48 
Indiana University Studies 
identity. 7 In The Cobler’s Prophecy Mars is lulled to sleep 
by the singing of Venus, who then leaves Folly to make music 
for her abused lover while she runs away with Contempt. 8 * 
In The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom a partial transforma- 
tion is called for by one stage direction : 
Here shall Wantonis sing this song to the tune of “ Attend the goe 
plage the;” and hauing sung him i a sleepe vpon her lappe, let him snort; 
then let her set a fooles bable on his hed, and colling his face: and 
Idlenis shall steale away his purse from him , and goe his wages* 
This last corresponds closely with some features of a lost 
play, The Cradle of Security , as it was described in 1639 by 
a man of seventy-five years who had seen it in his boyhood : 
The play was called The Cradle of Security, wherein was per- 
sonated a king or some great prince, with his courtiers of several kinds, 
among which three ladies were in special grace with him; and they 
keeping him in delights and pleasures, drew him from his graver coun- 
sellors, hearing of sermons, and listening to good councell and ad- 
monitions, that in the end they got him to lye down in a cradle upon 
the stage, where these three ladies joyning in a sweet song, rocked him 
asleepe, that he snorted againe; and in the mean time closely conveyed 
under the cloaths wherewithall he was covered, a vizard, like a swines 
snout, upon his face, with three wire chains fastened thereunto, the 
other end whereof being holden severally by those three ladies; who fall 
to singing againe, and then discovered his face that the spectators might 
see how they had transformed him, going on with their singing . 10 
It is clear that the vizard, “like a swine’s snout,” was a 
theatrical property of great importance in the play, so much 
so that it was distinctly remembered by Mr. Willis after a 
lapse of more than sixty years. 
In A Midsummer Night's Dream some such property head 
is certainly implied in the Folio direction: 
Enter Piramus with the Asse head. 
This direction, omitted by the Quartos, was tamely changed 
by Rowe and Pope to “an Ass Head.” To Furness, the ex- 
plicit reference of the Folio was a proof that the Folio edition 
was printed directly from the prompter’s copy of the play: 
In all modern editions this is of course changed to ‘an Ass’s head,’ 
but the prompter of Shakespeare’s «tage, knowing well enough that 
7 The Marriage of Wit and Science, Hazlitt-Dodsley, II, 374ff. 
8 The Cohler’s Prophecy, ed. by A. C. Wood and W. W. Greg, Malone Society, 1914, 
11. 993ff. 
8 The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom, An Ancient Interlude , . , ed. by J. O. Halliwell, 
Shakespeare Society, London, 1846, pp. 20-21. 
10 Quoted from Mount Tabor, or Private Exercises of a Penitent Sinner , 1639, by R. W. 
[R. Willis], in the Boswell-Malone Shakespeare, London, 1821, III, 29. 
