Penelope and Ulysses
For example, a pretty novice, sitting at a spinning-wheel, weaving imaginary threads from a spindle of flax, will do very well as Penelope, spinning her endless garment during the absence of Ulysses. In a simple white or colored gown, with her hair falling over her shoulders, and her head bent slightly over the wheel, she makes a pleasing picture.
Cinderella, seated on the floor, gazing into the cinders, with her hands clasped round her knees, is another quite easily adopted attitude.
Another pretty scene, acted over the spinning-wheel, is the Lady of Shalott, weaving “a magic web with colors gay,” and peering from time to time at the mirror above her, which reflects “the highway near, winding down to Camelot.”
In this tableau the facial expression is wholly different from that which dominates Penelope’s features. Penelope’s labor is inspired by stratagem, to keep her unwelcome suitors at bay. Her soul is steeped in a patience so melancholy that it verges on despair, whereas the Lady of Shalott “weaves by night and day,” because she believes she is chained to her task by an awful power. If she pauses a moment, a curse will fall upon her. Her eyes, therefore, are wild with fear, her face contorted, her fingers pluck the threads feverishly, and there is none of Penelope’s listlessness in her wild agonized concentration.
History and fiction teem with incidents that can be easily translated into groups, wherein an absolutely motionless attitude is not required.
The three witches in “Macbeth,” in their cone-shaped hats, tattered rags, and disheveled hair, their wild, evil prophecy, seared in the deep lines of their withered faces, haunched on the ground conspiring together.
Guinevere, prone on the convent floor of “the holy house at Almesbury”; King Arthur, fully armed, and stained with battle, bending over her in agonized tenderness, pity, and shame; and many other examples, which will easily be found by the stage manager, ambitious to exhibit pictures more unique than those usually adopted.