end of which order is given to 'take all these things away'.[1] In other episodes the Court is 'yonder' (732, 938); it is only necessary to suppose that they were played well away from the domus. One is in a 'feeld so green' (843-937), and a stage-direction tells us 'Heere trace up and downe playing'. In another (754-842) clowns are on their way to market.[2] The only other noteworthy point is that, not for the first nor for the last time, a post upon the stage is utilized in the action.[3] Patient Grissell, on the other hand, requires two localities. The more important is Salucia (Saluzzo), where are Gautier's mansion, Janickell's cottage, and the house of Mother Apleyarde, a midwife (1306). The other is Bullin Lagras (Bologna), where there are two short episodes (1235-92, 1877-1900) at the house of the Countess of Pango. There can be little doubt that all the domus were staged at once. There is direct transfer of action from Gautier's to the cottage and back again (612-34; cf. 1719, 2042, 2090). Yet there is some little distance between, for when a messenger is sent, the foreshortening of space is indicated by the stage-direction (1835), 'Go once or twise about the Staige'.[4] Similarly, unless an 'Exiunt' has dropped out, there is direct transfer (1900) from Bullin Lagras to Salucia. In Orestes the problem of discrete localities is quite differently handled. The play falls into five quasi-acts of unequal length, which are situated successively at Mycenae, Crete, Mycenae, Athens, Mycenae. For all, as in Gorboduc, the same sketchy palace background might serve, with one interesting and prophetic exception. The middle episodes (538-925), at Mycenae, afford the first example of those siege scenes which the Shakespearian stage came to love. A messenger brings warning to Aegisthus and Clytemnestra of the purpose of Orestes 'to inuade this Mycoene Citie stronge'. Aegisthus goes into the 'realme', to take up men, and Clytemnestra will defend the city. There is a quarrel between a soldier and a woman and the Vice sings a martial song. Then 'Horestes entrith with his bande and marcheth about the stage'. He instructs a Herald, who advances with his trum-*
- ↑ A similar instruction clears the stage at the end (1197) of a corpse, as in many later plays; cf. p. 80.
- ↑ The s.d. 'one of their wives come out' (813) does not necessarily imply a clown's domus. Cambyses fluctuates between the actor's notion that personages come 'out' from the tiring-house, and the earlier notion of play-makers and audience that they go 'out' from the stage. Thus 'Enter Venus leading out her son' (843), but 'goe out Venus and Cupid' at the end of the same episode (880).
- ↑ 'Come, let us run his arse against the poste' (186); cf. pp. 27, 75.
- ↑ For later examples cf. p. 99.
