Can we imagine that assigned to any one else than Shakespeare? Again the passages: "She is a woman, therefore may be wooed, She is a woman, therefore may be won," (which, who will not believe, was reutilized in the Richard III.), "Was ever woman in this humor wooed, or these: Was ever woman in this humor won?" "King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name, "More water glideth by the mill Than wots the miller of." Or when Lucius calls his son to mourn over the body of Titus : "Come hither, boy, come, come, and learn of us To melt in showers. Thy grandsire loved thee well; Many a time he danced thee on his knee, Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow." It was very far from being Shakespeare's habit to write this sort of" touches " into another man's play. What his habit was we can very easily see, since he has left us a specimen of his work as a stage-adapter in the evolution of his finished King John out of the crude and uneven and awkward "Troublesome Raine." The three speeches given to the clown with the pigeons are in Shakespeare's best vein of low comedy, the vein of Launcelot Gobbo, of Launce, and of Elbow. But they are very short and unimportant. The clown says "godden " for "good day,” which is a favorite expression always with Shakespeare, and there are two unmistakable Warwickshireisms in the play -such as shive for "slice," and "honey-stalks" for "white clover." II. THE RESOURCES OF THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE WERE EQUAL TO THE MOUNTING OF THE PLAY. To begin with, the play absolutely requires the following properties: Two human heads, a severed hand, a black baby, two pigeons, a lot of books, a cook's dress for Titus, drums, colors, a coffin shrouded with black, a bag supposed to contain gold, red paint and bandages for Lavinia, a banqueting table and furnishings, dishes, etc., a bow and arrows, a ladder, a basket, a basin. Were these procurable? Can there be any doubt on the subject? It is to be regretted, I think, that commentators have not paid more attention to the stage directions of the Shakespeare plays, if for nothing else, for the light they throw upon this very question as to stage properties. Whatever the poverty of movable or "practicable" scenery, certainly these plays, as they reached the First Folio, make no slight draught upon the property-man. I subjoin a list of arti-cles mentioned as actually used in the stage directions of the different plays besides the ordinary costumes, apparel, trappings, accoutrements of war, weapons, swords, halberds, pikes, etc., wooden horses, colors, drums and trumpets, which every stage was supposed to have as of course: mentioning musical instruments only when specified by name (for in Shakespeare's later days the theatrical orchestras were rather ambitious, with their sackbuts, hautboys, dulcimers, shawms, violins, and drums), and exclusive of such matters as it is natural to suppose were present, being called for by the context or the evident "business" of the moment: as, for example, the first scenes of Act V. of Pericles, Scene 6 of Act I. of Antony and Cleopatra, Scene 1 of Act I. of the Tempest, are on shipboard, though in stage directions no properties suggested by that fact are mentioned. Here follows a list of properties called for by the First Folio list of plays: Much Ado About Nothing.-Gowns, tapers, masks. Henry V.-A leek, a groat (of course the principal properties here were military). Merry Wives.-Salver, wine in decanter, tankards, bottles, a green box, writing materials, letter, a "buck" basket and crumpled linen, torches, a tree, a buck's head, tapers. Twelfth Night.-A table, bottles, tankards, litter. As You Like It.-A necklace, a fool's bauble, trees, a table, cloth, and furnishings, stage viands, papers. Hamlet.-A recorder, book, two framed portraits, flowers, spades and mattocks, tombstones, skulls, handkerchief, cups, decanters. Julius Cæsar.-A scroll, wine in decanters, cups, tapers, a couch. Measure for Measure.-Musical instruments, hood. Othello.-Torches, table, letters, bottles, decanters, a handderchief, bed, bedding, pillows. Lear.-A pair of stocks, a hovel, disguise of a peasant, a tent. Macbeth.-A boiling cauldron, letter, hautboys, torches, dishes and table service, banquet table and furnishings, apparitions, an armed head, a bloody child, a child crowned with a tree in his hand, dumb show of eight kings, the last carrying an hour-glass. Timon of Athens.-A scroll, a jewel, a framed picture, hautboys, banqueting table and "splendid furnishings," masks, papers, bills, bowls of hot water, shade, coins, a drum and fife, a cave, a tombstone, wax with which an impression of the inscription on tombstone is taken. Anthony and Cleopatra. -Fans, a banqueting table and full service, letters, a monument, a robe, crown, an asp. Pericles.-(Sixth Quarto, third Folio.) Letter, a pavilion, a banqueting table and service, letters, dumb show (Scene 1 of Act III. is on shipboard), an infant, a chest, boxes, napkins and fire, monument (afterwards called a tomb), sackcloth, altar. Troilus and Cressida.-Tent, torches. Coriolanus.-Staves, clubs, two low stools, sewing materials, "spoils " (probably draperies, arms, urns, amphora, helmets, armor, etc.), "Enter Marcius, his arm in a scarf," Tullius Aufidius enter "bloody," Coriolanus crowned with an oaken garland, cushions for reclining, banquet, Coriolanus disguised and muffled. Winter's Tale.-A child, a baby, a peddler's pack, flowers, ribands, cadisses (worsted ribands), cambric, lawns, gloves (supposed contents of Autolycus's pack), letters, music. Cymbeline.-A ring, letters, a small box, a trunk (meaning a large chest), bracelet, letters, cave, human head, bloody handkerchief. Tempest.-Logs of wood, bottle, banquet table and furnishings, cell, "Reapers properly habited," "glistening apparel," chess-board and chess-men. Henry VI.-Blue coats for Gloster's servants, a bunch of keys, a white rose, a red rose, a sedan chair, a placard, pebble stones, sacks. Two Gentlemen.-Letters, a dog, painted portraits. Second Henry VI.-Papers, a boat, two human heads (another, probably one used a second time). Love's Labor's Lost.-Letter, masks, a lute, money, papers, a tree, Russian habits, Grecian armor, masks, torches, musical instruments, basket, cords, bunch of keys, bottle, flowers, torch, mattock, lantern, crow, spade. Third Henry VI.-White roses, red roses, cross-bows, book. Taming of the Shrew.-Books, lute, trenchers, cups, saucers, various garments, banqueting table and furniture, etc. Richard III.-Coffin, " rotten armor," a human head, bed and bedding. Merchant of Venice.-Three caskets, basket, scroll, scales. Midsummer Night's Dream.-Papers, flowers, ass's head, a dog, lantern with candle in it, plaster, a lion's skin, mantle stained with blood, thorn bush. King John.-Human head, iron bodkins or rods, cords, a crown, sedan chair, a couch. Richard II.-A couch, a crown, papers, a glass, a dish, a coffin. First Henry IV. A pannier for fowls, letter, tankards, bottles. All's well that ends Well.-Pilgrim's dress, brambles to represent a hedge or ambush, a finger-ring. Second. Henry IV.-Tankards, bottles, musical instruments, night-gown, crown, dish of apples ("leather coats "), rushes. 66 Henry VIII.-The purse, small table under a state, a longer table, masks, shepherds, tipstaves, letter, a folding door, Vergers, short silver wands, the purse, the great seal, a cardinal's hat, two silver crosses for the breasts, silver mace, two great silver pillars, sewing materials for the Queen's women, letters, Garter in his coat-of-arms, and on his head a gilt copper crown," sceptre of gold. "a demi-coronal of gold," coronet, long white wand, rod of marshalship, coronet. collars of SS, canopy, coronals of gold, plain circlets of gold, flowers, garlands of bays, golden visards, torch, long council table, great standing bowls, marshal's staff. From the above it will be seen that Henry VIII. not only calls for the most splendid mountings (in the three pageants of the trial of Catherine, the coronation of Anne Bullen, and the baptism of Elizabeth), but actually received it. It is of ordinary remark that no amount of magnificence can be too great for a Shakespeare play, even on the modern stage. And for example, Henry V., which is at present mounted with great pageantry and circumstance, calls (as will be seen from the above list) for fewer properties in the First Folio than any other of the thirty-six. But here is an instance of a play in Shakespeare's own day not only being capable of receiving, but actually calling for, in exact mention, the utmost that modern stage mounting finds it proper to give it. The Tempest comes next in opulence of stage directions, though not in mere number of properties required. From the latter computation, the Titus Andronicus would be entitled to second place. (And when we remember that Henry VIII. and the Tempest were the very latest plays of the Shakespearian period, by all external and internal evidence, adding now this evidence of stage business, it speaks much for the ambitious character of young Shakespeare's first requisitions on the property man.) In the above table it will be seen that the two human heads used in the Titus Andronicus were (or could have been) reused in the Second Henry VI. and one of them each in Cymbeline, King John, The Winter's Tale, and the Richard III. I suppose the colored baby was made of rags. Mr. Harrigan, in one of his "Mulligan" plays, was more fortunate in securing one of flesh and blood. As to the several scenes in Act II., where the hunt; the interview of Lavinia and Tamora; the burying of the gold; the murder of Bassanius; the ravishment of Lavinia, her re-entry with tongue cut out and hands cut off (probably indicated by rags and red paint)-all of these calling for different parts of a forest-we may assume them as all done in the same spot, with the use of the trap-door (which was the earliest of stage devices) for the hole where the gold was hid and the body of Bassanius flung. A study of old stage directions leads to this conclusion. APPLETON MORGAN. (To be continued.) |