Note 224 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS (continued 2)

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’.