It is a part that I shall blush in acting. II, 2, 149.
Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out. V, 3, 40.
When he might act the woman in the scene, He proved the best man. II, 2, 100.
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene they laugh at. V, 3, 184.
So then the Volsces stand but as at first;
Ready, when time shall prompt them to make road upon’s again. III, 1, 6.
Come, come, we’ll prompt you. III, 2, 95.
When thou see’st that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe mine uncle. III, 2, 83.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance That are but mutes or audience to this act. V, 2, 346.
I heard thee speak a speech once, but it was never acted. II, 2, 455.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome, The actors are come hither. II, 2, 410.
Then came each actor on his ass. The best actors in the world. II, 2, 416.
My Lord, you played once i’ the university, you say?
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. III, 2, 106.
For look, where my abridgement comes. II, 2, 439.
There was for a while no money bid for argument. II, 2, 273.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play. III, 2, 149.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it? III, 2, 242.
The argument of a play signified the plot or the subject matter under discussion. The word in this sense is now obsolete, although much in use in Elizabethan times, and frequently employed by several dramatists of the period.
They are but mutes or audience to this act. V, 2, 398.
You are as good as a chorus, my lord. III, 2, 255.
What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? III, 2, 587.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral; tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, not Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. II, 2, 415.
By the above speech Polonius must have been fairly well acquainted with the actors, and the repertoire of the tragedians of the city. The list describing the different styles of composition are somewhat exaggerated, but not to such an extent as appears at first sight. Evidence of the lengthy repertory of the Globe can be gleaned from an extract concerning a licence granted in 1603 to the Globe company. Permission is given “freely to use the, and exercise the, Arte and facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls and stage plaies, and such other like.” The phrase “scene individable” refers to the dramas, scrupulously adhering to the Unity of Place, a rule so carefully observed by classical writers. “Poem unlimited” may have expressed the antithesis to scene individable. The mention of Seneca and Plautus takes us back to the dramatic writers of antiquity. Seneca’s tragedies were translated into English and published in 1581. There are many allusions in English literature to these blood-curdling dramas. Nash, the Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, thus describes the works of the Latin author: “Yet English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences as ‘Blood is a beggar,’ and so forth, and if you entreat him fair on a frosty morning he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches. But o grief _Tempus edax rerum_, what’s that will last always? The sea exhaled by drops will in continuance be dry, and Seneca let blood line by line and page by page at length must needs die to our stage.”