Hol. I will not be put out of countenance. "Biron. Because thou hast no face. "Hol. What is this? "Boyet. A cittern-head. "Dum. The head of a bodkin. 66 66 'Biron. A death's face in a ring. 'Long. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen. Boyet. The pommel of Cæsar's falchion. "Dum. The carved bone face on a flask. "Biron. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch. 66 'Dum. Ay, and in a brooch of lead. "Biron. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth drawer-and now forward; for we have put thee in countenance. "Hol. You have put me out of countenance. "Biron. False: we have given thee faces. 66 'Hol. But you have out-faced them all. "Biron. An thou wert a lion, we would do so. "Boyet. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go." The indicative value which I suggest as possible for these lines is not at all incompatible with the dates which I assign for the play, as these lines, if meant in this manner as well as the more bitterly satirical tone of this whole scene, very probably belongs to the period of the revision of this play by Shakespeare in 1598, when it was also published, very shortly after Chapman's issue of the first seven books of Homer in that year. The references to Achilles and Hector, further on in this same scene, very evidently belong also to the period of revision, 66 as I shall prove later that Shakespeare wrote Troilus and Cressida " in this year as a satire upon Chapman's work, and shall also give good reasons for believing that the revision of "Love's Labor's Lost" and the production of "Troilus and Cressida " occupied our poet's attention at about the same time. In the next chapter I shall endeavor to show the reason for Shakespeare's attack upon Chapman in "Love's Labor's Lost," at the period of its production in 1595 CHAPTER VII. CHAPMAN'S ATTACKS UPON SHAKESPEARE IN 1594 AND 1595. IT is a rather curious fact that both Shakespeare and Chapman should have reached such an advanced age before publishing any of their poems. At the age of thirty Shakespeare published "Venus and Adonis"; at the age of thirty-five Chapman published his first poem, "The Shadow of Night." Shakespeare's poem met with almost immediate success a success, too, that was not of a day; as we find that in the eight years following its first appearance it went into seven editions, and into five more editions in the next twenty or twenty-five years. Chapman's "Shadow of Night" was published in 1594, one year later than "Venus and Adonis," and did not see a second print for over forty years (in 1639). In the same year that Chapman published "The Shadow of Night" Shakespeare issued his second poem "Lucrece," which, in turn, met with almost as flattering a reception as "Venus and Adonis." The dedication to "Lucrece" contains strong evidence that Shakespeare reaped something more tangible than mere popularity from his first effort; the passage: "the warrant I have of your honourable disposition, and not the worth of my untutored lines," etc., lends good color to the report which we have from Nicholas Rowe (Shakespeare's earliest biographer) as to Southampton's munificence to our poet. The fame of this munificence brought many worshipers to this young nobleman's shrine. In 1595 Gervase Markham, in a sonnet addressed to Southampton, apostrophizes him as follows: "Thou glorious laurel of the Muses' hill There can be little doubt but that these lines refer to Shakespeare; they show, however, a very different spirit from Chapman's advances in the same field. We have proof positive, in an extant sonnet of Chapman's, that he sought the patronage of Southampton at a later date (in 1609). I shall now endeavor to show that he sought it in 1594 or 1595, for his poems of those years; and that he sought it again in 1596 or 1597 for his first Homeric translations, and that the references to Chapman which Professor Minto discovered in certain of Shakespeare's Sonnets referred to this latter period. That he was unsuccessful in both attempts we are assured from the fact that his dedications to Southampton, which Shakespeare mentions in certain of his Sonnets, never saw print. In "The Shadow of Night," published later than "Venus and Adonis" and "Lucrece," I find references to patrons who reward "fools," in much the same strain as in the poems of Chapman published in the following year, where similar references undoubtedly indicate Shakespeare, as I shall prove. The literary world at this date (1594) was, no doubt, ringing with the praises of Shakespeare's published poems; his early Sonnets to Southampton were also being read in manuscript. The fact of Southampton's patronage and friendship was now, no doubt, well known, therefore, when we find Chapman, whom we prove to have been an avowed enemy of Shakespeare, working himself into a heat over the recent successes of a poet whom he calls a fool, we may take it for granted whom he means. The following quotation from "The Shadow of Night" is exceedingly suggestive: "Wealth fawns on fools; virtues are meat for vices; Good gifts are often given to men past good And noblesse stoops sometimes beneath his blood." This seems to lend color to Nicholas Rowe's rumor of Southampton's munificence to our poet and seems also to indicate, not only Southampton's patronage of Shakespeare, but also the fact of his close intimacy and friendship as revealed in the Sonnets. It also calls to mind several of Shakespeare's Sonnets, wherein he seems to defend himself and his friend from such attacks, when he complains of the meanness of his own state and fears that his friend and patron will be besmirched by such open recognition of their friendship. |