"Duke Byron Flows with Adust and Melancholy Choler": General and Special Character in Chapman's "Byron" Plays

. . . [...] it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples1 -As You Like It (4.1.15-16) EARLY on in George Chapman's two-part play, The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron (1607-8), when Henry IV attempts to diagnose the root of Byron's restiveness, the king, trying to be both clement and constructive, understandably resorts to humoral theory: "In all things governed, their infirmities / Must not be stirred nor wrought on; Duke Byron/ Flows with adust and melancholy choler, / And melancholy spirits are venomous, / Not to be touched but as they may be cured" (Consp. 2.2.41-45).2 Henry's imposition of humor psychology on Byron's case is an understandable recourse in that it grounds the king's approach to Byron on two very desirable (for Henry) assumptions. The statement, that is, seems to have obvious relevance for dramatic characters; for the discerning, an absolute dramatic poem would fashion personae the substance of whose inner lives is able to become clear and vivid- evident.\n And yet, he will never fail to apprehend it otherwise, and so he is right: in changing stately patience into numbed folly and ignoble hysteria into noble composure, he proves he alone apprehends things the way he apprehends them.