[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),
[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 ye sanctuary, her 5 daughters and maydes about her, sittinge on packs, fardells, chests, cofers. The queene sitting on ye 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 (Q2) 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). Q1 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 (Q1, and Q2) 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’; E2, ‘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:
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 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. xiia (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 (Q1, but Q2 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),
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):
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’.