Aeneas (134, 139, 173). The other side of the stage represents Carthage. Possibly a wall with a gate in it was built across the stage, dividing off the two regions. In the opening line of Act II, Aeneas says,
Where am I now? these should be Carthage walles,
and we must think of him as advancing through the wood to the gate.[1] He is amazed at a carved or printed representation of Troy, which Virgil placed in a temple of Juno, but which Marlowe probably thought of as at the gate. He meets other Trojans who have already reached the city, and they call his attention to Dido's servitors, who 'passe through the hall' bearing a banquet. Evidently he is now within the city and has approached a domus representing the palace. The so-called 'hall' is probably an open loggia. Here Dido entertains him, and in a later scene (773) points out to him the pictures of her suitors. There is perhaps an altar in front of the palace, where Iarbas does his sacrifice (1095), and somewhere close by a pyre is made for Dido (1692). Either within or without the walls may be the grove in which Ascanius is hidden while Cupid takes his place.[2] If, as is more probable, it is without, action passes through the gate when Venus beguiles him away. It certainly does at the beginning (912, 960) and end (1085) of the hunt, and again when Aeneas first attempts flight and Anna brings him back from the sea-shore (1151, 1207).
The plays of the Lylyan school, if one may so call it, seem to me to illustrate very precisely, on the side of staging, that blend of the classical and the romantic tempers which is characteristic of the later Renaissance. The mediaeval instinct for a story, which the Elizabethans fully shared, is with difficulty accommodated to the form of an action coherent in place and time, which the Italians had established on the basis of Latin comedy. The Shakespearian romantic drama is on the point of being born. Lyly and his fellow University wits deal with the problem to the best of their ability. They widen the conception of locality, to a city and its environs instead of a street; and even then the narrative
- ↑ So too (897),
This day they both a hunting forth will ride
Into these woods, adioyning to these walles. - ↑ At the end of the banquet scene (598), Exeunt omnes towards the interior of the palace, when Enter Venus at another doore, and takes Ascanius by the sleeue. She carries him to the grove, and here he presumably remains until the next Act (III), when Enter Iuno to Ascanius asleepe (811). He is then removed again, perhaps to make room for the hunting party. I suppose the another doore of 598 to mean a stage-door.
