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Cleopatra, where it represents the refuge of Cleopatra upon a monument, to which Antony is heaved up for his death scene, and on which Cleopatra is afterwards surprised by Caesar's troops.[1] But I do not agree with the suggestion that it was used in shipboard scenes, for which, as we learn from the presenter's speeches in Pericles, the stage-manager gave up the idea of providing a realistic setting, and fell back upon an appeal to the imagination of the audience.[2] Nor do I think that it was used for the 'platform' at Elsinore Castle in Hamlet;[3] or, as it was in the sixteenth century, for scenes in a Capitoline senate overlooking the forum at Rome.[4] In Bonduca, if that is of our period, it was adapted for a high rock, with fugitives upon it, in a wood.[5] I do not find extensive chamber scenes 'above' in any King's play later than 1609, and that may be a fact of significance to which I shall return.[6] But shallow action, at windows or in a gallery overlooking a hall or open space, continues to be frequent.[7]*

  1. ↑ A. and C. IV. xv. 1, 'Enter Cleopatra, and her Maides aloft', with (8) 'Look out o' the other side your monument' . . . (37) 'They heave Anthony aloft to Cleopatra'; V. ii; cf. 360, 'bear her women from the monument'.
  2. ↑ Pericles, III. i (prol. 58, 'In your imagination hold This stage the ship'); V. i (prol. 21, 'In your supposing once more put your sight Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark'). The other scenes (1 Contention, sc. xii; A. and C. II. vii; Tp. I. i) have nothing directly indicating action 'above'.
  3. ↑ Ham. I. i, iv, v; cf. I. ii. 213, 'upon the platform where we watch'd'. There would be hardly room 'above' for the Ghost to waft Hamlet to 'a more removed ground' (I. iv. 61), and the effect of I. v. 148, where 'Ghost cries under the Stage', would be less. On the other hand, in White Devil (Queen's), IV. iv. 39 the s.d. 'A Cardinal on the Tarras' is explained by Flamineo's words, 'Behold! my lord of Arragon appeares, On the church battlements'.
  4. ↑ J. C. III. i; Cor. II. ii, 'Enter two Officers, to lay Cushions, as it were, in the Capitol'; Sejanus (F_{1}), iii. 1-6; v. 19-22; Catiline, IV. ii, V. iv, vi; also Rape of Lucrece (Red Bull), pp. 168-73 (ed. Pearson). There is a complete absence of s.ds. for 'above'; cf. p. 58. But in J. C. III. i and Catiline, V. vi, at least, action in the senate house is continuous with action in the street or forum without, and both places must have been shown, and somehow differentiated.
  5. ↑ Bonduca, V. i, 'Enter Caratach upon a rock, and Hengo by him, sleeping'; V. iii, 'Enter Caratach and Hengo on the Rock'. Hengo is let down by a belt to fetch up food. It is 'a steep rock i th' woods' (V. ii); cf. the rock scene in Brazen Age, V (cf. p. 109).
  6. ↑ Cf. p. 153. Duchess of Malfi, III. ii, with (173) 'call up our officers' is a possible exception.
  7. ↑ E. M. O. II. i (where personages standing 'under this Tarras' watch action under a window); Devil's Charter, III. ii, 'Alexander out of a Casement'; M. Devil of Edmonton, V. ii. 59, 'D'yee see yon bay window?' Miseries of Enforced Marriage (Dodsley^4), iv, p. 540 ('Here's the sign of the Wolf, and the bay-window'); T. N. K. II. i, ii; Catiline, III. v; Philaster, II. iv; Second Maiden's Tragedy, V. i. 2004, 'Leonella above
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