Sonnet on who attends plays…

Andrew Gurr presents this sketch of the day of your average gallant playgoer by the poet and epigrammist John Davies:

IN FUSCUM. XXXIX.

* Fuscus is free, and hath the world at will;
* Yet, in the course of life that he doth lead,
* He’s like a horse which, turning round a mill,
* Doth always in the self-same circle tread:
* First, he doth rise at ten;3 and at eleven
* He goes to Gill’s, where he doth eat till one;
* Then sees a play till six;4 and sups at seven;
* And, after supper, straight to bed is gone;
* And there till ten next day he doth remain;
* And then he dines; then sees a comedy;

10
* And then he sups, and goes to bed again:
* Thus round he runs without variety,
* Save that sometimes he comes not to the play,
* But falls into a whore-house by the way.

[3]Cf. a somewhat similar description in Guilpin’s Skialetheia (Ep 25).—

* “My lord most court-like lies abed till noon,
* Then all high-stomacht riseth to his dinner;
* Falls straight to dice before his meat be down,
* Or to digest walks to some female sinner,
* Perhaps fore-tired he gets him to a play,
* Comes home to supper and then falls to dice;
* Then his devotion wakes till it be day,
* And so to bed where unto noon be lies.”

[4]If the play ended at six, it could hardly have begun before three From numerous passages it appears that performances frequently began at three, or even later. Probably the curtain rose at one in the winter and three in the summer.

This extra information and more of John Davies’ Epigrams can be found here.