will cast no danger where her sweete feete tread. 100 Besides, you know, his lady, by his suite (Wooing as freshly as when first love shot His faultlesse arrowes from her rosie eyes) Now lives with him againe, and shee, I know, Will joyne with all helps in her friends revenge. 105

Bal. No doubt, my lord, and therefore let me pray you To use all speede; for so on needels points My wifes heart stands with haste of the revenge, Being (as you know) full of her brothers fire, That shee imagines I neglect my vow; 110 Keepes off her kinde embraces, and still askes, "When, when, will this revenge come? when perform'd Will this dull vow be?" And, I vow to heaven, So sternely, and so past her sexe she urges My vowes performance, that I almost feare 115 To see her, when I have a while beene absent, Not showing her, before I speake, the bloud She so much thirsts for, freckling hands and face.

Bal. All restitution to your worthiest lordship! Whose errand I must carrie to the King, As having sworne my service in the search Of all such malecontents and their designes, By seeming one affected with their faction 125 And discontented humours gainst the state: Nor doth my brother Clermont scape my counsaile Given to the King about his Guisean greatnesse, Which (as I spice it) hath possest the King, Knowing his daring spirit, of much danger 130 Charg'd in it to his person; though my conscience Dare sweare him cleare of any power to be Infected with the least dishonestie: Yet that sinceritie, wee politicians Must say, growes out of envie since it cannot 135 Aspire to policies greatnesse; and the more We worke on all respects of kinde and vertue, The more our service to the King seemes great, In sparing no good that seemes bad to him: And the more bad we make the most of good, 140 The more our policie searcheth, and our service Is wonder'd at for wisedome and sincerenesse. Tis easie to make good suspected still, Where good, and God, are made but cloakes for ill.

See Monsieur taking now his leave for Brabant; 145 The Guise & his deare minion, Clermont D'Ambois, Whispering together, not of state affaires, I durst lay wagers, (though the Guise be now In chiefe heate of his faction) but of some thing Savouring of that which all men else despise, 150 How to be truely noble, truely wise.

Epernon. Hee's now whisp'ring in Some doctrine of stabilitie and freedome, Contempt of outward greatnesse, and the guises 155 That vulgar great ones make their pride and zeale, Being onely servile traines, and sumptuous houses, High places, offices.

Mons. And pursues another. Tis fine hypocrisie, and cheape, and vulgar, Knowne for a covert practise, yet beleev'd By those abus'd soules that they teach and governe No more then wives adulteries by their husbands, 165 They bearing it with so unmov'd aspects, Hot comming from it, as twere not [at] all, Or made by custome nothing. This same D'Ambois Hath gotten such opinion of his vertues, Holding all learning but an art to live well, 170 And showing hee hath learn'd it in his life, Being thereby strong in his perswading others, That this ambitious Guise, embracing him, Is thought t'embrace his vertues.

Ep. Yet in some His vertues are held false for th'others vices: 175 For tis more cunning held, and much more common, To suspect truth then falshood: and of both Truth still fares worse, as hardly being beleev'd, As tis unusuall and rarely knowne.

Mons. Ile part engendring vertue. Men affirme, 180 Though this same Clermont hath a D'Ambois spirit, And breathes his brothers valour, yet his temper Is so much past his that you cannot move him: Ile try that temper in him.—Come, you two Devoure each other with your vertues zeale, 185 And leave for other friends no fragment of yee: I wonder, Guise, you will thus ravish him Out of my bosome, that first gave the life His manhood breathes spirit, and meanes, and luster. What doe men thinke of me, I pray thee, Clermont? 190 Once give me leave (for tryall of that love That from thy brother Bussy thou inherit'st) T'unclaspe thy bosome.

Mons. Be a true glasse to mee, in which I may Behold what thoughts the many-headed beast 195 And thou thy selfe breathes out concerning me, My ends and new upstarted state in Brabant, For which I now am bound, my higher aymes Imagin'd here in France: speake, man, and let Thy words be borne as naked as thy thoughts. 200 O were brave Bussy living!

Mons. Tis true thou art his brother, but durst thou Have brav'd the Guise; mauger his presence, courted His wedded lady; emptied even the dregs Of his worst thoughts of mee even to my teeth; 205 Discern'd not me, his rising soveraigne, From any common groome, but let me heare My grossest faults, as grosse-full as they were? Durst thou doe this?

Cler. I cannot tell. A man Does never know the goodnesse of his stomacke 210 Till hee sees meate before him. Were I dar'd, Perhaps, as he was, I durst doe like him.

Mons. He onely jested, spake of splene and envie; 215 Thy soule, more learn'd, is more ingenuous, Searching, judiciall; let me then from thee Heare what I am.

Mons. Tush, thou wilt sing encomions of my praise! Is this like D'Ambois? I must vexe the Guise, Or never looke to heare free truth. Tell me, For Bussy lives not; hee durst anger mee, Yet, for my love, would not have fear'd to anger 225 The King himselfe. Thou understand'st me, dost not?

Mons. Dost understand thy selfe? I pray thee tell me, Dost never search thy thoughts, what my designe Might be to entertaine thee and thy brother? 230 What turne I meant to serve with you?

Mons. When I tooke in such two as you two were, A ragged couple of decaid commanders, 235 When a French-crowne would plentifully serve To buy you both to any thing i'th'earth—

Mons. The most renowmed souldier, 240 Epaminondas (as good authors say) Had no more suites then backes, but you two shar'd But one suite twixt you both, when both your studies Were not what meate to dine with, if your partridge, Your snipe, your wood-cocke, larke, or your red hering, 245 But where to begge it; whether at my house, Or at the Guises (for you know you were Ambitious beggars) or at some cookes-shop, T'eternize the cookes trust, and score it up. Dost not offend thee?

Mons. As for thy gentry, I dare boldly take Thy honourable othe: and yet some say Thou and thy most renowmed noble brother Came to the Court first in a keele of sea-coale. Dost not offend thee?

Mons. Why doe I love thee, then? Why have I rak'd thee Out of the dung-hill? cast my cast ward-robe on thee? Brought thee to Court to, as I did thy brother? Made yee my sawcy bon companions? Taught yee to call our greatest Noblemen 260 By the corruption of their names—Jack, Tom? Have I blowne both for nothing to this bubble? Though thou art learn'd, thast no enchanting wit; Or, were thy wit good, am I therefore bound To keepe thee for my table?

Mons. Or did the slie Guise put thee 270 Into my bosome t'undermine my projects? I feare thee not; for, though I be not sure I have thy heart, I know thy braine-pan yet To be as emptie a dull piece of wainscot As ever arm'd the scalpe of any courtier; 275 A fellow onely that consists of sinewes; Meere Swisser, apt for any execution.

Cler. You did no princely deedes Ere you were borne (I take it) to deserve it; 285 Nor did you any since that I have heard; Nor will doe ever any, as all thinke.

Gui. No more! Ill fortune! 290 I would have given a million to have heard His scoffes retorted, and the insolence Of his high birth and greatnesse (which were never Effects of his deserts, but of his fortune) Made show to his dull eyes beneath the worth 295 That men aspire to by their knowing vertues, Without which greatnesse is a shade, a bubble.

Cler. But what one great man dreames of that but you? All take their births and birth-rights left to them (Acquir'd by others) for their owne worths purchase, 300 When many a foole in both is great as they: And who would thinke they could winne with their worths Wealthy possessions, when, wonne to their hands, They neyther can judge justly of their value, Nor know their use? and therefore they are puft 305 With such proud tumours as this Monsieur is, Enabled onely by the goods they have To scorne all goodnesse: none great fill their fortunes; But as those men that make their houses greater, Their housholds being lesse, so Fortune raises 310 Huge heapes of out-side in these mightie men, And gives them nothing in them.

Gui. True as truth: And therefore they had rather drowne their substance In superfluities of brickes and stones (Like Sysiphus, advancing of them ever, 315 And ever pulling downe) then lay the cost Of any sluttish corner on a man, Built with Gods finger, and enstil'd his temple.

Gui. I would have these things Brought upon stages, to let mightie misers 320 See all their grave and serious miseries plaid, As once they were in Athens and olde Rome.

Cler. Nay, we must now have nothing brought on stages, But puppetry, and pide ridiculous antickes: Men thither come to laugh, and feede fool-fat, 325 Checke at all goodnesse there, as being prophan'd: When, wheresoever goodnesse comes, shee makes The place still sacred, though with other feete Never so much tis scandal'd and polluted. Let me learne anything that fits a man, 330 In any stables showne, as well as stages.

Cler. Yes, and right worthily; and stages too Have a respect due to them, if but onely For what the good Greeke moralist sayes of them: 335 "Is a man proud of greatnesse, or of riches? Give me an expert actor, Ile shew all, That can within his greatest glory fall. Is a man fraid with povertie and lownesse? Give me an actor, Ile shew every eye 340 What hee laments so, and so much doth flye, The best and worst of both." If but for this then, To make the proudest out-side that most swels With things without him, and above his worth, See how small cause hee has to be so blowne up; 345 And the most poore man, to be griev'd with poorenesse, Both being so easily borne by expert actors, The stage and actors are not so contemptfull As every innovating Puritane, And ignorant sweater out of zealous envie 350 Would have the world imagine. And besides That all things have been likened to the mirth Us'd upon stages, and for stages fitted, The splenative philosopher, that ever Laught at them all, were worthy the enstaging. 355 All objects, were they ne'er so full of teares, He so conceited that he could distill thence Matter that still fed his ridiculous humour. Heard he a lawyer, never so vehement pleading, Hee stood and laught. Heard hee a trades-man swearing, 360 Never so thriftily selling of his wares, He stood and laught. Heard hee an holy brother, For hollow ostentation, at his prayers Ne'er so impetuously, hee stood and laught. Saw hee a great man never so insulting, 365 Severely inflicting, gravely giving lawes, Not for their good, but his, hee stood and laught. Saw hee a youthfull widow Never so weeping, wringing of her hands For her lost lord, still the philosopher laught. 370 Now whether hee suppos'd all these presentments Were onely maskeries, and wore false faces, Or else were simply vaine, I take no care; But still hee laught, how grave soere they were.

Gui. And might right well, my Clermont; and for this 375 Vertuous digression we will thanke the scoffes Of vicious Monsieur. But now for the maine point Of your late resolution for revenge Of your slaine friend.

Tamyra. Revenge, that ever red sitt'st in the eyes Of injur'd ladies, till we crowne thy browes With bloudy lawrell, and receive from thee Justice for all our honours injurie; Whose wings none flye that wrath or tyrannie 5 Have ruthlesse made and bloudy, enter here, Enter, O enter! and, though length of time Never lets any scape thy constant justice, Yet now prevent that length. Flye, flye, and here Fixe thy steele foot-steps; here, O here, where still 10 Earth (mov'd with pittie) yeelded and embrac'd My loves faire figure, drawne in his deare bloud, And mark'd the place, to show thee where was done The cruell'st murther that ere fled the sunne. O Earth! why keep'st thou not as well his spirit, 15 To give his forme life? No, that was not earthly; That (rarefying the thinne and yeelding ayre) Flew sparkling up into the sphaere of fire Whence endlesse flames it sheds in my desire. Here be my daily pallet; here all nights 20 That can be wrested from thy rivals armes, O my deare Bussy, I will lye, and kisse Spirit into thy bloud, or breathe out mine In sighes, and kisses, and sad tunes to thine. She sings.

Montsurry. Still on this hant? Still shall adulterous bloud 25 Affect thy spirits? Thinke, for shame, but this, This bloud, that cockatrice-like thus thou brood'st, To dry is to breede any quench to thine. And therefore now (if onely for thy lust A little cover'd with a vaile of shame) 30 Looke out for fresh life, rather then witch-like Learne to kisse horror, and with death engender. Strange crosse in nature, purest virgine shame Lies in the bloud as lust lyes; and together Many times mixe too; and in none more shamefull 35 Then in the shamefac't. Who can then distinguish Twixt their affections; or tell when hee meetes With one not common? Yet, as worthiest poets Shunne common and plebeian formes of speech, Every illiberall and affected phrase, 40 To clothe their matter, and together tye Matter and forme with art and decencie; So worthiest women should shunne vulgar guises, And though they cannot but flye out for change, Yet modestie, the matter of their lives, 45 Be it adulterate, should be painted true With modest out-parts; what they should doe still Grac'd with good show, though deedes be ne'er so ill.

Tamy. That is so farre from all yee seeke of us That (though your selves be common as the ayre) 50 We must not take the ayre, wee must not fit Our actions to our owne affections: But as geometricians (you still say) Teach that no lines, nor superficies, Doe move themselves, but still accompanie 55 The motions of their bodies; so poore wives Must not pursue, nor have their owne affections, But to their husbands earnests, and their jests, To their austerities of lookes, and laughters, (Though ne'er so foolish and injurious) 60 Like parasites and slaves, fit their disposures.

Tamy. So said you, when you woo'd. So souldiers tortur'd With tedious sieges of some wel-wall'd towne, Propound conditions of most large contents, 65 Freedome of lawes, all former government; But having once set foote within the wals, And got the reynes of power into their hands, Then doe they tyrannize at their owne rude swindges, Seaze all their goods, their liberties, and lives, 70 And make advantage, and their lusts, their lawes.

Tamy. Forgivenesse! that grace you should seeke of mee: These tortur'd fingers and these stab'd-through armes 75 Keepe that law in their wounds yet unobserv'd, And ever shall.

Tam. Those with faire warnings might have beene reform'd, Not these unmanly rages. You have heard The fiction of the north winde and the sunne, 80 Both working on a traveller, and contending Which had most power to take his cloake from him: Which when the winde attempted, hee roar'd out Outragious blasts at him to force it off, That wrapt it closer on: when the calme sunne 85 (The winde once leaving) charg'd him with still beames, Quiet and fervent, and therein was constant, Which made him cast off both his cloake and coate; Like whom should men doe. If yee wish your wives Should leave dislik'd things, seeke it not with rage, 90 For that enrages; what yee give, yee have: But use calme warnings, and kinde manly meanes, And that in wives most prostitute will winne Not onely sure amends, but make us wives Better then those that ne'er led faultie lives. 95

Mont. Perverse, and traiterous miscreant! Where are your other fellowes of my guard? Have I not told you I will speake with none But Lord Renel?

Renel [aside, to the Soldier]. Be true now, for your ladies injur'd sake, Whose bountie you have so much cause to honour: 105 For her respect is chiefe in this designe, And therefore serve it; call out of the way All your confederate fellowes of his guard, Till Monsieur Baligny be enter'd here.

Henry. Come, Baligny, we now are private; say, What service bring'st thou? make it short; the Guise (Whose friend thou seem'st) is now in Court, and neare, And may observe us.

Baligny. This, sir, then, in short. The faction of the Guise (with which my policie, 5 For service to your Highnesse, seemes to joyne) Growes ripe, and must be gather'd into hold; Of which my brother Clermont being a part Exceeding capitall, deserves to have A capitall eye on him. And (as you may 10 With best advantage, and your speediest charge) Command his apprehension: which (because The Court, you know, is strong in his defence) Wee must aske country swindge and open fields. And therefore I have wrought him to goe downe 15 To Cambray with me (of which government Your Highnesse bountie made mee your lieutenant), Where when I have him, I will leave my house, And faine some service out about the confines; When, in the meane time, if you please to give 20 Command to my lieutenant, by your letters, To traine him to some muster, where he may (Much to his honour) see for him your forces Put into battaile, when hee comes, hee may With some close stratageme be apprehended: 25 For otherwise your whole powers there will faile To worke his apprehension: and with that My hand needes never be discern'd therein.

Bal. Your Highnesse knowes I will be honest, and betray for you 30 Brother and father; for I know (my lord) Treacherie for Kings is truest loyaltie, Nor is to beare the name of treacherie, But grave, deepe policie. All acts that seeme Ill in particular respects are good 35 As they respect your universal rule: As in the maine sway of the Universe The supreame Rectors generall decrees, To guard the mightie globes of earth and heaven, Since they make good that guard to preservation 40 Of both those in their order and first end, No mans particular (as hee thinkes) wrong Must hold him wrong'd; no, not though all mens reasons, All law, all conscience, concludes it wrong. Nor is comparison a flatterer 45 To liken you here to the King of Kings; Nor any mans particular offence Against the worlds sway, to offence at yours In any subject; who as little may Grudge at their particular wrong, if so it seeme 50 For th'universall right of your estate, As, being a subject of the worlds whole sway As well as yours, and being a righteous man To whom heaven promises defence, and blessing, Brought to decay, disgrace, and quite defencelesse, 55 Hee may complaine of heaven for wrong to him.

Bal. Which is our heaven here; and a miserie Incomparable, and most truely hellish, 60 To live depriv'd of our Kings grace and countenance, Without which best conditions are most cursed: Life of that nature, howsoever short, Is a most lingering and tedious life; Or rather no life, but a languishing, 65 And an abuse of life.

Bal. I thought it not amisse to yeeld your Highness A reason of my speeches; lest perhaps You might conceive I flatter'd: which (I know) Of all ils under heaven you most abhorre. 70

Hen. Still thou art right, my vertuous Baligny, For which I thanke and love thee. Thy advise Ile not forget. Haste to thy government, And carry D'Ambois with thee. So farewell. Exit.

Gui. Farre: because (besides his valour) Hee hath the crowne of man and all his parts, Which Learning is; and that so true and vertuous 85 That it gives power to doe as well as say What ever fits a most accomplisht man; Which Bussy, for his valours season, lackt; And so was rapt with outrage oftentimes Beyond decorum; where this absolute Clermont, 90 Though (onely for his naturall zeale to right) Hee will be fiery, when hee sees it crost, And in defence of it, yet when he lists Hee can containe that fire, as hid in embers.

Gui. He is as true as tides, or any starre Is in his motion; and for his rare learning, Hee is not (as all else are that seeke knowledge) Of taste so much deprav'd that they had rather Delight and satisfie themselves to drinke 100 Of the streame troubled, wandring ne'er so farre From the cleare fount, then of the fount it selfe. In all, Romes Brutus is reviv'd in him, Whom hee of industry doth imitate; Or rather, as great Troys Euphorbus was 105 After Pithagoras, so is Brutus, Clermont. And, were not Brutus a conspirator—

Bal. Conspirator, my lord! Doth that empaire him? Caesar beganne to tyrannize; and when vertue, Nor the religion of the Gods, could serve 110 To curbe the insolence of his proud lawes, Brutus would be the Gods just instrument. What said the Princesse, sweet Antigone, In the grave Greeke tragedian, when the question Twixt her and Creon is for lawes of Kings? 115 Which when he urges, shee replies on him Though his lawes were a Kings, they were not Gods; Nor would shee value Creons written lawes With Gods unwrit edicts, since they last not This day and the next, but every day and ever, 120 Where Kings lawes alter every day and houre, And in that change imply a bounded power.

Gui. Well, let us leave these vaine disputings what Is to be done, and fall to doing something. When are you for your government in Cambray? 125

Gui. Nay, that's not fit. Continue your designements with the King, With all your service; onely, if I send, Respect me as your friend, and love my Clermont.

Bal. Thus must wee play on both sides, and thus harten In any ill those men whose good wee hate. Kings may doe what they list, and for Kings, subjects, Eyther exempt from censure or exception; For, as no mans worth can be justly judg'd 135 But when he shines in some authoritie, So no authoritie should suffer censure But by a man of more authoritie. Great vessels into lesse are emptied never, There's a redoundance past their continent ever. 140 These virtuosi are the poorest creatures; For looke how spinners weave out of themselves Webs, whose strange matter none before can see; So these, out of an unseene good in vertue, Make arguments of right and comfort in her, 145 That clothe them like the poore web of a spinner.

Bal. Left it, in his despight. 150 But when hee saw mee enter so expectlesse, To heare his base exclaimes of "murther, murther," Made mee thinke noblesse lost, in him quicke buried.

Cler. They are the breathing sepulchres of noblesse: No trulier noble men then lions pictures, 155 Hung up for signes, are lions. Who knowes not That lyons the more soft kept, are more servile? And looke how lyons close kept, fed by hand, Lose quite th'innative fire of spirit and greatnesse That lyons free breathe, forraging for prey, 160 And grow so grosse that mastifes, curs, and mungrils Have spirit to cow them: so our soft French Nobles Chain'd up in ease and numbd securitie (Their spirits shrunke up like their covetous fists, And never opened but Domitian-like, 165 And all his base, obsequious minions When they were catching though it were but flyes), Besotted with their pezzants love of gaine, Rusting at home, and on each other preying, Are for their greatnesse but the greater slaves, 170 And none is noble but who scrapes and saves.

Cler. So children mounted on their hobby-horse Thinke they are riding, when with wanton toile They beare what should beare them. A man may well 175 Compare them to those foolish great-spleen'd cammels, That to their high heads beg'd of Jove hornes higher; Whose most uncomely and ridiculous pride When hee had satisfied, they could not use, But where they went upright before, they stoopt, 180 And bore their heads much lower for their hornes: Simil[iter.] As these high men doe, low in all true grace, Their height being priviledge to all things base. And as the foolish poet that still writ All his most selfe-lov'd verse in paper royall, 185 Or partchment rul'd with lead, smooth'd with the pumice, Bound richly up, and strung with crimson strings; Never so blest as when hee writ and read The ape-lov'd issue of his braine; and never But joying in himselfe, admiring ever: 190 Yet in his workes behold him, and hee show'd Like to a ditcher. So these painted men, All set on out-side, looke upon within, And not a pezzants entrailes you shall finde More foule and mezel'd, nor more sterv'd of minde. 195

Bal. That makes their bodies fat. I faine would know How many millions of our other Nobles Would make one Guise. There is a true tenth Worthy, Who, did not one act onely blemish him—

Cler. To a brutish sense, But not a manly reason. Wee so tender The vile part in us that the part divine We see in hell, and shrinke not. Who was first Head of that Massacre?

Cler. Tis nothing so. 210 Who was in fault for all the slaughters made In Ilion, and about it? Were the Greekes? Was it not Paris ravishing the Queene Of Lacaedemon; breach of shame and faith, And all the lawes of hospitalitie? 215 This is the beastly slaughter made of men, When truth is over-throwne, his lawes corrupted; When soules are smother'd in the flatter'd flesh, Slaine bodies are no more then oxen slaine.

Cler. Who sayes so? 220 But see wherein; in the understanding rules Of their opinions, lives, and actions; In their communities of faith and reason. Was not the wolfe that nourisht Romulus More humane then the men that did expose him? 225

Cler. Not, sir, if you note That by that deede, the actions difference make Twixt men and beasts, and not their names nor formes. Had faith, nor shame, all hospitable rights Beene broke by Troy, Greece had not made that slaughter. 230 Had that beene sav'd (sayes a philosopher) The Iliads and Odysses had beene lost. Had Faith and true Religion beene prefer'd Religious Guise had never massacerd.

Bal. Well, sir, I cannot, when I meete with you, 235 But thus digresse a little, for my learning, From any other businesse I entend. But now the voyage we resolv'd for Cambray, I told the Guise, beginnes; and wee must haste. And till the Lord Renel hath found some meane 240 (Conspiring with the Countesse) to make sure Your sworne wreake on her husband, though this fail'd, In my so brave command wee'll spend the time, Sometimes in training out in skirmishes And battailes all our troopes and companies; 245 And sometimes breathe your brave Scotch running horse, That great Guise gave you, that all th'horse in France Farre over-runnes at every race and hunting Both of the hare and deere. You shall be honor'd Like the great Guise himselfe, above the King. 250 And (can you but appease your great-spleen'd sister For our delaid wreake of your brothers slaughter) At all parts you'll be welcom'd to your wonder.

Bal. O, sir, by all meanes; 255 You cannot be too carefull of his love, That ever takes occasion to be raising Your virtues past the reaches of this age, And rankes you with the best of th'ancient Romanes.

Cler. He may be well; yet not, as you thinke, strange. His strange aymes are to crosse the common custome Of servile Nobles; in which hee's so ravisht, 265 That quite the earth he leaves, and up hee leapes On Atlas shoulders, and from thence lookes downe, Viewing how farre off other high ones creepe; Rich, poore of reason, wander; all pale looking, And trembling but to thinke of their sure deaths, 270 Their lives so base are, and so rancke their breaths. Which I teach Guise to heighten, and make sweet With lifes deare odors, a good minde and name; For which hee onely loves me, and deserves My love and life, which through all deaths I vow: 275 Resolving this (what ever change can be) Thou hast created, thou hast ruinde mee. Exit.

Maillard. These troopes and companies come in with wings: So many men, so arm'd, so gallant horse, I thinke no other government in France So soone could bring together. With such men Me thinkes a man might passe th'insulting Pillars 5 Of Bacchus and Alcides.

Mail. Wee must not argue that. The Kings command Is neede and right enough: and that he serves, 15 (As all true subjects should) without disputing.

Mail. No: the Kings will is Expressely to conceale his apprehension From my Lord Governour. Observ'd yee not? 20 Againe peruse the letters. Both you are Made my assistants, and have right and trust In all the waightie secrets like my selfe.

Aum. Tis strange a man that had, through his life past, So sure a foote in vertue and true knowledge 25 As Clermont D'Ambois, should be now found tripping, And taken up thus, so to make his fall More steepe and head-long.

Mail. It is Vertues fortune, To keepe her low, and in her proper place; Height hath no roome for her. But as a man 30 That hath a fruitfull wife, and every yeere A childe by her, hath every yeere a month To breathe himselfe, where hee that gets no childe Hath not a nights rest (if he will doe well); So, let one marry this same barraine Vertue, 35 She never lets him rest, where fruitfull Vice Spares her rich drudge, gives him in labour breath, Feedes him with bane, and makes him fat with death.

Chal. I see that good lives never can secure Men from bad livers. Worst men will have best 40 As ill as they, or heaven to hell they'll wrest.

Aum. There was a merit for this, in the fault That Bussy made, for which he (doing pennance) Proves that these foule adulterous guilts will runne Through the whole bloud, which not the cleare can shunne. 45

Mail. Ile therefore take heede of the bastarding Whole innocent races; tis a fearefull thing. And as I am true batcheler, I sweare, To touch no woman (to the coupling ends) Unlesse it be mine owne wife or my friends; 50 I may make bold with him.

Aum. Tis safe and common. The more your friend dares trust, the more deceive him. And as through dewie vapors the sunnes forme Makes the gay rainebow girdle to a storme, So in hearts hollow, friendship (even the sunne 55 To all good growing in societie) Makes his so glorious and divine name hold Collours for all the ill that can be told. Trumpets within.

Chal. Wee must bethinke us, ere wee apprehend him, (Besides our maine strength) of some stratageme To make good our severe command on him, 65 As well to save blood as to make him sure: For if hee come on his Scotch horse, all France Put at the heeles of him will faile to take him.

Mail. What thinke you if wee should disguise a brace Of our best souldiers in faire lackies coates, 70 And send them for him, running by his side, Till they have brought him in some ambuscado We close may lodge for him, and sodainely Lay sure hand on him, plucking him from horse?

Aum. It must be sure and strong hand; for if once 75 Hee feeles the touch of such a stratageme, Tis not choicest brace of all our bands Can manacle or quench his fiery hands.

Aum. Who knowes not The bumbast politie thrusts into his gyant, To make his wisedome seeme of size as huge, And all for sleight encounter of a shade, 85 So hee be toucht, hee would have hainous made?

Mail. It may be once so; but so ever, never. Ambition is abroad, on foote, on horse; Faction chokes every corner, streete, the Court; Whose faction tis you know, and who is held 90 The fautors right hand: how high his aymes reach Nought but a crowne can measure. This must fall Past shadowes waights, and is most capitall.

Chal. No question; for since hee is come to Cambray, The malecontent, decaid Marquesse Renel, 95 Is come, and new arriv'd; and made partaker Of all the entertaining showes and feasts That welcom'd Clermont to the brave virago, His manly sister. Such wee are esteem'd As are our consorts. Marquesse malecontent 100 Comes where hee knowes his vaine hath safest vent.

Clermont. You come something latter From Court, my lord, then I: and since newes there 5 Is every day encreasing with th'affaires, Must I not aske now, what the newes is there? Where the Court lyes? what stirre? change? what avise From England, Italie?

Cler. The Locrian princes therefore were brave rulers; For whosoever there came new from countrie, And in the citie askt, "What newes?" was punisht: Since commonly such braines are most delighted 15 With innovations, gossips tales, and mischiefes. But as of lyons it is said and eagles, That, when they goe, they draw their seeres and tallons Close up, to shunne rebating of their sharpnesse: So our wits sharpnesse, which wee should employ 20 In noblest knowledge, wee should never waste In vile and vulgar admirations.

Cler. I: would hee would not doe so! Honour never Should be esteem'd with wise men as the price 30 And value of their virtuous services, But as their signe or badge; for that bewrayes More glory in the outward grace of goodnesse Then in the good it selfe; and then tis said, Who more joy takes that men his good advance 35 Then in the good it selfe, does it by chance.

Cler. Tis their fault. We have examples of it, cleare and many. 40 Demetrius Phalerius, an orator, And (which not oft meete) a philosopher, So great in Athens grew that he erected Three hundred statues of him; of all which, No rust nor length of time corrupted one; 45 But in his life time all were overthrowne. And Demades (that past Demosthenes For all extemporall orations) Erected many statues, which (he living) Were broke, and melted into chamber-pots. 50 Many such ends have fallen on such proud honours, No more because the men on whom they fell Grew insolent and left their vertues state, Then for their hugenesse, that procur'd their hate: And therefore little pompe in men most great 55 Makes mightily and strongly to the guard Of what they winne by chance or just reward. Great and immodest braveries againe, Like statues much too high made for their bases, Are overturn'd as soone as given their places. 60

Ren. "Maillard, your brothers Lieutenant, that yesterday invited you to see his musters, 75 hath letters and strickt charge from the King to apprehend you."

Ren. "Get on your Scotch horse, and retire to your strength; you know where it is, and there it expects you. Beleeve this as your best 85 friend had sworne it. Fare-well if you will. Anonymos." What's that?

Char. Some foole hath put this tricke on you, yet more T'uncover your defect of spirit and valour, First showne in lingring my deare brothers wreake. See what it is to give the envious world 95 Advantage to diminish eminent virtue. Send him a challenge. Take a noble course To wreake a murther, done so like a villaine.

Cler. No time occurres to Kings, much lesse to vertue; 110 Nor can we call it vertue that proceedes From vicious fury. I repent that ever (By any instigation in th'appearance My brothers spirit made, as I imagin'd) That e'er I yeelded to revenge his murther. 115 All worthy men should ever bring their bloud To beare all ill, not to be wreakt with good. Doe ill for no ill; never private cause Should take on it the part of publike lawes.

Ren. Madame, be sure there will be time enough For all the vengeance your great spirit can wish. The course yet taken is allow'd by all, Which being noble, and refus'd by th'Earle, Now makes him worthy of your worst advantage: 125 And I have cast a project with the Countesse To watch a time when all his wariest guards Shall not exempt him. Therefore give him breath; Sure death delaid is a redoubled death.

Cler. Good sister, trouble not your selfe with this: 130 Take other ladyes care; practise your face. There's the chaste matron, Madame Perigot, Dwels not farre hence; Ile ride and send her to you. Shee did live by retailing mayden-heads In her minoritie; but now shee deales 135 In whole-sale altogether for the Court. I tell you, shee's the onely fashion-monger, For your complexion, poudring of your haire, Shadowes, rebatoes, wires, tyres, and such trickes, That Cambray or, I thinke, the Court affords. 140 She shall attend you, sister, and with these Womanly practises emply your spirit; This other suites you not, nor fits the fashion. Though shee be deare, lay't on, spare for no cost; Ladies in these have all their bounties lost. 145

Ren. Madame, you see, his spirit will not checke At any single danger, when it stands Thus merrily firme against an host of men, Threaten'd to be [in] armes for his surprise.

Char. That's a meere bugge-beare, an impossible mocke. 150 If hee, and him I bound by nuptiall faith, Had not beene dull and drossie in performing Wreake of the deare bloud of my matchlesse brother, What Prince, what King, which of the desperat'st ruffings, Outlawes in Arden, durst have tempted thus 155 One of our bloud and name, be't true or false?

Char. I would once 165 Strip off my shame with my attire, and trie If a poore woman, votist of revenge, Would not performe it with a president To all you bungling, foggy-spirited men. But for our birth-rights honour, doe not mention 170 One syllable of any word may goe To the begetting of an act so tender And full of sulphure as this letters truth: It comprehends so blacke a circumstance Not to be nam'd, that but to forme one thought, 175 It is or can be so, would make me mad. Come, my lord, you and I will fight this dreame Out at the chesse.

Cler. Attend him in. (Exit Messenger.) Now comes this plot to tryall; I shall descerne (if it be true as rare) Some sparkes will flye from his dissembling eyes. Ile sound his depth.

Mail. Sir, the poore honour we can adde to all Your studyed welcome to this martiall place, In presentation of what strength consists My lord your brothers government, is readie. I have made all his troopes and companies 190 Advance and put themselves in battailia, That you may see both how well arm'd they are How strong is every troope and companie, How ready, and how well prepar'd for service.

Mail. Pardon me, sir. You amaze me to conceive 200 From whence our wils to honour you should turne To such dishonour of my lord, your brother. Dare I, without him, undertake your taking?

Mail. By my charge from the King! would he so much 205 Disgrace my lord, his owne Lieutenant here, To give me his command without his forfaite?

Cler. Come, be not furious; when I have done, You shall make such a carrier of me, 220 If't be your pleasure: you're my friend, I know, And so am bold with you.

Mail. Nothing you seeke, I sweare. I beseech you, Know I desir'd this out of great affection, 225 To th'end my lord may know out of your witnesse His forces are not in so bad estate As hee esteem'd them lately in your hearing; For which he would not trust me with the confines, But went himselfe to witnesse their estate. 230

Cler. I heard him make that reason, and am sorie I had no thought of it before I made Thus bold with you, since tis such ruberb to you. Ile therefore search no more. If you are charg'd (By letters from the King, or otherwise) 235 To apprehend me, never spice it more With forc'd tearmes of your love, but say: I yeeld; Holde, take my sword, here; I forgive thee freely; Take; doe thine office.

Mess. If hee goes, hee proves 245 How vaine are mens fore knowledges of things, When heaven strikes blinde their powers of note and use, And makes their way to ruine seeme more right Then that which safetie opens to their sight. Cassandra's prophecie had no more profit 250 With Troyes blinde citizens, when shee foretolde Troyes ruine; which, succeeding, made her use This sacred inclamation: "God" (said shee) "Would have me utter things uncredited; For which now they approve what I presag'd; 255 They count me wise, that said before, I rag'd." [Exit.]

Chalon. Come, souldiers: you are downewards fit for lackies; Give me your pieces, and take you these coates, To make you compleate foot men, in whose formes You must be compleate souldiers: you two onely Stand for our armie.

Chal. As you should at all parts. Goe now to Clermont D'Ambois, and informe him, Two battailes are set ready in his honour, And stay his presence onely for their signall, When they shall joyne; and that, t'attend him hither 15 Like one wee so much honour, wee have sent him—

Chal. Well, sir, say it so; And having brought him to the field, when I Fall in with him, saluting, get you both Of one side of his horse, and plucke him downe, 20 And I with th'ambush laid will second you.

Mail. Of my soule, Tis onely in my love to honour you With what would grace the King: but since I see You still sustaine a jealous eye on mee, 5 Ile goe before.

Cler. I had an aversation to this voyage, When first my brother mov'd it, and have found That native power in me was never vaine; 10 Yet now neglected it. I wonder much At my inconstancie in these decrees I every houre set downe to guide my life. When Homer made Achilles passionate, Wrathfull, revengefull, and insatiate 15 In his affections, what man will denie He did compose it all of industrie To let men see that men of most renowne, Strong'st, noblest, fairest, if they set not downe Decrees within them, for disposing these, 20 Of judgement, resolution, uprightnesse, And certaine knowledge of their use and ends, Mishap and miserie no lesse extends To their destruction, with all that they pris'd, Then to the poorest and the most despis'd? 25

Renel. Why, how now, friend, retir'd! take heede you prove not Dismaid with this strange fortune. All observe you: Your government's as much markt as the Kings. What said a friend to Pompey?

Cler. I shall approve how vile I value feare Of death at all times; but to be too rash, Without both will and care to shunne the worst, (It being in power to doe well and with cheere) 35 Is stupid negligence and worse then feare.

Cler. No, I cannot doo't. My sister truely said, there hung a taile Of circumstance so blacke on that supposure, That to sustaine it thus abhorr'd our mettall. 40 And I can shunne it too, in spight of all, Not going to field; and there to, being so mounted As I will, since I goe.

Cler. I am engag'd both in my word and hand. But this is it that makes me thus retir'd, 45 To call my selfe t'account, how this affaire Is to be manag'd, if the worst should chance: With which I note, how dangerous it is For any man to prease beyond the place To which his birth, or meanes, or knowledge ties him. 50 For my part, though of noble birth, my birthright Had little left it, and I know tis better To live with little, and to keepe within A mans owne strength still, and in mans true end, Then runne a mixt course. Good and bad hold never 55 Any thing common; you can never finde Things outward care, but you neglect your minde. God hath the whole world perfect made and free; His parts to th'use of th'All. Men, then, that are Parts of that All, must, as the generall sway 60 Of that importeth, willingly obay In every thing without their power to change. Hee that, unpleas'd to hold his place, will range, Can in no other be contain'd that's fit, And so resisting th'All is crusht with it: 65 But he that knowing how divine a frame The whole world is, and of it all can name (Without selfe-flatterie) no part so divine As hee himselfe; and therefore will confine Freely his whole powers in his proper part, 70 Goes on most God-like. Hee that strives t'invert The Universals course with his poore way, Not onely dust-like shivers with the sway, But crossing God in his great worke, all earth Beares not so cursed and so damn'd a birth. 75

Ren. Goe on; Ile take no care what comes of you; Heaven will not see it ill, how ere it show. But the pretext to see these battailes rang'd Is much your honour.

Cler. As the world esteemes it. But to decide that, you make me remember 80 An accident of high and noble note, And fits the subject of my late discourse Of holding on our free and proper way. I over-tooke, comming from Italie, In Germanie a great and famous Earle 85 Of England, the most goodly fashion'd man I ever saw; from head to foote in forme Rare and most absolute; hee had a face Like one of the most ancient honour'd Romanes From whence his noblest familie was deriv'd; 90 He was beside of spirit passing great, Valiant, and learn'd, and liberall as the sunne, Spoke and writ sweetly, or of learned subjects, Or of the discipline of publike weales; And t'was the Earle of Oxford: and being offer'd 95 At that time, by Duke Cassimere, the view Of his right royall armie then in field, Refus'd it, and no foote was mov'd to stirre Out of his owne free fore-determin'd course. I, wondring at it, askt for it his reason, 100 It being an offer so much for his honour. Hee, all acknowledging, said t'was not fit To take those honours that one cannot quit.

Cler. And yet he cast it onely in the way, 105 To stay and serve the world. Nor did it fit His owne true estimate how much it waigh'd; For hee despis'd it, and esteem'd it freer To keepe his owne way straight, and swore that hee Had rather make away his whole estate 110 In things that crost the vulgar then he would Be frozen up stiffe (like a Sir John Smith, His countrey-man) in common Nobles fashions; Affecting, as't the end of noblesse were, Those servile observations.

Cler. O tis a vexing sight to see a man, Out of his way, stalke proud as hee were in; Out of his way, to be officious, Observant, wary, serious, and grave, Fearefull, and passionate, insulting, raging, 120 Labour with iron flailes to thresh downe feathers Flitting in ayre.

Cler. These are too grave for brave wits; give them toyes; 125 Labour bestow'd on these is harsh and thriftlesse. If you would Consull be (sayes one) of Rome, You must be watching, starting out of sleepes; Every way whisking; gloryfying Plebeians; Kissing Patricians hands, rot at their dores; 130 Speake and doe basely; every day bestow Gifts and observance upon one or other: And what's th'event of all? Twelve rods before thee; Three or foure times sit for the whole tribunall; Exhibite Circean games; make publike feasts; 135 And for these idle outward things (sayes he) Would'st thou lay on such cost, toile, spend thy spirits? And to be voide of perturbation, For constancie, sleepe when thou would'st have sleepe, Wake when thou would'st wake, feare nought, vexe for nought, 140 No paines wilt thou bestow? no cost? no thought?

Cler. Well, in, my lord, and spend time with my sister, And keepe her from the field with all endeavour. 145 The souldiers love her so, and shee so madly Would take my apprehension, if it chance, That bloud would flow in rivers.

1[st Soldier.] From the Lieutenant, Colonell, and the Captaines, Who sent us to informe you that the battailes Stand ready rang'd, expecting but your presence To be their honor'd signall when to joyne, 155 And we are charg'd to runne by, and attend you.

Cler. Chance what can chance mee, well or ill is equall In my acceptance, since I joy in neyther, 160 But goe with sway of all the world together. In all successes Fortune and the day To mee alike are; I am fixt, be shee Never so fickle; and will there repose, Farre past the reach of any dye she throwes. 165 Ex[it] cum Pediss[equis].

1[st Soldier.] Who can hold lightning? Sdeath a man as well Might catch a canon bullet in his mouth, And spit it in your hands, as take and hold him.

Aumale. What spirit breathes thus in this more then man, Turnes flesh to ayre possest, and in a storme Teares men about the field like autumne leaves? He turnd wilde lightning in the lackies hands, Who, though their sodaine violent twitch unhorst him, 15 Yet when he bore himselfe, their saucie fingers Flew as too hot off, as hee had beene fire. The ambush then made in, through all whose force Hee drave as if a fierce and fire-given canon Had spit his iron vomit out amongst them. 20 The battailes then in two halfe-moones enclos'd him, In which he shew'd as if he were the light, And they but earth, who, wondring what hee was, Shruncke their steele hornes and gave him glorious passe. And as a great shot from a towne besieg'd 25 At foes before it flyes forth blacke and roring, But they too farre, and that with waight opprest (As if disdaining earth) doth onely grasse, Strike earth, and up againe into the ayre, Againe sinkes to it, and againe doth rise, 30 And keepes such strength that when it softliest moves It piece-meale shivers any let it proves— So flew brave Clermont forth, till breath forsooke him, Then fell to earth; and yet (sweet man) even then His spirits convulsions made him bound againe 35 Past all their reaches; till, all motion spent, His fixt eyes cast a blaze of such disdaine, All stood and star'd, and untouch'd let him lie, As something sacred fallen out of the skie. A cry within. O now some rude hand hath laid hold on him! 40

Mail. But thus forswearing is not perjurie. You are no politician: not a fault, How foule soever, done for private ends, Is fault in us sworne to the publike good: 50 Wee never can be of the damned crew; Wee may impolitique our selves (as 'twere) Into the kingdomes body politique, Whereof indeede we're members; you misse termes.

Mail. Tis nothing so; the propertie is alter'd: Y'are no lawyer. Or say that othe and othe Are still the same in number, yet their species Differ extreamely, as, for flat example, When politique widowes trye men for their turne, 60 Before they wed them, they are harlots then, But when they wed them, they are honest women: So private men, when they forsweare, betray, Are perjur'd treachers, but being publique once, That is, sworne-married to the publique good— 65

Mail. Publique good; For marriage makes them, being the publique good, And could not be without them: so I say Men publique, that is, being sworne-married To the good publique, being one body made 70 With the realmes body politique, are no more Private, nor can be perjur'd, though forsworne, More then a widow married, for the act Of generation is for that an harlot, Because for that shee was so, being unmarried: 75 An argument a paribus.

Aum. I grieve that vertue lives so undistinguisht From vice in any ill, and though the crowne Of soveraigne law, shee should be yet her footstoole, Subject to censure, all the shame and paine Of all her rigor.

Cler. Yet false policie 90 Would cover all, being like offenders hid, That (after notice taken where they hide) The more they crouch and stirre, the more are spide.

Cler. Some informer, Bloud-hound to mischiefe, usher to the hang-man, 95 Thirstie of honour for some huge state act, Perceiving me great with the worthy Guise, And he (I know not why) held dangerous, Made me the desperate organe of his danger, Onely with that poore colour: tis the common 100 And more then whore-like tricke of treacherie And vermine bred to rapine and to ruine, For which this fault is still to be accus'd; Since good acts faile, crafts and deceits are us'd. If it be other, never pittie mee. 105

Cler. It shall be done. This heavily prevents 110 My purpos'd recreation in these parts; Which now I thinke on, let mee begge you, sir, To lend me some one captaine of your troopes, To beare the message of my haplesse service And miserie to my most noble mistresse, 115 Countesse of Cambray; to whose house this night I promist my repaire, and know most truely, With all the ceremonies of her favour, She sure expects mee.

Cler. On that, sir? I, and that so worthily, 120 That if the King, in spight of your great service, Would send me instant promise of enlargement, Condition I would set this message by, I would not take it, but had rather die.

Cler. Good sir, beleeve that no particular torture Can force me from my glad obedience To any thing the high and generall Cause, To match with his whole fabricke, hath ordainde; And know yee all (though farre from all your aymes, 135 Yet worth them all, and all mens endlesse studies) That in this one thing, all the discipline Of manners and of manhood is contain'd:— A man to joyne himselfe with th'Universe In his maine sway, and make (in all things fit) 140 One with that all, and goe on round as it; Not plucking from the whole his wretched part, And into straites, or into nought revert, Wishing the compleate Universe might be Subject to such a ragge of it as hee; 145 But to consider great Necessitie All things, as well refract as voluntarie, Reduceth to the prime celestiall cause; Which he that yeelds to with a mans applause, And cheeke by cheeke goes, crossing it no breath, 150 But like Gods image followes to the death, That man is truely wise, and every thing (Each cause and every part distinguishing) In nature with enough art understands, And that full glory merits at all hands 155 That doth the whole world at all parts adorne, And appertaines to one celestiall borne. Exeunt omnes.

Baligny. So foule a scandall never man sustain'd, Which caus'd by th'King is rude and tyrannous: Give me a place, and my Lieutenant make The filler of it!

Renel. I should never looke For better of him; never trust a man 5 For any justice, that is rapt with pleasure; To order armes well, that makes smockes his ensignes, And his whole governments sayles: you heard of late Hee had the foure and twenty wayes of venerie Done all before him.

Ren. Tis more then natures mightie hand can doe To make one humane and a letcher too. Looke how a wolfe doth like a dogge appeare, So like a friend is an adulterer; Voluptuaries, and these belly-gods, 15 No more true men are then so many toads. A good man happy is a common good; Vile men advanc'd live of the common bloud.

Bal. What should Kings doe, and men of eminent places, But, as they gather, sow gifts to the graces? And where they have given, rather give againe (Being given for vertue) then, like babes and fooles, Take and repent gifts? why are wealth and power? 25

Ren. Power and wealth move to tyranny, not bountie; The merchant for his wealth is swolne in minde, When yet the chiefe lord of it is the winde.

Ren. So wilde, so mad, Shee cannot live and this unwreakt sustaine. 35 The woes are bloudy that in women raigne. The Sicile gulfe keepes feare in lesse degree; There is no tyger not more tame then shee.

Count. That's not well. Attend him in. Exit Ush[er]. The last houre of his promise now runne out! And hee breake, some brack's in the frame of nature 5 That forceth his breach.

Count. Why, that's the ground Of all the good estate wee hold in earth; All our ill built upon that is no more Then wee may beare, and should; expresse it all. 20

Aum. Then, madame, thus it fares; he was envited, By way of honour to him, to take view Of all the powers his brother Baligny Hath in his government; which rang'd in battailes, 30 Maillard, Lieutenant to the Governour, Having receiv'd strickt letters from the King, To traine him to the musters and betray him To their supprise; which, with Chalon in chiefe, And other captaines (all the field put hard 35 By his incredible valour for his scape) They haplesly and guiltlesly perform'd; And to Bastile hee's now led prisoner.

Count. What change is here! how are my hopes prevented! O my most faithfull servant, thou betraid! 40 Will Kings make treason lawfull? Is societie (To keepe which onely Kings were first ordain'd) Lesse broke in breaking faith twixt friend and friend Then twixt the King and subject? let them feare Kings presidents in licence lacke no danger. 45 Kings are compar'd to Gods, and should be like them, Full in all right, in nought superfluous, Nor nothing straining past right for their right. Raigne justly, and raigne safely. Policie Is but a guard corrupted, and a way 50 Venter'd in desarts, without guide or path. Kings punish subjects errors with their owne. Kings are like archers, and their subjects, shafts: For as when archers let their arrowes flye, They call to them, and bid them flye or fall, 55 As if twere in the free power of the shaft To flye or fall, when onely tis the strength, Straight shooting, compasse given it by the archer, That makes it hit or misse; and doing eyther, Hee's to be prais'd or blam'd, and not the shaft: 60 So Kings to subjects crying, "Doe, doe not this," Must to them by their owne examples strength, The straightnesse of their acts, and equall compasse, Give subjects power t'obey them in the like; Not shoote them forth with faultie ayme and strength, 65 And lay the fault in them for flying amisse.

Count. Hee would not for his kingdome traitor be; His lawes are not so true to him, as he. O knew I how to free him, by way forc'd 70 Through all their armie, I would flye, and doe it: And had I of my courage and resolve But tenne such more, they should not all retaine him. But I will never die, before I give Maillard an hundred slashes with a sword, 75 Chalon an hundred breaches with a pistoll. They could not all have taken Clermont D'Ambois Without their treacherie; he had bought his bands out With their slave blouds: but he was credulous; Hee would beleeve, since he would be beleev'd; 80 Your noblest natures are most credulous. Who gives no trust, all trust is apt to breake; Hate like hell mouth who thinke not what they speake.

Count. Fetch me straight My little cabinet. Exit Ancil[la]. Tis little, tell him, And much too little for his matchlesse love: But as in him the worths of many men Are close contracted, (Intr[at] Ancil[la.]) so in this are jewels 90 Worth many cabinets. Here, with this (good sir) Commend my kindest service to my servant, Thanke him, with all my comforts, and, in them, With all my life for them; all sent from him In his remembrance of mee and true love. 95 And looke you tell him, tell him how I lye She kneeles downe at his feete. Prostrate at feet of his accurst misfortune, Pouring my teares out, which shall ever fall, Till I have pour'd for him out eyes and all.

Aum. O madame, this will kill him; comfort you 100 With full assurance of his quicke acquitall; Be not so passionate; rise, cease your teares.

Coun. Then must my life cease. Teares are all the vent My life hath to scape death. Teares please me better Then all lifes comforts, being the naturall seede 105 Of heartie sorrow. As a tree fruit beares, So doth an undissembled sorrow, teares. Hee raises her, and leades her out. Exe[unt].

Guise. Now, sir, I hope you're much abus'd eyes see In my word for my Clermont, what a villaine Hee was that whisper'd in your jealous eare His owne blacke treason in suggesting Clermonts, Colour'd with nothing but being great with mee. 5 Signe then this writ for his deliverie; Your hand was never urg'd with worthier boldnesse: Come, pray, sir, signe it. Why should Kings be praid To acts of justice? tis a reverence Makes them despis'd, and showes they sticke and tyre 10 In what their free powers should be hot as fire.

Gui. In his most gentle and unwearied minde, Rightly to vertue fram'd in very nature; 15 In his most firme inexorable spirit To be remov'd from any thing hee chuseth For worthinesse; or beare the lest perswasion To what is base, or fitteth not his object; In his contempt of riches, and of greatnesse 20 In estimation of th'idolatrous vulgar; His scorne of all things servile and ignoble, Though they could gaine him never such advancement; His liberall kinde of speaking what is truth, In spight of temporising; the great rising 25 And learning of his soule so much the more Against ill fortune, as shee set her selfe Sharpe against him or would present most hard, To shunne the malice of her deadliest charge; His detestation of his speciall friends, 30 When he perceiv'd their tyrannous will to doe, Or their abjection basely to sustaine Any injustice that they could revenge; The flexibilitie of his most anger, Even in the maine careere and fury of it, 35 When any object of desertfull pittie Offers it selfe to him; his sweet disposure, As much abhorring to behold as doe Any unnaturall and bloudy action; His just contempt of jesters, parasites, 40 Servile observers, and polluted tongues— In short, this Senecall man is found in him, Hee may with heavens immortall powers compare, To whom the day and fortune equall are; Come faire or foule, whatever chance can fall, 45 Fixt in himselfe, hee still is one to all.

Gui. These are your Machevilian villaines, Your bastard Teucers, that, their mischiefes done, 50 Runne to your shield for shelter; Cacusses That cut their too large murtherous theveries To their dens length still. Woe be to that state Where treacherie guards, and ruine makes men great!

Cler. To love nothing outward, Or not within our owne powers to command; 5 And so being sure of every thing we love, Who cares to lose the rest? if any man Would neyther live nor dye in his free choise, But as hee sees necessitie will have it (Which if hee would resist, he strives in vaine) 10 What can come neere him that hee doth not well? And if in worst events his will be done, How can the best be better? all is one.

Cler. Put no difference If you have this, or not this; but as children 15 Playing at coites ever regard their game, And care not for their coites, so let a man The things themselves that touch him not esteeme, But his free power in well disposing them.

Cler. Me thinkes this double disticke 20 Seemes prettily too to stay superfluous longings: "Not to have want, what riches doth exceede? Not to be subject, what superiour thing? He that to nought aspires, doth nothing neede; Who breakes no law is subject to no King." 25

Cler. Tis so; rancke custome raps men so beyond it. And as tis hard so well mens dores to barre To keepe the cat out and th'adulterer: 30 So tis as hard to curbe affections so Wee let in nought to make them over-flow. And as of Homers verses, many critickes On those stand of which times old moth hath eaten The first or last feete, and the perfect parts 35 Of his unmatched poeme sinke beneath, With upright gasping and sloath dull as death: So the unprofitable things of life, And those we cannot compasse, we affect; All that doth profit and wee have, neglect, 40 Like covetous and basely getting men That, gathering much, use never what they keepe; But for the least they loose, extreamely weepe.

Cler. Tis well bestow'd on ye; meate and men sicke Agree like this and you: and yet even this Is th'end of all skill, power, wealth, all that is.

Aum. As great rich men take sodaine povertie. I never witness'd a more noble love, Nor a more ruthfull sorrow: I well wisht 55 Some other had beene master of my message.

Ren. Well, sir, all Is in the issue well: and (worthiest friend) Here's from your friend, the Guise; here from the Countesse, 80 Your brothers mistresse, the contents whereof I know, and must prepare you now to please Th'unrested spirit of your slaughtered brother, If it be true, as you imagin'd once, His apparition show'd it. The complot 85 Is now laid sure betwixt us; therefore haste Both to your great friend (who hath some use waightie For your repaire to him) and to the Countesse, Whose satisfaction is no lesse important.

Cler. I see all, and will haste as it importeth. 90 And good friend, since I must delay a little My wisht attendance on my noblest mistresse, Excuse me to her, with returne of this, And endlesse protestation of my service; And now become as glad a messenger, 95 As you were late a wofull.

Bal. Yet more newes, brother; the late jesting Monsieur Makes now your brothers dying prophesie equall At all parts, being dead as he presag'd. 100

Umbra Bussi. Up from the chaos of eternall night (To which the whole digestion of the world Is now returning) once more I ascend, And bide the cold dampe of this piercing ayre, To urge the justice whose almightie word 5 Measures the bloudy acts of impious men With equall pennance, who in th'act it selfe Includes th'infliction, which like chained shot Batter together still; though (as the thunder Seemes, by mens duller hearing then their sight, 10 To breake a great time after lightning forth, Yet both at one time teare the labouring cloud) So men thinke pennance of their ils is slow, Though th'ill and pennance still together goe. Reforme, yee ignorant men, your manlesse lives 15 Whose lawes yee thinke are nothing but your lusts; When leaving (but for supposition sake) The body of felicitie, religion, Set in the midst of Christendome, and her head Cleft to her bosome, one halfe one way swaying, 20 Another th'other, all the Christian world And all her lawes whose observation Stands upon faith, above the power of reason— Leaving (I say) all these, this might suffice To fray yee from your vicious swindge in ill 25 And set you more on fire to doe more good; That since the world (as which of you denies?) Stands by proportion, all may thence conclude That all the joynts and nerves sustaining nature As well may breake, and yet the world abide, 30 As any one good unrewarded die, Or any one ill scape his penaltie. The Ghost stands close.

Guise. Thus (friend) thou seest how all good men would thrive, Did not the good thou prompt'st me with prevent The jealous ill pursuing them in others. 35 But now thy dangers are dispatcht, note mine. Hast thou not heard of that admired voyce That at the barricadoes spake to mee, (No person seene) "Let's leade my lord to Reimes"?

Cler. Twas but your fancie, then, a waking dreame: For as in sleepe, which bindes both th'outward senses And the sense common to, th'imagining power (Stird up by formes hid in the memories store, Or by the vapours of o'er-flowing humours 45 In bodies full and foule, and mixt with spirits) Faines many strange, miraculous images, In which act it so painfully applyes It selfe to those formes that the common sense It actuates with his motion, and thereby 50 Those fictions true seeme and have reall act: So, in the strength of our conceits awake, The cause alike doth [oft] like fictions make.

Gui. Be what it will, twas a presage of something Waightie and secret, which th'advertisements 55 I have receiv'd from all parts, both without And in this kingdome, as from Rome and Spaine, Lorraine and Savoye, gives me cause to thinke, All writing that our plots catastrophe, For propagation of the Catholique cause, 60 Will bloudy prove, dissolving all our counsailes.

Gui. I must not doe so. The Arch-Bishop of Lyons tels me plaine I shall be said then to abandon France In so important an occasion; 65 And that mine enemies (their profit making Of my faint absence) soone would let that fall, That all my paines did to this height exhale.

Cler. Let all fall that would rise unlawfully! Make not your forward spirit in vertues right 70 A property for vice, by thrusting on Further then all your powers can fetch you off. It is enough, your will is infinite To all things vertuous and religious, Which, within limits kept, may without danger 75 Let vertue some good from your graces gather. Avarice of all is ever nothings father.

Umb. Danger (the spurre of all great mindes) is ever The curbe to your tame spirits; you respect not (With all your holinesse of life and learning) 80 More then the present, like illiterate vulgars; Your minde (you say) kept in your fleshes bounds Showes that mans will must rul'd be by his power: When by true doctrine you are taught to live Rather without the body then within, 85 And rather to your God still then your selfe. To live to Him is to doe all things fitting His image in which like Himselfe we live; To be His image is to doe those things That make us deathlesse, which by death is onely 90 Doing those deedes that fit eternitie; And those deedes are the perfecting that justice That makes the world last, which proportion is Of punishment and wreake for every wrong, As well as for right a reward as strong: 95 Away, then! use the meanes thou hast to right The wrong I suffer'd. What corrupted law Leaves unperform'd in Kings, doe thou supply, And be above them all in dignitie. Exit.

Cler. You make amends for enmitie to him, With tenne parts more love and desert of mee; And as you make your hate to him no let Of any love to mee, no more beares hee 110 (Since you to me supply it) hate to you. Which reason and which justice is perform'd In spirits tenne parts more then fleshy men; To whose fore-sights our acts and thoughts lie open: And therefore, since hee saw the treacherie 115 Late practis'd by my brother Baligny, Hee would not honor his hand with the justice (As hee esteemes it) of his blouds revenge, To which my sister needes would have him sworne, Before she would consent to marry him. 120

Gui. O Baligny!—who would beleeve there were A man that (onely since his lookes are rais'd Upwards, and have but sacred heaven in sight) Could beare a minde so more then divellish? As for the painted glory of the countenance, 125 Flitting in Kings, doth good for nought esteeme, And the more ill hee does, the better seeme.

Cler. Wee easily may beleeve it, since we see In this worlds practise few men better be. Justice to live doth nought but justice neede, 130 But policie must still on mischiefe feede. Untruth, for all his ends, truths name doth sue in; None safely live but those that study ruine. A good man happy is a common good; Ill men advanc'd live of the common bloud. 135

Aum. It came too late sir, for those loveliest eyes (Through which a soule look't so divinely loving, 145 Teares nothing uttering her distresse enough) She wept quite out, and, like two falling starres, Their dearest sights quite vanisht with her teares.

Cler. All must be borne, my lord; and yet this chance 150 Would willingly enforce a man to cast off All power to beare with comfort, since hee sees In this our comforts made our miseries.

Cler. In love of women my affection first Takes fire out of the fraile parts of my bloud; Which, till I have enjoy'd, is passionate Like other lovers; but, fruition past, I then love out of judgement, the desert 160 Of her I love still sticking in my heart, Though the desire and the delight be gone, Which must chance still, since the comparison Made upon tryall twixt what reason loves, And what affection, makes in mee the best 165 Ever preferd, what most love, valuing lest.

Cler. If there were love in mariage, so I would; But I denie that any man doth love, 170 Affecting wives, maides, widowes, any women: For neither flyes love milke, although they drowne In greedy search thereof; nor doth the bee Love honey, though the labour of her life Is spent in gathering it; nor those that fat 175 On beasts, or fowles, doe any thing therein For any love: for as when onely nature Moves men to meate, as farre as her power rules, Shee doth it with a temperate appetite, The too much men devoure abhorring nature, 180 And in our most health is our most disease: So, when humanitie rules men and women, Tis for societie confinde in reason. But what excites the beds desire in bloud, By no meanes justly can be construed love; 185 For when love kindles any knowing spirit, It ends in vertue and effects divine, And is in friendship chaste and masculine.

Gui. Thou shalt my mistresse be; me thinkes my bloud Is taken up to all love with thy vertues. 190 And howsoever other men despise These paradoxes strange and too precise, Since they hold on the right way of our reason, I could attend them ever. Come, away; Performe thy brothers thus importun'd wreake; 195 And I will see what great affaires the King Hath to employ my counsell which he seemes Much to desire, and more and more esteemes. Exeunt.

Hen. The more Kings beare at subjects hands, the more 5 Their lingring justice gathers; that resembles The waightie and the goodly-bodied eagle, Who (being on earth) before her shady wings Can raise her into ayre, a mightie way Close by the ground she runnes; but being aloft, 10 All shee commands, she flyes at; and the more Death in her seres beares, the more time shee stayes Her thundry stoope from that on which shee preyes.

Bal. You must be then more secret in the waight Of these your shadie counsels, who will else 15 Beare (where such sparkes flye as the Guise and D'Ambois) Pouder about them. Counsels (as your entrailes) Should be unpierst and sound kept; for not those Whom you discover you neglect; but ope A ruinous passage to your owne best hope. 20

Hen. Wee have spies set on us, as we on others; And therefore they that serve us must excuse us, If what wee most hold in our hearts take winde; Deceit hath eyes that see into the minde. But this plot shall be quicker then their twinckling, 25 On whose lids Fate with her dead waight shall lie, And confidence that lightens ere she die. Friends of my Guard, as yee gave othe to be True to your Soveraigne, keepe it manfully. Your eyes have witnest oft th'ambition 30 That never made accesse to me in Guise But treason ever sparkled in his eyes; Which if you free us of, our safetie shall You not our subjects but our patrons call.

Hen. Wee trust in it, and thanke ye. Baligny, Goe lodge their ambush, and thou God, that art Fautor of princes, thunder from the skies Beneath his hill of pride this gyant Guise. Exeunt.

Charlotte. Madame, I am bound to her vertuous bounties For that life which I offer, in her service, To the revenge of her renowned brother. 5

Tam. She writes to mee as much, and much desires That you may be the man, whose spirit shee knowes Will cut short off these long and dull delayes Hitherto bribing the eternall Justice: Which I beleeve, since her unmatched spirit 10 Can judge of spirits that have her sulphure in them. But I must tell you that I make no doubt Her living brother will revenge her dead, On whom the dead impos'd the taske, and hee, I know, will come t'effect it instantly. 15

Ren. Then come up, madame. He helps the Countesse up. See here, honour'd lady, A Countesse that in loves mishap doth equall At all parts your wrong'd selfe, and is the mistresse Of your slaine servants brother; in whose love, 25 For his late treachrous apprehension, She wept her faire eyes from her ivory browes, And would have wept her soule out, had not I Promist to bring her to this mortall quarrie, That by her lost eyes for her servants love 30 She might conjure him from this sterne attempt, In which (by a most ominous dreame shee had) Shee knowes his death fixt, and that never more Out of this place the sunne shall see him live.

Tam. See her letter, sir. Hee reades. Good madame, I rue your fate more then mine, And know not how to order these affaires, 40 They stand on such occurrents.

Ren. This, indeede, I know to be your lady mistresse hand; And know besides, his brother will and must Indure no hand in this revenge but his.

Umb. Forbeare! The ayre, in which My figures liknesse is imprest, will blast. Let my revenge for all loves satisfie, 50 In which, dame, feare not, Clermont shall not dye. No word dispute more; up, and see th'event. Exeunt Ladyes. Make the guard sure, Renel; and then the doores Command to make fast, when the Earle is in. Exit Ren[el]. The blacke soft-footed houre is now on wing, 55 Which, for my just wreake, ghosts shall celebrate With dances dire and of infernall state. Exit.

4 her service. Ed.; Q, her vertuous service; vertuous, which is obviously hypermetrical, has been repeated by mistake from the previous line.

Guise. Who sayes that death is naturall, when nature Is with the onely thought of it dismaid? I have had lotteries set up for my death, And I have drawne beneath my trencher one, Knit in my hand-kerchiefe another lot, 5 The word being, "Y'are a dead man if you enter"; And these words this imperfect bloud and flesh Shrincke at in spight of me, their solidst part Melting like snow within mee with colde fire. I hate my selfe, that, seeking to rule Kings, 10 I cannot curbe my slave. Would any spirit Free, manly, princely, wish to live to be Commanded by this masse of slaverie, Since reason, judgement, resolution, And scorne of what we feare, will yeeld to feare? 15 While this same sincke of sensualitie swels, Who would live sinking in it? and not spring Up to the starres, and leave this carrion here, For wolfes, and vultures, and for dogges to teare? O Clermont D'Ambois, wert thou here to chide 20 This softnesse from my flesh, farre as my reason, Farre as my resolution not to stirre One foote out of the way for death and hell! Let my false man by falshood perish here; There's no way else to set my true man cleere. 25

Gui. I come. It cannot be; hee will not dare To touch me with a treacherie so prophane. Would Clermont now were here, to try how hee Would lay about him, if this plot should be: 30 Here would be tossing soules into the skie. Who ever knew bloud sav'd by treacherie? Well, I must on, and will; what should I feare? Not against two, Alcides; against two, And Hercules to friend, the Guise will goe. 35

Let him appeare to justifie his deede, In spight of my betrai'd wounds; ere my soule Take her flight through them, and my tongue hath strength 40 To urge his tyrannie.

Henry. See, sir, I am come To justifie it before men and God, Who knowes with what wounds in my heart for woe Of your so wounded faith I made these wounds, Forc't to it by an insolence of force 45 To stirre a stone; nor is a rocke, oppos'd To all the billowes of the churlish sea, More beate and eaten with them then was I With your ambitious, mad idolatrie; And this bloud I shed is to save the bloud 50 Of many thousands.

Gui. That's your white pretext; But you will finde one drop of bloud shed lawlesse Will be the fountaine to a purple sea. The present lust and shift made for Kings lives, Against the pure forme and just power of law, 55 Will thrive like shifters purchases; there hangs A blacke starre in the skies, to which the sunne Gives yet no light, will raine a poyson'd shower Into your entrailes, that will make you feele How little safetie lies in treacherous steele. 60

Hen. Well, sir, Ile beare it; y'have a brother to Bursts with like threates, the skarlet Cardinall— Seeke, and lay hands on him; and take this hence, Their blouds, for all you, on my conscience! Exit.

Gui. So, sir, your full swindge take; mine death hath curb'd. 65 Clermont, farewell! O didst thou see but this! But it is better; see by this the ice Broke to thine owne bloud, which thou wilt despise When thou hear'st mine shed. Is there no friend here Will beare my love to him?

Cler. With what bloud charge you her? it may be mine As well as yours; there shall not any else 10 Enter or touch you: I conferre no guards, Nor imitate the murtherous course you tooke, But single here will have my former challenge Now answer'd single; not a minute more My brothers bloud shall stay for his revenge, 15 If I can act it; if not, mine shall adde A double conquest to you, that alone Put it to fortune now, and use no ods. Storme not, nor beate your selfe thus gainst the dores, Like to a savage vermine in a trap: 20 All dores are sure made, and you cannot scape But by your valour.

Mont. Stay, hold! One thought hath harden'd me, He starts up. And since I must afford thee victorie, 30 It shall be great and brave, if one request Thou wilt admit mee.

Tam. Out on my fortune, to wed such an abject! 45 Now is the peoples voyce the voyce of God; Hee that to wound a woman vants so much, As hee did mee, a man dares never touch.

Cler. Revenge your wounds now, madame; I resigne him Up to your full will, since hee will not fight. 50 First you shall torture him (as hee did you, And justice wils) and then pay I my vow. Here, take this ponyard.

Mont. No, sir, Ile fight now, and the terror be Of all you champions to such as shee. 60 I did but thus farre dally; now observe. O all you aking fore-heads that have rob'd Your hands of weapons and your hearts of valour, Joyne in mee all your rages and rebutters, And into dust ram this same race of Furies; 65 In this one relicke of the Ambois gall, In his one purple soule shed, drowne it all. Fight.

Cler. It is very noble, Had it beene free, at least, and of your selfe; 70 And thus wee see (where valour most doth vant) What tis to make a coward valiant.

Mont. If you were not a D'Ambois, I would scarce 75 Change lives with you, I feele so great a change In my tall spirits breath'd, I thinke, with the breath A D'Ambois breathes here; and necessitie (With whose point now prickt on, and so whose helpe My hands may challenge) that doth all men conquer, 80 If shee except not you of all men onely, May change the case here.

Char. I care not much if twere Against thy selfe; thy sister would have sham'd To have thy brothers wreake with any man In single combat sticke so in her fingers. 95

Char. Alas! I doe; And wer't not I, fresh, sound, should charge a man 100 Weary and wounded, I would long ere this Have prov'd what I presume on.

Cler. No, my lord, 105 I am the man in fate; and since so bravely Your lordship stands mee, scape but one more charge, And, on my life, Ile set your life at large.

Mont. Farewell! I hartily forgive thee; wife, And thee; let penitence spend thy rest of life. Hee gives his hand to Cler[mont] and his wife.

Cler. And should; for all faults found in him before These words, this end, makes full amends and more. 115 Rest, worthy soule; and with it the deare spirit Of my lov'd brother rest in endlesse peace! Soft lie thy bones; Heaven be your soules abode; And to your ashes be the earth no lode!

Musicke, and the Ghost of Bussy enters, leading the Ghost[s] of the Guise, Monsieur, Cardinall Guise, and Shattilion; they dance about the dead body, and exeunt.

Cler. How strange is this! The Guise amongst these spirits, 120 And his great brother Cardinall, both yet living! And that the rest with them with joy thus celebrate This our revenge! This certainely presages Some instant death both to the Guise and Cardinall. That the Shattilions ghost to should thus joyne 125 In celebration of this just revenge With Guise that bore a chiefe stroke in his death, It seemes that now he doth approve the act; And these true shadowes of the Guise and Cardinall, Fore-running thus their bodies, may approve 130 That all things to be done, as here wee live, Are done before all times in th'other life. That spirits should rise in these times yet are fables; Though learnedst men hold that our sensive spirits A little time abide about the graves 135 Of their deceased bodies, and can take, In colde condenc't ayre, the same formes they had When they were shut up in this bodies shade.

Aum. Sent for to Councill by the King, an ambush 140 (Lodg'd for the purpose) rusht on him, and tooke His princely life; who sent (in dying then) His love to you, as to the best of men.

Cler. The worst and most accursed of things creeping On earths sad bosome. Let me pray yee all 145 A little to forbeare, and let me use Freely mine owne minde in lamenting him. Ile call yee straight againe.

Cler. Shall I live, and hee Dead, that alone gave meanes of life to me? 150 Theres no disputing with the acts of Kings; Revenge is impious on their sacred persons. And could I play the worldling (no man loving Longer then gaine is reapt or grace from him) I should survive; and shall be wondred at 155 Though (in mine owne hands being) I end with him: But friendship is the sement of two mindes, As of one man the soule and body is, Of which one cannot sever but the other Suffers a needfull separation. 160

Cler. Since I could skill of man, I never liv'd To please men worldly, and shall I in death Respect their pleasures, making such a jarre Betwixt my death and life, when death should make 165 The consort sweetest, th'end being proofe and crowne To all the skill and worth wee truely owne? Guise, O my lord, how shall I cast from me The bands and coverts hindring me from thee? The garment or the cover of the minde 170 The humane soule is; of the soule, the spirit The proper robe is; of the spirit, the bloud; And of the bloud, the body is the shrowd. With that must I beginne then to unclothe, And come at th'other. Now, then, as a ship 175 Touching at strange and farre removed shores, Her men a shore goe, for their severall ends, Fresh water, victuals, precious stones, and pearle, All yet intentive, when the master cals, The ship to put off ready, to leave all 180 Their greediest labours, lest they there be left To theeves or beasts, or be the countries slaves: So, now my master cals, my ship, my venture All in one bottome put, all quite put off, Gone under saile, and I left negligent 185 To all the horrors of the vicious time, The farre remov'd shores to all vertuous aimes, None favouring goodnesse, none but he respecting Pietie or man-hood—shall I here survive, Not cast me after him into the sea, 190 Rather then here live, readie every houre To feede theeves, beasts, and be the slave of power? I come, my lord! Clermont, thy creature, comes. Hee kils himselfe.

Char. Well done, my brother! I did love thee ever, But now adore thee: losse of such a friend 200 None should survive, of such a brother [none.] With my false husband live, and both these slaine! Ere I returne to him, Ile turne to earth.

Char. It is. In cloisters then let's all survive. 210 Madame, since wrath nor griefe can helpe these fortunes, Let us forsake the world in which they raigne, And for their wisht amends to God complaine.

Henry. Wee came indeede too late, which much I rue, And would have kept this Clermont as my crowne. Take in the dead, and make this fatall roome (The house shut up) the famous D'Ambois tombe. Exeunt.

=169=, 35-36. =the most divine philosopher.= The reference is doubtless to Epictetus, the influence of whose Discourses appears throughout The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois.

=178. Monsieur taking leave of the King.= Henry apparently leaves the stage, after this formal ceremony of farewell, without speaking, for he takes no part in the dialogue, and he is not mentioned among those who exeunt at l. 290.

=183=, 254. =a keele of sea-coale.= A keel was a flat-bottomed boat, used in the northeast of England, for loading and carrying coal. Afterwards the word was also used of the amount of coal a keel would carry, i. e. 8 chaldrons, or 21 tons 4 cwt. Sea-coal was the original term for the fossil coal borne from Newcastle to London by sea, to distinguish it from char-coal. Cf. Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, I, iv, 9, "at the latter end of a sea-coal fire."

=184=, 267. =a poore knights living.= The knights of Windsor, a small body who had apartments in the Castle, and pensions, were often known as "poor knights."

=203=, 105. =Euphorbus=, son of Panthous, a Trojan hero, who first wounded Patroclus, but was afterwards slain by Menelaus. Pythagoras, as part of his doctrine of the transmigration of souls, is said to have claimed to have been formerly Euphorbus.

=205=, 141. =virtuosi.= The word is here used not in the sense of connoisseurs, but of devotees of virtue. The editor has not been able to trace any other instance of this.

=207=, 181. =Simil[iter].= By this marginal reference Chapman seems to indicate that ll. 176-181 are drawn from the same source—the Discourses of Epictetus—as ll. 157-160, to which the previous marginal note refers. But no such passage occurs in the Discourses.

=213=, 5-6. =th'insulting Pillars Of Bacchus and Alcides.= These "Pillars" are mentioned together by Strabo (bk. III, vi), who relates that during Alexander's expedition to India the Macedonians did not see them, but identified those places with them, where they found records of the god or the hero.

=219=, 12. =The Locrian princes.= The inhabitants of Locri, a settlement near the promontory of Zephyrium, were celebrated for the excellence of their code of laws, drawn up by Zaleucus.

=220=, 41-46. =Demetrius Phalerius=, born about B. C. 345, was a follower of Phocion, and on the death of the latter in B. C. 317, became head of the Athenian administration. The citizens, in gratitude for his services, erected 360 statues to him, but afterwards turned against him. In B. C. 307 he was driven from Athens, sentence of death was passed on him, and the statues were demolished.

=220=, 47. =Demades=, a contemporary of Demosthenes, who, by his genius for extempore oratory, raised himself to a predominant position in Athens as a champion of the Macedonian influence, but afterwards incurred the penalty of +atimia+.

=234=, 20. =for disposing these:= for regulating these gifts of fame, strength, noble birth, and beauty. These is used loosely to qualify the nouns implied by the adjectives, Strong'st, noblest, fairest, in l. 19.

=238=, 112. =a Sir John Smith.= Though alluded to in so contemptuous a way, this Sir John Smith appears to be the noted soldier of fortune, diplomatist, and military writer, who lived from about 1534 to 1607. After serving for many years in continental armies, in 1574 he became an agent of the English government, and took part in various diplomatic missions. In 1590 he published "Certain Discourses concerning the formes and effects of divers sorts of Weapons" and dedicated the work to the English nobility, whom he calls in one part of his "proeme" the "verie eyes, eares and language of the king, and the bodie of the watch, and redresse of the Commonwealth." Hence perhaps the allusion in l. 113 to "common Nobles fashions."

=278=, 29. =this mortal quarrie:= this deadly attack. Quarry is generally used of slaughtered game, but it also signifies the attack or swoop of the bird or beast of prey on its victim, and here we have an extension of this sense.

=289=, 85. =[Enter Renel, the Countess, and] Charlotte above.= The addition of the bracketed words is necessary, as the Q gives no indication of the entrance of these two characters. They appear with Charlotte "above," i. e. in a gallery at the back of the stage. When Charlotte, enraged at Clermont's slowness in dispatching Montsurry, "gets downe" (l. 87), they remain in the gallery unobserved.

He had never been the victim of love, but he was instantly captivated by the beautiful eyes of a lady whom he met at an assembly at the house of a Judge in one of the towns of which he was Governor.

Meanwhile, he continues, "elle donne le vray moyen a Lysis de la voir, sans le souciet qu'on en parle, pourveu que sa conscience la deffende. Et particulierement ce fut en un jardin qui est a l'un des fauxbourgs de la ville." Some tale-bearers, putting the worst construction on their behaviour, gave information to Lisandre, the husband of Sylvie, but he refused to credit anything to the dishonour of his wife. To stop gossip, however, he took her with him to a house he had not far from the town. But the lovers communicated with one another by messengers, till Lisandre's departure on a journey removed all obstacle to their intercourse. "Ce Seigneur avait des affaires hors de la province ou il faisoit pour lors sa demeure. Pour les terminer, il s'y achemine au grand contentement de Sylvie, qui neantmoins contrefaisoit la dolente a son depart & le sommoit de revenir le plustot qu'il luy seroit possible, tandis que dans son ame elle prioit a Dieu que son voyage fust aussi long que celuy d'Ulysse." When he was gone, she immediately sent for Lysis, and they spent two or three days in transports of delight, though she continued to safeguard her honour.

On Lisandre's return the King, instigated by the enemies of Lysis, reproached the former for tamely enduring dishonour, and bade him never reappear in the royal presence till he had wiped out the stain. Lisandre therefore offered his wife the choice of three courses. She was to swallow poison, or die beneath his dagger, or write to Lysis, telling him that Lisandre was still absent, and begging him to come to her. After a struggle Sylvie wrote the fatal missive, and Lysis, though at the castle gate he was overcome by a premonition of evil and almost turned back, was obedient to her summons, and entered her chamber unarmed. The final scene is thus described.

It will be seen that Rosset's account of the final episodes, beginning with the intervention of the King, agrees, in the main details, with the following description by De Thou, which appeared in 1620, in the Genevan edition of the Historiae Sui Temporis, lib. LXVIII, p. 330 (vol. III, p. 675, of Buckley's edition, 1733).

"Dum[310:1] adhuc Andinus in aula esset, literas per jocum regi ostenderat a Ludovico Claramontio Ambosiano Bussio ad se scriptas; quibus, pro summa quae ei cum hero suo juvene erat familiaritate, significabat se feram magni venatoris (ita uxorem vocabat Caroli Cambii Monsorelli comitis, quem ea dignitate Andinus paulo ante Bussii commendatione ornaverat) indagine cinxisse, et in plagas conjecisse. Quas literas rex retinuerat, et Bussii jam a longo tempore insolenti arrogantia et petulantia irritatus, occasionem inde sumpsit veteres ab eo acceptas injurias ulciscendi. Is siquidem, et dum in aula esset, nullo non contumeliae genere in proceres et gynaeceum etiam aulicum usus fuerat, fiducia pugnacitatis qua se terribilem cunctis reddiderat; sed etiam postquam se ad comitatum Andini receperat, dum Andegavi arcem toto illo tractu munitissimam et urbi populosae impositam teneret, oppidanis et toti provinciae gravis ob crebras exactiones, quas privata auctoritate, non consulto plerumque Andino ipso, faciebat, summum omnium odium in se concitaverat. Igitur rex Monsorellum, qui tunc forte in aula erat, clam revocat, et literas Bussii ei ostendit; additque se decoris familiae et ejus dignitatis perquam studiosum, noluisse rem adeo injuriosam eum celare; ceterum scire ipsum debere, quid consilii in tali occasione se capere deceat et oporteat. Nec plura elocutus hominem dimittit, qui, non solum injuriae tantae morsu perculsus, sed monitis regis incitatus, quae ille tanquam ignaviae exprobationem si injuriam ferret accipiebat, protinus domum revolat, summo silentio, ut Bussium lateret: astuque per uxorem ad Bussium literas dari curat, quibus ei horam ad secretum Coustanteriae condicebat; ea erat arx voluptuaria et venationibus opportuna; ad quam cum Bussius cum Colladone conscio sub vesperam XIV Kal. Sept. venisset, ab ipso Monsorello et aliis loricatis oppressus: tamen, qua erat animi praesentia, quamvis unus contra plures, summa vi percussores initio disjecit; tandemque numero victus, spiritu inter certandum deficiente, cum se in fossam per fenestram praecipitare vellet, a tergo interfectus est."

[310:1] While the Duke of Anjou was still at Court, he had shown in jest to the King, a letter which had been written to him by Louis de Clermont Bussy d'Ambois. In this letter, owing to the very intimate terms on which he stood with his young patron, he told him that he had enclosed and caught in his net the hind of a mighty hunter. Thus he termed the wife of Charles de Chambes, Count of Montsoreau, on whom the Duke had conferred that title a short time before, at the recommendation of Bussy. This letter the King had kept, and as he had long been annoyed by Bussy's insolent arrogance and his petulant temper, he availed himself of this opportunity of avenging the old insults he had received from him. Even while he was at Court, he had been guilty of every sort of insult to nobles and Court ladies, trusting to his prowess as a swordsman, by which he made himself a terror to every one. So also after he had betaken himself to the district of Anjou, occupying, as he did, the citadel of Angers, the most powerful stronghold in all that district, and commanding the populous city, he had made himself a burden to the townspeople and the whole province by his frequent exactions, generally made on his own authority, without consulting the Duke of Anjou. He had thus stirred up against himself a deep-seated and universal hatred.

Therefore the King secretly called aside Montsoreau, who was then at Court, and showed him Bussy's letter, and added that, as he was extremely solicitous about his family honour and his dignity, he did not wish to conceal so insulting a matter from him; for the rest he ought to know himself what measures it behoved him to take under such circumstances. Without further words he dismissed Montsoreau. The Count, stung to the quick by so grave an injury to his honour, and excited by the admonitions of the King, which he interpreted as reproaches for his cowardice, should he tamely bear the insult, at once flew home, in the greatest secrecy, so that Bussy should not know of his return. By a stratagem he arranged that a letter should be sent by his wife to Bussy, making a secret assignation with him at La Coutanciere, which was a pleasure-resort and convenient for hunting purposes. When Bussy came there with his associate Colasseau at nightfall on the nineteenth of August, he was fallen upon by Montsoreau and other armed men. Yet, such was his coolness, that though he was one against many, he at first by mighty exertions discomfited his assailants. At length, overcome by numbers, and breath failing him in the struggle, he tried to throw himself out of the window into the castle-moat, but was stabbed in the back and killed.