Note 91 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS

Inns of Court and University plays naturally run on analogous lines. For the ‘houses’ at Cambridge in 1564 and at Oxford in 1566, cf. ch. vii. The three Cambridge Latin comedies, Hymenaeus (1579), Victoria (c. 1580–3), Pedantius (c. 1581), follow the Italian tradition. For Victoria, which has the same plot as Two Ital. Gent., Fraunce directs, ‘Quatuor extruendae sunt domus, nimirum Fidelis, 1a, Fortunij, 2a, Cornelij, 3a Octauiani, 4a. Quin et sacellum quoddam erigendum est, in quo constituendum est Cardinalis cuiusdam Sepulchrum, ita efformatum, vt claudi aperirique possit. In Sacello autem Lampas ardens ponenda est’. The earliest extant tragedies, Grimald’s Christus Redivivus (c. 1540) and Archipropheta (c. 1547), antedate the pseudo-Senecan influence. Practical convenience, rather than dramatic theory, imposed upon the former a unity of action before the tomb. Grimald says, ‘Loca item, haud usque eò discriminari censebat; quin unum in proscenium, facilè & citra negocium conduci queant’. The latter was mainly before Herod’s palace, but seems to have showed also John’s prison at Macherus. There is an opening scene, as in Promos and Cassandra, of approach to the palace (Boas, 28, 35). Christopherson’s Jephthah, Watson’s (?) Absalon, and Gager’s Meleager (1582) observe classical unity. The latter has two houses, in one of which an altar may have been ‘discovered’. Boas, 170, quotes two s.ds., ‘Transeunt venatores e Regia ad fanum Dianae’ and ‘Accendit ligna in ara, in remotiore scenae parte extructa’. Gager’s later plays (Boas, 179) seem to be under the influence of theatrical staging. On Legge’s Richardus Tertius vide p. 43, infra.