Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 3).pdf/214

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

and some lines before it is actually required for use.[1] The book-keeper must be responsible, too, for the directions into which, as not infrequently happens, the name of an actor has been inserted in place of that of the personage whom that actor represented.[2] On the other hand, we may perhaps safely assign to the author directions addressed to some one else in the second person, those which leave something to be interpreted according to discretion, and those which contain any matter not really necessary for stage guidance.[3] Such superfluous matter is only rarely found in texts of pure play-house origin, although even here an author may occasionally insert a word or two of explanation or descriptive colouring, possibly taken from the source upon which he has been working.[4] In the main, however, descriptive stage-directions are characteristic of texts which, whether ultimately based upon play-house copies or not, have undergone a process of editing by the author or his representative, with an eyesings first, and Wit after, dialoguewise, both to musicke if ye will'; Locrine, I. i. 1, 'Let there come foorth a Lion running after a Beare or any other beast'; Death of R. Hood, III. ii, 'Enter or aboue [Hubert, Chester]'; 2 Hen. VI, IV. ii. 33, 'Enter Cade [etc.] with infinite numbers'; IV. ix. 9, 'Enter Multitudes with Halters about their Neckes'; T. A. I. i. 70, 'as many as can be'; Edw. I, 50, 'Enter . . . and others as many as may be'; Sir T. More, sc. ix. 954, 'Enter . . . so many Aldermen as may'; What You Will, v. 193, 'Enter as many Pages with torches as you can'.]

  1. T. N. K. I. iii. 69, '2 Hearses ready with Palamon: and Arcite: the 3 Queenes. Theseus: and his Lordes ready', i.e. ready for I. iv, which begins 42 lines later; and again I. iv. 29, '3 Hearses ready', for I. v, beginning 24 lines later. So too Bussy D'Ambois (1641, not 1607 ed.), I. i. 153, 'Table, Chesbord and Tapers behind the Arras', ready for I. ii.
  2. A Shrew, ind. i, 'San.' for speaker; The Shrew (F_{1}), ind. i. 88, 'Sincklo' for speaker; 3 Hen. VI (F_{1}), I. ii. 48, 'Enter Gabriel'; III. i. 1, 'Enter Sinklo, and Humfrey'; R. J. (Q_{2}), IV. v. 102, 'Enter Will Kemp'; M. N. D. (F_{1}), V. i. 128, 'Tawyer with a Trumpet before them'; 1 Hen. IV (Q_{1}), I. ii. 182 (text, not s.d.), 'Falstaffe, Haruey, Rossill, and Gadshil, shall rob those men that we haue already way-laid' (cf. II. ii); 2 Hen. IV (Q_{1}), V. iv. 1, 'Enter Sincklo and three or foure officers'; M. Ado (F_{1}), II. iii. 38, 'Enter Prince, Leonato, Claudio and Iacke Wilson'; M. Ado (Q and F), IV. ii, 'Cowley' and 'Kemp' for speakers; T. N. K. v. 3, 'T. Tucke: Curtis', IV. ii. 75, 'Enter Messenger, Curtis'; 1 Antonio and Mellida, IV. i. 30, 'Enter Andrugio, Lucio, Cole, and Norwood'; for other examples, cf. pp. 227, 271, 285, 295, 330, and vol. iv, p. 43. The indications of speakers by the letters E. and G. in All's Well, II. i; III. i, ii, vi, may have a similar origin. The names of actors are entered in the 'plots' after those of the characters represented (cf. Henslowe Papers, 127).
  3. Alphonsus, prol. 1, 'after you haue sounded thrise'; 1938, 'Exit Venus. Or, if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from the top of the stage'; James IV, 1463, 'Enter certaine Huntsmen, if you please, singing'; 1931, 'Enter, from the widdowes house, a seruice, musical songs of marriages, or a maske, or what prettie triumph you list'; Three Lords and Three Ladies of London, sig. C, 'Here Simp[licitie
  4. Mönkemeyer, 63, 91.