[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, 1a, Fortunij, 2a, Cornelij, 3a Octauiani, 4a. 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.