Chapman's The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois

In all successes Fortune and the day To me alike are; I am fix'd, be she Never so fickle; . . . . n a world where man is insignificant "unless he be a politician" (I. ii. 141), Clermont D'Ambois, the most reluctant and unlikely of avengers, devotes himself quite assiduously to being "no politician" and "no lawyer" (IV. i. 48, 57). However, his significance is not to be doubted. He does not suffer for being no "great and politicke man . . . [who] Never explores himself to find his faults."^Moreover, he offers no pale recastings of the desire to enjoy fame in a statue; hence, he is also unlike the "sleight man" who stands "Starke as a statue" and "Whose learning formes not lifes integritie."^His lack of such greatness and sleightness seems commendable indeed. But Chapman's gleanings from Wolfius's Epictetus furnish more than foils for his Senecal hero. The poetry he composed at about the same time as the play corroborates the durability of Clermont, for "Best men are long in making."^The power of such a hero resides not in overt bluster but in learning- infused calm which can permit him to demonstrate the same yielding strength Chapman described in "Of Sufferance." The confident bearer of a truly humane crown, "this abso-' lute Clermont" (II. i. 90) impresses his audience with the stoic reserve of his position "To love nothing outward" (IV. v. 4)

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