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The Elizabethan Stage, Vol. 3

Note 99 — NOTE ON SYMBOLS

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Possibly The Cobler’s Prophecy is also a Chapel or Paul’s play; it was given before an audience who ‘sit and see’, and to whom the presenters ‘cast comfets’ (39). The domus required for a background are (a) Ralph’s, (b) Mars’s court, (c) Venus’s court, (d) the Duke’s court, (e) the cabin of Contempt. From (a) to (b) is ‘not farre hence’ (138) and ‘a flight shoot vp the hill’ (578); between are a wood and a spot near Charon’s ferry. From (b) to (c) leads ‘Adowne the hill’ (776). At the end (e) is burnt, and foreshortening of space is suggested by the s.d. (1564), ‘Enter the Duke ... then compasse the stage, from one part let a smoke arise: at which place they all stay’. At the beginning (3) ‘on the stage Mercurie from one end Ceres from another meete’. Summer’s Last Will and Testament, which cannot be definitely assigned either to the Chapel or to Paul’s, continues the manner of the old interlude; it has a stage (1570), but the abstract action requires no setting beyond the tiled hall (205, 359, 932, 974) in which the performance was given. The Wars of Cyrus is a Chapel play, but must be classed, from the point of view of staging, with the plays given in public theatres (cf. p. 48).

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