The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3

by E. K. Chambers

[192] Bacon and Bungay, I. ii. 172, ‘Enter frier Bacon’, with others, says ‘Why flocke you thus to Bacon’s secret cell?’, and conjures; II. ii is in a street, but Bacon says (603) ‘weele to my studie straight’, and II. iii begins (616), ‘Bacon and Edward goes into the study’, where Edward *sits and looks in ‘this glasse prospectiue’ (620), but his vision is represented on some part of the stage; in IV. i. 1530, ‘Enter Frier Bacon drawing the courtaines, with a white sticke, a booke in his hand, and a lampe lighted by him, and the brazen head and Miles, with weapons by him’. Miles is bid watch the head, and ‘Draw closse the courtaines’ and ‘Here he [Bacon] falleth asleepe’ (1568). Miles ‘will set me downe by a post’ (1577). Presently (1604), ‘Heere the Head speakes and a lightning flasheth forth, and a hand appeares that breaketh down the Head with a hammer’. Miles calls to Bacon (1607) ‘Out of your bed’; IV. iii. 1744 begins ‘Enter frier Bacon with frier Bungay to his cell’. A woodcut in Q₂ of 1630, after the revival by the Palsgrave’s men, seems to illustrate II. iii; the back wall has a window to the left and the head on a bracket in the centre; before it is the glass on a table, with Edward gazing in it; Bacon sits to the right. Miles stands to the left; no side-walls are visible. In Locrine, I. iii. 309, ‘Enter Strumbo aboue in a gowne, with inke and paper in his hand’; Dr. Faustus, ind. 28, ‘And this the man that in his study sits’, followed by s.d. ‘Enter Faustus in his Study’, 433, ‘Enter Faustus in his Study ... (514) Enter [Mephastophilis] with diuels, giuing crownes and rich apparell to Faustus, and daunce, and then depart’, with probably other scenes. In T. A. V. ii. 1, ‘Enter Tamora, and her two sonnes disguised’ ... (9) ‘They knocke and Titus opens his studie doore’. Tamora twice (33, 43) bids him ‘come downe’, and (80) says, ‘See heere he comes’. The killing of Tamora’s sons follows, after which Titus bids (205) ‘bring them in’. In Sir T. More, sc. viii. 735, ‘A table beeing couered with a greene Carpet, a state Cushion on it, and the Pursse and Mace lying thereon Enter Sir Thomas Moore’.... (765) ‘Enter Surrey, Erasmus and attendants’. Erasmus says (779), ‘Is yond Sir Thomas?’ and Surrey (784), ‘That Studie is the generall watche of England’. The original text is imperfect, but in the revision Erasmus is bid ‘sitt’, and later More bids him ‘in’ (ed. Greg, pp. 84, 86). Lord Cromwell has three studies; in II. i, ii (continuous action at Antwerp), ‘Cromwell in his study with bagges of money before him casting of account’, while Bagot enters in front, soliloquizes, and then (II. ii. 23) with ‘See where he is’ addresses Cromwell; in III. ii (Bologna), the action begins as a hall scene, for (15) ‘They haue begirt you round about the house’ and (47) ‘Cromwell shuts the dore’ (s.d.), but there is an inner room, for (115) ‘Hodge [disguised as the Earl of Bedford] sits in the study, and Cromwell calls in the States’, and (126) ‘Goe draw the curtaines, let vs see the Earle’; in IV. v (London), ‘Enter Gardiner in his studie, and his man’. E. M. I. I. iii, is before Cob’s house, and Tib is bid show Matheo ‘vp to Signior Bobadilla’ (Q₁ 392). In I. iv ‘Bobadilla discouers himselfe on a bench; to him, Tib’. She announces ‘a gentleman below’; Matheo is bid ‘come vp’, enters from ‘within’, and admires the ‘lodging’. In 1 Oldcastle, V. i. 2086, ‘Enter Cambridge, Scroope, and Gray, as in a chamber, and set downe at a table, consulting about their treason: King Harry and Suffolke listning at the doore’ ... (2114) ‘They rise from the table, and the King steps in to them, with his Lordes’. Stukeley, i. 121, begins with Old Stukeley leaving his host’s door to visit his son. He says (149), ‘I’ll to the Temple to see my son’, and presumably crosses the stage during his speech of 171–86, which ends ‘But soft this is his chamber as I take it’. Then ‘He knocks’, and after parley with a page, says, ‘Give me the key of his study’ and ‘methinks the door stands open’, enters, criticizes the contents of the study, emerges, and (237) *‘Old Stukeley goes again to the study’. Then (244) ‘Enter Stukeley at the further end of the stage’ and joins his father. Finally the boy is bid (335) ‘lock the door’. In Downfall of R. Hood, ind., ‘Enter Sir John Eltham and knocke at Skeltons doore’. He says, ‘Howe, maister Skelton, what at studie hard?’ and (s.d.) ‘Opens the doore’. In 2 Edw. IV, IV. ii, ‘Enter D. Shaw, pensiuely reading on his booke’. He is visited by a Ghost, who gives him a task, and adds, ‘That done, return; and in thy study end Thy loathed life’.

[193] Old Fortunatus, 1315–1860, is before or in the hall of a court; at 1701, ‘A curtaine being drawne, where Andelocia lies sleeping in Agripines lap’. In Downfall of R. Hood, ind., is a s.d. of a court scene, presumably in a hall, and ‘presently Ely ascends the chaire ... Enter Robert Earl of Huntingdon, leading Marian: ... they infolde each other, and sit downe within the curteines ... drawing the curteins, all (but the Prior) enter, and are kindely receiued by Robin Hood. The curteins are again shut’.

[194] Jew of Malta, i. 36, ‘Enter Barabas in his Counting-house, with heapes of gold before him’. Later his house is taken for a nunnery; he has hid treasure (536) ‘underneath the plancke That runs along the vpper chamber floore’, and Abigail becomes a nun, and (658) throws the treasure from ‘aboue’. He gets another house, and Pilia-Borza describes (iii. 1167) how ‘I chanc’d to cast mine eye vp to the Iewes counting-house’, saw money-bags, and climbed up and stole by night. Arden of Feversham, I., III. v, IV. i, V. i are at Arden’s house at Feversham. From I. I should assume a porch before the house, where Arden and his wife breakfast and (369) ‘Then she throwes down the broth on the grounde’; cf. 55, ‘Call her foorth’, and 637, ‘Lets in’. It can hardly be a hall scene, as part of the continuous action is ‘neare’ the house (318) and at 245 we get ‘This is the painters [Clarke’s] house’, who is called out. There is no difficulty in III. v or IV. i; cf. III. v. 164, ‘let vs in’. But V. i, taken by itself, reads like a hall scene with a counting-house behind. Black Will and Shakebag are hidden in a ‘counting-house’, which has a ‘door’ and a ‘key’ (113, 145, 153). A chair and stool are to be ready for Mosbie and Arden (130). Alice bids Michael (169) ‘Fetch in the tables, And when thou hast done, stand before the counting-house doore’, and (179) ‘When my husband is come in, lock the streete doore’. When Arden comes with Mosbie, they are (229) ‘in my house’. They play at tables and the murderers creep out and kill Arden, and (261), ‘Then they lay the body in the Counting-house’. Susan says (267), ‘The blood cleaueth to the ground’, and Mosbie bids (275) ‘strew rushes on it’. Presently, when guests have come and gone, (342) ‘Then they open the counting-house doore and looke vppon Arden’, and (363) ‘Then they beare the body into the fields’. Francklin enters, having found the body, with rushes in its shoe, ‘Which argueth he was murthred in this roome’, and looking about ‘this chamber’, they find blood ‘in the place where he was wont to sit’ (411–15).

[195] In 1 Hen. IV, II. iv, Henry calls Poins (1) ‘out of that fat roome’ and bids him (32) ‘Stand in some by-roome’ while the Prince talks to the Drawer. The Vintner (91) bids the Drawer look to guests ‘within’, and says Falstaff is ‘at the doore’. He enters and later goes out to dismiss a court messenger who is (317) ‘at doore’ and returns. He has a chair and cushion (416). When the Sheriff comes, Henry bids Falstaff (549) ‘hide thee behind the Arras, the rest walke vp aboue’. Later (578) Falstaff is found ‘a sleepe behind the Arras’. This looks like a hall scene, and with it III. iii, where Mrs. Quickly is miscalled (72) ‘in mine owne house’ and Falstaff says (112) ‘I fell a sleepe here, behind the Arras’, is consistent. But in 2 Hen. IV, II. iv, Falstaff and Doll come out of their supper room. The Drawer announces (75) ‘Antient Pistol’s belowe’, and is bid (109) ‘call him vp’ and (202) ‘thrust him downe staires’. Later (381) ‘Peyto knockes at doore’; so does Bardolph (397), to announce that ‘a dozen captaines stay at doore’. This is clearly an upper parlour. In Look About You, scc. ix, x (continuous action), Gloucester, disguised as Faukenbridge, and a Pursuivant have stepped into the Salutation tavern (1470), and are in ‘the Bel, our roome next the Barre’ (1639), with a stool (1504) and fire (1520). But at 1525 the action shifts. Skink enters, apparently in a room called the Crown, and asks whether Faukenbridge was ‘below’ (1533). Presumably he descends, for (1578) he sends the sheriff’s party ‘vp them stayres’ to the Crown. This part of the action is before the inn, rather than in the Bell. Humorous Day’s Mirth, scc. viii, x-xii, in Verone’s ordinary, with tables and a court cupboard, seems to be a hall scene; at viii. 254 ‘convey them into the inward parlour by the inward room’ does not entail any action within the supposed inward room.

[196] W. for Fair Women, II. 601. The scene does not itself prove interior action, but cf. the later reference (800), ‘Was he so suted when you dranke with him, Here in the buttery’.

[197] In Jew of Malta, V. 2316, Barabas has ‘made a dainty Gallery, The floore whereof, this Cable being cut, Doth fall asunder; so that it doth sinke Into a deepe pit past recouery’, and at 2345 is s.d. ‘A charge, the cable cut, A Caldron discouered’.

[198] Cf. pp. 51, 53, 55–6, 58–9, 62.

[199] A. E. Richards, Studies in English Faust Literature: i. The English Wagner Book of 1594 (1907). The book was entered in S. R. on 16 Nov. 1593 (Arber, ii. 640). A later edition of 1680 is reprinted as The Second Report of Dr. John Faustus by W. J. Thoms, Early Prose Romances (1828), iii. Richards gives the date of the first edition of the German book by Fridericus Schotus of Toledo as 1593. An edition of 1714 is reprinted by J. Scheible, Das Kloster, iii. 1. This has nothing corresponding to the stage-play of the English version.

[200] 1 Contention, sc. i. 1 (court scene), sc. xx. 1 (garden scene); Locrine, III. vi. 1278 (battle scene); &c., &c.

[201] Henslowe Papers, 130, ‘To them Pride, Gluttony Wrath and Couetousness at one dore, at an other dore Enuie, Sloth and Lechery’ (l. 6) ... ‘Enter Ferrex ... with ... soldiers one way ... to them At a nother dore, Porrex ... and soldiers’ (26) ... ‘Enter Queene, with 2 Counsailors ... to them Ferrex and Porrex seuerall waies ... Gorboduk entreing in The midst between’ (30) ... ‘Enter Ferrex and Porrex seuerally’ (36). I suppose that, strictly, ‘seuerally’ might also mean successively by the same door, and perhaps does mean this in Isle of Gulls, ind. 1 (Blackfriars), ‘Enter seuerally 3 Gentlemen as to see a play’.