'Lobby' occurs in three plays. In 2Henry VI and Timon, the lobby is the place for sycophants, flatterers, the 'Ohrenbläser' or 'ear-blowers' of German Baroque terminology--in short what we now call 'lobbyists:
61 How in our voiding lobby hast thou stood
62 And duly waited for my coming forth?
(2H6 4.1.61-62)78 All those which were his fellows but of late --
79 Some better than his value -- on the moment
80 Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
81 Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
82 Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
83 Drink the free air. (Tim. 1.1.78-83)
The two occurrences of the word in Hamlet are linked to Polonius. According to Polonius' plan, Ophelia is to meet Hamlet in the lobby:
157 If circumstances lead me, I will find
158 Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
159 Within the centre.
King.
159 How may we try it further?
Pol.
160 You know sometimes he walks four hours together
161 Here in the lobby.
Queen.
161 So he does indeed.
Pol.
162 At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him.
163 Be you and I behind an arras then,
164 Mark the encounter: (Ham. 2.2.157-164)
The lobby is also the place where Polonius' body can be found:
35 But if indeed you find him not
36 within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the
37 stairs into the lobby. (Ham. 4.3.35-37)
The association of the word with a hidden and ugly truth is quite strong in both places, and the lobby figures as a symbolic setting in an economy of retribution.
26 July, 1999
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