the principal street of the city, with vast numbers of people looking down from the tops of houses, and out of the windows and balconies, which are hung with tapestry. In this street is a large triumphal arch, with columns of the Doric order, adorned with the statues of Fame and Honour, &c. beautified with festoons of flowers, all the enrichments of gold. Through this arch, at a vast distance, in the middle of a piazza, is seen a stately obelisk. Although actual numbers are generally vague in these mass scene stage directions, the number of performers used, mainly dancers, was significantly higher than other performances of the time. The many highly paid dancers would have been busy in many roles, returning as townspeople after the scene change of Act 3 with most of the gold paint hastily washed off, and entranced looking upwards to see "Mars and Venus meet in the air in their chariots, his drawn by horses, and hers by doves". For the theatre companies, each production was a financial risk. The aspect of the machine plays most remembered by modern historians is their economics, as this was what the old prompter Downes most vividly recalled when he wrote his Roscius Anglicanus in 1708. The scenery alone for Psyche cost more than £800, in contrast to the entire annual box office takings for the company at £10,000. Ticket prices for these performances would be raised to up to four times normal. Both Psyche and The Tempest complained of the production costs in their epilogues, hinting pointedly that the public ought to reward the "poor players" for their risk-taking and for offering splendors that had so far been reserved for royal masques: We have stak'd all we have to treat you here, And therefore, Sirs, you should not be severe. We in one Vessel have adventur'd all; The loss, should we be Shipwrack'd, were not small. ... Poor Players have this day that Splendor shown, Which yet but by Great Monarchs has been done. The audience apparently agreed, transfixed by such sights as Venus ascending into the heavens and "being almost lost in the clouds", whereupon "Cupid flies up and gets into her chariot, and brings her back", followed by Jupiter appearing on a flying eagle. Psyche turned out highly profitable. It is altogether a pattern that the 1670s productions did make money, while those of the 1680s