TITLE As for the later Irish,
there are a number of ways in which the title of this masque might be
represented. Here, as there, the indication of ‘gentlemen the King’s
servants’ refers primarily to the minor courtiers who were the masquers,
though it may also indicate that the actors who performed in the
antimasque were from the King’s Men.
1 MASQUERADO A masked man, a participant in a masque.
2 ladies
As in other masques, it is implied that the ladies of the court are the
most eager spectators.
3 device
masque.
4 expect
wait for.
5 vizard
mask.
5 an’t] F1 (and’t)
5 an’t if
it.
6 at a
stand unable to move; in a state of
perplexity (OED, Stand n.1 6).
7 forwardness readiness, preparedness.
8 attire . . .
attired The second ‘attired’ might mean ‘adorned’, but it
seems clumsily redundant. If there is textual corruption, however, it is
not obvious how it might be repaired.
9 taken . . .
poet acquired from the dramatist (OED, Take v. 98).
9–10 which . . .
nothing In 1613 Chapman, in his
Memorable
Masque, a work which self-consciously refers back to
Love Restored, has his antimasque figure,
Capriccio, complain to Plutus: ‘you great wise persons have a fetch of
state – to employ with countenance and encouragement, but reward with
austerity and disgrace; save your purses, and lose your honours’ (
Lindley, 84).
10 nothing. Unless] F2;
nothing, vnlesse F1
10 a
morris-dance a troupe of morris-dancers. The morris began as a
courtly dance, probably in the late fifteenth century, and thence
migrated into popular culture, becoming ‘in many ways the national dance
of England, as much city as country dance, performed by “rude mechanics”
in both venues . . . it was equally a ritual, a social, and an
exhibition dance, often all three in one’ (Ward,
1986b, 294–5). The
dancers generally wore bells on their legs and carried handkerchiefs,
and were often accompanied by a ‘maid Marian’ and a ‘fool’. See Hutton
(
1996),
262–76, for its evolution during the sixteenth century and beyond.
11 whistle . . .
ourselves In the absence of musicians they would be forced to
whistle the tune to which they would dance.
11 ballad] F1 (ballat)
11–12 no other] H&S; neither F1
12 wild
music The music for antimasque dances was generally provided
by a separate group of musicians playing instruments distinct from those
associated with the main masques.
Love Freed, 2,
similarly refers to ‘
wild instruments’, and some
suggestion of what these might have been is offered in
Pleasure Rec.,
3,
Pan’s Ann., 57–9, 75–8. It is probably the presence
of percussion instruments which is most characteristic of the
differentiation of antimasque music. (See ‘The Court Masque’, vol.
1.)
13 play-boy
boy actor.
15 Enter . . . Cupid] G; not in F1
15 PLUTUS
. . .
Cupid There were two
traditions in the representation of Plutus. Jonson had already drawn on
the accounts in Giraldi and Cartari in
King’s Ent.,
367–8, where Plutus is the son of Ceres, a ‘little boy,
bareheaded, his locks curled and spangled with gold’, hence easily
mistaken for Cupid. Masquerado is represented as taken in by his
disguise, but whether or not the text assumes that the audience are
similarly fooled is an open question. In the other tradition, deriving
from Aristophanes (to which Jonson alludes in
King’s Ent.,
marginalium 53), he is an old man, blind and decrepit.
16 at
adventure recklessly (without a plan or script).
16 adventure. We humbly] F2;
aduenture, humbly F1
19 light, feathered] F1 (light, fether’d)
19 light,
feathered H&S record the conjecture that this might read
‘light-feathered’, but hyphenation renders the phrase somewhat
tautologous (what would be a ‘heavy’ feather?).
19 feathered Indicating that Masquerado’s costume included
feathers in the headdress. Plutus echoes familiar puritan complaints,
but is, of course, on dangerous ground, since feathers frequently were
to be found in noble masquers’ costumes.
21 boy?] this edn; boy! F1
21 boy It
is an open question whether Plutus was played by an adult or a boy
actor. The part is a demanding one, but to give it to an adult perhaps
would render the illusion of Plutus-as-Cupid too obvious from the
outset.
26 surquidry arrogance, presumption.
31 SD] G; not in F1
31 robin goodfellow A puck, or sprite, ‘the best-known and most
often referred to of all the Hobgoblins of England in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries’ (Briggs,
1976, 341). He was conventionally
associated with practical jokes and domestic mischief, especially in the
countryside, as in
MND, 2.1.34–7, and in the 1618
Coleorton Masque (
Lindley,
Court
Masques, 126–35).
32 How?] this edn; How!
F1
32 masque?] F2; masque.
F1
34 faith
in faith.
35 ’Slight
Abbreviation of ‘God’s light’. Another mild oath.
35 an
if.
36 resolve
answer.
41 A
piece . . .
Joy The failure of a
masque to materialize is compared by Robin to the con trick perpetrated
by one Richard Vennar of Lincoln’s Inn, who had advertised in a
broadsheet a performance of a play entitled
England’s
Joy at the Swan theatre on 6 November 1602. It was supposed to
be acted by ‘certain gentlemen and gentlewomen of account’, and the
entrance fee was therefore high, but Vennar disappeared after taking the
entrance money, and no play was performed. He was apprehended, but the
Lord Chief Justice ‘would make nothing of it but a jest and a
merriment’. The scam was often alluded to, including by Jonson again in
Augurs, 94 and n. See
Chambers, ES,
3.500–2 for a full account.
42 sports?] G; sports! F1
42 gambols
merrymakings.
42–3 selling . . .
fish ‘not elsewhere associated with Robin’ (H&S).
43 short
service ‘being a domestic servant for short periods’
(Orgel).
43 shoeing . . .
mare A Christmas game, riding a plank in see-saw fashion.
H&S cite Herrick,
Hesperides, ‘Of
Blind-man-buffe, and of the care / That young men have to shoe the
mare’. They also suggest that the phrase might be taken literally, as
indicating the performance of a difficult task; the same ambivalence
attends Francis
Beaumont,
Knight of the Burning Pestle, I.
Interlude, 6–7: ‘I’ll have Rafe come and do some of his gambols. He’ll
ride the wild mare, gentlemen, ’twould do your hearts good to see him’
(
Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher
Canon, ed. Bowers,
1966–96).
43 roasting . . . redbreast This seems to be meant literally –
‘a treat for his fairy namesake comparable to a roast turkey for a human
being’ (
H&S).
44 were
would be.
45 recovered
myself i.e. returned to my real or normal appearance.
47 riddles . . .
maids One of Robin’s standard pranks (or good services): to
clean the house at night to the puzzlement of the maids the next
morning.
48 hot
cockles ‘A rustic game in which one player lay face downwards,
or knelt down with his eyes covered, and being struck on the back by the
others in turn, guessed who struck him’ (OED).
50 shifts
stratagems, tricks.
51–2 shop . . .
revels repertory of masque devices. Perhaps also alluding to
the stock of costumes and props maintained by the Revels office.
52 admit
(1) acknowledge; (2) grant admittance to.
53 hardly
unwillingly.
54 rude
rustic, lower-class.
55 admitty] F1 (admittie); actiuitie H&S
conj.
55 admitty
admittance. This is the only recorded instance of this word, which
H&S believe is a misprint for ‘actiuitie’. This does not seem
palaeographically very likely, though ‘activity’ is used in
Christmas, 248.
57 boisterous rough.
58 concluded . . . non-entry ended up by denying me
entrance.
59 wood-yard A yard outside the palace of Whitehall, otherwise
known as Scotland Yard.
59 terrace] F1 (tarras)
59–60 oaks . . .
guard guardsmen standing as stiff as oak trees.
60 more
i.e. even more than the porter.
62 sow . . .
else Continues the image of Robin as an acorn, an attractive
food for a pig.
62 verge
precincts of the court.
63 way
(workmen’s) entrance.
65 mazarded] F1 state 1; amazed F1 state 2
65 mazarded hit on the head.
OED
gives this as the only instance of the verb, formed from the jocular
meaning of the noun, whose original sense is a drinking-vessel.
(Shakespeare uses ‘mazard’ for ‘head’ in
Ham., 5.1.87.)
That it was printed as ‘amazed’ in the resetting of this page suggests
that it was an unfamiliar word to the compositors.
65 subtle
(1) rarified; (2) thin.
66 window] F1 (windore)
68 catholic universal.
68 coxcomb
conceited fool.
68 Coryate
Thomas Coryate (?1577–1617), of Odcombe in Somerset. A traveller, and
figure of fun. When he failed to find a publisher for the narrative of
his four-month journey on foot across Europe in 1608, he appealed to
people of eminence to write prefatory verses for his book. Many did so,
including Jonson, who wrote a prose ‘Character’ of Coryate, and referred
to him as that ‘odd jovial author’ in his verses ‘To the Right Noble
Tom’ (4.192). The volume, Coryate’s Crudities,
appeared in 1611. His feat of having himself smuggled into a masque in a
trunk was commemorated by Sir Henry Goodere in his preliminary verse:
‘If any think him dull or heavy, know / The court and city’s mirth
cannot be so. / Who thinks him light, ask them who had the task / To
bear him in a trunk unto the masque.’
68 case o’ catsos
] Orgel (Ricks
conj.); case: vses F1
; case of asses
G conj.
; case of aufs
Greg (
1942)
conj.
68 case
pair.
68 o’
catsos ‘
Catso is Elizabethan slang; its
basic meaning is roughly equivalent to the modern
cock, but it is also regularly used to mean rogue or scamp,
and Jonson elsewhere makes it synonymous with cockscomb’ (Orgel, ed.,
Masques,
1969, 482). F1 prints ‘case: vses’,
which is clearly an error. F2 solved the problem simply by ending the
sentence at ‘Coryat’. Noting that there are two instances elsewhere in
this masque (98, 129) where F1 prints a punctuation mark in error for
either ‘i’ or ‘o’, Gifford (
1875) conjectured ‘case of asses’, an
emendation H&S find attractive, though they do not adopt it. Greg
suggested that F1’s ‘vses’ was a misreading of ‘vfes’, which might be
understood as ‘case of aufs’ or oafs, idiots.
Orgel, 481–2, rejects both, and
accepts instead Christopher Ricks’s suggestion of a ‘case o’catsos’, the
reading adopted here. He offers in support a passage in
EMO,
2.1.23–4: ‘These be our nimble-spirited catsos that ha’ their
evasions at pleasure’, and concludes that ‘for Robin to call Coryat a
catso would be rude, but not necessarily pejorative’. Though the
emendation is less obviously ‘orthographically defensible’ than Orgel
asserts, this is a crux which has no easy solution and the alliteration
suits well with the character of Robin’s speech.
70 belie
falsely imitate.
70 with
authority with (pretend) authorization.
71 engineer one involved with the ‘engines’ or moving devices of
the masque.
71 motions
(1) moving stage machinery; (2) show. ‘Robin means the former, but the
guards take him to mean the latter’ (Orgel).
72 fighting . . . year See also
Bart. Fair,
3.4.104 and n., which probably refers to an actor belonging to
the Fortune theatre, commemorated in a ballad entered in the Stationers’
Register, 21 January 1612, to John Wright, ‘The men baited in a bear’s
skin’, and in Samuel Rowlands,
The Knave of
Hearts (
1612), sig. F4, which speaks of ‘an unfortunate two-legged
bear, / Who though indeed he did deserve no ill, / Some butchers
(playing dogs) did well-nigh kill’.
73 tirewoman dressmaker; one who assisted the masquers to
dress.
74 tired
wearied, despaired. (With wordplay on ‘tirewoman’.)
74–5 the
mark . . . mouth The absence of marks on a horse’s teeth is a
sign of age; but Robin presumably appears too young, rather than too
old, for his disguise, and the meaning may be simply that the marks in
his mouth were inappropriate.
76 show mine
instrument Cf.
Staple, 1.5.128–30, where Pennyboy
Junior reports that his barber, Tom, ‘got unto a masque at court by his
wit, / And the good means of his cittern, holding up thus / For one
o’the music’.
77 feather-maker
of Blackfriars ‘Blackfriars was the Puritan centre of London,
and making feathers for court costumes was a common trade in the
district. The supposed moral anomaly was a frequent butt of satire’
(Orgel). Cf.
Alch., 1.1.128–9.
78 let . . .
me Parodying puritan biblical rhetoric; cf. Matthew, 7.7:
‘knock, and it shall be opened unto you’.
81 knocked . . . pate i.e. gave my head a beating in my guise as
a hypocritical puritan.
82 bombard-man One carrying a large leather container of
drink.
82 bouge
court-rations, provisions. Cf.
Merc. Vind., 62.
84 prevented
o’ anticipated in.
84 touched
on hit upon, thought of.
85 liked
appealed to.
85 offer
at attempt.
86 properties The theatrical sense: Robin needed a bombard to
sustain his disguise.
86–7 whimlens had] F1; whimlens
had had H&S
86 whimlens miserable creatures (
OED, Whimling). The word is only recorded twice: here and in
Beaumont and Fletcher,
The Coxcomb, 4.7.18 (
Dramatic Works, ed. Bowers,
1966–96).
87 too
much i.e. too much to drink. H&S conjecture ‘had had too
much’, but the emendation is unnecessary.
87 watered
i.e. urinated on.
88 greces] F1 (grices)
88 greces
stairway. (The term is also used for the rows of seats upon which the
audience sat, but here applies to the steps leading up to the entrance
to the hall.)
88 cataract waterfall, but also punning on the eye-disease.
88–9 cataract . . . star-gazing A euphemistic description of the
plight of the observer drenched in urine as he looks up the skirts of
the women standing above on the steps.
90 a fine . . .
in This suggests that to dress elaborately might persuade the
guards to let those of lower ranks in to the masque.
91 take it
adopt that disguise.
92 black-guard The generic name for the lower class of kitchen
servants at the court (cf.
Merc. Vind., 65).
OED suggests that the use of the word as
a term of moral opprobrium post-dates this masque, but Jonson seems to
be edging towards it.
92 vestry
Usually glossed as ‘dress’, or ‘vesture’, a rare sense. But the vestry
in a church was both a robing-room and the place where valuables were
kept, and there are numerous references in the period to the crime of
robbing a vestry of its treasures. This sense implied here is of a
private place in which to keep one’s jewels, i.e. testicles. The servant
is groping in an attempt at purse-snatching, but with a suggestion also
of the sexual sense.
93 Christmas
cutpurse John Selman was caught picking pockets in the royal
chapel during the Christmas service in 1611, and was executed on 7
January 1612, the day after the masque. His crime was commemorated in a
ballad, ‘The Captaine Cut-purse’ by Henry Smith (1612). This highly
topical allusion must have been a last-minute addition to the script.
Chamberlain noted that many possessions were lost at the performance of
Blackness (
Masque Archive, Blackness, 6; SP 14/12/6 fols 8v–9), and
Nightingale, in
Bart. Fair, 3.5.27ff., sings a
ballad which enumerates the variety of social situations in which
cutpurses operated.
94 squeak
squeal for help.
95 affection (erotic) attentiveness.
95 boiling-house building for boiling of soap, sugar, tallow
etc., hence distinctly odiferous.
Merc. Vind.,
66 speaks of the black-guard ‘especially those of the boiling-house’.
(And cf.
Neptune, 167.)
96 wiremen
wire-workers.
96 chandry
Literally the place where candles were kept.
97–8 that . . .
example those to whom money was offered privately could not
take it, for fear that they would be found out and made an example.
98 strangers foreigners (perhaps an ambassador and his
entourage).
100 without
outside.
100 for . . .
interpreter because I lacked an interpreter. Robin, to present
himself convincingly as a foreigner, needed someone who appeared to
interpret his speech to the guards.
101 when . . .
myself when I tried to pretend that I was myself an
interpreter. (Robin suggests that he tried to imitate an interpreter,
but was seen through by the guards, who recognized him as English and
mocked him.)
101 a colossus o’the] H&S; a Colossus, the F1 state 1; as a Colossus, the F1
state 2; a Colossus of
the Wh
101 colossus huge man (after the statue, the Colossus of Rhodes,
one of the wonders of the ancient world, a conceit continued in the
ensuing remark about ‘statues of flesh’).
103 want
lack.
104 wide-mouths (1) ‘one who speaks loudly or without restraint’
(although OED gives no instance for the
noun in this sense before 1959, its meaning is implied in a number of
early modern uses); (2) referring to the gaping mouths of the laughing
guards.
105 translation transformation into different shapes. (Cf. the
comment of Peter Quince to Bottom as he appears in his ass’s head in MND, 3.1.113: ‘Thou art
translated.’)
106 shape
form, appearance.
106–7 broom . . .
candles The insignia of a household sprite. Puck, in the Epil.
to MND, remarks ‘I am sent with broom
before / To sweep the dust behind the door.’
107 device
masque.
108 on’t of
it (i.e. wit).
113 the
call the one who calls.
113 light
i.e. morally light.
114 prodigality
nor riots Plutus voices the two principal objections to the
masque: its cost, and the disorderliness that opponents saw it as
engendering.
115 ruin] F1 state 1; ruines, F1 state 2
115 tyranny
i.e. the restrictions imposed by a formal occasion.
116 me
Plutus here speaks as the miserly god of riches, rather than in his
assumed persona.
116 ’em
Plutus speaks disparagingly of those who attend masques.
117–18 post and
pair . . . noddy card games.
118 for
counters i.e. not played for money.
118–19 God . . .
rich A form of backgammon (cf.
Alch.,
5.4.45).
120–1 dozen . . .
charges Plutus’s vision of the economical use of candles in
the home contrasts with the splendour and extravagance of the lighting
of the masque (see ‘The Court Masque’, vol. 1).
121 charges
costs.
122 night-gowns dressing gowns.
122 draw-gloves A parlour game, which ‘consisted apparently in a
race at drawing off gloves at the utterance of certain words’ (OED). Herrick has a poem ‘Draw
Gloves’.
122 dreams
interpreting dreams.
123 purposes (1) ‘A game consisting of questions and answers’, as
in
Cynthia (F), 4.3.63 and n. (
OED, Purpose
n.
4.a); (2) conversations (
OED, 4b).
123 wake
stay up late for revelry (OED, Wake v. 1.d, noting that is it used ‘with unfavourable
implication’).
123 wires
Used to make ruffs stand up.
123 tires
attires, fine clothes.
124 taken-up
braveries ‘fine dresses procured on credit’ (H&S); though
the elaborate jewellery and other ornaments might equally be implied.
See Pory’s comments on borrowed and hired jewellery,
Hym., 547
n.
125–6 hear so
ill hear myself so ill-spoken of.
128 reformed In a general sense, Masquerado expresses his
surprise at Plutus-as-Cupid having turned his back on his usual
patronage of love; but also, more specifically, suggests that he has
become a puritan, a member of the reformed churches.
132 Anti-Cupid Anteros. Jonson refers to the allegorization of
Cupid’s younger brother as heavenly love, as opposed to the sensual love
symbolized by Cupid or Eros. (For the different interpretations of the
myth, see
Challenge, 152–4 and n.)
133–9 the god . . .
him Butler (
1994), 102, notes: ‘though this passage is a generalised
account of money’s authority in the world at large, it makes specific
reference to James’s financial shifts’ and suggests that it articulates
some of Prince Henry’s views, notably more spartan than his
father’s.
134 ensigns
insignia.
134–5 reigns i’the world] H&S; raignes; the world F1
136 nearest
respects closest relationships.
137–8 age . . .
Age Contrasting the present age’s love of material gold with
the mythical time of harmony in the Golden Age, when gold had not yet
been discovered. Cf.
Epigr. 64.3–4; Ovid, Ars
Amatoria, 2.277–8.
139 arbitrary
from him dependent on his (arbitrary) will.
140 country . . .
out Robin contrasts the rural world with those of court and
city, where money rules (cf.
Forest 3).
140 razed
out obliterated.
143 he . . .
shape Plutus, in the stolen appearance of Cupid.
144 ravished
arms weapons he has seized (from Cupid).
146 if . . .
godhead Imitated from Juvenal,
Satires,
10.365–6: ‘Thou wouldst have no divinity, O Fortune, if we had but
wisdom; it is we that make a goddess of thee, and place thee in the
skies’ (Loeb). Cf.
Sej., 5.715–16.
147 Contemn
Disdain, scorn.
148–9 this
majesty King James, imagined, in familiar fashion, as the
sun.
151 Mammon
The Aramaic word for ‘riches’, retained in the Greek New Testament in
Matthew, 6.24, and Luke, 16.13, and in some, but not all, biblical
translations. It became the personification of inordinate desire for
wealth, and in Milton’s Paradise Lost Mammon is
one of Satan’s fellow-devils. In medieval and Renaissance periods he was
commonly linked to the classical Plutus, and thence to Pluto, god of the
underworld. These links are evident in Spenser’s description of Mammon
and his underground kingdom, next to hell’s door, in The Faerie Queene, 2.7.
154 Ay . . .
it Plutus ironically suggests that no masque will work without
his aid – a statement uncomfortably close to Jonson’s own assertion that
royalty should be ‘studious of riches and magnificence in the outward
celebration or show’ (Hym., 9).
154 event
outcome.
156 weal
(1) wealth; (2) happiness, prosperity.
156–7 I
cherish . . . delicacy Plutus’s killjoy puritanism is exposed
as hypocritical self-interest.
157 delicacy luxury.
157 that
murmurs the spirit of poverty grumbles, complains.
159 Enter . . . chariot The stage direction does not indicate by
whom the chariot was drawn on stage, nor from whence it emerged, nor its
decoration. It seems to have been the most basic and traditional of
entries on a ‘pageant-wagon’, no doubt suitably adorned for the triumph
of Love.
162 cold!
F1’s exclamation-mark could equally be modernized as a
question-mark.
163 tyrant] F1 (tyran)
165 here in
this court.
168 at fresh
eyes Cf.
Cynthia (F), 5.4.363; a conceit
derived, H&S suggest, from the pseudo-Tibullus.
171 spirits
vital spirits, understood as circulating heat round the body.
176 ’mongst
the Graces Cupid was brought
up by the Graces, the servants of Venus.
186 dispose
control.
187–90 H&S cite Lucian,
Timon, 20, where
Riches explains ‘When I go to visit anyone on a mission from Zeus, for
some reason or other I am sluggish and lame in both legs, so I have
great difficulty in reaching my journey’s end’ (Loeb).
188 commandëment Pronounced as four syllables.
190 nor
path neither path.
192–4 and
there . . . tribes Plutus is banished to his cave, where he
will resume, but without success, his normal practices of offering
bribes to the discontented to commit crimes.
196 still
want will perpetually lack.
198–204 The
majesty . . . back These lines are the core of the masque’s
topical political statement. James, secure in the love of his people,
will not have to beg for money (as he had in effect done to Parliament
in 1610), but be able to compel it. Cupid represents the grateful
subject, acknowledging that he owes everything to the King. In his
speech to Parliament in March 1610 James had argued: ‘Duty I may justly
claim of you as my subjects; and one of the branches of duty which
subjects owe to their Sovereign, is supply: but in what quantity, and at
what time, that must come of your loves’ (
Political
Writings, ed. Sommerville,
1994, 193).
200 crave
beg.
201 His
Plutus’s.
203–4 strife Of
duty Cupid will enter into a competitive exhibition of dutiful
gratitude with the King’s other subjects.
204 See,
here The masquers entered with Cupid above, at
159, but this is the
first direct reference to them. They might move forward at this point,
or in pairs as Cupid defines their characteristics at
215–19, or not until they begin
their dances at
222.
205 flower
the choicest.
206 flamed
intents a burning sense of purpose.
207 figure
represent.
211 music . . .
put music will arrange them in the dances (thus figuring
co-operation, not competition).
212 keep . . .
true both (1) perform their dances correctly; and (2) be
moderate and restrained (OED3, Measure n. 1e).
214 Jonson links the harmony of music, the proportion
of dance, and the proper ordering of the courtly and political
world.
215–19 The names and qualities which the masquers
symbolize are of Jonson’s invention. The distinctions between some of
them are minute. F1 prints the names with an initial capital, which is
here retained to suggest the way the abstractions are personified in the
masquers.
216 Valour] F1 (valure)
216 Urbanity Refinement.
OED
cites Lodowick Bryskett,
Discourse of Civil Life
(
1606), 245:
‘the virtue of Urbanity, a Latin name, which in English we cannot
better’.
217 Alacrity Cheerful readiness, promptitude.
218 Industry Diligence.
219 Ability] F1 (Habilitie)
219 Ability
The term could either refer to bodily strength, or to mental acuity and
cleverness. The F1 spelling ‘Habilitie’ preserves
the etymological link with Latin habilitas, a
characteristic classicizing gesture on Jonson’s part.
219 Reality
Devotion, loyalty (predating OED’s first
instance of this sense in 1652).
223 Song There is no indication as to who sings the songs. It
might most likely have been Cupid himself, but, equally, could have been
one or more musicians not specified in the text. The final song, in
particular, seems to be addressed to Cupid, rather than sung by him.
231 Graces
dance The dance of the Graces was allegorized in many ways, of
which two are particularly appropriate to this masque’s attempt to
conjoin issues of generosity and of love. In Seneca’s De Beneficiis they symbolize ‘the triple rhythm of generosity,
which consists of giving, accepting and returning’ (Wind, 1967, 28); in
neoplatonic thinking they represent the triad of Beauty, Love, and Joy
(Wind, 43–52). Whether the choreography of the dances reproduced their
characteristic representation with two figures advancing, one moving
away, can only be a matter of conjecture.
232 the upper
orbs the spheres of the planets.
235 like . . .
fix they are stationary as the earth is at the centre of the
moving spheres.
236–7 Till . . .
them Until the ladies agree to dance with them. In the event,
as the fragmentary letter from Chamberlain indicates, Frances Howard and
her sister Lady Cranborne refused the invitation (see
Introduction). Chamberlain’s letter
suggests that their conduct caused considerable displeasure. Jonson
edits out this embarrassment, making no mention of the revels.
239–42 There is not one of the male dancers you behold
who would not rather sacrifice himself to the eyes of his lady than live
alone (Masque Archive, Love Rest., 13).
251 morning . . .
true A common belief, which Jonson alluded to in a letter to
the Earl of Newcastle: ‘this Tuesday morning in a dream (and morning
dreams are truest)’ (Letter 17). He could draw on the authority of
Horace, Satires, 1.10.33, and pseudo-Ovid, Heroides, 19.195–6.
A Note on the Masquers Chamberlain gives three names: ‘Leviston’ (either
John Livingstone of Kinnaird or Sir John Levison, gentleman in ordinary
of Prince Henry’s Privy Chamber), ‘Abercrummit’ (Abercrombie), and ‘Sir
W. Bowyer’s son’ (Sir Henry Bowyer).