THE MASQUE OF BEAUTY.

WO years being now past, that her

majesty had intermitted these delights, and the third almost come, it was her highness's pleasure again to glorify the

court, and command that I should think on some fit presentment, which should answer the former, still keeping them the same persons, the daughters of Niger, but their beauties varied according to promise, and their time of absence excused, with four more added to their number.

To which limits, when I had apted my invention, and being to bring news of them from the sea, I induced BOREAS, one of the winds, as my fittest messenger; presenting him thus :

In a robe of russet and white mixt, full and bagg’d; his hair and beard rough and horrid ; his wings gray, and full of snow and icicles : his mantle borne from him with wires, and in several puffs; his feet' ending in serpents' tails; and in his hand a leafless branch, laden with icicles.

But before, in midst of the hall, to keep the state of the feast and season, I had placed JANUARY in a throne of silver; his robe of ash-colour, long, fringed with silver; a white mantle; his wings white, and

• So Paus. in Eliacis, reports him to have, as he was carved in arcá Cipselli.

6 See Iconolog. di Cesare Ripa.

his buskins; in his hand a laurel-bough; upon his
head an anademe of laurel, fronted with the sign
Aquarius, and the character: who, as Boreas blustered
forth, discovered himself.

Boreas. Which, among these, is Albion, Neptune's

son ?
Januarius. What ignorance dares make that

question ?
Would any ask, who Mars were in the wars,
Or which is Hesperus among the stars?
Of the bright planets, which is Sol ? or can
A doubt arise, 'mong creatures, which is man?
Behold, whose eyes do dart Promethean fire
Throughout this All; whose precepts do inspire
The rest with duty; yet commanding, chear :
And are obeyed more with love, than fear.
Boreas. What power art thou, that thus informest

me ?
Fanu. Dost thou not know me? I too well know

thee
By thy rude voice, that doth so hoarsely blow;
Thy hair, thy beard, thy wings, o'er-hill’d with snow,
Thy serpent feet, to be that rough North-wind,
Boreas, that to my reign art still unkind.
I am the prince of months, call’d January;
Because by me, Janusa the year doth vary,
Shutting up wars, proclaiming peace, and feasts,
Freedom and triumphs; making kings his guests.

с

• Ovid Metam. lib. vi. near the end see,-horridus irâ, Quæ solita est illi, nimiumque domestica, vento, &c.

Thy wings o'er-hill'd with snow,] i. e. covered over with snow: the spelling is varied, but it is the same with the Saxon word hele. WHAL.

It is scarcely worth dispute; but surely Jonson uses the word in its common acceptation.

See the offices and power of Janus, Ovid. Fast. 1.

and yet

Boreas. To thee then thus, and by thee to that king, That doth thee present honours, do I bring Present remembrance of twelve Æthiop dames : Who, guided hither by the moon's bright flames, To see his brighter light, were to the sea Enjoin'd again, and (thence assign'd a day For their return) were in the waves to leave Their BLACKNESS, and true BEAUTY to receive.

Janu. Which they received, but broke their day : Have not return'd a look of grace for it, Shewing a coarse and most unfit neglect. Twice have I come in pomp here, to expect Their presence; twice deluded, have been fain With other rites my feasts to entertain : And now the third time, turn'd about the year, Since they were look'd for, and yet are not here! , Boreas. It was nor will, nor sloth, that caus’d their

stay; For they were all prepared by their day, And with religion, forward on their way : When Proteus,' the gray prophet of the sea, Met them, and made report, how other four Of their black kind (whereof their sire had store) Faithful to that great wonder, so late done Upon their sisters, by bright Albion, Had followed them to seek Britannia forth, And there to hope like favour, as like worth, Which Night envied, as done in her despite, And, mad to see an Æthiop washed white, Thought to prevent in these ; lest men should deem Her colour, if thus chang'd, of small esteem.

e Two marriages, the one of the earl of Essex, 1606; the other of the lord Hay, 1607.

Read his description, with Vir. Geor. 4. Est in Carpathio Neptuni gurgite vates, Ceruleus Proteus.

Because they were before of her complexion.

And so, by malice, and her magic, tost
The nymphs at sea, as they were almost lost,
Till, on an island, they by chance arriv'd,
That floated in the main;" where, yet, she had gyv'd
Them so, in chains of darkness, as no might
Should loose them thence, but their chang’dsisters sight.
Whereat the twelve, in piety mov'd, and kind,
Straight put themselves in act, the place to find;
Which was the Night's sole trust they so will do,
That she with labour might confound them too.
For ever since with error hath she held
Them wand'ring in the ocean, and so quell'd
Their hopes beneath their toil, as (desperate now
Of any least success unto their vow;
Nor knowing to return to express the grace,
Wherewith they labour to this prince, and place)
One of them meeting me at sea, did pray,
That for the love of my Orithya,
Whose very name did heat my frosty breast,
And made me shake my snow-fill'd wings and crest,
To bear this sad report I would be won,
And frame their just excuse; which here I've done.

Janu. Would thou hadst not begun, unlucky Wind,
That never yet blew'st goodness to mankind;
But with thy bitter, and too piercing breath,
Strik'stk horrors through the air as sharp as death.

h To give authority to this part of our fiction, Pliny hath a chap. 95 of the and book, Nat. Hist. de insulis fluctuantibus. Et Card. lib. i. de rerum vari. et cap. 7. reports one to be in his time known, in the lake of Lomond, in Scotland. To let pass that of Delos, &c.

i The daughter of Erectheus, king of Athens, whom Boreas ravished away into Thrace, as she was playing with other virgins by the flood Ilissus : or (as some will) by the fountain Cephisus.

k The violence of Boreas Ovid excellently describes in the place above quoted.

Hâc nubila pello,
Hâc freta concutio, nodosaque robora verto,
Induroque nives, et terras grandine pulso.

I

Here a second wind came in, VULTURNUS, in a blue

coloured robe and mantle, puft as the former, but
somewhat sweeter; his face black, and on his head
a red sun, shewing he came from the east : his wings
of several colours ; his buskins white, and wrought
with gold.

Vult. All horrors vanish, and all name of death,
Be all things here as calm as is my breath.
A gentler wind, Vulturnus, brings you news
The isle is found, and that the nymphs now use
Theirrest and joy. The Night's black charms are flown.
For being made unto their goddess known,
Bright Æthiopia, the silver moon,
As she was Hecate, she brake them soon :"
And now by virtue of their light, and grace, ,
The glorious isle, wherein they rest, takes place
Of all the earth for beauty. There, their queen"
Hath raised them a throne, that still is seen
To turn unto the motion of the world;
Wherein they sit, and are, like heaven, whirl'd
About the earth; whilst, to them contrary,
(Following those noble torches of the sky)
A world of little Loves, and chaste Desires,
Do light their beauties with still moving fires.
And who to heaven's concent can better move,
Than those that are so like it, beauty and love?
Hither, as to their new Elysium,
The spirit of the antique Greeks are come,
Poets, and singers, Linus, Orpheus, all
That have excell'd in knowledge musical ;o

1 According to that of Virgil — Denuntiat igneus Euros.

m She is called pwopop' 'Ekarn, by Eurip. in Helena, which is Lucifera, to which name we here presently allude.

n For the more full and clear understanding of that which follows, have recourse to the succeeding pages, where the scene presents itself.

• So Terence and the ancients called Poësie, artem musicam.