or in a Roman play a market-place, may hold a tomb.[1] Finally one or more shops may be visible, and action may take place within them as well as before them.[2] Such a shop would, of course, be nothing more than a shallow stall, with an open front for the display of wares, which may be closed by a shutter or flap from above.[3] It may also, like the inn in Henry VI, have a sign.[4]
Where there is a window, there can of course be a door, and street scenes very readily become threshold scenes. I do not think that it has been fully realized how large a proportion
- [Footnote: (where Vandalle, come to woo Pisaro's daughter in the dark, is drawn
up in a basket and left dangling in mid-air, while later (1999) Pisaro is heard 'at the window' and 'Enter Pisaro aboue'); Two A. Women, 1495, 'Enter Mall in the window'; Sp. Trag. II. ii, where spies 'in secret' and 'aboue' overhear the loves of Horatio and Belimperia below. Lovers are not concerned in Sp. Trag. III. ii, 'Enter Hieronimo . . . A Letter falleth'; III. ix, 'Belimperia, at a window'; The Shrew, V. i. 17, 'Pedant lookes out of the window'.]
- ↑ In T. A. I. i a coffin is brought in, apparently in the market-place, while the Senators are visible in the Capitol (cf. p. 58, n. 2), and (90) 'They open the Tombe' and (150) 'Sound trumpets, and lay the coffin in the Tombe'. R. J. V. iii is in a churchyard with 'yond yew trees' (3). A torch 'burneth in the Capels monument' (127), also called a 'vault' (86, &c.) and 'the tomb' (262). Romeo will 'descend into this bed of death' (28), and Q_{1} adds the s.d. 'Romeo opens the tombe' (45). He kills Paris, whose blood 'stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre' (141). Juliet awakes and speaks, and must of course be visible. The Admiral's inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 116) include 'j tombe', 'j tome of Guido, j tome of Dido'.
- ↑ George a Greene, sc. xi, 'Enter a Shoemaker sitting vpon the Stage at worke', where a shop is not essential; but may be implied by 'Stay till I lay in my tooles' (1005); Locrine, II. ii, 'Enter Strumbo, Dorothy, Trompart cobling shooes and singing' (569) . . . 'Come sirrha shut vp' (660); R. and J. V. i. 55, 'This should be the house. Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut. What, ho! apothecary!' where the elaborate description of the shop which precedes leaves some doubt how far it was represented; Shoemaker's Holiday, scc. iii, 'Open my shop windows'; v, 'Ile goe in'; viii, 'Shut vp the shop'; xi, 'Enter Hodge at his shop-*board, Rafe, Friske, Hans, and a boy at worke' (all before or in Eyre's shop); x, 'Enter Iane in a Semsters shop working, and Hammon muffled at another doore, he stands aloofe' (another shop); 1 Edw. IV, IV. iii, 'Enter two prentizes, preparing the Goldsmiths shop with plate. . . . Enter mistris Shoare, with her worke in her hand. . . . The boy departs, and she sits sowing in her shop. Enter the King disguised'.
- ↑ Arden of F. II. ii. 52,
'Here enters a prentise.
Tis very late; I were best shute vp my stall,
For heere will be ould filching, when the presse
Comes foorth of Paules.
Then lettes he downe his window, and it breaks Black Wils head'. - ↑ Shoemaker's Holiday, sc. xi, 'the signe of the Last in Tower-street, mas yonders the house'; 1 Edw. IV, IV. iii, 'Heres Lombard Streete, and heres the Pelican'. The Admiral's inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 117) include 'j syne for Mother Redcap'.
