By my hand, I believe you were born a good They are things of no spirit, their blood is asleep, store Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known. The young nymph that's troubled with an old man, Let her laugh him away, as fast as she can. Ere you sit out, you'll laugh at a feather. Lords, for yourselves, your own cups crown, This, and another thing, I can tell ye, What! have we done? they that want let 'em Mer. I am sure, thy last rudeness cannot; for it makes me seriously ashamed.—I will not labor his excuse, since I know you more ready to pardon, than he to trespass: but for your singular patience, tender you all abundance of thanks; and, mixing with the master of the place in his wishes, make them my divinations: That your loves be ever flourishing as May, and your house as fruitful: that your acts exceed the best, and your years the longest of your predecessors: that no bad fortune touch you, nor good change you. But still, that you triumph in this facility over the ridiculous pride of other princes; and for ever live safe in the love, rather than the fear, of your subjects. AND THUS IT ENDED. THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE TWO KINGS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND DENMARK, At Theobalds, July 24, 1606. Quod nequeat signis Lætitiam exprimere. Sed quia res solùm ingentes hac parte laborant, The Kings being entered the Inner Court; above, Unum ad lætitiæ cumulum tristatur abcsse, ENTER, O long'd-for princes, bless these bowers, Two kings, the world's prime honors, whose ac cess Shews either's greatness, yet makes neither less: shewer; The master vows, not Sybil's leaves were truer. Utcunque expressam credidit esse satis. The inscriptions on the walls were, DATE VENIAM SUBITIS. Epigrams hung up. WHEN THE HOUSE WAS DELIVERED UP, WITH THE POSSESSION, TO THE QUEEN, The 22d of May, 1607. THE PRINCE JANVILE, BROTHER TO THE DUKE OF GUISE, BEING THEN PRESENT. The King and Queen, with the princes of Wales and Lorrain, and the nobility, being entered into the gallery, after dinner there was seen nothing but a traverse of white across the room: which suddenly drawn, was discovered a gloomy obscure place, hung all with black silks, and in it only one light, which the Genius of the house held, sadly attired; his Cornucopiæ ready to fall out of his hand, his gyrland drooping on his head, his eyes fixed on the ground; when, out of this pensive posture, after some little pause, he brake and hejan. GENIUS. Let not your glories darken, to behold The place, and me, her Genius here, so sad; Who, by bold rumor, have been lately told, That I must change the loved lord I had. And he, now, in the twilight of sere age, Begin to seek a habitation new; And all his fortunes, and himself engage Unto a seat, his fathers never knew. And I, uncertain what I must endure, Since all the ends of destiny are obscure. MERCURY. From behind the darkness.] Despair not, Genius, thou shalt know thy fate. And withal, the black vanishing, was discovered a glorious place, figuring the Lararium, or seat of the household gods, where both the Lares and Penates were painted in copper color; erected with columns and architrave, frieze and cornice, in which were placed divers diaphanal glasses, filled with several waters, that shewed like so many stones of orient and transparent hues. Within, as farther off, in landscape, were seen clouds riding, and in one corner, a boy figuring Good Event attired in white, hovering in the air, with wings displayed, having nothing seen to sustain him by, all the time the shew lasted. At the other corner, a Mercury descended in a flying posture, with his caduceus in his hand, who spake to the three Parca, that sate low in a grate, with an iron roof, the one holding the rock, the other the spindle, and the third the sheers, with a book of adamant lying open before them. But first the Genius, surprized by wonder, urged this doubt. ATROPOS. She is the grace of all that are : GENIUS. Mourn'd I before? could I commit a sin So much 'gainst kind, or knowledge, to pro tract A joy, to which I should have ravish'd been, My joys, like waves, each other overcome; And gladness drowns where it begins to flow. Some greater powers speak out, for mine are dumb. At this, was the place filled with rare and choice music, to which was heard the following SONG, delivered by an excellent voice, and the burden maintained by the whole quire. O blessed change! And no less glad than strange! Cho. So little sparks become great fires, Was ever bliss More full, or clear, than this! The present month of May Ne'er look'd so fresh, as doth this day Cho. So gentle winds breed happy springs, And duty thrives by breath of kings. THE QUEEN'S MASQUES. THE MASQUE OF BLACKNESS, PERSONATED AT THE COURT AT WHITEHALL, ON THE TWELFTH-NIGHT, 605. Salve festa dies, meliorque revertere semper. — OVID. THE honor and splendor of these Spectacles was such in the performance, as, could those hours have lasted, this of mine, now, had been a most unprofitable work. But when it is the fate even of the greatest, and most absolute births, to need and borrow a life of posterity, little had been done to the study of magnificence in these, if presently with the rage of the people, who, (as a part of greatness) are privileged by custom, to deface their carcasses, the spirits had alsc perished. In duty therefore to that Majesty, who gave them their authority and grace, and, no less than the most royal of predecessors, deserves eminent celebration for these solemnities, I add this later hand to redeem them as well from ignorance as envy, two common evils, the one of censure, the other of oblivion. Pliny, Solinus, Ptolemy,3 and of late Leo the African, remember unto us a river in Ethiopia, famous by the name of Niger; of which the people were called Nigrite, now Negroes; and are the blackest nation of the world. This river taketh spring out of a certain lake, eastward; and after a long race, falleth into the western ocean. Hence (because it was her majesty's will to have them blackmoors at first) the invention was derived by me, and presented thus: First, for the scene, was drawn a landtschap | (landscape) consisting of small woods, and here and there a void place filled with huntings; which falling, an artificial sea was seen to shoot forth, as if it flowed to the land, raised with waves which seemed to move, and in some places the billows to break, as imitating that orderly disorder which is common in nature. In front of this sea were placed six tritons, in moving and sprightly actions, their upper parts human, save that their hairs were blue, as partaking of the sea-color: their desinent parts fish, mounted above their heads, and all varied in disposition. From their backs were borne out certain light pieces of taffata, as if carried by the wind, and their music made out of wreathed shells. Behind these, a pair of sea-maids, for song, were as conspicuously seated; between which, two great sea-horses, as big as the life, put forth themselves; the one mounting aloft, and writhing his head from the other, which seemed to sink forward; so intended for variation, and that the figure behind might come off better: upon their backs, Qceanus and Niger were advanced. Oceanus presented in a human form, the color of his flesh blue; and shadowed with a robe of sea-green; his head gray, and horned," as he is 1 Nat. Hist. 1. 5. c 8. 2 Poly. Hist. c. 40, and 43 5 Some take it to be the same with Nilus, which is by Lucan called Melas, signifying Niger. Howsoever Pliny in the place above noted, hath this: Nigri fluvio eadem natura, quæ Nilo, calamum, papyrum, et easdem gignit animantes. See Solin. abovementioned. The form of these tritons, with their trumpets, you may read lively described in Ov. Met. lib. 1. Cæruleum Tritona vocat, &c.; and in Virg. Æneid. 1. 10. Hunc vehit immanis triton, et sequent. 7 Lucian in PHTOP. Adao. presents Nilus so, Equo fluviatili insidentem. And Statius Neptune, in Theb. 8 The ancients induced Oceanus always with a bull's head propter vim ventorum, à quibus incitatur, et impellitur: vel quia tauris similem fremitum emittat vel quia described by the ancients: his beard of the like mixed color: he was garlanded with alga, or sea-grass; and in his hand a trident. Niger, in form and color of an Ethiop; his hair and rare beard curled, shadowed with a blue and bright mantle: his front, neck, and wrists adorned with pearl, and crowned with an artificial wreath of cane and paper-rush. These induced the masquers, which were twelve nymphs, negroes, and the daughters of Niger, attended by so many of the Oceania, which were their light-bearers. The masquers were placed in a great concave shell, like mother of pearl, curiously made to move on those waters and rise with the billow; the top thereof was stuck with a cheveron of lights, which indented to the proportion of the shell, struck a glorious beam upon them, as they were seated one above another so they were all seen, but in an extravagant order. On sides of the shell did swim six huge seamonsters, varied in their shapes and dispositions, bearing on their backs the twelve torch-bearers, who were planted there in several graces; so as the backs of some were seen; some in purfle, or side; others in face; and all having their lights burning out of whelks, or murex-shells. The attire of the masquers was alike in all, without difference: the colors azure and silver: but returned on the top with a scroll and antique dressing of feathers, and jewels interlaced with ropes of pearl. And for the front, ear, neck, and wrists, the ornament was of the most choice and orient pearl; best setting off from the black. For the light-bearers, sea-green, waved about tanquam taurus furibundus, in littora feratur. Euripid. Orest. Ωκεανος ὃν ταυρόκρανος ἀγκαλαῖς ἐλισσών, κυκλεῖ x0ova. And rivers sometimes were so called. Look Virg de Tiberi et Eridano. Georg. 4. Æneid. 8. Hor. Car. lib. 4 ode 14, and Euripid. in Ione. The daughters of Oceanus and Tethys. See Hesiod is Theogon. Orph. in Hym. and Virgil in Georg the skirts with gold and silver; their hair loose and flowing, gyrlanded with sea-grass, and that stuck with branches of coral. These thus presented, the scene behind seemed a vast sea, and united with this that flowed forth, from the termination, or horizon of which (being the level of the state, which was placed in the upper end of the hall) was drawn by the lines of prospective, the whole work shooting downwards from the eye; which decorum made it more conspicuous, and caught the eye afar off with a wandering beauty: to which was added an obscure and cloudy night-piece, that made the whole set off. So much for the bodily part, which was of master Inigo Jones's design and act. By this, one of the tritons, with the two seamaids, began to sing to the others' loud music, their voices being a tenor and two trebles. form, beauty. Ocea. Be silent, now the ceremony's done, And, Niger, say, how comes it, lovely son, That thou, the Ethiop's river, so far east, Art seen to fall into the extremest west Of me, the king of floods, Oceanus, And in mine empire's heart, salute me thus? My ceaseless current, now, amazed stands To see thy labor through so many lands, Mix thy fresh billow with my brackish stream; " And, in the sweetness, stretch thy diadem To these far distant and unequall'd skies, This squared circle of celestial bodies. Niger. Divine Oceanus, 'tis not trange at all, That, since th' immortal socis of creatures mortal, Mix with their bodies, yet reserve for ever Though, with thy powerful saltness, thus far 1 All rivers are sald to be the sons of the Ocean; for, as the ancients thought, out of the vapors exhaled by the heat of the sun, rivers and fountains were begotten. And both by Orph. in Hym. and Homer, Il. . Oceanus is celebrated tanquam pater, et origo diis, et rebus, quia nihil sine humectatione nascitur, aut putrescit. 2 There wants not enough, in nature, to authorize this part of our fiction, in separating Niger from the ocean, (beside the fable of Alpheus, and that, to which Virgil alludes of Arethusa, in his 10. Eclog. Sic tibi, cum fluctus subter labêre Sicanos, Examples of Nilus, Jordan, and others, whereof see Nican. lib. 1. de flumin. and Plut. in vita Sye, even of this our river (as some think) by the name of Melas. Ocea. But what's the end of thy Herculean labors, Extended to these calm and blessed shores ? of earth,3 In satisfying every pensive heart As of one Phaeton, that fired the world 5 Which, when my daughters heard, (as women are And other dames made queens of all desires. 8 As they sat cooling their soft limbs, one night, Appear'd a face, all circumfused with light; (And sure they saw't, for thiops never dream) Wherein they might decipher through the These words: [stream, 3 Read Diod. Sicul. lib. 3. It is a conjecture of the old ethnics, that they which dwell under the south, were the first begotten of the earth. 4 Notissima fabula, Ovid. Met. lib. 2. 5 Alluding to that of Juvenal, Satyr. 5. mediam nolis occurrere noctem. 6 The poets. Et cui po A custom of the Ethiops, notable in Herod. and Diod Sic. See Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 8. 8 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 8. |