and an uncovered front; and thirdly, the gallery or row of boxes, which occupies the upper part of the back wall. Each of these lends itself to a good deal of comment. The two doors find abundant confirmation from numerous stage-directions, which lead up to the favourite dramatic device of bringing in personages from different points to meet in the centre of the stage. The formula which agrees most closely with the drawing is that which directs entrance 'at one door' and 'at the other door', and is of very common use.[1] But there are a great many variants, which are used, as for example in the plot of 2 Seven Deadly Sins, with such indifference as to suggest that no variation of structure is necessarily involved.[2] Thus an equally common antithesis is that between 'one door' and, not 'the other door', but 'an other door'.[3] Other analogous expressions are 'one way' and 'at an other door', 'one way' and 'another way', 'at two sundry doors', 'at diverse doors', 'two ways', 'met by';[4] or again, 'at several doors', 'several ways', 'severally'.[5] There is a divergence, however, from De Witt's indications, when we come upon terminology which suggests that more than two doors may have been available for entrances, a possibility with which the references to 'one door' and 'an other' are themselves not inconsistent. Thus in one of the 2 Seven Deadly Sins variants, after other personages have entered 'seuerall waies', we find 'Gorboduk entreing in the midst between'. There are other examples of triple entrance in Fair Em, in Patient Grissell, and in The
- ↑ 1 Contention, sc. i. 1 (court scene), sc. xx. 1 (garden scene); Locrine, III. vi. 1278 (battle scene); &c., &c.
- ↑ Henslowe Papers, 130, 'To them Pride, Gluttony Wrath and Couetousness at one dore, at an other dore Enuie, Sloth and Lechery' (l. 6) . . . 'Enter Ferrex . . . with . . . soldiers one way . . . to them At a nother dore, Porrex . . . and soldiers' (26) . . . 'Enter Queene, with 2 Counsailors . . . to them Ferrex and Porrex seuerall waies . . . Gorboduk entreing in The midst between' (30) . . . 'Enter Ferrex and Porrex seuerally' (36). I suppose that, strictly, 'seuerally' might also mean successively by the same door, and perhaps does mean this in Isle of Gulls, ind. 1 (Blackfriars), 'Enter seuerally 3 Gentlemen as to see a play'.
- ↑ e. g. Alphonsus, II. i. 1 (battle scene); Selimus, 2430 (battle scene); Locrine, V. v. 2022, 2061 (battle scene); Old Fortunatus, 2675 (threshold scene); &c., &c. Archer, 469, calculates that of 43 examples (sixteenth and seventeenth century) taken at random, 11 use 'one . . . the other', 21 'one . . . an other', and 11 'several'.
- ↑ Selimus, 658, 'at diuerse doores'; Fair Em, sc. ix, 'at two sundry doors'; James IV, II. ii. 1, 'one way . . . another way'; Look About You, 464, 'two waies'; Weakest Goeth to the Wall, 3, 'one way . . . another way'; Jew of Malta, 230, 'Enter Gouernor . . . met by'. Further variants are the seventeenth-century Lear (Q_{1}), II. i. 1, 'meeting', and Custom of Country, IV. iv, 'at both doors'.
- ↑ 1 Rich. II, I. i, 'at seuerall doores'.
