sepulcher. These things are
done in imitation of the angel sitting in the monument, and the women
with spices coming to anoint the body of Jesus."

[2] The three unities of action, place, and time are usually believed
to have been formulated by Aristotle, who is supposed to have said that
a tragedy should have but a single plot and that the action should be
confined to a single day and a single place. As a matter of fact,
Aristotle is responsible for only the first of these, and this he
presented as an observation on the actual condition which prevailed in
Greek tragedy rather than as a dramatic principle for all time. The
other principles, which were later deduced from the general practice of
the Greeks,--a practice arising from the manner in which their plays
were staged,--were, together with the first, elevated by the Romans to
the dignity of fixed dramatic laws.

[3] The following quotation from Euphues (ed. Bond, i, 289) illustrates
this style: "Hee that seeketh ye depth of knowledge is as it were in a
Laborinth, in which the farther he goeth, the farther he is from the
end: or like the bird in the limebush which the more she striveth to
get out, ye faster she sticketh in." With this cf. _Hamlet_, III, iii,
69; _I Henry IV_, II, iv, 441.

{35}

CHAPTER III

THE ELIZABETHAN THEATER

In 1575 London had no theaters; that is, no building especially
designed for the acting of plays. By 1600 there were at least six,
among which were some so large and beautiful as to arouse the
unqualified admiration of travelers from the continent. It is the
purpose of this chapter to give in outline the history of this rapid
development of a new type of building; to describe, as accurately as
may be, the general features of these theaters; and to indicate the
influence which these features exerted upon the Shakespearean drama.
But before doing this it is necessary to point out the causes which
made the first Elizabethan theater what it was.

+The Predecessors of the Elizabethan Theater+.[1]--Of these, the most
important was the innyard. As soon as the acting of plays ceased to be
merely a local affair, as soon as there were companies of actors which
traveled from town to town, it became necessary to find some place for
the public presentation of plays other than the pageants of the guilds
or the temporary scaffolds sometimes erected for miracle plays. Such a
place was offered by the courtyard of an inn. The large