[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.