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 Coutancière 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 _rôle_ 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 

 Prev. P 8/498 next