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The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3

Note 153 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS (continued 2)

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R. J. II. ii (supra); Sp. Trag. II. v (supra); Look About You, sc. v (a bowling green under Gloucester’s chamber in the Fleet); 1 Oldcastle, I. iii, II. i (a grove before Cobham’s gate and an inn); &c. In 1 Contention, sc. ii. 64, Elinor sends for a conjurer to do a spell ‘on the backside of my orchard heere’. In sc. iv she enters with the conjurer, says ‘I will stand upon this Tower here’, and (s.d.) ‘She goes vp to the Tower’. Then the conjurer will ‘frame a cirkle here vpon the earth’. A spirit ascends; spies enter; and ‘Exet Elnor aboue’. York calls ‘Who’s within there?’ The setting of 2 Hen. VI, I. ii, is much the same, except that the references to the tower are replaced by the s.d. ‘Enter Elianor aloft’. In 2 Hen. VI, II. ii, the scene is ‘this close walke’ at the Duke of York’s. Similarly, scc. i, iv of Humourous Day’s Mirth are before Labervele’s house in a ‘green’, which is his wife’s ‘close walk’, which is kept locked, and into which a visitor intrudes. But in sc. vii, also before Labervele’s, the ‘close walk’ is referred to as distinct from the place of the scene.

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