Ladies of London. With the great Joy and Pompe, Solempnized at their
Mariages: Commically interlaced with much honest Mirth, for pleasure
and recreation, among many Morall obseruations and other important
matters of due regard. By R. W. _R. Jones._ [Woodcut, on which cf.
_Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii; ‘Preface’, i.e. prologue.]
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi.
371 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1912, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: H.
Fernow, _The 3 L. and 3 L. By R. W._ (1885, _Hamburg programme_).
Fleay, ii. 280, fixes the date by the allusions (C, C^v) to the recent
death of Tarlton (q.v.) in Sept. 1588.
_The Cobbler’s Prophecy > 1594_
_S. R._ 1594, June 8. ‘A booke intituled the Coblers prophesie.’
_Cuthbert Burby_ (Arber, ii. 653).
1594. The Coblers Prophesie. Written by Robert Wilson, Gent. _John
Danter for Cuthbert Burby._
_Editions_ by W. Dibelius (1897, _Jahrbuch_, xxxiii. 3), J. S. Farmer
(1911, _T. F. T._), and A. C. Wood (1914, _M. S. R._).
The general character of this play, with its reference (i. 36) to an
audience who ‘sit and see’ and its comfits cast, suggests the Court
rather than the popular stage.
_Doubtful Plays_
Wilson’s hand has been sought in _Clyomon and Clamydes_, _Fair Em_,
_Knack to Know a Knave_, _Pedlar’s Prophecy_ (cf. ch. xxiv).
_Lost Plays_
_Short and Sweet_ (_c._ 1579). _Vide Catiline’s Conspiracy_ (_infra_).
The following is a complete list of plays for the Admiral’s men in
which a share is assigned to Wilson by Henslowe:
(i, ii) _1, 2, Earl Godwin and his Three Sons._
With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, March-June 1598.
(iii) _Pierce of Exton._
With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, April, 1598; but apparently
unfinished.
(iv) _1 Black Bateman of the North._
With Chettle, Dekker, and Drayton, May 1598.
(v) _2 Black Bateman of the North._
With Chettle, June 1598.
(vi) _Funeral of Richard Cœur-de-Lion._
With Chettle, Drayton, and Munday, June 1598.
(vii) _The Madman’s Morris._
With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.
(viii) _Hannibal and Hermes._
With Dekker and Drayton, July 1598.
(ix) _Pierce of Winchester._
With Dekker and Drayton, July–Aug. 1598.
(x) _Chance Medley._
With Chettle or Dekker, Drayton, and Munday, Aug. 1598.
(xi) _Catiline’s Conspiracy._
With Chettle, Aug. 1598; but apparently not finished; unless the fact
that the authors only received one ‘earnest’ of £1 5_s._ was due to the
play being no more than a revision of Wilson’s old _Short and Sweet_,
which Lodge (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) contrasts about 1579 with Gosson’s
play on Catiline.
(xii, xiii) _1, 2 Sir John Oldcastle._
With Drayton (q.v.), Hathaway, and Munday, Oct.–Dec. 1599.
(xiv) _2 Henry Richmond._
Nov. 1599, apparently with others, as shown by Robert Shaw’s order for
payment (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 49), on which a scenario of one act
is endorsed.
(xv) _Owen Tudor._
With Drayton, Hathaway, and Munday, Jan. 1600; but apparently not
finished.
(xvi) _1 Fair Constance of Rome._
June 1600. The Diary gives the payments as made to Dekker, Drayton,
Hathaway, and Munday, but a letter of 14 June from Robert Shaw (Greg,
_Henslowe Papers_, 55) indicates that Wilson had a fifth share.
ANTHONY WINGFIELD (_c._ 1550–1615).
Possible author of the academic _Pedantius_ (cf. App. K).
NATHANIEL WOODES (?).
A minister of Norwich, only known as author of the following play.
_The Conflict of Conscience. > 1581_
1581. An excellent new Commedie Intituled: The Conflict of Conscience.
Contayninge, A most lamentable example, of the dolefull desperation of
a miserable worldlinge, termed, by the name of Philologus, who forsooke
the trueth of God’s Gospel, for feare of the losse of lyfe, & worldly
goods. Compiled, by Nathaniell Woodes, Minister, in Norwich. _Richard
Bradocke._ [Prologue.]
_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1851, _Five Old Plays_), in Dodsley^4, vi.
29 (1874), and by J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._).
The characters are allegorical, typical and personal and arranged for
six actors ‘most convenient for such as be disposed either to shew this
Comedie in private houses or otherwise’. Philologus is Francis Spiera,
a pervert to Rome about the middle of the sixteenth century. The play
is strongly Protestant, and is probably much earlier than 1581. It is
divided into a prologue and acts and scenes. Act VI is practically an
epilogue.
HENRY WOTTON (1568–1639).
Izaak Walton (_Reliquiae Wottonianae_, 1651) tells us that, while a
student at Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1586, Wotton ‘was by the chief
of that College, persuasively enjoined to write a play for their
private use;--it was the Tragedy of Tancredo--which was so interwoven
with sentences, and for the method and exact personating those
humours, passions, and dispositions, which he proposed to represent,
so performed, that the gravest of that society declared, he had, in a
slight employment, given an early and a solid testimony of his future
abilities’.
CHRISTOPHER WREN (1591–1658).
Author of the academic _Physiponomachia_ (cf. App. K).
ROBERT YARINGTON (_c._ 1601?).
Nothing is known of Yarington, but this is hardly sufficient reason for
denying him the ascription of the title-page.
_Two Lamentable Tragedies. 1594 < > 1601_
1601. Two Lamentable Tragedies. The one, of the murder of Maister
Beech a Chaundler in Thames-streete, and his boye, done by Thomas
Merry. The other of a young childe murthered in a Wood by two Ruffins,
with the consent of his Vnckle. By Rob. Yarington. _For Mathew Lawe._
[Running title, ‘Two Tragedies in One.’ Induction.]
_Editions_ by A. H. Bullen (1885, _O. E. P._ iv) and J. S. Farmer
(1913, _S. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: R. A. Law, _Y.’s T. L. T._ (1910,
_M. L. R._ v. 167).
This deals in alternate scenes with (_a_) the murder of Beech by
Merry on 23 Aug. 1594, and (_b_) a version, with an Italian setting,
of the Babes in the Wood, on which a ballad, with a Norfolk setting,
was licensed in 1595. Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 208, following a hint of
Fleay, ii. 285, connects the play with Henslowe’s entries of payments,
on behalf of the Admiral’s, (i) of £5 in Nov. and Dec. 1599 to Day
and Haughton for _Thomas Merry_ or _Beech’s Tragedy_, (ii) of 10_s._
in Nov. 1599 and 10_s._ in Sept. 1601 to Chettle for _The Orphan’s
Tragedy_, and (iii) of £2 to Day in Jan. 1600 for an Italian tragedy.
He supposes that (ii) and (iii) were the same play, that it was
finished, and that in 1601 Chettle combined it with (i), possibly
dropping out Day’s contributions to both pieces. Yarington he dismisses
as a scribe. In the alternate scenes of the extant version he discerns
distinct hands, presumably those of Haughton and Chettle respectively.
Law does not think that there are necessarily two hands at all, finds
imitation of _Leire_ (1594) in scenes belonging to both plots, and
reinstates Yarington. Oliphant (_M. P._ viii. 435) boldly conjectures
that ‘Rob. Yarington’ might be a misreading of ‘W^m Haughton’. Bullen
thought that this play, _Arden of Feversham_, and _A Warning for Fair
Women_ might all be by the same hand.
CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON (_c._ 1535–1612).
Yelverton entered Gray’s Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in
Jasper Heywood’s verses before Thomas Newton’s translation (1560) of
Seneca’s _Thyestes_, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray’s Inn _Jocasta_
of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise
the dumb-shows for the Gray’s Inn _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas
Hughes (q.v.) on 28 Feb. 1588. He became a Justice of the Queen’s Bench
on 2 Feb. 1602 and was knighted on 23 July 1603.
PRINTED IN ENGLAND
AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. ch. xxii.
[2] _Quarterly Review_ (April 1908), 446.
[3] A copy at Berlin of the Strassburg _Terence_ of 1496 has the
manuscript note to the engraving of the _Theatrum_, ‘ein offen stat
der weltlichkeit da man zu sicht, ubi fiunt chorei, ludi et de alijs
leutitatibus, sicut nos facimus oster spill’ (Herrmann, 300). Leo
Battista Alberti’s _De Re Edificatoria_ was written about 1451 and
printed in 1485. Vitruvius, _De Architectura_, v. 3–9, deals with
the theatre. The essential passage on the scene is v. 6, 8–9 ‘Ipsae
autem scenae suas habent rationes explicitas ita, uti mediae valvae
ornatus habeant aulae regiae, dextra ac sinistra hospitalia, secundum
autem spatia ad ornatus comparata, quae loca Graeci περιάκτους dicunt
ab eo, quod machinae sunt in his locis versatiles trigonoe habentes
singulares species ornationis, quae, cum aut fabularum mutationes sunt
futurae seu deorum adventus, cum tonitribus repentinis [ea] versentur
mutentque speciem ornationis in frontes. secundum ea loca versurae sunt
procurrentes, quae efficiunt una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in
scaenam. genera autem sunt scaenarum tria: unum quod dicitur tragicum,
alterum comicum, tertium satyricum. horum autem ornatus sunt inter
se dissimili disparique ratione, quod tragicae deformantur columnis
et fastigiis et signis reliquisque regalibus rebus; comicae autem
aedificiorum privatorum et maenianorum habent speciem prospectusque
fenestris dispositos imitatione, communium aedificiorum rationibus;
satyricae vero ornantur arboribus, speluncis, montibus reliquisque
agrestibus rebus in topeodis speciem deformati’; cf. G. Lanson, in
_Revue de la Renaissance_ (1904), 72.
[4] ‘Tu enim primus Tragoediae ... in medio foro pulpitum ad quinque
pedum altitudinem erectum pulcherrime exornasti: eamdemque, postquam in
Hadriani mole ... est acta, rursus intra tuos penates, tamquam in media
Circi cavea, toto consessu umbraculis tecto, admisso populo et pluribus
tui ordinis spectatoribus honorifice excepisti. Tu etiam primus
picturatae scenae faciem, quum Pomponiani comoediam agerent, nostro
saeculo ostendisti’; cf. Marcantonius Sabellicus, _Vita Pomponii_
(_Op._ 1502, f. 55), ‘Pari studio veterum spectandi consuetudinem
desuetae civitati restituit, primorum Antistitum atriis suo theatro
usus, in quibus Plauti, Terentii, recentiorum etiam quaedam agerentur
fabulae, quas ipse honestos adolescentes et docuit, et agentibus
praefuit’; cf. also D’Ancona, ii. 65; Creizenach, ii. 1.
[5] D’Ancona, ii. 74.
[6] D’Ancona, ii. 84; Herrmann, 353; Flechsig, 51. The scenic wall is
described in the contemporary narrative of P. Palliolo, _Le Feste pel
Conferimento del Patriziato Romano a Giuliano e Lorenzo de’ Medici_
(ed. O. Guerrini, 1885), 45, 63, ‘Guardando avanti, se appresenta la
fronte della scena, in v compassi distinta per mezzo di colonne quadre,
con basi e capitelli coperti de oro. In ciascuno compasso è uno uscio
di grandezza conveniente a private case.... La parte inferiore di
questa fronte di quattro frigi è ornata.... A gli usci delle scene
furono poste portiere di panno de oro. El proscenio fu coperto tutto
di tapeti con uno ornatissimo altare in mezzo.’ The side-doors were in
‘le teste del proscenio’ (Palliolo, 98). I have not seen M. A. Altieri,
_Giuliano de’ Medici, eletto cittadino Romano_ (ed. L. Pasqualucci,
1881), or N. Napolitano, _Triumphi de gli mirandi Spettaculi_ (1519).
Altieri names an untraceable Piero Possello as the architect; Guerrini
suggests Pietro Rossello.
[7] D’Ancona, ii. 128, from _Diario Ferrarese_, ‘in lo suo cortile ...
fu fato suso uno tribunale di legname, con case v merlade, con una
finestra e uscio per ciascuna: poi venne una fusta di verso le caneve e
cusine, e traversò il cortile con dieci persone dentro con remi e vela,
del naturale’; Bapt. Guarinus, _Carm._ iv:
Et remis puppim et velo sine fluctibus actam
Vidimus in portus nare, Epidamne, tuos,
Vidimus effictam celsis cum moenibus urbem,
Structaque per latas tecta superba vias.
Ardua creverunt gradibus spectacula multis,
Velaruntque omnes stragula picta foros.
[8] D’Ancona, ii. 129.
[9] Ibid. 130.
[10] Ibid. 132, 135. The two Marsigli, with Il Bianchino and Nicoletto
Segna, appear to have painted scenes and ships for the earlier
Ferrarese productions.
[11] Ibid. 134.
[12] Ibid. 381, from G. Campori, _Lettere artistiche inedite_, 5, ‘Era
la sua forma quadrangula, protensa alquanto in longitudine: li doi lati
l’uno al altro de rimpecto, havevano per ciaschuno octo architravi con
colonne ben conrespondenti et proportionate alla larghezza et alteza
de dicti archi: le base et capitelli pomposissimamente con finissimi
colori penti, et de fogliami ornati, representavano alla mente un
edificio eterne ed antiquo, pieno de delectatione: li archi con relevo
di fiori rendevano prospectiva mirabile: la largheza di ciascheuno era
braza quactro vel cerca: la alteza proporzionata ad quella. Dentro nel
prospecto eran panni d’oro et alcune verdure, si come le recitationi
recerchavano: una delle bande era ornata delli sei quadri del Cesareo
triumpho per man del singulare Mantengha: li doi altri lati discontro
erano con simili archi, ma de numero inferiore, che chiascheuno ne
haveva sei. Doj bande era scena data ad actorj et recitatorj: le doe
altre erano ad scalini, deputati per le donne et daltro, per todeschi,
trombecti et musici. Al jongere del’ angulo de un de’ grandi et minorj
lati, se vedevano quactro altissime colonne colle basi orbiculate, le
quali sustentavano quactro venti principali: fra loro era una grocta,
benchè facta ad arte, tamen naturalissima: sopra quella era un ciel
grande fulgentissimo de varij lumi, in modo de lucidissime stelle, con
una artificiata rota de segni, al moto de’ quali girava mo il sole,
mo la luna nelle case proprie: dentro era la rota de Fortuna con sei
tempi: _regno_, _regnavj_, _regnabo_: in mezo resideva la dea aurea
con un sceptro con un delphin. Dintorno alla scena al frontespitio da
basso era li triumphi del Petrarcha, ancor loro penti per man del p^o.
Mantengha: sopra eran candelierj vistosissimi deaurati tucti: nel mezo
era un scudo colle arme per tucto della C^a. M^g.; sopra la aquila
aurea bicapitata col regno et diadema imperiale: ciascheuno teneva tre
doppieri; ad ogni lato era le insegne. Alli doi maiorj, quelle della
S^{ta}. de N. S. et quelle della Cesarea Maestà: alli minorj lati
quelle del C^o. Sig. Re, et quelle della Ill^{ma}. Sig^a. da Venetia;
tra li archi pendevano poi quelle de V. Ex., quelle del Sig. duca
Alberto Alemano: imprese de Sig. Marchese et Sig^a. Marchesana: sopre
erano più alte statue argentate, aurate et de più colorj metallici,
parte tronche, parte integre, che assai ornavano quel loco: poi ultimo
era il cielo de panno torchino, stellato con quelli segni che quella
sera correvano nel nostro hemisperio.’ Flechsig, 26, thinks that the
architect was Ercole Albergati (Il Zafarano).
[13] D’Ancona, i. 485; _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 79, 83, 135.
[14] Ferrari, 50; D’Ancona, ii. 1, give examples of these at Ferrara
and elsewhere. The _Favola d’Orfeo_, originally produced about 1471,
seems to have been recast as _Orphei tragedia_ for Ferrara in 1486.
It had five acts, _Pastorale_, _Ninfale_, _Eroico_, _Negromantico_,
_Baccanale_; in the fourth, the way to hell and hell itself were
shown--‘duplici actu haec scena utitur’.
[15] J. W. Cunliffe, _Early English Classical Tragedies_, xl; F. A.
Foster, in _E. S._ xliv. 8.
[16] Herrmann, 280, 284; cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 208.
[17] Translation by Hans Nithart, printed by C. Dinckmut (Ulm, 1486);
cf. Herrmann, 292, who reproduces specimen cuts from this and the other
sources described.
[18] Edition printed by Johannes Trechsel (Lyons, 1493); cf. Herrmann,
300. The editor claims for the woodcuts that ‘effecimus, ut etiam
illitteratus ex imaginibus, quas cuilibet scenae praeposuimus, legere
atque accipere comica argumenta valeat’. Badius also edited a Paris
_Terence_ of 1502, with _Praenotamenta_ based on Vitruvius and other
classical writers, in which he suggests the use in antiquity of ‘tapeta
... qualia nunc fiunt in Flandria’.
[19] Edition printed by Johannes Grüninger (Strassburg, 1496); cf.
Herrmann, 318.
[20] Editions printed by Lazarus Soardus (Venice, 1497 and 1499); cf.
Herrmann, 346. The _Theatrum_ and other cuts are also reproduced in
_The Mask_ for July 1909.
[21] Flechsig, 84, citing as possibly a stage design an example of
idealized architecture inscribed ‘Bramanti Architecti Opus’ and
reproduced by E. Müntz, _Hist. de l’Art pendant la Renaissance_, ii.
299. Bramante was at Rome about 1505, and was helped on St. Peter’s
by Baldassarre Peruzzi. But there is nothing obviously scenic in the
drawing.
[22] D’Ancona, ii. 394, ‘Ma quello che è stato il meglio in tutte
queste feste e representationi, è stato tute le sene, dove si sono
representate, quale ha facto uno M^o. Peregrino depintore, che sta
con il Sig^{re}.; ch’ è una contracta et prospettiva di una terra cum
case, chiesie, campanili et zardini, che la persona non si può satiare
a guardarla per le diverse cose che ge sono, tute de inzegno et bene
intese, quale non credo se guasti, ma che la salvaràno per usarla de le
altre fiate’.
[23] Ibid., ‘il caso accadete a Ferrara’.
[24] Ibid. 102, ‘La scena poi era finta una città bellissima con le
strade, palazzi, chiese, torri, strade vere, e ogni cosa di rilevo,
ma ajutata ancora da bonissima pintura e prospettiva bene intesa’;
the description has further details. Genga is not named, but Serlio
(cf. App. G) speaks of his theatrical work for Duke Francesco Maria of
Urbino (succ. 1508). Vasari, vi. 316, says that he had also done stage
designs for Francesco’s predecessor Guidobaldo.
[25] Vasari, iv. 600. Some of Peruzzi’s designs for _Calandra_ are in
the Uffizi; Ferrari (tav. vi) reproduces one.
[26] D’Ancona, ii. 89, ‘Sonandosi li pifari si lasciò cascare la tela;
dove era pinto Fra Mariano con alcuni Diavoli che giocavano con esso
da ogni lato della tela; et poi a mezzo della tela vi era un breve che
dicea: _Questi sono li capricci di Fra Mariano_; et sonandosi tuttavia,
et il Papa mirando con il suo occhiale la scena, che era molto bella,
di mano di Raffaele, et rappresentava si bene per mia fè forami di
prospective, et molto furono laudate, et mirando ancora il cielo, che
molto si rappresentava bello, et poi li candelieri, che erano formati
in lettere, che ogni lettera substenìa cinque torcie, et diceano: _Leo
Pon. Maximus_’.
[27] Ariosto, _Orlando Furioso_, xxxii. 80:
Quale al cader de le cortine suole
Parer, fra mille lampade, la scena,
D’archi, et di più d’una superba mole
D’oro, e di statue e di pitture piena.
This passage was added in the edition of 1532, but a more brief
allusion in that of 1516 (xliii. 10, ‘Vo’ levarti dalla scena i panni’)
points to the use of a curtain, rising rather than falling, before
1519; cf. p. 31; vol. i, p. 181; Creizenach, ii. 299; Lawrence (i.
111), _The Story of a Peculiar Stage Curtain_.
[28] Ferrari (tav. xii) reproduces from _Uffizi_, 5282, an idealization
by Serlio of the _piazzetta_ of S. Marco at Venice as a _scenario_.
[29] Cf. App. G. Book ii first appeared in French (1545).
[30] De Sommi, _Dial._ iv (_c._ 1565, D’Ancona, ii. 419), ‘Ben che paia
di certa vaghezza il vedersi in scena una camera aperta, ben parata,
dentro a la quale, dirò così per esempio, uno amante si consulti con
una ruffiana, et che paia aver del verisimile, è però tanto fuor del
naturale esser la stanza senza il muro dinanzi, il che necessariamente
far bisogna, che a me ne pare non molto convenirsi: oltre che non so
se il recitare in quel loco, si potrà dire che sia in scena. Ben si
potrà per fuggir questi due inconvenienti, aprire come una loggia od un
verone dove rimanesse alcuno a ragionare’.
[31] Creizenach, ii. 271.
[32] Ferrari, 105, with engravings; A. Magrini, _Il teatro Olympico_
(1847). This is noticed by the English travellers, Fynes Morison,
_Itinerary_, i. 2. 4 (ed. 1907, i. 376), ‘a Theater for Playes, which
was little, but very faire and pleasant’, and T. Coryat, _Crudities_,
ii. 7, ‘The scene also is a very faire and beautifull place to behold’.
He says the house would hold 3,000. In _Histriomastix_, ii. 322, the
‘base trash’ of Sir Oliver Owlet’s players is compared unfavourably
with the splendour of Italian theatres. A permanent theatre had been
set up in the _Sala grande_ of the Corte Vecchia at Ferrara in 1529,
with scenery by Dosso Dossi representing Ferrara, for a revival of the
_Cassaria_ and the production of Ariosto’s _Lena_; it was burnt down,
just before Ariosto’s death, in 1532 (Flechsig, 23; Gardner, _King of
Court Poets_, 203, 239, 258).
[33] Probably some temporary additions to the permanent decoration of
the _scena_ was possible, as Ferrari (tav. xv) gives a design for a
_scenario_ by Scamozzi.
[34] Ferrari, 100.
[35] Engravings, by Jean de Gourmont and another, of this type of stage
are reproduced by Bapst, 145, 153, and by Rigal in Petit de Julleville,
iii. 264, 296; cf. M. B. Evans, _An Early Type of Stage_ (_M. P._ ix.
421).
[36] Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 217.
[37] Baschet, 6; D’Ancona, ii. 456; H. Prunières, _L’Opéra Italien en
France_ (1913), xx; A. Solerti, _La rappresentazione della Calandra
a Lione nel 1548_ (1901, _Raccolta di Studii Critici ded. ad A. d’
Ancona_), from _La Magnifica et Triumphale Entrata del Christianissimo
Re di Francia Henrico Secundo_ (1549).
[38] Cf. ch. xiv (Italians).
[39] D’Ancona, ii. 457.
[40] Brantôme, _Recueil des Dames_, i. 2 (_[OE]uvres_, ed. 1890, x.
47), ‘Elle eut opinion qu’elle avoit porté malheur aux affaires du
royaume, ainsi qu’il succéda; elle n’en fit plus jouer’. Ingegneri says
of tragedies, ‘Alcuni oltra dicio le stimano di triste augurio’.
[41] E. Rigal in _Rev. d’Hist. Litt._ xii. 1, 203; cf. the opposite
view of J. Haraszti in xi. 680 and xvi. 285.
[42] Sainte-Marthe, _Elogia_ (1606), 175.
[43] G. Lanson in _Rev. d’Hist. Litt._ x. 432. In _Northward Hoe_,
iv. 1, Bellamont is writing a tragedy of Astyanax, which he will have
produced ‘in the French court by French gallants’, with ‘the stage hung
all with black velvet’.
[44] Lanson, _loc. cit._ 422. A description of a tragi-comedy called
_Genièvre_, based on Ariosto, at Fontainebleau in 1564 neglects the
staging, but gives a picture of the audience as
une jeune presse
De tous costez sur les tapis tendus,
Honnestement aux girons espandus
De leur maîtresse.
B. Rossi’s _Fiammella_ was given at Paris in 1584 with a setting of
‘boschi’.
[45] Lanson, _loc. cit._ 424.
[46] The plan is in J. A. Du Cerceau, _Les Plus Excellens Bastimens de
France_ (1576–9), and is reproduced in W. H. Ward, _French Châteaux
and Gardens in the Sixteenth Century_, 14; cf. R. Blomfield, _Hist. of
French Architecture_, i. 81, who, however, thinks that Du Cerceau’s
‘bastiment en manière de théâtre’ was not the long room, but the open
courtyard, in the form of a square with concave angles and semicircular
projections on each side, which occupies the middle of the block.
[47] Prunières, _Ballet de Cour_, 72, 134.
[48] Bapst, 147, reproduces an example. This is apparently the type
of French stage described by J. C. Scaliger, _Poetice_ (1561), i.
21, ‘Nunc in Gallia ita agunt fabulas, ut omnia in conspectu sint;
universus apparatus dispositis sublimibus sedibus. Personae ipsae
nunquam discedunt: qui silent pro absentibus habentur’.
[49] Rigal, 36, 46, 53.
[50] The full text is printed by E. Dacier from _B. N. f. fr._ 24330 in
_Mémoires de la Soc. de l’Hist. de Paris_ (1901), xxviii. 105, and is
analysed by Rigal, 247. The designs have recently (1920) been published
in H. C. Lancaster’s edition; reproductions, from the originals or
from models made for the Exposition of 1878, will be found of Durval’s
_Agarite_ in Rigal, f.p., Lawrence, i. 241, Thorndike, 154; of Hardy’s
_Cornélie_ in Rigal, _Alexandre Hardy_ (1890), f.p., Bapst, 185; of
_Pandoste_ in Jusserand, _Shakespeare in France_, 71, 75; of Mairet’s
_Sylvanire_ in E. Faguet, _Hist. de la Litt. Fr._ ii. 31; and of
_Pyrame et Thisbé_, Corneille’s _L’Illusion Comique_, and Du Ryer’s
_Lisandre et Caliste_ in Petit de Julleville, _Hist._ iv. 220, 270, 354.
[51] ‘Il faut un antre ... d’où sort un hermite’ (Dacier, 116), ‘une
fenestre qui soit vis à vis d’une autre fenestre grillée pour la
prison, où Lisandre puisse parler à Caliste’ (116), ‘un beau palais
eslevé de trois ou quatre marches’ (117), ‘un palais ou sénat fort
riche’ (117), ‘une case où il y ayt pour enseigne L’Ormeau’ (117), ‘une
mer’ (117), ‘une tente’ (121), ‘un hermitage où l’on monte et descend’
(123), ‘une fenestre où se donne une lettre’ (124), ‘une tour, une
corde nouée pour descendre de la tour, un pont-levis qui se lâche quand
il est nécessaire’ (125), ‘une sortie d’un roy en forme de palais’
(127).
[52] ‘Il faut aussy une belle chambre, une table, deux tabourets, une
écritoire’ (117), ‘une belle chambre, où il y ayt un beau lict, des
sièges pour s’asseoir; la dicte chambre s’ouvre et se ferme plusieurs
fois’ (121), ‘forme de salle garnie de sièges où l’on peint une dame’
(126).
[53] Dacier, 119.
[54] Ibid. 119.
[55] ‘Forme de fontaine en grotte coulante ou de peinture’ (Dacier,
127); ‘Au milieu du théâtre, dit la persepective, doit avoir une
grande boutique d’orfèvre, fort superbe d’orfèvrerie et autre joyaux’
(136); ‘Il faut deux superbes maisons ornées de peinture; au milieu
du théâtre, une persepective où il y ait deux passages entre les deux
maisons’ (137).
[56] ‘Il faut que le théâtre soit tout en pastoralle, antres, verdures,
et fleurs’ (116), ‘Il faut ... le petit Chastellet de la rue Saint
Jacques, et faire paroistre une rue où sont les bouchers’ (116), ‘en
pastoralle à la discrétion du feinteur’ (124), ‘Il faut le théâtre en
rues et maisons’ (129, for Rotrou’s _Les Ménechmes_), ‘La décoration du
théâtre doit estre en boutique’ (136), ‘le feinteur doit faire paraitre
sur le théâtre la place Royalle ou l’imiter à peu près’ (133).
[57] ‘Il faut que cela soit caché durant le premier acte, et l’on ne
faict paroistre cela qu’au second acte, et se referme au mesme acte’
(116), ‘un eschaffaut qui soit caché’ (117), ‘le vaisseau paraist
au quatriesme acte’ (120). For the use of curtains to effect these
discoveries, cf. Rigal, 243, 253, who, however, traces to a guess of
Lemazurier, _Galerie Historique_, i. 4, the often repeated statement
that to represent a change of scene ‘on levait ou on tirait une
tapisserie, et cela se faisait jusqu’à dix ou douze fois dans la même
pièce’.
[58] It is so, e.g., in the design for _Agarite_.
[59] ‘Non sic tolerari potest, ut longe lateque dissita loca in unum
subito proscenium cogantur; qua in re per se absurdissima et nullo
veterum exemplo comprobata nimium sibi hodie quidam indulserunt’; cf.
Creizenach, ii. 102. Spingarn, _Literary Criticism in the Renaissance_,
89, 206, 290, discusses the origin of the unities, and cites
Castelvetro, Poetica (1570), 534, ‘La mutatione tragica non può tirar
con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo’, and Jean de la Taille,
_Art de Tragédie_ (1572), ‘Il faut toujours représenter l’histoire ou
le jeu en un même jour, en un même temps, et en un même lieu’.
[60] _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 257; Lawrence (i. 123), _Early French
Players in England_. It is only a guess of Mr. Lawrence’s that these
visitors played _Maistre Pierre Patelin_, a farce which requires a
background with more than one _domus_. Karl Young, in _M. P._ ii. 97,
traces some influence of French farces on the work of John Heywood.
There had been ‘Fransche-men that playt’ at Dundee in 1490, and
‘mynstrells of Fraunce’, not necessarily actors, played before Henry
VII at Abingdon in 1507.
[61] Halle, i. 176.
[62] Halle, ii. 86.
[63] _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 196; cf. ch. xii (Paul’s). Spinelli’s
letter is preserved in Marino Sanuto, _Diarii_, xlvi. 595, ‘La sala
dove disnamo et si rapresentò la comedia haveva nella fronte una grande
zoglia di bosso, che di mezzo conteneva in lettere d’oro: _Terentii
Formio_. Da l’un di canti poi vi era in lettere antique in carta:
_cedant arma togae_. Da l’altro: _Foedus pacis non movebitur_. Sotto
poi la zoglia si vide: _honori et laudi pacifici_.... Per li altri
canti de la sala vi erano sparsi de li altri moti pertinenti alla pace’.
[64] _V. P._ iv. 115 translates ‘zoglia di bosso’ as ‘a garland of
box’, but Florio gives ‘soglia’ as ‘the threshold or hanse of a doore;
also the transome or lintle over a dore’.
[65] Murray, ii. 168; cf. ch. xii (Westminster).
[66] Halle, ii. 109.
[67] Cf. ch. viii.
[68] The memorandum on the reform of the Revels office in 1573, which
I attribute to Edward Buggin, tells us (_Tudor Revels_, 37; cf. ch.
iii) that ‘The connynge of the office resteth in skill of devise,
in vnderstandinge of historyes, in iudgement of comedies tragedyes
and showes, in sight of perspective and architecture, some smacke of
geometrye and other thynges’. If Sir George Buck, however, in 1612,
thought that a knowledge of perspective was required by the Art of
Revels, he veiled it under the expression ‘other arts’ (cf. ch. iii).
[69] _Mundus et Infans_, _Hickscorner_, _Youth_, _Johan Evangelist_,
_Magnificence_, _Four Elements_, _Calisto and Melibaea_, _Nature_,
_Love_, _Weather_, _Johan Johan_, _Pardoner and Friar_, _Four PP._,
_Gentleness and Nobility_, _Witty and Witless_, _Kinge Johan_, _Godly
Queen Hester_, _Wit and Science_, _Thersites_, with the fragmentary
_Albion Knight_. To these must now be added Henry Medwall’s _Fulgens
and Lucres_ (N.D., but 1500 <), formerly only known by a fragment
(cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 458), but recently found in the Mostyn
collection, described by F. S. Boas and A. W. Reed in _T. L. S._ (20
Feb. and 3 April 1919), and reprinted by S. de Ricci (1920).
[70] _Wealth and Health_, _Nice Wanton_, _Lusty Juventus_, _Impatient
Poverty_, _Respublica_, _Jacob and Esau_, and perhaps _Enough is as
Good as a Feast_, with the fragmentary _Love Feigned and Unfeigned_.
[71] _Trial of Treasure_, _Like Will to Like_, _The Longer Thou Livest,
The More Fool Thou Art_, _Marriage of Wit and Science_, _Marriage
between Wit and Wisdom_, _New Custom_, _The Tide Tarrieth no Man_, _All
for Money_, _Disobedient Child_, _Conflict of Conscience_, _Pedlar’s
Prophecy_, _Misogonus_, _Glass of Government_, _Three Ladies of
London_, _King Darius_, _Mary Magdalene_, _Apius and Virginia_, with
the fragmentary _Cruel Debtor_.
[72] For details of date and authorship cf. chh. xxiii, xxiv,
and _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 439, 443. Albright, 29, attempts a
classification on the basis of staging, but not, I think, very
successfully.
[73] Cf. e.g. _Hickscorner_, 544; _Youth_, 84, 201, 590, 633; _Johan
Johan_, 667; _Godly Queen Hester_, 201, 635, 886; _Wit and Science_,
969; _Wit and Wisdom_, 3, p. 60; _Nice Wanton_, 416; _Impatient
Poverty_, 164, 726, 746, 861, 988; _Respublica_, V. i. 38; _Longer
Thou Livest_, 628, 1234; _Conflict of Conscience_, III. i. 2; _et ad
infinitum_. Characters in action are said to be in place. For the
_platea_ cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 80, 135, but _Kinge Johan_, 1377,
has a direction for an alarm ‘_extra locum_’.
[74] Cf. e.g. _Wit and Science_, 193, ‘Wyt speketh at the doore’;
_Longer Thou Livest_, 523, ‘Betweene whiles let Moros put in his head’,
583, ‘Crie without the doore’, &c., &c.
[75] Cf. ch. vii.
[76] Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 216, and for the making of ‘room’ or ‘a
hall’ for a mask, ch. v.
[77] Cf. M. L. Spencer, _Corpus Christi Pageants in England_, 184;
Creizenach, ii. 101.
[78] Wallace, ii. 48, ‘The Blackfriars stage was elastic in depth as
well as width, and could according to the demands of the given play
be varied by curtains or traverses of any required number placed at
any required distance between the balcony and the front of the stage’;
Prölss, 89; Albright, 58; cf. p. 78.
[79] _Volpone_, v. 2801 (cf. p. 111); _White Devil_, V. iv. 70:
‘_Flamineo._ I will see them,
They are behind the travers. Ile discover
Their superstitious howling.
_Cornelia, the Moore and 3 other Ladies discovered, winding Marcello’s
coarse_’;
_Duchess of Malfi_, IV. i. 54:
‘_Here is discover’d, behind a travers, the artificiall figures of
Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead._’
[80] _Duke of Guise_, v. 3 (quoted by Albright, 58), ‘The scene draws,
behind it a Traverse’, and later, ‘The Traverse is drawn. The King
rises from his Chair, comes forward’.
[81] The Revels Accounts for 1511 (Brewer, ii. 1497) include 10_d._ for
a rope used for a ‘travas’ in the hall at Greenwich and stolen during a
disguising. Puttenham (1589), i. 17, in an attempt to reconstruct the
methods of classical tragedy, says that the ‘floore or place where the
players vttered ... had in it sundrie little diuisions by curteins as
trauerses to serue for seueral roomes where they might repaire vnto and
change their garments and come in againe, as their speaches and parts
were to be renewed’.
[82] There was a traverse in the nursery of Edward V in 1474; cf. _H.
O._ *28, ‘Item, we will that our sayd sonne in his chamber and for all
nighte lyverye to be sette, the traverse drawne anone upon eight of the
clocke’.
[83] Rimbault, 150, 167. There is an elaborate description of ‘a fayer
traverse of black taffata’ set up in the chapel at Whitehall for the
funeral of James in 1625 and afterwards borrowed for the ceremony in
Westminster Abbey.
[84] The chapel of Ahasuerus come in and sing (860). On the possibility
that plays may have been acted in the chapel under Elizabeth, cf. ch.
xii.
[85] _G. G. Needle_, I. iv. 34; II. iv. 20, ‘here, euen by this poste,
Ich sat’; _Jack Juggler_, 908, ‘Joll his hed to a post’.
[86] The manuscript of _Misogonus_ was written at Kettering. The
prologue of _Mary Magdalene_ is for travelling actors, who had given
it at a university. _Thersites_ contains local references (cf. Boas,
20) suggesting Oxford. Both this and _The Disobedient Child_ are
adaptations of dialogues of Ravisius Textor, but the adapters seem to
be responsible for the staging.
[87] Cf. ch. xxii.
[88] II. ii. ‘Fowre women bravelie apparelled, sitting singing in
Lamiaes windowe, with wrought Smockes, and Cawles, in their hands, as
if they were a working’. _Supposes_, IV. iv, is a dialogue between
Dalio the cook, at Erostrato’s window, and visitors outside. At the
beginning, ‘Dalio commeth to the wyndowe, and there maketh them
answere’; at the end, ‘Dalio draweth his hed in at the wyndowe, the
Scenese commeth out’. The dialogue of sc. v proceeds at the door, and
finally ‘Dalio pulleth the Scenese in at the dores’. In _Two Ital.
Gent._ 435, ‘Victoria comes to the windowe, and throwes out a letter’.
It must not be assumed on the analogy of later plays, and is in fact
unlikely, that the windows of these early ‘houses’, or those of the
‘case’ at Ferrara in 1486, were upper floor windows.
[89] There is a reference to a falling curtain, not necessarily a stage
one, in _Alchemist_, IV. ii. 6, ‘O, for a suite, To fall now, like a
cortine: flap’. Such curtains were certainly used in masks; cf. ch. vi.
[90] Donne, _Poems_ (ed. Grierson), i. 441; J. Hannah, _Courtly Poets_,
29. Graves, 20, quotes with this epigram Drummond, _Cypress Grove_,
‘Every one cometh there to act his part of this tragi-comedy, called
life, which done, the courtaine is drawn, and he removing is said to
dy’. But of course many stage deaths are followed by the drawing of
curtains which are not front curtains.
[91] Inns of Court and University plays naturally run on analogous
lines. For the ‘houses’ at Cambridge in 1564 and at Oxford in
1566, cf. ch. vii. The three Cambridge Latin comedies, _Hymenaeus_
(1579), _Victoria_ (_c._ 1580–3), _Pedantius_ (_c._ 1581), follow
the Italian tradition. For _Victoria_, which has the same plot as
_Two Ital. Gent._, Fraunce directs, ‘Quatuor extruendae sunt domus,
nimirum Fidelis, 1^a, Fortunij, 2^a, Cornelij, 3^a Octauiani, 4^a.
Quin et sacellum quoddam erigendum est, in quo constituendum est
Cardinalis cuiusdam Sepulchrum, ita efformatum, vt claudi aperirique
possit. In Sacello autem Lampas ardens ponenda est’. The earliest
extant tragedies, Grimald’s _Christus Redivivus_ (_c._ 1540) and
_Archipropheta_ (_c._ 1547), antedate the pseudo-Senecan influence.
Practical convenience, rather than dramatic theory, imposed upon the
former a unity of action before the tomb. Grimald says, ‘Loca item,
haud usque eò discriminari censebat; quin unum in proscenium, facilè &
citra negocium conduci queant’. The latter was mainly before Herod’s
palace, but seems to have showed also John’s prison at Macherus.
There is an opening scene, as in _Promos and Cassandra_, of approach
to the palace (Boas, 28, 35). Christopherson’s _Jephthah_, Watson’s
(?) _Absalon_, and Gager’s _Meleager_ (1582) observe classical unity.
The latter has two houses, in one of which an altar may have been
‘discovered’. Boas, 170, quotes two s.ds., ‘Transeunt venatores e
Regia ad fanum Dianae’ and ‘Accendit ligna in ara, in remotiore scenae
parte extructa’. Gager’s later plays (Boas, 179) seem to be under the
influence of theatrical staging. On Legge’s _Richardus Tertius vide_
p. 43, _infra_.
[92] I do not suggest that the actual ‘templum’ in Serlio’s design,
which is painted on the back-cloth, was practicable. The _ruffiana’s_
house was. About the shop or tavern, half-way up the rake of the stage,
I am not sure. There is an echo of the _ruffiana_, quite late, in
_London Prodigal_ (1605), V. i. 44, ‘Enter Ruffyn’.
[93] The early editions have few s.ds. Mr. Bond supplies many, which
are based on a profound misunderstanding of Lyly’s methods of staging,
to some of the features of which Reynolds in _M. P._ i. 581, ii. 69,
and Lawrence, i. 237, have called attention.
[94] Possibly I. i might be an approach scene outside the city, as
prisoners are sent (76) ‘into the citie’, but this may only mean to the
interior of the city from the market-place.
[95] Action is continuous between II. i, at the cave, and II. ii, in
which Sapho will ‘crosse the Ferrie’. Phao told Sibylla (II. i. 14)
that he was out of his way and benighted, but this was a mere excuse
for addressing her.
[96] The palace itself was not necessarily staged. If it was, it was
used with the lunary bank, after visiting which Cynthia goes ‘in’ (IV.
iii. 171). She comes ‘out’ and goes ‘in’ again (V. iii. 17, 285), but
these terms may only refer to a stage-door. Nor do I think that the
‘solitarie cell’ spoken of by Endymion (II. i. 41) was staged.
[97] Yet Eumenides, who was sent to Thessaly in III. i, has only
reached the fountain twenty years later (III. iii. 17), although he is
believed at Court to be dead (IV. iii. 54). The time of the play cannot
be reduced to consistency; cf. Bond, iii. 14.
[98] In IV. ii. 96 Protea, in a scene before the rock, says to
Petulius, ‘Follow me at this doore, and out at the other’. During the
transit she is metamorphosed, but the device is rather clumsy. The
doors do not prove that a _domus_ of Erisichthon was visible; they may
be merely stage-doors.
[99] Possibly _The Cobler’s Prophecy_ is also a Chapel or Paul’s play;
it was given before an audience who ‘sit and see’, and to whom the
presenters ‘cast comfets’ (39). The _domus_ required for a background
are (_a_) Ralph’s, (_b_) Mars’s court, (_c_) Venus’s court, (_d_) the
Duke’s court, (_e_) the cabin of Contempt. From (_a_) to (_b_) is ‘not
farre hence’ (138) and ‘a flight shoot vp the hill’ (578); between
are a wood and a spot near Charon’s ferry. From (_b_) to (_c_) leads
‘Adowne the hill’ (776). At the end (_e_) is burnt, and foreshortening
of space is suggested by the s.d. (1564), ‘Enter the Duke ... then
compasse the stage, from one part let a smoke arise: at which place
they all stay’. At the beginning (3) ‘on the stage Mercurie from one
end Ceres from another meete’. _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_,
which cannot be definitely assigned either to the Chapel or to Paul’s,
continues the manner of the old interlude; it has a stage (1570), but
the abstract action requires no setting beyond the tiled hall (205,
359, 932, 974) in which the performance was given. _The Wars of Cyrus_
is a Chapel play, but must be classed, from the point of view of
staging, with the plays given in public theatres (cf. p. 48).
[100] Act III has the s.d., ‘_The storme. Enter Æneas and Dido in the
Caue at seuerall times_’ (996).... ‘_Exeunt to the Caue_’ (1059). They
are supposed to remain in the cave during the interval between Acts III
and IV, after which, ‘_Anna._ Behold where both of them come forth the
Caue’ (1075).
[101] ‘_Here the Curtaines draw, there is discouered Iupiter dandling
Ganimed vpon his knee_’ (1).... ‘_Exeunt Iupiter cum Ganimed_’ (120).
But as Jupiter first says, ‘Come Ganimed, we must about this gear’, it
may be that they walk off. If so, perhaps they are merely ‘discouered’
in the wood, and the curtains are front curtains.
[102] So too (897),
This day they both a hunting forth will ride
Into these woods, adioyning to these walles.
[103] At the end of the banquet scene (598), ‘_Exeunt omnes_’ towards
the interior of the palace, when ‘_Enter Venus at another doore, and
takes Ascanius by the sleeue_’. She carries him to the grove, and here
he presumably remains until the next Act (III), when ‘_Enter Iuno to
Ascanius asleepe_’ (811). He is then removed again, perhaps to make
room for the hunting party. I suppose the ‘_another doore_’ of 598 to
mean a stage-door.
[104] Cf. ch. xxii.
[105] Direct evidence pointing to performance at Court is only
available for two of the five, _Cambyses_ and _Orestes_.
[106] _Cambyses_, 75, 303, 380, 968, 1041, 1055; _Patient Grissell_,
212, 338, 966, 1048, 1185, 1291, 1972, 1984, 2069; _Orestes_, 221,
1108; _Clyomon and Clamydes_, 1421, 1717, 1776, 1901, 1907, 1931,
1951, 2008, 2058, 2078; _Common Conditions_, 2, 110, 544, 838, 1397,
1570; &c. Of course, the technical meaning of ‘place’ shades into the
ordinary one.
[107] A similar instruction clears the stage at the end (1197) of a
corpse, as in many later plays; cf. p. 80.
[108] The s.d. ‘one of their wives come out’ (813) does not necessarily
imply a clown’s _domus_. _Cambyses_ fluctuates between the actor’s
notion that personages come ‘out’ from the tiring-house, and the
earlier notion of play-makers and audience that they go ‘out’ from the
stage. Thus ‘Enter Venus leading out her son’ (843), but ‘goe out Venus
and Cupid’ at the end of the same episode (880).
[109] ‘Come, let us run his arse against the poste’ (186); cf. pp. 27,
75.
[110] For later examples cf. p. 99.
[111] Lawrence (i. 41), _Title and Locality Boards on the
Pre-Restoration Stage_.
[112] Lawrence, i. 55. No English example of an inscribed miracle-play
_domus_ has come to light.
[113] Gregory Smith, _Elizabethan Critical Essays_, i. 185, 197
(cf. App. C, No. xxxiv). Sidney’s main argument is foreshadowed in
Whetstone’s Epistle to _Promos and Cassandra_ (1578; cf. App. C, No.
xix), ‘The Englishman in this quallitie, is most vaine, indiscreete,
and out of order; he fyrst groundes his worke on impossibilities: then
in three howers ronnes he throwe the worlde: marryes, gets children,
makes children men, men to conquer kingdomes, murder monsters, and
bringeth Gods from Heaven, and fetcheth Divels from Hel’.
[114] Cf. p. 20.
[115] Gibson had used written titles to name his pageant buildings; cf.
Brewer, ii. 1501; Halle, i. 40, 54. The Westminster accounts _c._ 1566
(cf. ch. xii) include an item for ‘drawing the tytle of the comedee’.
The Revels officers paid ‘for the garnyshinge of xiiij titles’ in
1579–80, and for the ‘painting of ix. titles with copartmentes’ in
1580–1 (Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 328, 338). The latter number agrees with
that of the plays and tilt challenges for the year; the former is
above that of the nine plays recorded, and Lawrence thinks that the
balance was for locality-titles. But titles were also sometimes used
in the course of action. Thus _Tide Tarrieth for No Man_ has the
s.d. (1439), ‘Christianity must enter with a sword, with a title of
pollicy, but on the other syde of the tytle, must be written gods word,
also a shield, wheron must be written riches, but on the other syde
of the shield must be Fayth’. Later on (1501) Faithful ‘turneth the
titles’. Prologues, such as those of _Damon and Pythias_, _Respublica_,
and _Conflict of Conscience_, which announce the names of the plays,
tell rather against the use of title-boards for those plays. For the
possible use of both title- and scene-boards at a later date, cf. pp.
126, 154.
[116] Cf. pp. 60, 63.
[117] In the Latin academic drama the transition between classical
and romantic staging is represented by Legge’s _Richardus Tertius_
(1580). This is Senecan in general character, but unity of place is not
strictly observed. A s.d. to the first _Actio_ (iii. 64) is explicit
for the use of a curtain to discover a recessed interior, ’ A curtaine
being drawne, let the queene appeare in y^e sanctuary, her 5 daughters
and maydes about her, sittinge on packs, fardells, chests, cofers. The
queene sitting on y^e ground with fardells about her’.
[118] Cf. p. 21.
[119] Cf. ch. vii.
[120] Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 365.
[121] Cf. ch. xi.
[122] There are four presenters, but, in order to avoid crowding the
stage, they are reduced to two by the sending of the others to bed
within the hut (128).
[123] Albright, 66; Reynolds, i. 11.
[124] Queen’s, _Three Lords and Three Ladies of London_, _1, 2
Troublesome Reign of King John_, _Selimus_, _Looking-Glass for London
and England_, _Famous Victories of Henry V_, _James IV_, _King Leir_,
_True Tragedy of Richard III_; Sussex’s, _George a Greene_, _Titus
Andronicus_; Pembroke’s, _Edward II_, _Taming of a Shrew_, _2, 3
Henry VI_, _Richard III_; Strange’s or Admiral’s, _1, 2 Tamburlaine_,
_Spanish Tragedy_, _Orlando Furioso_, _Fair Em_, _Battle of Alcazar_,
_Knack to Know a Knave_, _Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_, _1 Henry
VI_, _Comedy of Errors_, _Jew of Malta_, _Wounds of Civil War_, _Dr.
Faustus_, _Four Prentices of London_; Admiral’s, _Knack to Know an
Honest Man_, _Blind Beggar of Alexandria_, _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, _Two
Angry Women of Abingdon_, _Look About You_, _Shoemaker’s Holiday_,
_Old Fortunatus_, _Patient Grissell_, _1 Sir John Oldcastle_, _Captain
Thomas Stukeley_, _1, 2 Robert Earl of Huntingdon_, _Englishmen for my
Money_; Chamberlain’s, _Edward III_, _1 Richard II_, _Sir Thomas More_,
_Taming of the Shrew_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _Love’s Labour’s
Lost_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, _Richard II_,
_King John_, _Merchant of Venice_, _1, 2 Henry IV_, _Every Man in his
Humour_, _Warning for Fair Women_, _A Larum for London_, _Thomas Lord
Cromwell_ (the last two possibly Globe plays); Derby’s, _1, 2 Edward
IV_, _Trial of Chivalry_; Oxford’s, _Weakest Goeth to the Wall_;
Chapel, _Wars of Cyrus_; Unknown, _Arden of Feversham_, _Soliman
and Perseda_, _Edward I_, _Jack Straw_, _Locrine_, _Mucedorus_,
_Alphonsus_, _1, 2 Contention of York and Lancaster_.
[125] _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 446.
[126] I here use ‘scene’ in the sense of a continuous section of action
in an unchanged locality, and do not follow either the usage of the
playwrights, which tends to be based upon the neo-classical principle
that the entrance or exit of a speaker of importance constitutes a
fresh scene, or the divisions of the editors, who often assume a change
of locality where none has taken place; cf. ch. xxii. I do not regard
a scene as broken by a momentary clearance of the stage, or by the
opening of a recess in the background while speakers remain on the
stage, or by the transference of action from one point to another of
the background if this transference merely represents a journey over a
foreshortened distance between neighbouring houses.
[127] Albright, 114; Thorndike, 102.
[128] _Downfall of R. Hood_, V. i.
[129] _Alphonsus_, 163; _K. to K. Honest Man_, 71. The friar’s cell of
_T. G._ V. i may be in an urban setting, as Silvia bids Eglamour go
‘out at the postern by the abbey wall’; that of _R. J._ II. iii, vi;
III. iii; IV. i; V. 2 seems to be in rural environs. How far there is
interior action is not clear. None is suggested by II. or V. In III.
iii (Q_{2}) the Friar bids Romeo ‘come forth’ (1), and Romeo falls
‘upon the ground’ (69). Then ‘Enter Nurse and knocke’ (71). After
discussing the knock, which is twice repeated, the Friar bids Romeo
‘Run to my study’ and calls ‘I come’. Then ‘Enter Nurse’ (79) with ‘Let
me come in’. Romeo has not gone, but is still ‘There on the ground’
(83). Q_{1} is in the main consistent with this, but the first s.d. is
merely ‘Nurse knockes’, and after talking to Romeo, ‘Nurse offers to
goe in and turnes againe’ (163). In IV. i (Q_{1}, and Q_{2}) the Friar
observes Juliet coming ‘towards my Cell’ (17), and later Juliet says
‘Shut the door’ (44); cf. p. 83.
[130] _Downfall of R. Hood_, III. ii, ‘Curtaines open, Robin Hoode
sleepes on a greene banke and Marian strewing flowers on him’ ...
‘yonder is the bower’; _Death of R. Hood_, I. v; cf. I. iv, ‘Let us to
thy bower’.
[131] _B. B. of Alexandria_, scc. i, iv; _Battle of Alcazar_, ii. 325,
where the presenter describes Nemesis as awaking the Furies, ‘In caue
as dark as hell, and beds of steele’, and the corresponding s.d. in the
plot (_H. P._ 139) is ‘Enter aboue Nemesis ... to them lying behinde
the Curtaines 3 Furies’.
[132] _K. Leir_, scc. xxvii-xxxii.
[133] _K. Leir_, sc. xxiv, ‘Enter the Gallian King and Queene, and
Mumford, with a basket, disguised like Countrey folke’. Leir meets
them, complaining of ‘this vnfruitfull soyle’, and (2178) ‘She bringeth
him to the table’; _B. B. of Alexandria_, sc. iii.
[134] _B. B. of Alexandria_, sc. iii.
[135] _Locrine_, III. i (d.s.), ‘A Crocadile sitting on a riuers banke,
and a little snake stinging it. Then let both of them fall into the
water’; IV. v. 1756 (a desert scene), ‘Fling himselfe into the riuer’;
V. vi. 2248 (a battle-field scene), ‘She drowneth her selfe’; _Weakest
Goeth to the Wall_, I. i (d.s.), ‘The Dutches of Burgundie ... leaps
into a Riuer, leauing the child vpon the banke’; _Trial of Chivalry_,
C_{4}^v, ‘yon fayre Riuer side, which parts our Camps’; E_{2}, ‘This
is our meeting place; here runs the streame That parts our camps’; cf.
p. 90. _A. of Feversham_, IV. ii and iii are, like part of _Sapho and
Phao_ (cf. p. 33), near a ferry, and ‘Shakebag falles into a ditch’,
but the river is not necessarily shown.
[136] Two late testimonies may be held to support the theory. In _T. N.
K._ (King’s, _c. 1613_), III. i. 31, ‘Enter Palamon as out of a Bush’,
but cf. III. vi. 1, ‘Enter Palamon from the Bush’. The Prologue to
_Woman Killed with Kindness_ (Worcester’s, _1603_) says:
I come but like a harbinger, being sent
To tell you what these preparations mean:
Look for no glorious state; our Muse is bent
Upon a barren subject, a bare scene.
We could afford this twig a timber tree.
Whose strength might boldly on your favours build;
Our russet, tissue; drone, a honey bee;
Our barren plot, a large and spacious field.
These rhetorical antitheses are an apology for meanness of theme,
rather than, like the prologues to _Henry V_, for scenic imperfections,
and I hesitate to believe that, when the actor said ‘twig’, he pointed
to a branch which served as sole symbol on the stage for a woodland.
[137] _Looking-Glass_, V. iii. 2059, 2075, ‘Lo, a pleasant shade, a
spreading vine ... _A Serpent deuoureth the vine_’; _O. Furioso_, 572,
‘Sacrepant hangs vp the Roundelayes on the trees’ (cf. _A. Y. L._
III. ii. 1, ‘Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love’); _B. B. of
Alexandria_, sc. vi, ‘Here’s a branch, forsooth, of your little son
turned to a mandrake tree’; _Old Fortunatus_, 1–357, where Fortunatus
dreams under a tree, 1861–2128, where there are apple-and nut-trees
in a wilderness; &c., &c. Simon Forman in 1611 saw Macbeth and Banquo
‘ridinge thorowe a wod’ (_N. S. S. Trans._ 1875–6, 417), although from
the extant text we could have inferred no trees in I. iii.
[138] _M. N. D._ II-IV. i; _Mucedorus_, I.; II. iii; III. iii-v; IV.
ii, iii; V. i; _T. A. Women of Abingdon_, scc. vii, ix-xii.
[139] _Edw. I_, 2391, ‘I must hang vp my weapon vppon this tree’;
_Alphonsus_, II. i. 417, ‘this wood; where in ambushment lie’. For a
river cf. p. 51, n. 8 (_Locrine_).
[140] _Hen. V_, IV, prol. 49.
[141] _1 Tamb._ 705, ‘Sound trumpets to the battell, and he runs in’;
1286, ‘They sound the battell within, and stay’; _2 Tamb._ 2922, ‘Sound
to the battell, and Sigismond comes out wounded’; _1 Contention_, sc.
xii. 1, ‘Alarmes within, and the Chambers be discharged, like as it
were a fight at sea’.
[142] _Alphonsus_, II. i, ii; _1 Hen. IV_, V. i-iv. The whole of _Edw.
III_, III, IV, V, is spread over Creçy and other vaguely located
battle-fields in France.
[143] _1 Contention_, sc. xxii. 1, ‘Alarmes to the battaile, and then
enter the Duke of _Somerset_ and _Richard_ fighting, and _Richard_ kils
him vnder the signe of the Castle in saint _Albones_’. The s.d. of _2
Hen. VI_, V. ii. 66, is only ‘Enter Richard, and Somerset to fight’,
but the dialogue shows that the ‘alehouse paltry sign’ was represented.
[144] _1 Contention_, sc. xxii, 62 (with the alehouse), ‘Alarmes
againe, and then enter three or foure, bearing the Duke of _Buckingham_
wounded to his Tent’; _2 Tamb._ IV. i. 3674, ‘Amyras and Celebinus
issues from the tent where Caliphas sits a sleepe’ ... 3764 (after
Caliphas has spoken from within the tent), ‘He goes in and brings
him out’; _Locrine_, 1423, ‘mee thinkes I heare some shriking noise.
That draweth near to our pauillion’; _James IV_, 2272, ‘Lords, troop
about my tent’; _Edw. I_, 1595, ‘King Edward ... goes into the Queenes
Chamber, the Queenes Tent opens, shee is discouered in her bed’ ...
1674, ‘They close the Tent’ ... 1750, ‘The Queenes Tent opens’ ...
1867, ‘The Nurse closeth the Tent’ ... 1898, ‘Enter ... to giue the
Queene Musicke at her Tent’, and in a later scene, 2141, ‘They all
passe ... to the Kings pavilion, the King sits in his Tent with his
pages about him’ ... 2152, ‘they all march to the Chamber. Bishop
speakes to her [the Queen] in her bed’; _1 Troilus and Cressida_,
plot (_Henslowe Papers_, 142), ‘Enter ... to them Achillis in his
Tent’; _Trial of Chivalry_, C_{4}^v, ‘this is the Pauilion of the
Princesse .... Here is the key that opens to the Tent’ ... D, ‘Discouer
her sitting in a chayre asleepe’ and a dialogue in the tent follows.
The presence of a tent, not mentioned in dialogue or s.ds., can often
be inferred in camp scenes, in which personages sit, or in those which
end with a ‘Come, let us in’; e.g. _Locrine_, 564, 1147.
[145] _Richard III_, V. iii, iv, v (a continuous scene); _1 Hen. IV_,
V. i, ii, iii, iv (probably similar); cf. p. 51, n. 8 (_Trial of
Chivalry_).
[146] _Edw. I_, 900, 1082, 2303 (after a battle), ‘Then make the
proclamation vpon the walles’ (s.d.); _James IV_, 2003 (after parley),
‘They descend downe, open the gates, and humble them’; _Soliman and
Perseda_, III. iv; V. iv. 16, ‘The Drum sounds a parle. _Perseda_ comes
vpon the walls in mans apparell. _Basilisco_ and _Piston_, vpon the
walles.... Then _Perseda_ comes down to _Soliman_, and _Basilisco_ and
_Piston_’; _2 Contention_, sc. xviii, ‘Enter the Lord Maire of _Yorke_
vpon the wals’ ... (after parley) ‘Exit Maire’ ... ‘The Maire opens the
dore, and brings the keies in his hand’; _K. John_, II. i. 201, ‘Enter
a Citizen vpon the walles’ ... ‘Heere after excursions, Enter the
Herald of France with Trumpets to the gates’ ... ‘Enter the two kings
with their powers at seuerall doores’ ... (after parley) ‘Now, citizens
of Angiers, ope your gates’; cf. _1 Troublesome Raigne_, scc. ii-x; _2
Contention_, sc. xxi; _George a Greene_, sc. v; _Orlando Furioso_, I.
ii; _2 Tamburlaine_, III. iii; _Selimus_, scc. xii, xxvii-xxxi; _Wounds
of Civil War_, V. ii-iv; _Edw. III_, I. ii; _Death of R. Hood_, V. ii;
_Stukeley_, II; _Frederick and Basilea_ and _1 Troilus and Cressida_
plots (_Henslowe Papers_, 137, 142), &c. Wall scenes are not always
siege scenes. Thus in _2 Troub. Raigne_, sc. i, ‘Enter yong Arthur on
the walls.... He leapes’ (cf. _K. J._ IV. iii); in _1 Contention_, sc.
xvi, ‘Enter the Lord Skayles vpon the Tower walles walking. Enter three
or four Citizens below’ (cf. _2 Hen. VI_, IV. v). Analogous is _2 Hen.
VI_, IV. ix (Kenilworth), ‘Enter King, Queene, and Somerset on the
Tarras.... Enter Multitudes with Halters about their neckes’.
[147] In _Alarum for London_, 203, a gun is fired at Antwerp from the
walls of the castle; cf. _1 Hen. VI_ below.
[148] _2 Tamburlaine_, V. i, ‘Enter the Gouernour of Babylon vpon
the walles’ ... (after parley) ‘Alarme, and they scale the walles’,
after which the governor is hung in chains from the walls and shot at;
_Selimus_, 1200, ‘Alarum, Scale the walles’, 2391, ‘Allarum, beats
them off the walles; cf. _1 Hen. VI_ below. _Hen. V_, III. i-iii (a
continuous scene) opens with ‘Alarum: Scaling Ladders at Harflew’.
Henry says ‘Once more vnto the breach’, but later a parley is sounded
from the town, and ‘Enter the King and all his Traine before the
Gates’, where submission is made, and they ‘enter the Towne’. Sometimes
an assault appears to be on the gates rather than the walls; e.g. _1
Edw. IV_, I. iv-vi; _1 Hen. VI_, I. iii.
[149] Cf. p. 106, n. 6. The fullest use of walls is made in _1 Hen.
VI_, a sixteenth-century play, although the extant text was first
printed in 1623. An analysis is necessary. The walls are those of
Orleans in I, II, of Rouen in III, of Bordeaux in IV, of Angiers in V.
In I. iv, ‘Enter the Master Gunner of Orleance, and his Boy’. They tell
how
the English, in the suburbs close entrencht,
Wont through a secret grate of iron barres,
In yonder tower, to ouer-peere the citie.
The Gunner bids the Boy watch, and tell him if he sees
any English. Then ‘Enter Salisbury and Talbot on the turrets, with
others’, and later ‘Enter the Boy with a Linstock’. The English talk of
attacking ‘heere, at the bulwarke of the bridge’, and ‘Here they shot,
and Salisbury falls downe’. After an _Exeunt_ which clears the stage,
there is fighting in the open, during which a French relieving party
‘enter the Towne with souldiers’, and later ‘Enter on the Walls, Puzel,
Dolphin, Reigneir, Alanson, and Souldiers’. In II. i, which follows,
a French watch is set, lest English come ‘neere to the walles’. Then
‘Enter Talbot, Bedford, and Burgundy, with scaling Ladders’; Bedford
will go ‘to yond corner’, Burgundy ‘to this’, and Talbot mount ‘heere’.
They assault, and ‘The French leape ore the walles in their shirts.
Enter seuerall wayes, Bastard, Alanson, Reignier, halfe ready, and
halfe unready’. They discourse and are pursued by the English, who
then ‘retreat’, and in turn discourse ‘here ... in the market-place’,
rejoicing at how the French did ‘Leape o’re the Walls for refuge in
the field’. Then, after a clearance, comes a scene at the Countess
of Auvergne’s castle. In III. ii the Pucell enters before the gates
of Rouen, obtains access by a trick, and then ‘Enter Pucell on the
top, thrusting out a torch burning’. Other French watch without for
the signal from ‘yonder tower’ or ‘turret’, and then follow into the
town and expel the English, after which, ‘Enter Talbot and Burgonie
without: within, Pucell, Charles, Bastard, and Reigneir on the walls’.
After parley, ‘Exeunt from the walls’, and fighting in front leaves the
English victorious, and again able to enter the town. In IV. ii ‘Enter
Talbot ... before Burdeaux’, summons the French general ‘vnto the
Wall’, and ‘Enter Generall aloft’. In V. iii the English are victorious
before Angiers, sound for a parley before the castle, and ‘Enter
Reignier on the walles’. After parley, Reignier says ‘I descend’, and
then ‘Enter Reignier’ to welcome the English.
[150] In _Looking-Glass_, II. i, ‘Enters Remilia’ and after discourse
bids her ladies ‘Shut close these curtaines straight and shadow me’;
whereupon ‘They draw the Curtaines and Musicke plaies’. Then enter the
Magi, and ‘The Magi with their rods beate the ground, and from vnder
the same riseth a braue Arbour’. Rasni enters and will ‘drawe neare
Remilias royall tent’. Then ‘He drawes the Curtaines, and findes her
stroken with thunder, blacke.’ She is borne out. Presumably the same
arbour is used in IV. iii, where Alvida’s ladies ‘enter the bowers’.
Both scenes are apparently near the palace at Nineveh and not in a
camp. The earlier action of _L. L. L._ is in a park, near a manor
house, which is not necessarily represented. But at IV. iii. 373 the
King wishes to devise entertainment ‘in their tents’ for the ‘girls
of France’, and Biron says, ‘First, from the park let us conduct them
thither’. Presumably therefore V. ii passes near the tents.
[151] _Looking-Glass_, II. i; IV. iii (_supra_); _Edw. III_, II. i.
61, at Roxborough Castle, ‘Then in the sommer arber sit by me’; _2
Hen. IV_, V. iii (_infra_). In _Sp. Trag._ II. ii. 42, Horatio and
Belimperia agree to meet in ‘thy father’s pleasant bower’. In II. iv
they enter with ‘let us to the bower’ and set an attendant to ‘watch
without the gate’. While they sit ‘within these leauy bowers’ they
are betrayed, and (s.d.) ‘They hang him in the Arbor’. In II. v (not
really a new scene) Hieronimo emerges from his house, where a woman’s
cry ‘within this garden’ has plucked him from his ‘naked bed’, finds
Horatio hanging ‘in my bower’, and (s.d.) ‘He cuts him downe’. In III.
xii (an addition of the 1602 text) Hieronimo ranges ‘this hidious
orchard’, where Horatio was murdered before ‘this the very tree’.
Finally, in IV. ii Isabella enters ‘this garden plot’, and (s.d.) ‘She
cuts downe the Arbour’.
[152] _Sp. Trag._ III. xii^a (_supra_); _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, sc. ii,
‘this flowry banke’, sc. iv, ‘these meddowes’; _1 Hen. VI_, II. iv,
‘From off this brier pluck a white rose with me’, &c. In _R. J._ II.
i (Q_{1}, but Q_{2} has apparently the same setting) Romeo enters,
followed by friends, who say, ‘He came this way, and leapt this orchard
wall’, and refer to ‘those trees’. They go, and in II. ii (presumably
the same scene) Romeo speaks under Juliet’s window ‘ouer my head’.
She says ‘The Orchard walles are high and hard to climb’, and he, ‘By
loues light winges did I oreperch these wals’, and later swears by the
blessed moon, ‘That tips with siluer all these fruit trees tops’.
[153] _R. J._ II. ii (_supra_); _Sp. Trag._ II. v (_supra_); _Look
About You_, sc. v (a bowling green under Gloucester’s chamber in the
Fleet); _1 Oldcastle_, I. iii, II. i (a grove before Cobham’s gate and
an inn); &c. In _1 Contention_, sc. ii. 64, Elinor sends for a conjurer
to do a spell ‘on the backside of my orchard heere’. In sc. iv she
enters with the conjurer, says ‘I will stand upon this Tower here’,
and (s.d.) ‘She goes vp to the Tower’. Then the conjurer will ‘frame a
cirkle here vpon the earth’. A spirit ascends; spies enter; and ‘Exet
Elnor aboue’. York calls ‘Who’s within there?’ The setting of _2 Hen.
VI_, I. ii, is much the same, except that the references to the tower
are replaced by the s.d. ‘Enter Elianor aloft’. In _2 Hen. VI_, II.
ii, the scene is ‘this close walke’ at the Duke of York’s. Similarly,
scc. i, iv of _Humourous Day’s Mirth_ are before Labervele’s house in
a ‘green’, which is his wife’s ‘close walk’, which is kept locked, and
into which a visitor intrudes. But in sc. vii, also before Labervele’s,
the ‘close walk’ is referred to as distinct from the place of the scene.
[154] _2 Troublesome Raigne_, sc. viii, ‘Enter two Friars laying a
Cloth’. One says, ‘I meruaile why they dine heere in the Orchard’. We
need not marvel; it was to avoid interior action. In _2 Hen. IV_, V.
iii, the scene is Shallow’s orchard, ‘where, in an arbour, we will eat
a last year’s pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish of caraways, and
so forth’.
[155] _Famous Victories_, sc. ii, 5, ‘we will watch here at
Billingsgate ward’; _Jack Straw_, iii (Smithfield); _W. for Fair
Women_, II. 115, ‘here at a friends of mine in Lumberd Street’; IV.
1511, ‘Enter two Carpenters vnder Newgate’; _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, sc.
xi (Tower Street, _vide infra_); _Cromwell_, V. ii, iii (Westminster
and Lambeth, _vide infra_); _Arden of F._ II. ii (Paul’s Churchyard,
_vide infra_); _2 Hen. VI_, IV. vi, ‘Enter Iacke Cade and the rest, and
strikes his staffe on London stone’; &c.
[156] _Span. Tragedy_, III. vi. 104, ‘He turnes him off’ (s.d.); _Sir
T. More_, sc. xvii. More is brought in by the Lieutenant of the Tower
and delivered to the sheriff. He says (1911), ‘Oh, is this the place?
I promise ye it is a goodly scaffolde’, and ‘your stayre is somewhat
weake’. Lords enter ‘As he is going vp the stayres’ (s.d.), and he
jests with ‘this straunge woodden horsse’ and ‘Truely heers a moste
sweet Gallerie’ (where the marginal s.d. is ‘walking’). Apparently the
block is not visible; he is told it is ‘to the Easte side’ and ‘exit’
in that direction.
[157] _Rich. II_, I. iii, ‘The trumpets sound and the King enters with
his nobles; when they are set, enter the Duke of Norfolke in armes
defendent’. No one is ‘to touch the listes’ (43), and when the duel is
stopped the combatants’ returne backe to their chaires againe’ (120).
[158] _S. and P._ I. iii. There is an open place in Rhodes which a mule
and ass can enter. Knights and ladies are welcomed and go ‘forwards to
the tilt’ with an ‘Exeunt’ (126). Action continues in the same place.
Piston bids Basilisco ‘stay with me and looke vpon the tilters’, and
‘Will you vp the ladder, sir, and see the tilting?’ The s.d. follows
(180), ‘Then they go vp the ladders and they sound within to the first
course’. Piston and Basilisco then describe the courses as these
proceed, evidently out of sight of the audience. The tiltyard may be
supposed to run like that at Westminster, parallel to the public road
and divided from it by a wall, up which ladders can be placed for the
commoner spectators. In V. ii Erastus is arrested in public and tried
on the spot before the Marshal. He is bound to ‘that post’ (83) and
strangled. The witnesses are to be killed. Soliman says (118),
Lord Marshall, hale them to the towers top.
And throw them headlong downe into the valley;
and we get the s.ds. ‘Then the Marshall beares them to the tower top’
(122), and ‘Then they are both tumbled downe’ (130). Presumably they
disappear behind.
[159] _James IV_, I. ii. 1, ‘Enter _Slipper_, _Nano_, and _Andrew_,
with their billes, readie written, in their hands’. They dispute as to
whose bill shall stand highest, and then post the bills.
[160] _Lord Cromwell_, III. i. 41 (in Italy):
Content thee, man; here set vp these two billes,
And let us keep our standing on the bridge,
followed by s.ds., ‘One standes at one end, and one at tother’, and
‘Enter Friskiball, the Marchant, and reades the billes’. In V. ii. 1
(Westminster) Cromwell says, ‘Is the Barge readie?’ and (12) ‘Set on
before there, and away to Lambeth’. After an ‘Exeunt’, V. iii begins
‘Halberts, stand close vnto the water-side’, and (16) ‘Enter Cromwell’.
[161] Cf. ch. xix, p. 44. _Wounds of Civil War_ has several such
scenes. In I. i. 1, ‘Enter on the Capitoll Sulpitius Tribune ...
whom placed, and their Lictors before them with their Rods and Axes,
Sulpitius beginneth’ ... (146) ‘Here enter Scilla with Captaines and
Souldiers’. Scilla’s party are not in the Capitol; they ‘braue the
Capitoll’ (149), are ‘before the Capitoll’ (218), but Scilla talks to
the senators, and Marius trusts to see Scilla’s head ‘on highest top of
all this Capitoll’. Presently Scilla bids (249) ‘all that loue Scilla
come downe to him’, and (258) ‘Here let them goe downe’. In II. i the
action is in the open, but (417) ‘yond Capitoll’ is named; III. i seems
to be in ‘this Capitoll’ (841). In IV. i Marius and his troops enter
before the seated Senate. Octavius, the consul, ‘sits commanding in
his throne’ (1390). From Marius’ company, ‘Cynna presseth vp’ (s.d.)
to ‘yonder emptie seate’ (1408), and presently Marius is called up and
(1484) ‘He takes his seate’. In V. v. 2231 ‘Scilla seated in his roabes
of state is saluted by the Citizens’. Similarly in _T. A._ I. i, ‘Enter
the Tribunes and Senatours aloft: and then enter Saturninus and his
followers at one doore, and Bassianus and his followers’. Saturninus
bids the tribunes ‘open the gates and let me in’ (63) and ‘They goe vp
into the Senate house’. Titus enters and buries his sons in his family
tomb, and (299) ‘Enter aloft the Emperour’ and speaks to Titus. There
is a Venetian senate house in _K. to K. an Honest Man_, scc. iii, xvii,
but I do not find a similar interplay with the outside citizens here.
[162] _W. for Fair Women_, II. 93 (Lombard Street), ‘While Master
Sanders and he are in busy talk one to the other, Browne steps to a
corner.... Enter a Gentleman with a man with a torch before. Browne
draws to strike’; _Arden of F._ II. ii. 41, ‘Stand close, and take you
fittest standing, And at his comming foorth speed him’.
[163] _T. G._ IV. ii (cf. IV. iii. 16, ‘Now must we to her window’, and
III. i. 35, 114, where Valentine has a rope-ladder to scale Silvia’s
window ‘in an upper tower’ and ‘aloft, far from the ground’); IV. iv.
91, ‘That’s her chamber’; _R. J._ (orchard scenes), II. ii; III. v,
‘Enter Romeo and Juliet at the window’ (Q_{1} where Q_{2} has ‘aloft’;
on the difficulty presented by Juliet’s chamber, cf. p. 94); _M. V._
II. vi. 1, ‘This is the penthouse vnder which Lorenzo Desired us to
make a stand’ ... ‘Jessica aboue’ (s.d.) ... ‘Descend, for you must be
my torch-bearer’ ... ‘Enter Jessica’ (having come down within from the
casement forbidden her by Shylock and advised by Lancelot in II. v);
_Englishmen for my Money_, sc. ix (where Vandalle, come to woo Pisaro’s
daughter in the dark, is drawn up in a basket and left dangling in
mid-air, while later (1999) Pisaro is heard ‘at the window’ and ‘Enter
Pisaro aboue’); _Two A. Women_, 1495, ‘Enter Mall in the window’;
_Sp. Trag._ II. ii, where spies ‘in secret’ and ‘aboue’ overhear the
loves of Horatio and Belimperia below. Lovers are not concerned in
_Sp. Trag._ III. ii, ‘Enter Hieronimo ... A Letter falleth’; III. ix,
‘Belimperia, at a window’; _The Shrew_, V. i. 17, ‘Pedant lookes out of
the window’.
[164] In _T. A._ I. i a coffin is brought in, apparently in the
market-place, while the Senators are visible in the Capitol (cf. p.
58, n. 2), and (90) ‘They open the Tombe’ and (150) ‘Sound trumpets,
and lay the coffin in the Tombe’. _R. J._ V. iii is in a churchyard
with ‘yond yew trees’ (3). A torch ‘burneth in the Capels monument’
(127), also called a ‘vault’ (86, &c.) and ‘the tomb’ (262). Romeo will
‘descend into this bed of death’ (28), and Q_{1} adds the s.d. ‘Romeo
opens the tombe’ (45). He kills Paris, whose blood ‘stains The stony
entrance of this sepulchre’ (141). Juliet awakes and speaks, and must
of course be visible. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe
Papers_, 116) include ‘j tombe’, ‘j tome of Guido, j tome of Dido’.
[165] _George a Greene_, sc. xi, ‘Enter a Shoemaker sitting vpon the
Stage at worke’, where a shop is not essential; but may be implied
by ‘Stay till I lay in my tooles’ (1005); _Locrine_, II. ii, ‘Enter
Strumbo, Dorothy, Trompart cobling shooes and singing’ (569) ... ‘Come
sirrha shut vp’ (660); _R. and J._ V. i. 55, ‘This should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!’ where
the elaborate description of the shop which precedes leaves some doubt
how far it was represented; _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, scc. iii, ‘Open my
shop windows’; v, ‘Ile goe in’; viii, ‘Shut vp the shop’; xi, ‘Enter
Hodge at his shop-board, Rafe, Friske, Hans, and a boy at worke’ (all
before or in Eyre’s shop); x, ‘Enter Iane in a Semsters shop working,
and Hammon muffled at another doore, he stands aloofe’ (another shop);
_1 Edw. IV_, IV. iii, ‘Enter two prentizes, preparing the Goldsmiths
shop with plate.... Enter mistris Shoare, with her worke in her
hand.... The boy departs, and she sits sowing in her shop. Enter the
King disguised’.
[166] _Arden of F._ II. ii. 52,
‘_Here enters_ a prentise.
Tis very late; I were best shute vp my stall,
For heere will be ould filching, when the presse
Comes foorth of Paules.
_Then lettes he downe his window, and it breaks_ Black Wils _head_’.
[167] _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, sc. xi, ‘the signe of the Last in
Tower-street, mas yonders the house’; _1 Edw. IV_, IV. iii, ‘Heres
Lombard Streete, and heres the Pelican’. The Admiral’s inventories of
1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 117) include ‘j syne for Mother Redcap’.
[168] Cf. ch. xix, p. 11. The introduction of a meal goes rather beyond
the neo-classic analogy, but presents no great difficulty. If a banquet
can be brought into a garden or orchard, it can be brought into a porch
or courtyard. It is not always possible to determine whether a meal
is in a threshold scene or a hall scene (cf. p. 64), but in _1 Edw.
IV_, III. ii, ‘Enter Nell and Dudgeon, with a table couered’ is pretty
clearly at the door of the Tanner’s cottage.
[169] In the theatre usage personages go ‘in’, even where they merely
go ‘off’ without entering a house (cf. e.g. p. 53, n. 2). The interlude
usage is less regular, and sometimes personages go ‘out’, as they would
appear to the audience to do.
[170] _Soliman and Perseda_, II. i. 227, ‘Sound vp the Drum to Lucinaes
doore’ (s.d.). Doors are conspicuous in _K. to K. Honest Man_; thus sc.
ii. 82, ‘Enter Lelio with his sword drawen, hee knockes at his doore’;
sc. v. 395, ’tis time to knocke vp Lelios householde traine. _He
knockes_’ ... ‘What mean this troup of armed men about my dore?’; sc.
v. 519 (Bristeo’s), ‘Come breake vp the doore’; sc. vii. 662, ‘_Enter
Annetta and Lucida with their worke in their handes...._ Here let vs
sit awhile’ ... (738) ‘Get you in ... _Here put them in at doore_’; sc.
vii. 894 (Lelio’s), ‘Underneath this wall, watch all this night: If
any man shall attempt to breake your sisters doore, Be stout, assaile
him’; sc. vii. 828 (a Senator’s), ‘What make you lingering here about
my doores?’; sc. ix. 1034 (Lelio’s), ‘Heaue me the doores from of the
hinges straight’; sc. xv. 1385 (Lelio’s), ‘my door doth ope’ (cf. p.
62, on the courtyard scene in the same play).
[171] Thus _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, sc. v (Moren’s), 111, ‘We’ll draw
thee out of the house by the heels’ ... 143, ‘Thrust this ass out of
the doors’ ... 188, ‘Get you out of my house!’, but 190, ‘Well, come
in, sweet bird’; _Shoemaker’s Holiday_, sc. xii (Lord Mayor’s), ‘Get
you in’, but ‘The Earl of Lincoln at the gate is newly lighted’.
[172] _James IV_, II. i, ‘_Enter the Countesse of Arrain, with Ida,
her daughter, in theyr porch, sitting at worke_’ ... (753) ‘Come, will
it please you enter, gentle sir? _Offer to Exeunt_’; cf. _Arden of F._
(_vide infra_) and the penthouse in _M. V._ II. vi. 1 (p. 58).
[173] Perhaps the best example is in _Arden of Feversham_. Arden’s
house at Aldersgate is described by Michael to the murderers in II. ii.
189:
The dores Ile leaue unlockt against you come,
No sooner shall ye enter through the latch,
Ouer the thresholde to the inner court,
But on your left hand shall you see the staires
That leads directly to my M. Chamber.
Here, then, is III. i. Arden and Francklin talk and go to bed. Michael,
in remorse, alarms them with an outcry, and when they appear, explains
that he ‘fell asleepe, Vpon the thresholde leaning to the staires’ and
had a bad dream. Arden then finds that ‘the dores were all unlockt’.
Later (III. iv. 8) Michael lies about this to the murderers:
Francklin and my master
Were very late conferring in the porch,
And Francklin left his napkin where he sat
With certain gold knit in it, as he said.
Being in bed, he did bethinke himselfe,
And comming down he found the dores vnshut:
He lockt the gates, and brought away the keyes.
When the murderers come in III. ii, Will bids Shakebag ‘show me to this
house’, and Shakebag says ‘This is the doore; but soft, me thinks tis
shut’. They are therefore at the outer door of the courtyard; cf. p.
69, n. 2. Similarly _1 Rich. II_, III. ii, which begins with ‘Enter
Woodstock, Lancaster, and Yorke, at Plashey’, and ‘heere at Plasshy
house I’le bid you wellcome’, is clearly in a courtyard. A servant
says (114), ‘Ther’s a horseman at the gate.... He will not off an’s
horse-backe till the inner gate be open’. Gloucester bids ‘open the
inner gate ... lett hime in’, and (s.d.) ‘Enter a spruce Courtier a
horse-backe’. It is also before the house, for the Courtier says,
‘Is he within’, and ‘I’le in and speake with the duke’. Rather more
difficult is _Englishmen for my Money_, sc. iv, ‘Enter Pisaro’ with
others, and says, ‘Proud am I that my roofe containes such friends’
(748), also ‘I would not haue you fall out in my house’ (895). He
sends his daughters ‘in’ (827, 851), so must be in the porch, and a
‘knock within’ (s.d.) and ‘Stirre and see who knocks!’ (796) suggest
a courtyard gate. But later in the play (cf. p. 58, n. 4) the street
seems to be directly before the same house.
[174] In _K. to K. Honest Man_, scc. x-xii (continuous scene at
Servio’s), Phillida is called ‘forth’ (1058) and bidden keep certain
prisoners ‘in the vpper loft’. Presently she enters ‘with the keyes’
and after the s.d. ‘Here open the doore’ calls them out and gives them
a signet to pass ‘the Porter of the gates’, which Servio (1143) calls
‘my castell gates’. In _1 Hen. VI_, II. iii, the Countess of Auvergne,
to entrap Talbot, bids her porter ‘bring the keyes to me’; presumably
Talbot’s men are supposed to break in the gates at the s.d. ‘a Peale of
Ordnance’. _Rich. III_, III. vii, is at Baynard’s Castle. Buckingham
bids Gloucester (55) ‘get you vp to the leads’ to receive the Mayor,
who enters with citizens, and (95) ‘Enter Richard with two bishops a
lofte’. Similarly in _Rich. II_, III. iii. 62, ‘Richard appeareth on
the walls’ of Flint Castle, and then comes down (178) to the ‘base
court’. _B. Beggar of Alexandria_, sc. ii, is before the house of
Elimine’s father and ‘Enter Elimine above on the walls’. She is in a
‘tower’ and comes down, but there is nothing to suggest a courtyard.
[175] _1 Sir John Oldcastle_, IV. iv, v (a continuous scene), is partly
‘neare vnto the entrance of the Tower’, beyond the porter’s lodge,
partly in Oldcastle’s chamber there, with a ‘window that goes out into
the leads’; cf. p. 67.
[176] _Famous Victories_, sc. vi, 60, ‘What a rapping keep you at the
Kings Court gate!’; _Jack Straw_, II. ii (a City gate).
[177] _A Shrew_, ind. 1, ‘Enter a Tapster, beating out of his doores
Slie Droonken’; _1 Oldcastle_, V. iii-vii (inn and barn); _True Tragedy
of Rich. III_, sc. viii, ‘Earle Riuers speakes out of his chamber’ in
an inn-yard, where he has been locked up; _James IV_, III. ii (stable);
_Looking Glass_, V. ii. 2037, ‘Enter the temple Omnes’. _Selimus_, sc.
xxi. 2019, has
Thy bodie in this auntient monument,
Where our great predecessours sleep in rest:
Suppose the Temple of _Mahomet_,
Thy wofull son _Selimus_ thus doth place.
Is the third line really a s.d., in which case it does not suggest
realistic staging, or a misunderstood line of the speech, really meant
to run, ‘Supposed the Temple of great Mahomet’?
[178] _Patient Grissell_, 755–1652, reads like a threshold scene, and
‘Get you in!’ is repeated (848, 1065, 1481), but Grissell’s russet
gown and pitcher are hung up and several times referred to (817, 828,
1018, 1582). _Old Fortunatus_, 733–855, at the palace of Babylon, must
be a threshold scene as the Soldan points to ‘yon towre’ (769), but
this is not inconsistent with the revealing of a casket, with the s.d.
(799) ‘Draw a Curtaine’. We need not therefore assume that _M. V._ II.
vii, ix, in which Portia bids ‘Draw aside the Curtaines’ and ‘Draw the
Curtain’, or III. ii are hall scenes, and all the Belmont scenes may
be, like V. i, in a garden backed by a portico; or rather the hall
referred to in V. i. 89, ‘That light we see is burning in my hall’, may
take the form of a portico.
[179] Cf. p. 58, n. 2.
[180] Thus in _Rich. II_, V. iii, iv (a continuous scene), Aumerle has
leave to ‘turne the key’ (36). Then ‘_The Duke of Yorke knokes at the
doore and crieth_, My leige ... Thou hast a traitor in thy presence
there’. Cf. _1 Troublesome Raigne_, sc. xiii. 81:
He stayes my Lord but at the Presence door:
Pleaseth your Highnes, I will call him in.
[181] _Famous Victories_, scc. iv, v (a continuous scene), ‘Jayler,
bring the prisoner to the barre’ (iv. 1).... ‘Thou shalt be my Lord
chiefe Justice, and thou shalt sit in the chaire’ (v. 10); _Sir
T. More_, sc. ii. 104, ‘An Arras is drawne, and behinde it (as in
sessions) sit the L. Maior.... Lifter the prisoner at the barre’;
_Warning for Fair Women_, II. 1180, ‘Enter some to prepare the
judgement seat to the Lord Mayor....(1193) Browne is brought in and the
Clerk says, ‘To the barre, George Browne’; _M. V._ IV. i; _1 Sir John
Oldcastle_, V. x; &c.
[182] _Bacon and Bungay_, scc. vii, ix (Regent House), where visitors
‘sit to heare and see this strange dispute’ (1207), and later, ‘Enter
Miles, with a cloth and trenchers and salt’ (1295); _Shoemaker’s
Holiday_, sc. xv (Leadenhall); _Englishmen for my Money_, sc. iii
(Exchange).
[183] _1 Troublesome Raigne_, sc. xi, in a convent, entails the opening
of a coffer large enough to hold a nun and a press large enough to
hold a priest; _2 Troublesome Raigne_, sc. iii, before St. Edmund’s
shrine, has a numerous company who swear on an altar. _Alphonsus_, IV.
i, begins ‘Let there be a brazen Head set in the middle of the place
behind the Stage, out of the which cast flames of fire’. It is in the
‘sacred seate’ of Mahomet, who speaks from the head, and bids the
priests ‘call in’ visitors ‘which now are drawing to my Temple ward’.
[184] _T. of a Shrew_, scc. ix, xi, xiii; _Sir T. More_, scc. ix,
‘Enter S^r _Thomas Moore_, M^r _Roper_, and Seruing men setting
stooles’; xiii, ‘Enter ... Moore ... as in his house at Chelsey’ ...
(1413) ‘Sit good Madame [_in margin_, ‘lowe stooles’] ... (1521)
‘Entreate their Lordships come into the hall’. _E. M. I._ III. i, ii
(a continuous scene), is at Thorello’s house, and in III. iii. 1592
it is described with ‘I saw no body to be kist, vnlesse they would
haue kist the post, in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left
them all ... How? were they not gone in then?’ But I. iv. 570, also at
Thorello’s, has ‘Within sir, in the warehouse’. Probably the warehouse
was represented as an open portico.
[185] Cf. p. 63, nn. 3, 4.
[186] _Sir T. More_, scc. ix, xiii (stools, _vide supra_); x, where
the Council ‘sit’ to ‘this little borde’ (1176); _R. J._ I. v (stools,
_vide supra_); _James IV_, I. i. 141, ‘Enstall and crowne her’; _Sp.
Tragedy_, I. iii. 8, ‘Wherefore sit I in a regall throne’; _1 Rich.
II_, II. ii. 81, ‘Please you, assend your throne’; _1 Tamburlaine_, IV.
ii. 1474, ‘He [Tamburlaine] gets vp vpon him [Bajazet] to his chaire’;
_Dr. Faustus_, 1010 (addition of 1616 text), ‘His Maiesty is comming to
the Hall; Go backe, and see the State in readinesse’; _Look About You_,
sc. xix, ‘Enter young Henry Crowned ... Henry the elder places his
Sonne, the two Queenes on eyther hand, himselfe at his feete, Leyster
and Lancaster below him’; this must have involved an elaborate ‘state’.
[187] _Bacon and Bungay_, sc. ix. (_vide supra_); _T. of a Shrew_, sc.
ix. 32, ‘They couer the bord and fetch in the meate’; _1 Edw. IV_,
IV. ii, ‘They bring forth a table and serue in the banquet’; _Patient
Grissell_, 1899, ‘A Table is set’; _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, scc. viii,
x-xii (Verone’s ordinary), on which cf. p. 70.
[188] _1 Rich. II_, IV. ii; _Death of R. Hood_, II. ii; _R. J._ I.
v, where a servant says, ‘Away with the joint-stools, remove the
court-cupboard’, and Capulet ‘turn the tables up’; cf. ch. vi.
[189] _M. N. D._ v (cf. III. i. 58); _Sir T. More_, sc. ix; _Sp.
Tragedy_, IV. iii, iv (a continuous scene), on which cf. p. 93, n. 1.
[190] _2 Tamburlaine_, III. iii. 2969, ‘The Arras is drawen, and
Zenocrate lies in her bed of state, Tamburlaine sitting by her: three
Phisitians about her bed, tempering potions. Theridamas, Techelles,
Vsumcasane, and the three sonnes’.... (3110, at end of sc.) ‘The
Arras is drawen’; _Selimus_, sc. x. 861, ‘I needs must sleepe.
_Bassaes_ withdraw your selues from me awhile’.... ‘They stand
aside while the curtins are drawne’ (s.d.) ... (952) ‘A Messenger
enters, _Baiazet_ awaketh’; _Battle of Alcazar_, d.s. 24, ‘Enter
Muly Mahamet and his sonne, and his two young brethren, the Moore
sheweth them the bed, and then takes his leaue of them, and they betake
them to their rest’ ... (36) ‘Enter the Moore and two murdrers
bringing in his unkle Abdelmunen, then they draw the curtains and
smoother the yong princes in the bed. Which done in sight of the vnkle
they strangle him in his Chaire, and then goe forth’; _Edw. I_, sc.
xxv. 2668, ‘Elinor in child-bed with her daughter Ione, and other
Ladies’; _True Tragedy of Rich. III_, sc. i, ‘Now Nobles, draw
the Curtaines and depart ... (s.d.) The King dies in his bed’; sc.
xiii, where murderers are called ‘vp’, and murder of princes in bed
is visible; _Famous Victories_, sc. viii. 1, ‘Enter the King with
his Lords’ ... (10), ‘Draw the Curtaines and depart my chamber a
while’ ... ‘He sleepeth ... Enter the Prince’ (s.d.) ... ‘I wil
goe, nay but why doo I not go to the Chamber of my sick father?’ ...
(23) ‘Exit’ [having presumably taken the crown] ... (25) ‘_King._
Now my Lords ... Remoue my chaire a little backe, and set me right’
... (47) ‘_Prince_ [who has re-entered]. I came into your Chamber
... And after that, seeing the Crowne, I tooke it’ ... (87) ‘Draw
the Curtaines, depart my Chamber, ... Exeunt omnes, The King dieth’.
In the analogous _2 Hen. IV_, IV. iv, v (a continuous scene divided,
with unanimity in ill-doing, by modern editors in the middle of a
speech), the King says (IV. iv. 131), ‘Beare me hence Into some other
chamber’, Warwick (IV. v. 4), ‘Call for the Musick in the other
Roome’, and the King ‘Set me the Crowne vpon my Pillow here’. The
Prince enters and the Lords go to ‘the other roome’; he takes the
crown and ‘Exit’. Later (56) the Lords say, ‘This doore is open,
he is gone this way’, and ‘He came not through the chamber where we
staide’. The Prince returns and the Lords are bidden ‘Depart the
chamber’. Later (233) the King asks the name of ‘the lodging where
I first did swound’, and bids ‘beare me to that Chamber’. Then the
scene, and in F_{1} the act, ends. In _1 Contention_, sc. x. 1, ‘Then
the Curtaines being drawne, Duke _Humphrey_ is discouered in his bed,
and two men lying on his brest and smothering him in his bed. And then
enter the Duke of _Suffolke_ to them’. He bids ‘draw the Curtaines
againe and get you gone’. The King enters and bids him call Gloucester.
He goes out, and returns to say that Gloucester is dead. Warwick says,
‘Enter his priuie chamber my Lord and view the bodie’, and (50),
‘_Warwicke_ drawes the curtaines and showes Duke _Humphrey_ in his
bed’. The analogous _2 Hen. VI_, III. ii, omits the murder _coram
populo_ and begins ‘Enter two or three running ouer the Stage, from
the Murther of Duke Humfrey’. It then follows the earlier model until
(132) the King bids Warwick ‘Enter his Chamber’ and we get the brief
s.d. (146) ‘Bed put forth’, and Warwick speaks again. The next scene
is another death scene, which begins in _1 Contention_, sc. xi, ‘Enter
King and _Salsbury_, and then the Curtaines be drawne, and the Cardinal
is discouered in his bed, rauing and staring as if he were madde’,
and in _2 Hen. VI_, III. iii, ‘Enter the King ... to the Cardinal in
bed’, ending (32) ‘Close vp his eyes, and draw the Curtaine close’. In
_1 Rich. II_, V. i, Lapoole enters ‘with a light’ and murderers, whom
he bids ‘stay in the next with-draweing chamber ther’. Then (48), ‘He
drawes the curtayne’, says of Gloucester ‘He sleepes vppon his bed’,
and Exit. Gloucester, awaked by ghosts, says (110), ‘The doores are all
made fast ... and nothing heere appeeres, But the vast circute of this
emptie roome’. Lapoole, returning, says, ‘Hee’s ryssen from his bed’.
Gloucester bids him ‘shutt to the doores’ and ‘sits to wright’. The
murderers enter and kill him. Lapoole bids ‘lay hime in his bed’ and
‘shutt the doore, as if he ther had dyd’, and they (247) ‘Exeunt with
the bodye’. In _Death of R. Hood_, ii, ind., the presenter says ‘Draw
but that vaile, And there King John sits sleeping in his chaire’, and
the s.d. follows, ‘Drawe the curten: the King sits sleeping ... Enter
Queene ... She ascends, and seeing no motion, she fetcheth her children
one by one; but seeing yet no motion, she descendeth, wringing her
hands, and departeth’. In _R. J._ IV. iii, iv, v (continuous action),
Juliet drinks her potion and Q_{1}, has the s.d. (IV. iii. 58) ‘She
fals vpon her bed within the Curtaines’. Action follows before the
house, until the Nurse, bidden to call Juliet, finds her dead. Then
successively ‘Enter’ Lady Capulet, Capulet, the Friar, and Paris, to
all of whom Juliet is visible. After lament, the Friar, in Q_{2} (IV.
v. 91), bids them all ‘go you in’, but in Q_{1}, ‘They all but the
Nurse goe foorth, casting Rosemary on her and shutting the Curtens’.
The Nurse, then, in both texts, addresses the musicians, who came with
Paris. On the difficulty of this scene, in relation to II. ii and III.
v, cf. p. 94.
[191] _Wounds of Civil War_, III. ii, 913, ‘Enter old _Marius_ with
his keeper, and two souldiers’. There is (965) ‘this homely bed’, on
which (972) ‘He lies downe’ (s.d.), and when freed (1066) ‘from walls
to woods I wend’. In _Edw. II_, 2448–2568 (at Kenilworth), keepers
say that the King is ‘in a vault vp to the knees in water’, of which
(2455) ‘I opened but the doore’. Then (2474) ‘Heere is the keyes, this
is the lake’ and (2486), ‘Heeres a light to go into the dungeon’. Then
(2490) Edward speaks and, presumably having been brought out, is bid
(2520) ‘lie on this bed’. He is murdered with a table and featherbed
brought from ‘the next roome’ (2478), and the body borne out. In _1
Tr. Raigne_, sc. xii, Hubert enters, bids his men (8) ‘stay within
that entry’ and when called set Arthur ‘in this chayre’. He then bids
Arthur (13) ‘take the benefice of the faire evening’, and ‘Enter
Arthur’ who is later (131) bid ‘Goe in with me’. _K. J._ IV. i has
precisely analogous indications, except that the attendants stand
(2) ‘within the arras’, until Hubert stamps ‘Vpon the bosome of the
ground’. In _Rich. III_, I. iv, Clarence talks with his keeper, and
sleeps. Murderers enter, to whom the keeper says (97), ‘Here are the
keies, there sits the Duke a sleepe’. They stab him, threaten to ‘chop
him in the malmsey but in the next roome’ (161, 277), and bear the body
out. In _Rich. II_, V. v (at Pontefract) Richard muses on ‘this prison
where I liue’. He is visited by a groom of his stable (70), ‘where no
man neuer comes, but that sad dog, That brings me foode’. Then (95)
‘Enter one to Richard with meate’ and (105) ‘The murderers rush in’,
and (119) the bodies are cleared away. _Sir T. More_, sc. xvi, ‘Enter
_Sir Thomas Moore_, the Lieutenant, and a seruant attending as in his
chamber in the Tower’; _Lord Cromwell_, V. v, ‘Enter Cromwell in the
Tower.... Enter the Lieutenant of the Tower and officers.... Enter all
the Nobles’; _Dead Man’s Fortune_, plot (_Henslowe Papers_, 134), ‘Here
the laydes speakes in prysoun’; _Death of R. Hood_, IV. i:
_Brand._ Come, come, here is the door.
_Lady Bruce._ O God, how dark it is.
_Brand._ Go in, go in; it’s higher up the stairs....
_He seems to lock a door._
In _Old Fortunatus_, 2572, Montrose says of Ampedo, ‘Drag him to
yonder towre, there shackle him’. Later (2608) Andelocia is brought to
join him in ‘this prison’ and the attendants bid ‘lift in his legs’.
The brothers converse in ‘fetters’. In _1 Oldcastle_, IV. iv, v (a
continuous scene), ‘Enter the Bishop of Rochester with his men, in
liuerie coates’. They have brought him ‘heere into the Tower’ (1965)
and may ‘go backe vnto the Porters Lodge’ or attend him ‘here without’.
But they slip away. The Bishop calls the Lieutenant and demands to
see Oldcastle. A message is sent to Oldcastle by Harpoole. Then
(1995), ‘Enter sir Iohn Oldcastle’, and while the Bishop dismisses the
Lieutenant, Harpoole communicates a plot ‘aside’ to Oldcastle. Then the
Bishop addresses Oldcastle, and as they talk Oldcastle and Harpoole lay
hands upon him. They take his upper garments, which Oldcastle puts on.
Harpoole says (2016) ‘the window that goes out into the leads is sure
enough’ and he will ‘conuay him after, and bind him surely in the inner
room’. Then (2023) ‘Enter seruing men againe’. Oldcastle, disguised as
the Bishop, comes towards them, saying, ‘The inner roomes be very hot
and close’. Harpoole tells him that he will ‘downe vpon them’. He then
pretends to attack him. The serving-men join in, and (2049) ‘Sir John
escapes’. The Lieutenant enters and asks who is brawling ‘so neare vnto
the entrance of the Tower’. Then (2057) ‘Rochester calls within’, and
as they go in and bring him out bound, Harpoole gets away; cf. p. 62,
n. 2. _Look About You_, sc. v, is a similar scene in the Fleet, partly
in Gloucester’s chamber (811), the door of which can be shut, partly
(865) on a bowling green. Analogous to some of the prison scenes is
_Alarum for London_, sc. xii, in which a Burgher’s Wife shows Van End a
vault where her wealth is hid, and (1310) ‘She pushes him downe’, and
he is stoned there.
[192] _Bacon and Bungay_, I. ii. 172, ‘Enter frier _Bacon_’, with
others, says ‘Why flocke you thus to Bacon’s secret cell?’, and
conjures; II. ii is in a street, but Bacon says (603) ‘weele to my
studie straight’, and II. iii begins (616), ‘_Bacon_ and _Edward_
goes into the study’, where Edward *sits and looks in ‘this glasse
prospectiue’ (620), but his vision is represented on some part of the
stage; in IV. i. 1530, ‘Enter Frier _Bacon_ drawing the courtaines,
with a white sticke, a booke in his hand, and a lampe lighted by him,
and the brazen head and _Miles_, with weapons by him’. Miles is bid
watch the head, and ‘Draw closse the courtaines’ and ‘Here he [Bacon]
falleth asleepe’ (1568). Miles ‘will set me downe by a post’ (1577).
Presently (1604), ‘Heere the Head speakes and a lightning flasheth
forth, and a hand appeares that breaketh down the Head with a hammer’.
Miles calls to Bacon (1607) ‘Out of your bed’; IV. iii. 1744 begins
‘Enter frier _Bacon_ with frier _Bungay_ to his cell’. A woodcut in
Q_{2} of 1630, after the revival by the Palsgrave’s men, seems to
illustrate II. iii; the back wall has a window to the left and the head
on a bracket in the centre; before it is the glass on a table, with
Edward gazing in it; Bacon sits to the right. Miles stands to the left;
no side-walls are visible. In _Locrine_, I. iii. 309, ‘Enter Strumbo
aboue in a gowne, with inke and paper in his hand’; _Dr. Faustus_, ind.
28, ‘And this the man that in his study sits’, followed by s.d. ‘Enter
Faustus in his Study’, 433, ‘Enter Faustus in his Study ... (514)
Enter [Mephastophilis] with diuels, giuing crownes and rich apparell
to Faustus, and daunce, and then depart’, with probably other scenes.
In _T. A._ V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Tamora, and her two sonnes disguised’ ...
(9) ‘They knocke and Titus opens his studie doore’. Tamora twice (33,
43) bids him ‘come downe’, and (80) says, ‘See heere he comes’. The
killing of Tamora’s sons follows, after which Titus bids (205) ‘bring
them in’. In _Sir T. More_, sc. viii. 735, ‘A table beeing couered
with a greene Carpet, a state Cushion on it, and the Pursse and Mace
lying thereon Enter Sir Thomas Moore’.... (765) ‘Enter Surrey, Erasmus
and attendants’. Erasmus says (779), ‘Is yond Sir Thomas?’ and Surrey
(784), ‘That Studie is the generall watche of England’. The original
text is imperfect, but in the revision Erasmus is bid ‘sitt’, and later
More bids him ‘in’ (ed. Greg, pp. 84, 86). _Lord Cromwell_ has three
studies; in II. i, ii (continuous action at Antwerp), ‘Cromwell in his
study with bagges of money before him casting of account’, while Bagot
enters in front, soliloquizes, and then (II. ii. 23) with ‘See where he
is’ addresses Cromwell; in III. ii (Bologna), the action begins as a
hall scene, for (15) ‘They haue begirt you round about the house’ and
(47) ‘Cromwell shuts the dore’ (s.d.), but there is an inner room, for
(115) ‘Hodge [disguised as the Earl of Bedford] sits in the study, and
Cromwell calls in the States’, and (126) ‘Goe draw the curtaines, let
vs see the Earle’; in IV. v (London), ‘Enter Gardiner in his studie,
and his man’. _E. M. I._ I. iii, is before Cob’s house, and Tib is bid
show Matheo ‘vp to Signior Bobadilla’ (Q_{1} 392). In I. iv ‘Bobadilla
discouers himselfe on a bench; to him, Tib’. She announces ‘a gentleman
below’; Matheo is bid ‘come vp’, enters from ‘within’, and admires the
‘lodging’. In _1 Oldcastle_, V. i. 2086, ‘Enter Cambridge, Scroope,
and Gray, as in a chamber, and set downe at a table, consulting about
their treason: King Harry and Suffolke listning at the doore’ ...
(2114) ‘They rise from the table, and the King steps in to them, with
his Lordes’. _Stukeley_, i. 121, begins with Old Stukeley leaving his
host’s door to visit his son. He says (149), ‘I’ll to the Temple to
see my son’, and presumably crosses the stage during his speech of
171–86, which ends ‘But soft this is his chamber as I take it’. Then
‘He knocks’, and after parley with a page, says, ‘Give me the key of
his study’ and ‘methinks the door stands open’, enters, criticizes the
contents of the study, emerges, and (237) *‘Old Stukeley goes again
to the study’. Then (244) ‘Enter _Stukeley_ at the further end of the
stage’ and joins his father. Finally the boy is bid (335) ‘lock the
door’. In _Downfall of R. Hood_, ind., ‘Enter Sir John Eltham and
knocke at Skeltons doore’. He says, ‘Howe, maister Skelton, what at
studie hard?’ and (s.d.) ‘Opens the doore’. In _2 Edw. IV_, IV. ii,
‘Enter D. Shaw, pensiuely reading on his booke’. He is visited by a
Ghost, who gives him a task, and adds, ‘That done, return; and in thy
study end Thy loathed life’.
[193] _Old Fortunatus_, 1315–1860, is before or in the hall of a court;
at 1701, ‘A curtaine being drawne, where Andelocia lies sleeping in
Agripines lap’. In _Downfall of R. Hood_, ind., is a s.d. of a court
scene, presumably in a hall, and ‘presently Ely ascends the chaire ...
Enter Robert Earl of Huntingdon, leading Marian: ... they infolde each
other, and sit downe within the curteines ... drawing the curteins,
all (but the Prior) enter, and are kindely receiued by Robin Hood. The
curteins are again shut’.
[194] _Jew of Malta_, i. 36, ‘Enter Barabas in his Counting-house, with
heapes of gold before him’. Later his house is taken for a nunnery;
he has hid treasure (536) ‘underneath the plancke That runs along the
vpper chamber floore’, and Abigail becomes a nun, and (658) throws
the treasure from ‘aboue’. He gets another house, and Pilia-Borza
describes (iii. 1167) how ‘I chanc’d to cast mine eye vp to the Iewes
counting-house’, saw money-bags, and climbed up and stole by night.
_Arden of Feversham_, I., III. v, IV. i, V. i are at Arden’s house at
Feversham. From I. I should assume a porch before the house, where
Arden and his wife breakfast and (369) ‘Then she throwes down the broth
on the grounde’; cf. 55, ‘Call her foorth’, and 637, ‘Lets in’. It can
hardly be a hall scene, as part of the continuous action is ‘neare’
the house (318) and at 245 we get ‘This is the painters [Clarke’s]
house’, who is called out. There is no difficulty in III. v or IV. i;
cf. III. v. 164, ‘let vs in’. But V. i, taken by itself, reads like a
hall scene with a counting-house behind. Black Will and Shakebag are
hidden in a ‘counting-house’, which has a ‘door’ and a ‘key’ (113, 145,
153). A chair and stool are to be ready for Mosbie and Arden (130).
Alice bids Michael (169) ‘Fetch in the tables, And when thou hast done,
stand before the counting-house doore’, and (179) ‘When my husband
is come in, lock the streete doore’. When Arden comes with Mosbie,
they are (229) ‘in my house’. They play at tables and the murderers
creep out and kill Arden, and (261), ‘Then they lay the body in the
Counting-house’. Susan says (267), ‘The blood cleaueth to the ground’,
and Mosbie bids (275) ‘strew rushes on it’. Presently, when guests
have come and gone, (342) ‘Then they open the counting-house doore
and looke vppon Arden’, and (363) ‘Then they beare the body into the
fields’. Francklin enters, having found the body, with rushes in its
shoe, ‘Which argueth he was murthred in this roome’, and looking about
‘this chamber’, they find blood ‘in the place where he was wont to sit’
(411–15).
[195] In _1 Hen. IV_, II. iv, Henry calls Poins (1) ‘out of that fat
roome’ and bids him (32) ‘Stand in some by-roome’ while the Prince
talks to the Drawer. The Vintner (91) bids the Drawer look to guests
‘within’, and says Falstaff is ‘at the doore’. He enters and later
goes out to dismiss a court messenger who is (317) ‘at doore’ and
returns. He has a chair and cushion (416). When the Sheriff comes,
Henry bids Falstaff (549) ‘hide thee behind the Arras, the rest walke
vp aboue’. Later (578) Falstaff is found ‘a sleepe behind the Arras’.
This looks like a hall scene, and with it III. iii, where Mrs. Quickly
is miscalled (72) ‘in mine owne house’ and Falstaff says (112) ‘I fell
a sleepe here, behind the Arras’, is consistent. But in _2 Hen. IV_,
II. iv, Falstaff and Doll come out of their supper room. The Drawer
announces (75) ‘Antient Pistol’s belowe’, and is bid (109) ‘call him
vp’ and (202) ‘thrust him downe staires’. Later (381) ‘Peyto knockes
at doore’; so does Bardolph (397), to announce that ‘a dozen captaines
stay at doore’. This is clearly an upper parlour. In _Look About You_,
scc. ix, x (continuous action), Gloucester, disguised as Faukenbridge,
and a Pursuivant have stepped into the Salutation tavern (1470),
and are in ‘the Bel, our roome next the Barre’ (1639), with a stool
(1504) and fire (1520). But at 1525 the action shifts. Skink enters,
apparently in a room called the Crown, and asks whether Faukenbridge
was ‘below’ (1533). Presumably he descends, for (1578) he sends the
sheriff’s party ‘vp them stayres’ to the Crown. This part of the
action is before the inn, rather than in the Bell. _Humorous Day’s
Mirth_, scc. viii, x-xii, in Verone’s ordinary, with tables and a court
cupboard, seems to be a hall scene; at viii. 254 ‘convey them into the
inward parlour by the inward room’ does not entail any action within
the supposed inward room.
[196] _W. for Fair Women_, II. 601. The scene does not itself prove
interior action, but cf. the later reference (800), ‘Was he so suted
when you dranke with him, Here in the buttery’.
[197] In _Jew of Malta_, V. 2316, Barabas has ‘made a dainty Gallery,
The floore whereof, this Cable being cut, Doth fall asunder; so that
it doth sinke Into a deepe pit past recouery’, and at 2345 is s.d. ‘A
charge, the cable cut, A Caldron discouered’.
[198] Cf. pp. 51, 53, 55–6, 58–9, 62.
[199] A. E. Richards, _Studies in English Faust Literature: i. The
English Wagner Book of 1594_ (1907). The book was entered in S. R. on
16 Nov. 1593 (Arber, ii. 640). A later edition of 1680 is reprinted as
_The Second Report of Dr. John Faustus_ by W. J. Thoms, _Early Prose
Romances_ (1828), iii. Richards gives the date of the first edition of
the German book by Fridericus Schotus of Toledo as 1593. An edition
of 1714 is reprinted by J. Scheible, _Das Kloster_, iii. 1. This has
nothing corresponding to the stage-play of the English version.
[200] _1 Contention_, sc. i. 1 (court scene), sc. xx. 1 (garden scene);
_Locrine_, III. vi. 1278 (battle scene); &c., &c.
[201] _Henslowe Papers_, 130, ‘To them Pride, Gluttony Wrath and
Couetousness at one dore, at an other dore Enuie, Sloth and Lechery’
(l. 6) ... ‘Enter Ferrex ... with ... soldiers one way ... to them At
a nother dore, Porrex ... and soldiers’ (26) ... ‘Enter Queene, with 2
Counsailors ... to them Ferrex and Porrex seuerall waies ... Gorboduk
entreing in The midst between’ (30) ... ‘Enter Ferrex and Porrex
seuerally’ (36). I suppose that, strictly, ‘seuerally’ might also mean
successively by the same door, and perhaps does mean this in _Isle of
Gulls_, ind. 1 (Blackfriars), ‘Enter seuerally 3 Gentlemen as to see a
play’.
[202] e. g. _Alphonsus_, II. i. 1 (battle scene); _Selimus_, 2430
(battle scene); _Locrine_, V. v. 2022, 2061 (battle scene); _Old
Fortunatus_, 2675 (threshold scene); &c., &c. Archer, 469, calculates
that of 43 examples (sixteenth and seventeenth century) taken at
random, 11 use ‘one ... the other’, 21 ‘one ... an other’, and 11
‘several’.
[203] _Selimus_, 658, ‘at diuerse doores’; _Fair Em_, sc. ix, ‘at two
sundry doors’; _James IV_, II. ii. 1, ‘one way ... another way’; _Look
About You_, 464, ‘two waies’; _Weakest Goeth to the Wall_, 3, ‘one way
... another way’; _Jew of Malta_, 230, ‘Enter Gouernor ... met by’.
Further variants are the seventeenth-century _Lear_ (Q_{1}), II. i. 1,
‘meeting’, and _Custom of Country_, IV. iv, ‘at both doors’.
[204] _1 Rich. II_, I. i, ‘at seuerall doores’.
[205] _Fair Em_, sc. iv, ‘Enter Manvile ... Enter Valingford at
another door ... Enter Mountney at another door’; _Patient Grissell_,
1105, ‘Enter Vrcenze and Onophrio at seuerall doores, and Farneze
in the mid’st’; _Trial of Chivalry_, sign. I_{3}^{v}, ‘Enter at one
dore ... at the other dore ... Enter in the middest’. Examples from
seventeenth-century public theatres are _Four Prentices of London_,
prol., ‘Enter three in blacke clokes, at three doores’; _Travels of
3 English Brothers_, p. 90, ‘Enter three seuerall waies the three
Brothers’; _Nobody and Somebody_, 1322, ‘Enter at one doore ... at
another doore ... at another doore’; _Silver Age_, V. ii, ‘Exeunt three
wayes’. It may be accident that these are all plays of Queen Anne’s
men, at the Curtain or Red Bull. For the middle entrance in private
theatres, cf. p. 132.
[206] _Downfall of R. Hood_, I. i (ind.), after Eltham has knocked
at Skelton’s study door (cf. p. 69), ‘At euery doore all the players
runne out’; _Englishmen for my Money_, 393, ‘Enter Pisaro, Delion
the Frenchman, Vandalle the Dutchman, Aluaro the Italian, and other
Marchants, at seuerall doores’; cf. the seventeenth-century _1 Honest
Whore_, sc. xiii (Fortune), ‘Enter ... the Duke, Castruchio, Pioratto,
and Sinezi from severall doores muffled’.
[207] _Locrine_, IV. ii. 1460 (not an entry), ‘Locrine at one side of
the stage’; _Sir T. More_, sc. i. 1, ‘Enter at one end John Lincolne
... at the other end enters Fraunces’; _Stukeley_, 245, ‘Enter Stukeley
at the further end of the stage’, 2382, ‘Two trumpets sound at either
end’; _Look About You_, sc. ii. 76, ‘Enter ... on the one side ... on
the other part’. Very elaborate are the s.ds. of _John a Kent_, III. i.
The scene is before a Castle. A speaker says, ‘See, he [John a Cumber]
sets the Castell gate wide ope’. Then follows dialogue, interspersed
with the s.ds. ‘Musique whyle he opens the door’.... ‘From one end of
the Stage enter an antique ... Into the Castell ... Exit’.... ‘From
the other end of the Stage enter another Antique ... Exit into the
Castell’.... ‘From under the Stage the third antique ... Exit into the
Castell’.... ‘The fourth out of a tree, if possible it may be ... Exit
into the Castell’. Then John a Cumber ‘Exit into the Castell, and makes
fast the dore’. John a Kent enters, and ‘He tryes the dore’. John a
Cumber and others enter ‘on the walles’ and later ‘They discend’. For
an earlier example of ‘end’, cf. _Cobler’s Prophecy_ (p. 35, n. 1), and
for a later _The Dumb Knight_ (Whitefriars), i, iv. In _2 Return from
Parnassus_ (Univ. play), IV. i begins ‘Sir _Radericke_ and _Prodigo_,
at one corner of the Stage, Recorder and _Amoretto_ at the other’.
[208] Cf. p. 98.
[209] _Soliman and Perseda_, I. iv. 47, ‘Enter _Basilisco_ riding of a
mule’ ... (71) ‘_Piston_ getteth vp on his Asse, and rideth with him to
the doore’; cf. _1 Rich. II_ (quoted p. 61, n. 3), and for the private
stage, _Liberality and Prodigality_, _passim_, and _Summer’s Last Will
and Testament_, 968. W. J. Lawrence, _Horses upon the Elizabethan
Stage_ (_T. L. S._ 5 June 1919), deprecates a literal acceptance of
Forman’s notice of Macbeth and Banquo ‘riding through a wood’, attempts
to explain away the third example here given, and neglects the rest. I
think some kind of ‘hobby’ more likely than a trained animal. In the
_Mask of Flowers_, Silenus is ‘mounted upon an artificiall asse, which
sometimes being taken with strains of musicke, did bow down his eares
and listen with great attention’; cf. T. S. Graves, _The Ass as Actor_
(1916, _South Atlantic Quarterly_, XV. 175).
[210] _Knack to Know an Honest Man_, sc. ix. 1034 (cf. p. 60, n. 3).
[211] _Leir_, 2625 (open country scene near a beacon), ‘Mumford
followes him to the dore’; cf. p. 60, _supra_.
[212] Cf. ch. xviii, p. 544.
[213] _2 Angry Women_, sc. x. 2250, ‘A plague on this poast, I would
the Carpenter had bin hangd that set it vp for me. Where are yee now?’;
_Englishmen for my Money_, scc. vii-ix (continuous scene), 1406, ‘Take
heede, sir! hers a post’ ... (1654) ‘Watt be dis Post?... This Post;
why tis the May-pole on Iuie-bridge going to Westminster.... Soft,
heere’s an other: Oh now I know in deede where I am; wee are now at the
fardest end of Shoredich, for this is the May-pole’.... (1701) ‘Ic weit
neit waer dat ic be, ic goe and hit my nose op dit post, and ic goe and
hit my nose op danden post’.
[214] _3 Lords and 3 Ladies_, sign. I_{3}^v.
[215] Cf. p. 57, n. 4, and for Kempe, ch. xviii, p. 545.
[216] Cf. p. 57, n. 5; p. 58, n. 1.
[217] Cf. p. 64, n. 3; p. 67, n. 1.
[218] Graves, 88.
[219] Cf. ch. xix, p. 42; _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 86, 142. Heywood,
_Apology_ (_1608_), thinks that the theatre of Julius Caesar at Rome
had ‘the covering of the stage, which we call the heavens (where upon
any occasion their gods descended)’.
[220] _Battle of Alcazar_, 1263 (s.d.), ‘Lightning and thunder ...
Heere the blazing Starre ... Fire workes’; _Looking Glass_, 1556
(s.d.), ‘A hand from out a cloud, threatneth a burning sword’; _2
Contention_, sc. v. 9 (s.d.), ‘Three sunnes appeare in the aire’ (cf.
_3 Hen. VI_, II. i. 25); _Stukeley_, 2272 (s.d.), ‘With a sudden
thunderclap the sky is on fire and the blazing star appears’.
[221] _1 Troublesome Raign_, sc. xiii. 131 (s.d.), ‘There the fiue
Moones appeare’. The Bastard casts up his eyes ‘to heauen’ (130) at the
sight, and the moons are in ‘the skie’ (163), but the episode follows
immediately after the coronation which is certainly in ‘the presence’
(81). Perhaps this is why in _K. J._, IV. ii. 181, the appearance of
the moons is only narrated.
[222] The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 117)
include ‘the clothe of the Sone and Moone’.
[223] _Alphonsus_, prol. (1), ‘After you haue sounded thrise, let
_Venus_ be let downe from the top of the stage’; epil. (1916), ‘Enter
_Venus_ with the Muses’ ... (1937), ‘Exit _Venus_; or if you can
conueniently, let a chaire come down from the top of the Stage and draw
her vp’. In _Old Fortunatus_, 840, Fortunatus, at the Soldan’s court,
gets a magic hat, wishes he were in Cyprus, and ‘Exit’. The bystanders
speak of him as going ‘through the ayre’ and ‘through the clouds’.
Angels descend from heaven to a tower in the _Wagner Book_ play (cf. p.
72).
[224] One of the 1616 additions to the text of _Dr. Faustus_ (sc. xiv)
has the s.d. ‘Musicke while the Throne descends’ before the vision of
heaven, and ‘Hell is discouered’ before that of hell. On the other
hand, in _Death of R. Hood_, ii, ind. (cf. p. 66), the king is in a
chair behind a curtain, and the fact that the queen ‘ascends’ and
‘descends’ may suggest that this chair is the ‘state’. However this
may be, I do not see how any space behind the curtain can have been
high enough to allow any dignity to the elaborate states required by
some court scenes; cf. p. 64, n. 5. The throne imagined in the _Wagner
Book_ (cf. p. 72) had 22 steps. Out-of-door scenes, in which the
‘state’ appears to be used, are _Alphonsus_, II. i. 461 (battle scene),
‘Alphonsus sit in the Chaire’ (s.d.); II. i (a crowning on the field);
_Locrine_, IV. ii. 1490 (camp scene), ‘Let him go into his chaire’
(s.d.); _Old Fortunatus_, sc. i. 72 (dream scene in wood), ‘Fortune
takes her Chaire, the Kings lying at her feete, shee treading on them
as shee goes vp’ ... (148), ‘She comes downe’.
[225] Henslowe, i. 4, ‘Itm pd for carpenters worke & mackinge the
throne in the heuenes the 4 of Iune 1595 ... vij^{li} ij^s’.
[226] _E. M. I._ (F_{1}), prol. 14,
One such to-day, as other plays should be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o’er the seas,
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please.
[227] Cf. p. 89.
[228] Cf. vol. ii, p. 546.
[229] Mettenleiter, _Musikgeschichte von Regensburg_, 256; Herz, 46,
‘ein Theater darinnen er mit allerley musikalischen Instrumenten auf
mehr denn zehnerley Weise gespielt, und über der Theaterbühne noch
eine Bühne 30 Schuh hoch auf 6 grosse Säulen, über welche ein Dach
gemacht worden, darunter ein viereckiger Spund, wodurch die sie schöne
Actiones verrichtet haben’; cf. ch. xiv and C. H. Kaulfuss-Diesch, _Die
Inszenierung des deutschen Dramas an der Wende des sechzehnten und
siebzehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1905).
[230] Prölss, 73; Brodmeier, 5, 43, 57; cf. Reynolds, i. 7, and in _M.
P._ ix. 59; Albright, 151; Lawrence, i. 40.
[231] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Vennor. The only extant Swan play is
Middleton’s _Chaste Maid in Cheapside_ of 1611. Chamber scenes are
III. i, ii, iii; IV. i; V. ii. Some of these would probably have been
treated in a sixteenth-century play as threshold scenes. But III. ii,
a child-bed scene, would have called for curtains. In _Chaste Maid_,
however, the opening s.d. is ‘A bed thrust out upon the stage; Allwit’s
wife in it’. We cannot therefore assume curtains; cf. p. 113. The room
is above (ll. 102, 124) and is set with stools and rushes. In V. iv,
two funeral processions meet in the street, and ‘while all the company
seem to weep and mourn, there is a sad song in the music-room’.
[232] Florio, _Dictionary_, ‘_Scena_ ... forepart of a theatre where
players make them readie, being trimmed with hangings’ (cf. vol. ii, p.
539); Jonson, _Cynthia’s Revels_, ind. 151, ‘I am none of your fresh
Pictures, that use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique
Theater’; Heywood, _Apology_, 18 (Melpomene _loq._), ‘Then did I tread
on arras; cloth of tissue Hung round the fore-front of my stage’;
Flecknoe (cf. App. I), ‘Theaters ... of former times ... were but plain
and simple, with no other scenes, nor decorations of the stage, but
onely old tapestry, and the stage strew’d with rushes’.
[233] _1 Hen. VI_, I. i. 1, ‘Hung be the heavens with black, yield day
to night!’; _Lucr._ 766 (of night), ‘Black stage for tragedies and
murders fell’; _Warning for Fair Women_, ind. 74, ‘The stage is hung
with blacke, and I perceive The auditors prepar’d for tragedie’; II.
6, ‘But now we come unto the dismal act, And in these sable curtains
shut we up The comic entrance to our direful play’; Daniel, _Civil
Wars_ (_Works_, ii. 231), ‘Let her be made the sable stage, whereon
Shall first be acted bloody tragedies’; _2 Antonio and Mellida_
(Paul’s, 1599), prol. 20, ‘Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows’;
_Northward Hoe_, IV. i (of court play), ‘the stage hung all with black
velvet’; Dekker (iii. 296), _Lanthorne and Candlelight_ (1608), ‘But
now, when the stage of the world was hung with blacke, they jetted
vppe and downe like proud tragedians’; _Insatiate Countess_, IV. v. 4
‘The stage of heaven is hung with solemn black, A time best fitting
to act tragedies’; Anon., _Elegy on Burbage_ (Collier, _Actors_,
53), ‘Since thou art gone, dear Dick, a tragic night Will wrap our
black-hung stage’; cf. Malone in _Variorum_, iii. 103; Graves, _Night
Scenes in the Elizabethan Theatres_ (_E. S._ xlvii. 63); Lawrence,
_Night Performances in the Elizabethan Theatres_ (_E. S._ xlviii.
213). In several of the passages quoted above, the black-hung stage is
a metaphor for night, but I agree with Lawrence that black hangings
cannot well have been used in the theatre to indicate night scenes
as well as tragedy. I do not know why he suggests that a ‘prevalent
idea that the stage was hung with blue for comedies’, for which, if it
exists, there is certainly no evidence, is ‘due to a curious surmise
of Malone’s’. Malone (_Var._ iii. 108) only suggests that ‘pieces of
drapery tinged with blue’ may have been ‘suspended across the stage to
represent the heavens’--quite a different thing. But, of course, there
is no evidence for that either. According to Reich, _Der Mimus_, I.
ii. 705, the colour of the _siparium_ in the Indian theatre is varied
according to the character of the play.
[234] Cf. p. 30; vol. i, p. 231. On the removal of bodies W. Archer
(_Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 454) says, ‘In over a hundred plays which
we have minutely examined (including all Shakespeare’s tragedies)
there is only a small minority of cases in which explicit provision
is not made, either by stage-direction or by a line in the text, for
the removal of bodies. The few exceptions to this rule are clearly
mere inadvertences, or else are due to the fact that there is a crowd
of people on the stage in whose exit a body can be dragged or carried
off almost unobserved’. In _Old Fortunatus_, 1206, after his sons have
lamented over their dead father, ‘They both fall asleepe: Fortune and
a companie of Satyres enter with Musicke, and playing about Fortunatus
body, take him away’. Of course, a body left dead in the alcove need
not be removed; the closing curtains cover it.
[235] Cf. p. 26.
[236] Cf. p. 51, n. 3 (_Downfall of R. Hood_, ‘curtaines’ of bower
‘open’); p. 51, n. 4 (_Battle of Alcazar_, cave behind ‘curtaines’);
p. 53, n. 5 (_Edw. I_, tent ‘opens’ and is closed, and Queen is
‘discouered’); p. 55, n. 1 (_Looking-Glass_, ‘curtaines’ of tent
drawn to shut and open); p. 63, n. 1 (_Old Fortunatus_, _M. V._,
‘curtaines’ drawn to reveal caskets); p. 63, n. 4 (_Sir T. More_,
‘arras’ drawn); p. 65, n. 3 (_2 Tamburlaine_, ‘arras’ drawn;
_Selimus_, ‘curtins’ drawn; _Battle of Alcazar_, ‘curtains’ drawn;
_Famous Victories_, ‘curtains’ drawn; _1 Contention_, ‘curtains’
drawn and bodies ‘discouered’; _1 Rich. II_, ‘curtayne’ drawn; _Death
of R. Hood_, ‘vaile’ or ‘curten’ drawn; _R. J._, ‘curtens’ shut);
p. 67, n. 1 (_Friar Bacon_, ‘courtaines’ drawn by actor with stick;
_Lord Cromwell_, ‘curtaines’ drawn); p. 68, n. 1 (_Old Fortunatus_,
‘curtaine’ drawn; _Downfall of R. Hood_, ‘curteines’ drawn and ‘shut’).
[237] _M. W._ III. iii. 97; cf. p. 66, n. 1 (_K. J._), p. 68, n. 3 (_1
Hen. IV_).
[238] So probably in _Dr. Faustus_, 28, where the prol. ends ‘And this
the man that in his study sits’, and the s.d. follows, ‘Enter Faustus
in his study’.
[239] The ‘groom’ of the seventeenth-century _Devil’s Charter_ (cf. p.
110) might be a servitor.
[240] Cf. p. 53, n. 5 (_Edw. I_; _Trial of Chivalry_); p. 65, n. 3 (_1
Contention_); p. 67, n. 1 (_E. M. I._). In _James IV_, V. vi. 2346, ‘He
discouereth her’ only describes the removal of a disguise.
[241] Prölss, 85; Albright, 140; Reynolds, i. 26; cf. p. 65, n. 3
(_Battle of Alcazar_); p. 67, n. 1 (_Dr. Faustus_).
[242] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 470; Reynolds, i. 9;
Graves, 88; cf. Brereton in _Sh. Homage_, 204.
[243] Cf. p. 65, n. 3 (_2 Tamburlaine_).
[244] Cf. p. 64, n. 2 (_Alphonsus_).
[245] Cf. p. 85.
[246] Cf. vol. ii, p. 539.
[247] W. Archer in _Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 470; Graves, 13.
[248] Cf. p. 73. T. Holyoke, _Latin Dict._ (1677), has ‘_Scena_--the
middle door of the stage’.
[249] Lawrence, ii. 50. A window could also be shown in front, if
needed, but I know of no clear example; cf. Wegener, 82, 95.
[250] Cf. p. 51, n. 2 (_R. J._).
[251] Cf. p. 67, n. 1 (_Stukeley_).
[252] _Stratford Town Shakespeare_, x. 360; cf. Wegener, 56, 73;
Neuendorff, 124; Reynolds, i. 25.
[253] Cf. p. 65, n. 3.
[254] Cf. vol. ii, p. 520.
[255] Of the examples cited on p. 80, n. 3, bed-curtains could only
suffice for _Selimus_, _Battle of Alcazar_, _1 Rich. II_, and possibly
_R. J._ and _Bacon and Bungay_; in the others either there is no bed,
or there is a clear indication of a discovered chamber. The curtains in
_Sp. Trag._ need separate consideration; cf. p. 93, n. 1.
[256] The s.ds. of _2 Hen. VI_, in so far as they vary from _1
Contention_, may date from the seventeenth century; cf. ch. xxi, p. 113.
[257] _Henslowe Papers_, 130.
[258] Prölss, 96; Reynolds, i. 24, 31; Albright, 111.
[259] Cf. p. 63, n. 4.
[260] _Dr. Faustus_, 1007 sqq., is apparently a hall scene, but in 1030
(an addition of 1616 text), ‘Enter Benuolio aboue at a window’, whence
he views the scene with a state. On the play scene, with a gallery for
the court, in _Sp. Trag._ IV. ii, cf. p. 93.
[261] _Famous Victories_, sc. viii; _2 Hen. IV_, IV. iv, v; _1
Contention_, scc. x, xi; _2 Hen. VI_, III. ii, iii (cf. p. 65, n. 3);
_Edw. II_, 2448–2565; _1 Tr. Raigne_, xii; _K. J._ IV. i (cf. p. 66, n.
1); _Lord Cromwell_, III. ii (cf. p. 67, n. 1); _Downfall of R. Hood_,
ind. (cf. p. 68, n. 1); _Arden of Feversham_, V. i (cf. p. 68, n. 2);
_1 Hen. IV_, II. iv; _Humorous Day’s Mirth_, viii (cf. p. 68, n. 3).
[262] Cf. p. 64, n. 6. W. Archer (_Quarterly Review_, ccviii. 457)
suggests that convention allowed properties, but not dead or drunken
men, to be moved in the sight of the audience by servitors. But as a
rule the moving could be treated as part of the action, and need not
take place between scenes.
[263] _Rich. II_, I. iii; _2 Edw. IV_, II. iv, ‘This while the hangman
prepares, Shore at this speech mounts vp the ladder ... Shoare comes
downe’. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe Papers_, 116)
include ‘j payer of stayers for Fayeton’.
[264] The dissertations of Reynolds (cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii) are
largely devoted to the exposition of this theory.
[265] Cf. p. 52, n. 2. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe
Papers_, 116) include ‘j baye tree’, ‘j tree of gowlden apelles’,
‘Tantelouse tre’, as well as ‘ij mose banckes’.
[266] Cf. p. 51, n. 3.
[267] _Looking Glass_, II. i. 495, ‘The Magi with their rods beate the
ground, and from vnder the same riseth a braue Arbour’; _Bacon and
Bungay_, sc. ix. 1171, ‘Heere Bungay coniures and the tree appeares
with the dragon shooting fire’; _W. for Fair Women_, ii. 411, ‘Suddenly
riseth vp a great tree betweene them’. On the other hand, in _Old
Fortunatus_, 609 (ind.), the presenters bring trees on and ‘set the
trees into the earth’. The t.p. of the 1615 _Spanish Tragedy_ shows the
arbour of the play as a small trellissed pergola with an arched top,
not too large, I should say, to come up and down through a commodious
trap.
[268] _1 Contention_, sc. ii (cf. p. 56, n. 3); _John a Kent_, III. i
(cf. p. 74, n. 3); &c.
[269] _Looking Glass_, IV. ii, s.d. ‘Jonas the Prophet cast out of the
Whales belly vpon the Stage’.
[270] _Dr. Faustus_, 1450, s.d. (addition of 1616 text), ‘Hell is
discouered’; cf. p. 72 for the description of the imaginary stage
in the _Wagner Book_. The Admiral’s inventories of 1598 (_Henslowe
Papers_, 116) include ‘j Hell mought’.
[271] _Arden of Feversham_, IV. ii, iii.
[272] Cf. p. 51.
[273] Cf. p. 43.
[274] Cf. p. 76.
[275] Of the late woodcuts, _Roxana_ shows ‘above’ two compartments,
clearly with spectators; _Messalina_ one, closed by curtains; _The
Wits_ a central one closed by curtains, and three on each side, with
female spectators. In view of their dates and doubtful provenances
(cf. _Bibl. Note_ to ch. xviii), these are no evidence for the
sixteenth-century public theatre, but they show that at some plays,
public or private, the audience continued to sit ‘over the stage’ well
in to the seventeenth century.
[276] Cf. vol. ii, p. 542.
[277] Cf. p. 45.
[278] _Henslowe Papers_, 139.
[279] _James IV_, 106, 605, 618, 1115.
[280] _Looking Glass_, 152, 1756.
[281] _T. of a Shrew_, scc. ii, xvi. In _T. of the Shrew_, sc. ii of
the Induction is ‘aloft’ (1), and the presenters ‘sit’ to watch the
play (147), but they only comment once (I. i. 254) with the s.d. ‘The
Presenters aboue speakes’, and Sly is not carried down at the end.
[282] Cf. p. 57, n. 4. The main induction ends (38) with, ‘Why stay we
then? Lets giue the Actors leaue, And, as occasion serues, make our
returne’.
[283] Revenge says (I. i. 90), ‘Here sit we downe to see the misterie,
And serue for Chorus in this Tragedie’, and the Ghost (III. xv. 38),
‘I will sit to see the rest’. In IV. i Hieronimo discusses with his
friends a tragedy which he has promised to give before the Court, and
alludes (184) to ‘a wondrous shew besides. That I will haue there
behinde a curtaine’. The actual performance occupies part of IV. iii,
iv (a continuous scene). In IV. iii. 1, ‘Enter Hieronimo; he knocks up
the curtaine’. We must not be misled by the modern French practice of
knocking for the rise of the front curtain. The tragedy has not yet
begun, and this is no front curtain, but the curtain already referred
to in IV. i, which Hieronimo is now hammering up to conceal the dead
body of Horatio, as part of the setting which he is arranging at one
end of the main stage. The Duke of Castile now enters, and it is clear
that the Court audience are to sit ‘above’, for Hieronimo begs the
Duke (12) that ‘when the traine are past into the gallerie, You would
vouchsafe to throw me downe the key’. He then bids (16) a Servant
‘Bring a chaire and a cushion for the King’ and ‘hang up the Title: Our
scene is Rhodes’. We are still concerned with Court customs, and no
light is thrown on the possible use of title-boards on the public stage
(cf. p. 126). The royal train take their places, and the performance
is given. Hieronimo epilogizes and suddenly (IV. iv. 88) ‘Shewes his
dead sonne’. Now it is clear why he wanted the key of the gallery, for
(152) ‘He runs to hange himselfe’, and (157) ‘They breake in, and hold
Hieronimo’.
[284] Cf. p. 87, n. 3.
[285] _Locrine_, I. iii; _Sp. Trag._ II. ii, III. ii, ix; _T. A._
V. ii; _T. G._ IV. ii, iv; _R. J._ II. ii, III. v; _M. V._ II. vi;
_Englishmen for my Money_, sc. ix; _Two Angry Women_, 1495; cf. p. 56,
n. 3, p. 58, n. 4, p. 67, n. 1.
[286] Cf. p. 66, n. 1, p. 67, n. 1, p. 68, n. 2, p. 68, n. 3.