Part 23 (2/2)

But if her hatred is not wholly vanish'd, It has at least taken a milder aspect.

Besides, what danger can a dying woman, One too who longs for death, bring on your head?

Can Phaedra, sick'ning of a dire disease Of which she will not speak, weary of life And of herself, form any plots against you?

_Hippolytus._ It is not her vain enmity I fear; Another foe alarms Hippolytus.

I fly, it must be owned, from Aricia, The soul survivor of an impious race.

_Theramenes._ What! You become her persecutor too!

The gentle sister of the cruel sons Of Pallas shared not in their perfidy; Why should you hate such charming innocence?

_Hippolytus._ I should not need to fly, if it were hatred.

_Theramenes._ May I, then, learn the meaning of your flight?[8]

Another device is an intensely inquisitive stranger just returned from foreign parts who listens with patience not always shared by an auditor to any needed preliminary exposition.

_The Opportunity_,[9] by James s.h.i.+rley, shows an ingenious adaptation of the device of the inquisitive stranger newly come to some city. Aurelio, a gentleman of Milan, coming to Urbino with his friend Pisauro, is mistaken for Borgia, who has been banished from Urbino. As one person after another, greeting Aurelio as Borgia, naturally talks to him of his past, his family, and what is to be expected of him now that he is returned, they identify and relate clearly to one another the chief people whom Aurelio is to meet in the play. A hearer would take in almost unconsciously the needed exposition, so amused would he be at the increasing bewilderment of Aurelio.

Such ways and means as these three--the servant, the confidant, the stranger--Buckingham ridiculed in the late seventeenth century in his _Rehearsal_:

_Enter Gentleman-Usher and Physician_

_Physician._ Sir, by your habit, I should guess you to be the Gentleman-Usher of this sumptuous palace.

_Usher._ And by your gait and fas.h.i.+on, I should almost suspect you rule the healths of both our n.o.ble Kings, under the notion of Physician.

_Physician._ You hit my function right.

_Usher._ And you mine.

_Physician._ Then let's embrace.

_Usher._ Come.

_Physician._ Come.

_Johnson._ Pray, sir, who are those so very civil persons?

_Bayes._ Why, sir, the Gentleman-Usher and Physician of the two Kings of Brentford.

_Johnson._ But, pray, then, how comes it to pa.s.s that they know one another no better?

_Bayes._ Phoo! that's for the better carrying on of the plot.[10]

Another method, talking back to people off stage, as one enters, in such a way as to bring out necessary facts, erence both used and ridiculed centuries ago. This is his use of the device:

_Enter Mysis_

_Mysis._ (_Speaking to the housekeeper within._) I hear, Archilis, I hear: Your orders are to fetch Lesbia. On my word she's a drunken reckless creature, not at all a fit person to take charge of a woman in her first labour: am I to fetch her all the same? (_Comes forward._)[11]

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