[229] Mettenleiter, Musikgeschichte von Regensburg, 256; Herz, 46, ‘ein Theater darinnen er mit allerley musikalischen Instrumenten auf mehr denn zehnerley Weise gespielt, und über der Theaterbühne noch eine Bühne 30 Schuh hoch auf 6 grosse Säulen, über welche ein Dach gemacht worden, darunter ein viereckiger Spund, wodurch die sie schöne Actiones verrichtet haben’; cf. ch. xiv and C. H. Kaulfuss-Diesch, Die Inszenierung des deutschen Dramas an der Wende des sechzehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhunderts (1905).
[230] Prölss, 73; Brodmeier, 5, 43, 57; cf. Reynolds, i. 7, and in M. P. ix. 59; Albright, 151; Lawrence, i. 40.
[231] Cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Vennor. The only extant Swan play is Middleton’s Chaste Maid in Cheapside of 1611. Chamber scenes are III. i, ii, iii; IV. i; V. ii. Some of these would probably have been treated in a sixteenth-century play as threshold scenes. But III. ii, a child-bed scene, would have called for curtains. In Chaste Maid, however, the opening s.d. is ‘A bed thrust out upon the stage; Allwit’s wife in it’. We cannot therefore assume curtains; cf. p. 113. The room is above (ll. 102, 124) and is set with stools and rushes. In V. iv, two funeral processions meet in the street, and ‘while all the company seem to weep and mourn, there is a sad song in the music-room’.
[232] Florio, Dictionary, ‘Scena ... forepart of a theatre where players make them readie, being trimmed with hangings’ (cf. vol. ii, p. 539); Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, ind. 151, ‘I am none of your fresh Pictures, that use to beautifie the decay’d dead Arras, in a publique Theater’; Heywood, Apology, 18 (Melpomene loq.), ‘Then did I tread on arras; cloth of tissue Hung round the fore-front of my stage’; Flecknoe (cf. App. I), ‘Theaters ... of former times ... were but plain and simple, with no other scenes, nor decorations of the stage, but onely old tapestry, and the stage strew’d with rushes’.
[233] 1 Hen. VI, I. i. 1, ‘Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!’; Lucr. 766 (of night), ‘Black stage for tragedies and murders fell’; Warning for Fair Women, ind. 74, ‘The stage is hung with blacke, and I perceive The auditors prepar’d for tragedie’; II. 6, ‘But now we come unto the dismal act, And in these sable curtains shut we up The comic entrance to our direful play’; Daniel, Civil Wars (Works, ii. 231), ‘Let her be made the sable stage, whereon Shall first be acted bloody tragedies’; 2 Antonio and Mellida (Paul’s, 1599), prol. 20, ‘Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows’; Northward Hoe, IV. i (of court play), ‘the stage hung all with black velvet’; Dekker (iii. 296), Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608), ‘But now, when the stage of the world was hung with blacke, they jetted vppe and downe like proud tragedians’; Insatiate Countess, IV. v. 4 ‘The stage of heaven is hung with solemn black, A time best fitting to act tragedies’; Anon., Elegy on Burbage (Collier, Actors, 53), ‘Since thou art gone, dear Dick, a tragic night Will wrap our black-hung stage’; cf. Malone in Variorum, iii. 103; Graves, Night Scenes in the Elizabethan Theatres (E. S. xlvii. 63); Lawrence, Night Performances in the Elizabethan Theatres (E. S. xlviii. 213). In several of the passages quoted above, the black-hung stage is a metaphor for night, but I agree with Lawrence that black hangings cannot well have been used in the theatre to indicate night scenes as well as tragedy. I do not know why he suggests that a ‘prevalent idea that the stage was hung with blue for comedies’, for which, if it exists, there is certainly no evidence, is ‘due to a curious surmise of Malone’s’. Malone (Var. iii. 108) only suggests that ‘pieces of drapery tinged with blue’ may have been ‘suspended across the stage to represent the heavens’—quite a different thing. But, of course, there is no evidence for that either. According to Reich, Der Mimus, I. ii. 705, the colour of the siparium in the Indian theatre is varied according to the character of the play.
[234] Cf. p. 30; vol. i, p. 231. On the removal of bodies W. Archer (Quarterly Review, ccviii. 454) says, ‘In over a hundred plays which we have minutely examined (including all Shakespeare’s tragedies) there is only a small minority of cases in which explicit provision is not made, either by stage-direction or by a line in the text, for the removal of bodies. The few exceptions to this rule are clearly mere inadvertences, or else are due to the fact that there is a crowd of people on the stage in whose exit a body can be dragged or carried off almost unobserved’. In Old Fortunatus, 1206, after his sons have lamented over their dead father, ‘They both fall asleepe: Fortune and a companie of Satyres enter with Musicke, and playing about Fortunatus body, take him away’. Of course, a body left dead in the alcove need not be removed; the closing curtains cover it.
[235] Cf. p. 26.
[236] Cf. p. 51, n. 3 (Downfall of R. Hood, ‘curtaines’ of bower ‘open’); p. 51, n. 4 (Battle of Alcazar, cave behind ‘curtaines’); p. 53, n. 5 (Edw. I, tent ‘opens’ and is closed, and Queen is ‘discouered’); p. 55, n. 1 (Looking-Glass, ‘curtaines’ of tent drawn to shut and open); p. 63, n. 1 (Old Fortunatus, M. V., ‘curtaines’ drawn to reveal caskets); p. 63, n. 4 (Sir T. More, ‘arras’ drawn); p. 65, n. 3 (2 Tamburlaine, ‘arras’ drawn; Selimus, ‘curtins’ drawn; Battle of Alcazar, ‘curtains’ drawn; Famous Victories, ‘curtains’ drawn; 1 Contention, ‘curtains’ drawn and bodies ‘discouered’; 1 Rich. II, ‘curtayne’ drawn; Death of R. Hood, ‘vaile’ or ‘curten’ drawn; R. J., ‘curtens’ shut); p. 67, n. 1 (Friar Bacon, ‘courtaines’ drawn by actor with stick; Lord Cromwell, ‘curtaines’ drawn); p. 68, n. 1 (Old Fortunatus, ‘curtaine’ drawn; Downfall of R. Hood, ‘curteines’ drawn and ‘shut’).
[237] M. W. III. iii. 97; cf. p. 66, n. 1 (K. J.), p. 68, n. 3 (1 Hen. IV).
[238] So probably in Dr. Faustus, 28, where the prol. ends ‘And this the man that in his study sits’, and the s.d. follows, ‘Enter Faustus in his study’.