Note 430 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS (continued 3)

For Paul’s, Histriomastix, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Pride, Vaine-Glory, Hypocrisie, and Contempt: Pride casts a mist, wherein Mavortius and his company [who ended II] vanish off the Stage, and Pride and her attendants remaine’, (after III) ‘They all awake, and begin the following Acte’, (after V) ‘Allarmes in severall places, that brake him off thus: after a retreat sounded, the Musicke playes and Poverty enters’; 2 Antonio and Mellida, III. i. 1, ‘A dumb show. The cornets sounding for the Act’, (after IV) ‘The cornets sound for the act. The dumb show’; What You Will, III. i. 1, ‘Enter Francisco ... They clothe Francisco whilst Bidet creeps in and observes them. Much of this done whilst the Act is playing’; Phoenix (after II), ‘Towards the close of the musick the justices three men prepare for a robberie’; for Blackfriars, Malcontent, II. i. 1, ‘Enter Mendoza with a sconce, to observe Ferneze’s entrance, who, whilst the act is playing, enters unbraced, two Pages before him with lights; is met by Maquerelle and conveyed in; the Pages are sent away’; Fawn, V. i. 1, ‘Whilst the Act is a-playing, Hercules and Tiberio enters; Tiberio climbs the tree, and is received above by Dulcimel, Philocalia, and a Priest; Hercules stays beneath’. The phrase ‘whilst the act is playing’ is a natural development from ‘for the act’, i. e. ‘in preparation for the act’, used also for the elaborate music which at private houses replaced the three preliminary trumpet ‘soundings’ of the public houses; cf. What You Will, ind. 1 (s.d.), ‘Before the music sounds for the Act’, and 1 Antonio and Mellida, ind. 1, ‘The music will sound straight for entrance’. But it leads to a vagueness of thought in which the interval itself is regarded as the ‘act’; cf. the M. N. D. s.d. of F1, quoted p. 124, n. 3, with Middleton, The Changeling (1653), III. i. 1, ‘In the act-time De Flores hides a naked rapier behind a door’, and Cotgrave, Dict. (1611), ‘Acte ... also, an Act, or Pause in a Comedie, or Tragedie’.