Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher
John Stuart Mill · en
On that day, accordingly, the masque was presented, "in the new
Banketting-House which for a kind of amends was granted to them"; and
with marked success. "At the entrance of their Majesties and their
Highnesses," writes the Venetian ambassador to the Doge and Senate, May
10, 1613, "one saw the scene, with forests; on a sudden half of it
changed to a great mountain with four springs at its feet. The subject
of the Masque was that Jove and Juno desiring to honour the wedding and
the conjunction of two such noble rivers, the Thames and the Rhine, sent
separately Mercury and Iris, who appeared; and Mercury then praised the
couple and the Royal house, and wishing to make a ballet suitable to the
conjunction of two such streames, he summoned from the four fountains,
whence they spring and which are fed by rain, four nymphs who hid among
the clouds and the stars that ought to bring rain. They then danced, but
Iris said that a dance of one sex only was not a live dance. Then
appeared four cupids, while from the Temple of Jove, came five idols and
they danced with the stars and the nymphs. Then Iris, after delivering
her speech, summoned Flora, caused a light rain to fall, and then came a
dance of shepherds. Then in a moment the other half of the scene
changed, and one saw a great plateau with two pavilions, and in them
one hundred and fifty Knights of Olympus,--then more tents, like a host
encamped. On the higher ground was the Temple of Olympian Jove all
adorned with statues of gold and silver, and served by a number of
priests with music and lights in golden Candelabra. The knights were in
long robes of silk and gold, the priests in gold and silver. The knights
danced, their robes being looped up with silver, and their dance
represented the introduction of the Olympian games into this kingdom.
After the ballet was over their Majesties and their Highnesses passed
into a great Hall especially built for the purpose, where were long
tables laden with comfits and thousands of mottoes. After the King had
made the round of the tables everything was in a moment rapaciously
swept away."[82]