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.