It was necessary for the play to make the hall of Ulysses’ house different from its description in the Odyssey; and considering the disagreement of critics as to Homer’s meaning, this was a matter of less regret. The hall required for the last three acts has the following necessary parts. Of the three walls the back wall has, running along it at a convenient height, a practicable gallery, which communicates at either end with the upper rooms. This gallery joins in the left corner a short staircase against the left wall, leading down to the hall, not so far as to the floor, but ending on a daïs-like platform, which is raised two or three feet above the rest of the floor. This is the elevation on which Penelope sits to receive the gifts, and on to which Ulysses leaps when he makes himself known. It has steps also down from it to the floor of the hall. The gallery spoken of is supported by pillars, behind which a bench for the suitors runs along the wall; and this arrangement may follow round what is seen of the right wall of the room. But the centre of the back wall is broken by the doorway which leads into the outer court: its threshold is three steps above the floor of the hall; it has double folding-doors, through which, if they are open, the outer court may be seen; and this outer court is on a higher level than the inner hall. The postern gate is in the right back corner. The fireplace is at the right front.
With this skeleton given, the text is clearly descriptive of all the disposition; but there is one stage direction it may be well to add: that is, that the chair, in which Penelope sits on the daïs to watch the contest with the bow, is thrown down on the floor of the hall in the fighting when Eurymachus is killed; and is set up for her there in the centre of the stage by one of the maids for the last scenes.
1884.
P.S. The translation of the Odyssey referred to above is the joint work of Mr. S. H. Butcher, Fellow and Praelector of University College, Oxford, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and of Mr. A. Lang, late Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. Published by Macmillan and Co.
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