facilitates a murder in a recess below.[1] Nor is the hall any longer the only interior used. Three scenes (II. 1-17; III. 1-212; IV. ii) are in an aisle (III. 128) of St. Mark's, with a trapped grave.[2] As a character passes (ii. 17) directly from the church to the palace in the course of a speech, it is clear that the two 'houses', consistently with actual Venetian topography, were staged together and contiguously. The Fawn was originally produced at Blackfriars and transferred to Paul's. I deal with it here, because of the close analogy which it presents to 1 Antonio and Mellida. It begins with an open-country scene within sight of the 'far-appearing spires' of Urbino. Thereafter all is within the hall of the Urbino palace. It is called a 'presence' (I. ii. 68), but one must conceive it as of the nature of an Italian colonnaded cortile, for there is a tree visible, up which a lover climbs to his lady's chamber, and although both the tree and the chamber window might have occupied a bit of façade in the plane of the aperture showing the hall, they appear in fact to have been within the hall, since the lovers are later 'discovered' to the company there.[3] What You Will, intermediate in date between Antonio and Mellida and The Fawn, has a less concentrated setting than either of them. The principal house is Albano's (I; III. ii; IV; V. 1-68), where there is action at the porch, within the hall, and in a discovered room behind.[4] But there are also scenes in a shop (III. ii), in Laverdure's lodging (II. ii), probably above, and in a schoolroom (II. ii). The two latter are also discovered.[5]
- [Footnote: betwixt the music-houses' . . . (115) 'The curtaine being drawn, exit
Andrugio'.]*
- ↑ V. ii. 112, 'They run all at Piero with their rapiers'. This is while the ghost is present above, but (152) 'The curtains are drawn, Piero departeth'.
- ↑ III. i. 33, 'And, lo, the ghost of old Andrugio Forsakes his coffin' . . . (125) 'Ghosts . . . from above and beneath' . . . (192) 'From under the stage a groan'; IV. ii. 87, 'They strike the stage with their daggers, and the grave openeth'. The church must have been shown open, and part of the crowded action of these scenes kept outside; at IV. ii. 114, 'yon bright stars' are visible.
- ↑ Fawn, IV. 638, 'Dulcimel. Father, do you see that tree, that leans just on my chamber window? . . . (V. 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'. After a mask and other action in the presence, (461) 'Tiberio and Dulcimel above, are discovered hand in hand'.
- ↑ W. You Will, IV. 373, after a dance, 'Celia. Will you to dinner?' . . . (V. 1) 'The curtains are drawn by a Page, and Celia (&c.) displayed, sitting at dinner'.
- ↑ II. 1, 'One knocks: Laverdure draws the curtains, sitting on his bed, apparelling himself; his trunk of apparel standing by him' . . . (127)
