illusion may not have gone much beyond a painted cloth drawn under the roof of the heavens.[1] More elaborate machinery may have been entailed by aerial ascents and descents, which were also not uncommon. Many Elizabethan actors were half acrobats, and could no doubt fly upon a wire; but there is also clear evidence for the use of a chair let down from above.[2] And was the arrangement of cords and pulleys required for this purpose also that by which the chair of state, which figures in so many hall scenes and even a few out-of-door scenes, was put into position?[3] Henslowe had a throne made in the heavens of the Rose in 1595.[4] Jonson sneered at the jubilation of boyhood over the descent of the creaking chair.[5] The device would lighten the labours of the tire-man, for a state would be an awkward thing to carry on and off. It would avoid the presence of a large incongruous property on the stage during action to which it was inappropriate. And it would often serve as a convenient
- [Footnote: after the coronation which is certainly in 'the presence' (81). Perhaps
this is why in K. J., IV. ii. 181, the appearance of the moons is only narrated.]
- ↑ The Admiral's inventories of 1598 (Henslowe Papers, 117) include 'the clothe of the Sone and Moone'.
- ↑ Alphonsus, prol. (1), 'After you haue sounded thrise, let Venus be let downe from the top of the stage'; epil. (1916), 'Enter Venus with the Muses' . . . (1937), 'Exit Venus; or if you can conueniently, let a chaire come down from the top of the Stage and draw her vp'. In Old Fortunatus, 840, Fortunatus, at the Soldan's court, gets a magic hat, wishes he were in Cyprus, and 'Exit'. The bystanders speak of him as going 'through the ayre' and 'through the clouds'. Angels descend from heaven to a tower in the Wagner Book play (cf. p. 72).
- ↑ One of the 1616 additions to the text of Dr. Faustus (sc. xiv) has the s.d. 'Musicke while the Throne descends' before the vision of heaven, and 'Hell is discouered' before that of hell. On the other hand, in Death of R. Hood, ii, ind. (cf. p. 66), the king is in a chair behind a curtain, and the fact that the queen 'ascends' and 'descends' may suggest that this chair is the 'state'. However this may be, I do not see how any space behind the curtain can have been high enough to allow any dignity to the elaborate states required by some court scenes; cf. p. 64, n. 5. The throne imagined in the Wagner Book (cf. p. 72) had 22 steps. Out-of-door scenes, in which the 'state' appears to be used, are Alphonsus, II. i. 461 (battle scene), 'Alphonsus sit in the Chaire' (s.d.); II. i (a crowning on the field); Locrine, IV. ii. 1490 (camp scene), 'Let him go into his chaire' (s.d.); Old Fortunatus, sc. i. 72 (dream scene in wood), 'Fortune takes her Chaire, the Kings lying at her feete, shee treading on them as shee goes vp' . . . (148), 'She comes downe'.
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 4, 'Itm pd for carpenters worke & mackinge the throne in the heuenes the 4 of Iune 1595 . . . vij^{li} ij^s'.
- ↑ E. M. I. (F_{1}), prol. 14,
One such to-day, as other plays should be;
Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas,
Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please.
