The Golden Age, with the Lives of Jupiter and Saturn
1.1
Enter old Homer
1.1.Sp1Homer
Exit.
The gods of Greece, whose deities I raised
Out of the earth, gave them divinity,
The attributes of sacrifice and prayer
Have given old Homer leave to view the world
And make his own presentment. I am he
That by my pen gave heaven to Jupiter,
Made Neptuneʼs trident calm the curlèd waves,
Gave Aeolus lordship oʼer the warring winds,
Created black-haired Pluto King of Ghosts
And regent oʼer the kingdoms fixed below.
By me Mars wars, and fluent Mercury
Speaks from my tongue. I placed divine Apollo
Within the Sunʼs bright chariot. I made Venus
Goddess of love, and to her winged son
Gave several arrows, tipped with gold and lead.
What hath not Homer done to make his name
Live to eternity? I was the man
That flourished in the worldʼs first infancy.
When it was young, and knew not how to speak,
I taught it speech, and understanding both
Even in the cradle. Oh, then suffer me,
You that are in the worldʼs decrepit age
When it is near his universal grave,
To sing an old song, and in this Iron Age
Show you the state of the first golden world.
I was the musesʼ patron, learningʼs spring,
And you shall once more hear blind Homer sing.
1.2
Enter two
lords of Crete.
1.2.Sp11 Lord
The old Uranus, son of the Air and Day,
Is dead, and left behind him two brave sons,
Titan and Saturn.
1.2.Sp31 Lord
But Saturn hath the hearts of all the people,
The kingdomʼs high applause, his motherʼs love.
The least of these are steps unto a crown.
1.2.Sp42 Lord
But how will Titan bear him in these troubles,
Being by nature proud and insolent,
To see the younger seated in his throne,
And he to whom the true right appertains,
By birth, and law of nations quite cast off?
1.2.Sp51 Lord
Enter Saturn and
Vesta with other attendants
That either power or steel must arbitrate.
Causes best friended have the best event.
Here Saturn comes.
1.2.Sp6Saturn
Behold! What nature scanted me in years
And time below my brother, your applause
And general love fully supplies me with,
And makes me to his crown inheritable.
me to his crown inheritable.I choose it as my right by gift of heaven,
The peopleʼs suffrage, the dead kingʼs bequest,
And your election, our fair mother queen.
Against all these, what can twelve moons of time
Prevail with Titan to disherit us?
1.2.Sp7Vesta
The Cretan people, with shrill acclamations
Pronounce thee sovereign oʼer their lands and lives.
Let Titan storm, and threaten strange revenge.
We are resolved thy honour to maintain.
1.2.Sp81 Lord
Titan thy ruin shall attempt in vain.
Our hearts adhere with Vestaʼs, our late queen,
According to our sovereignʼs late bequest,
To kneel to Saturn.
1.2.Sp9Saturn
A noise of tumult within
Enter Titan,
Lycaon, and others
We accept your loves,
And we will strive by merit to exceed you
In just requital of these favours done.
1.2.Sp11Titan
Descend, proud upstart, tricked up in stolen weeds
Decked in usurped state and borrowed honours.
Resign them to their owner, that’s to me.
1.2.Sp12Saturn
Titan, keep off. I charge thee near me not,
Lest I thy bold presumption seal with blood.
1.2.Sp18Titan
Am I a bastard, that my heritage
Is wrested from me by a younger birth?
Hath Vesta played th’adultʼress with some stranger?
If I be eldest from Uranusʼ loins,
Your maiden issue, why am I debarred
The law of nations? Am I Vestaʼs son?
Why doth not Vesta then appear a mother?
Was younger Saturn bedded in your womb
Nearer your heart than I, that he’s affected
And I despised? If none of these, then grant me
What justice wills, my interest in the crown,
Or, if you make me outcast, if my mother
Forget the love she owes, I shall abandon
The duty of a son. If Saturn prove
Unnatural, Iʼll be no more a brother,
But maugre all that have my right withstood,
Revenge my wrongs, and make my way through blood.
1.2.Sp19Saturn
Titan, we both acknowledge thee a brother,
And Vestaʼs son, which we’ll express in love.
But since for many virtues growing in me
That have no life in you, the queen, the peers,
And all the people, with loud suffrages,
Have shrilled their aves high above the clouds,
And styled me king, we should forget their
loves
me king, we should forget their
lovesNot to maintain their strange election.
Advise you, therefore, since this bold adventure
Is much above your strength, to arm yourself
In search of future honours with our love.
For what can Titan do against a people?
1.2.Sp26Lycaon
This grant him, Saturn, since thy insinuation
Hath wrought him quite out of the Cretansʼ hearts,
That Titanʼs warlike issue may succeed thee.
1.2.Sp27Titan
Lycaon, well advisèd. He during life
Shall reign in peace. No interruption
Shall pass from Titan to disturb his reign,
So to our Giant race thou wilt assure
The crown as due by right inheritance.
1.2.Sp28Saturn
To cut off all hostile effusion
Of human blood, which by our difference
Must needs be spilt upon the barren earth,
We’ll swear to this accord.
1.2.Sp29Titan
Conditioned thus:
That to deprive all future enmity
In our succeeding issue, thy male children
Thou in their cradle strangle.
1.2.Sp31Titan
Or swear to this or all our warlike race,
Dispersed in several kingdoms, I’ll assemble
To conquer thee, and from thy ambitious head
Tear that usurpèd crown.
1.2.Sp32Saturn
Titan, thy friendship
We’ll buy with our own blood. All our male children,
If we hereafter shall have any born,
Shall perish in their births. To this we swear,
As we are king and Saturn.
1.2.Sp33Titan
ExeuntI the like,
As I am Titan, and Uranusʼ son.
This league confirmed, all my allies I’ll gather
Search foreign climes, in which I’ll plant my kin,
Scorning a seat here where I am despised,
To live a subject to a younger birth,
Nor bow to that which is my own by due.
Saturn, farewell. I’ll leave thee to thy state,
Whil’st I in foreign kingdoms search my fate.
Think on thy oath.
1.3
Enter the Clown
and a Nurse
1.3.Sp1Clown
There is no dallying! You must come with all speed, for
Madam Sibylla is grown a great woman.
1.3.Sp3Clown
Nay, she is greater then many queens are, for though you may think she is
with ancient folks, yet I can assure you she is with child. You may
imagine, being now but morning, she is new risen, yet ʼtis thought that
ere noon she will be brought abed. I never heard she was commited to
prison, yet ʼtis looked every hour when she shall be delivered. And
therefore, Nurse, I was sent to you in all haste.
1.3.Sp7Clown
Because you know the proverb: A grunting horse, and a groaning wife never
deceive their master. Say, will you make haste, Nurse?
1.3.Sp9Clown
The best news abroad is that the queen is likely to keep at home. And is
it not strange that half an hourʼs being abroad should make a woman have
a monthʼs mind to keep in? But the worst news is that if the king have a
young prince, he is tied to kill it by oath. But if his majesty went
drunk to bed and got a girl, she hath leave to live till she die, and
die when she can live no longer.
1.3.Sp10Nurse
That covʼnant was the most unnatural
That ever father made. One lovely boy
Hath felt the rigour of that strict decree,
And if this second likewise be a son,
There is no way but death.
1.3.Sp11Clown
I can tell you more news. The king hath sent to the Oracle to know
whether my lady be with child of a boy or a girl, and what their
fortunes shall be. The lord that went is looked for every day to return
with his answer. It is so gossiped in the queenʼs chamber, I can tell
you. O Nurse, we have the bravest king, if thou knewest all.
1.3.Sp13Clown
Exeunt
Let his virtues speak for himself: he hath taught his people to sow, to
plough, to reap corn, and to scorn acorns with their heels, to bake and
to brew. We that were wont to drink nothing but water have the bravest
liquor at court as passeth. Besides, he hath devised a strange engine,
called a bow and arrow, that a man may hold in hand, and kill a wild
beast a great way off, and never come in danger of his clutches. I’ll
tell you a strange thing, Nurse: last time the king went ahunting, he
killed a bear, brought him home to be baked and eaten. A gentlewoman of
the court that set hungerly upon this pie had such a rumbling and
roaring in her guts, that
her entrails were all in a mutiny, and could not be appeased. No physic
would help her. What
did the king but caused an excellent mastiff to be knocked in the head
and dressed, gave it to the gentlewoman, of which, when she had well
eaten, the flesh of the mastiff worried the bear in her belly, and ever
since her guts have left wambling. But come, come! I was sent in haste,
the queen must needs speak with you.
1.4
Enter Saturn with wedges of gold and silver, models of ships, and
buildings, bow and arrows, etc. His lords with him.
1.4.Sp1Saturn
You shall no more be lodged beenath the trees,
Nor chamber underneath the spreading oaks.
Behold, I have devised you forms for tools
To square out timber, and perform the art
Of architecture, yet unknown till now.
I’ll draw you forms of cities, towns, and towers,
For use and strength. Behold the models here.
1.4.Sp3Saturn
See here a second art of husbandry,
To till the earth, to plough, to sow, to plant,
Devised by Saturn. Here is gold refined
From grosser metals, silver, brass, and tin,
With other minerals, extract from earth.
I likewise have found out to make your brooks,
Rivers, and seas by practice navigable.
Behold a form to make your crares and barks
and barksTo pass huge streams in safety, dangerless.
1.4.Sp5Saturn
The last, not least, this use of archery,
The stringèd bow and nimble-feathered shaft.
By this you may command the flying fowl,
And reach her from on high. This serves for war,
To strike and wound thy foe-man from afar.
A loud shout withinWhat means this acclamation?
1.4.Sp61 Lord
ʼTis thy people,
Divinest Saturn, furnished with these uses,
More than the gods have lent them, by thy means,
Proclaim to thee a lasting deity
And would have Saturn honoured as a god.
1.4.Sp7Saturn
We’ll study future profits for their use,
And in our fresh inventions prove divine.—
But gods are never touched with my suspires,
Passions, and throbs. Their godlike issue thrive
Whilst I, unmanlike, must destroy my babes.
Oh, my strict oath to Titan, which confounds
All my precedent honours. One sweet babe,
My youngest Ops, hath felt the bloody knife,
And perished in his swathing; and my queen
Swells with another infant in her womb,
Ready to taste like rigour.—Is that lord
Is that lordReturned from Delphos yet?
1.4.Sp103 Lord
Thus, mighty Saturn:
After our ceremonious rites performed,
And sacrifice ended with reverence,
A murmuring thunder hurried through the temple,
When fell a pleasant shower, whose silver drops.
Filled all the altar with a roseate dew.
In this amazement, thus the Delphian god,
Spake from the incensed altar: “Lord of Crete,
Thus say to Saturn: ‘Sibyll his fair wife,ʼ
‘Is great with a young prince of noble hopes,ʼ
‘That shall his fatherʼs virtues much excel,ʼ
‘Seize on his crown,
and drive him down to Hell.ʼ”
1.4.Sp11Saturn
Enter Vesta, sad
The gods, if there be any ʼbove ourself,
Envy our greatness, and of one that seeks
To bear himself ʼbove man, makes me more wretched
Than the most slavish brute. What! Shall my Sibyll
Bring me a son that shall depose me then?
He shall not! I will cross the deities.
I’ll tomb th’usurper in his infant blood.
I’ll keep my oath. Prince Titan shall succeed.
Maugre the envious gods, the brat
shall bleed.
shall bleed.1.4.Sp15Saturn
Of some female birth,
You deities, I beg. Make me, O
heavens,
No more inhumane in the tragic slaughter
in the tragic slaughterOf princely infants. Fill my decreed number
With virgins, though in them I lose my name
And kingdom. Either make her barren ever
Or else all generative power and appetite
Deprive me, lest my purple sin be styled
Many degrees ʼbove murder. What’s her birth?
1.4.Sp17Saturn
Be ever dumb, let everlasting silence
Tongue-tie the world, all human voice henceforth,
Turn to confused, and undistinguished found,
Of barking hounds, hoarse bears, and howling wolves,
To stop all rumour that may sil the world
With Saturnʼs tyrannies against his sons.
1.4.Sp18Vesta
Ah, did but Saturn see yon smiling babe,
He’d give it life, and break ten thousand oaths
Rather then suffer the sweet infant die,
His very look would beg a quick reprieve
Even of the tyrant Titan saw, the uncle,
With what a graceful look the infant smiles,
He’d give it life, although he purchased it with loss of a great
kingdom.
1.4.Sp19Saturn
Then spare the lad: I did offend too much
To kill the first, tell Sibyll he shall live,
I’ll be no more so monstrous in my rigour,
Nor with the blood of princes buy my crown.
No more their cradles shall be made their tombs,
Nor their soft swaths become their winding sheets:
How can my subjects think I’ll spare their lives,
That to my own can be so tyrannous?
Tell Sibyll he shall live.
1.4.Sp21Saturn
Stay, let me first reward the Oracle,
It told me Sibyll should produce a son,
That should his fatherʼs virtues much excel,
Seize on my crown, and drive me down to Hell.
Must I then give an infant-traitor life,
To sting me to the heart? The brat shall bleed.
1.4.Sp24Saturn
He that next replies,
Mother or friend, by Saturnʼs fury dies.
Away! Fetch me his heart; brim me a bowl
With his warm blood. Titan, my vow I’ll keep;
Life newly wakened shall as newly sleep.
1.4.Sp25Vesta
Exit Vesta
Worse than a brute, for brutes preserve their own.
Worse than the worst of things is Saturn grown.
1.4.Sp28Saturn
It is my son whom I command to death,
A prince that may succed me in my throne,
And to posterity revive my name.
Call Vesta back, and bid her save the babe.
1.4.Sp30Saturn
Yet stay! The lad to kill
I save my oath, and keep my kingdom still.
Post after her and charge them, on their lives,
Send me the babeʼs blood in a cup of gold,
A present which I’ll offer to the gods.
Delay not, be’t our mother, nay our wife,
Forfeits her own to save the infantʼs life.
1.4.Sp32Saturn
Exeunt
Is this a deity,
To be more wretched than the worst on earth,
To be deprived that comfort of my issue,
Which even the basest of my land enjoy?
Iʼll henceforth for my rigour hate myself,
Pleasures despise, and joys abandon quite.
The purest blood that runs within my veins,
I’ll dull with thick and troubled melancholy.
Iʼll war with comfort, be at odds with solace,
And league with nothing but distemperature.
Henceforth my unkempt locks shall knot in curls;
Razor nor any edge shall kiss my cheek
Until my chin appear a wilderness,
And make we wild in knowledge to the world.
Perpetual care shall cabin in my heart.
My tyranny I’ll punish in my self,
And save the gods that labour.
Saturnʼs disturbance to the world shall be
That planet that infuseth melancholy.
1.5
Enter Sibylla
lying in child-bed, with her child lying by her, and her Nurse
1.5.Sp1Sibylla
Is not our mother Vesta yet returned,
That made herself th’unwilling messenger
To bring the king news of his newborn son?
1.5.Sp3Sibylla
Mother of all that ever mothers were
Most wretched, kiss thy sweet babe ere he die,
That hath life only lent to suffer death.
Sweet lad, I would thy father saw thee smile.
Thy beauty and thy pretty infancy
Would mollify his heart wer’t hewed from flint,
Or carved with iron tools from the corsick rock.
Thou laughest to think thou must be killed in jest.
Oh, if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murdress,
And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.
And cansʼt thou laugh to see thy mother weep?
Or art thou in thy cheerful smiles so free
In scorn of thy rude fatherʼs tyranny?
1.5.Sp4Nurse
Madam, the king hath slain his firstborn son,
Whom, had he seen alive, he’d not have given
For ten such kingdoms as he now enjoys.
The death of such a fair and hopeful child,
Is full as much as Titan can demand.
1.5.Sp5Sibylla
Enter Vesta
He shall spare this sweet babe. I’ll ransom thee
With my own life; the knife that pierceth thee
Will wound thy motherʼs side, and I shall feel
The least sharp stroke from his offensive steel.
1.5.Sp7Sibylla
How looks she Nurse?
Let her not speak, but yet a little longer
My hopes hold in suspense. Oh, me most wretched!
I read my lordʼs harsh answer in her eye.
Her very looks tell me the boy must die.
Say, must he? must he? kill me with that word,
Which will wound deeper then King Saturnʼs sword.
1.5.Sp12Sibylla
Enter the first lord
Oh. where’s my child?
Iʼll hide thee in my bed, my bosom, breast.
The murderer shall not find my little son.
Thou shalt not die! Be not afraid my boy.
Go tell the king heʼs mine as well as his,
And I’ll not kill my part. One he hath slain,
In which I had like interest; this I’ll save,
And every second son keep from the grave.
1.5.Sp141 Lord
Yet is the kingʼs command ʼbove your decree,
And I must play th’intruder ʼgainst my will.
The king upon your lives hath charged you,
To see that infant lad immediately
Receive his death. He stays for his warm blood
To offer to the gods. To think him slain,
Sad partner of your sorrows I remain.
1.5.Sp16Sibylla
Is he inexorable?
Why should not I prove as severe a mother
As he a cruel father? Since the king
Hath doomed him, I the queen will do’t myself.
Give me the fatal engine of his wrath.
Iʼll play the horrid murderess for this once.
I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee. For my life,
The lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife.
1.5.Sp17Vesta
Then give him me. I am his grand-mother,
And I will kill him gently. This sad office
Belongs to me, as to the next of kin.
1.5.Sp19Vesta
Come, little knave, prepare your naked throat.
I have not heart to give thee many wounds.
My kindness is to take thy life at once. Now!
Alack, my pretty grandchild, smil’st thou still?
I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill.
1.5.Sp20Nurse
You may be careless of the kingʼs command,
But it concerns me, and I love my life
More then I do a sucklingʼs. Give him me;
I’ll make him sure. A sharp weapon lend!
I’ll quickly bring the youngster to his end.
Alack, my pretty knave, t’were more than sin,
With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin.
Oh Madam, he’s so full of angel grace
I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face.
1.5.Sp21Sibylla
I’ll wink and strike. Come, once more reach him hither,
For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed.
’Las, for a world, I would not see him bleed.
1.5.Sp24Vesta
Attend me.
The king of Epireʼs daughters, two bright maids,
Owe me for many favours the like love.
These I dare trust. To them I’ll send this babe
To be brought up, but not as Saturnʼs son.
Do but provide some trusty messenger.
My honour for his safety.
1.5.Sp26Vesta
A young kidʼs heart, swimming in reeking blood,
We’ll send the king, and with such forgèd grief
And counterfeit sorrow shadow it,
That this imposture never shall be found.
1.5.Sp31Vesta
Exeunt
We will, and if this plot pass undiscovered,
By like device we will save all your sons.
About our tasks! You some choice friend to find;
I with my feignèd tears the king to blind.
2.1
Enter Homer
2.1.Sp1Homer
What cannot womenʼs wits? They wonders can
When they intend to blind the eyes of man.
Oh, lend me what old Homer wants, your eyes,
To see th’event of what these queens devise.
A dumb show, sound.Enter the Nurse and Clown. She swears him to
secrecy, and to him delivers the child and a letter to the daughters of
King Melliseus; they part. Enter at one door Saturn, melancholy, with
his lords; at the other, Vesta and the Nurse, who, with counterfeit
passion, present the king a bleeding heart upon a knifeʼs point and a
bowl of blood. The king departs one way in great sorrow; the ladies the
other way in great joy.This passed so current that the third son born,
Called Neptune, was by like device preserved,
And sent to Athens, where he lived unknown,
And had in time command upon the seas.
Pluto the youngest was sent to Tartary,
Where he in process a strange city built
And called it Hell. His subjects for their rapine,
Their spoils and theft, are devils term’d abroad.
Thus melancholy Saturn hath surviving
Three noble sons in several confines placed
And yet himself thinks sonless. Pne fair daughter
Hight Juno is his sole delight on earth.
Think, kind spectators, seventeen summers passed,
Till these be grown to years, and Jupiter
Found in a cave by the great Epyre King,
Where by his daughters he before was hid.
Of him and of his fortunes we proceed.
My journey’s long, and I my eye-sight want.
Courteous spectators, lest blind Homer stray,
Lend me your hands to guide me on your way.
2.2
Enter Lycaon
with his lords, Jupiter with other lords of Epyre
2.2.Sp1Lycaon
After long war and tedious differences
Betwixt King Melliseus and our self,
What crave the Epyre lords?
2.2.Sp2Jupiter
This, King Lycaon:
Since truce and hostage hath taʼen up these broils,
And ended them in peaceful amity,
Since all the damage by the Epyrians done
Is on our part abundantly made good,
We come, Lycaon, to demand the like
Of thee and of thy kingdom. And for proof
That all our malice is extinct and dead,
We bring thy hostage back, demanding ours.
2.2.Sp3Lycaon
Receive him, lords. A banquet, instantly!
You shall this day, brave Epyre, feast with us,
And to your board your hostage shall be brought,
There to receive him freely. Mean time, sit
And taste the royal welcomes of our court.
2.2.Sp5Lycaon
But, fair prince, tell me whence you are derived.
I never heard King Melliseus had
A prince of your perfections.
2.2.Sp6Jupiter
A banquet brought in, with the limbs of a man in the
service
This demand
Startles my blood, being born I know not where.
Yet that I am of gentry at the least,
My spirit prompts me, and my noble thoughts
Give me approved warrant. Being an infant,
Two beauteous ladies found me in a cave,
Where, from their voluntary charity,
Bees fed me with their honey. For that cause,
The two bright ladies called me Jupiter,
And to their father Melliseus brought me,
My foster-father, who hath trained my youth
In feats of arms and military prowess,
And, as an instance of his dearest love,
Hath honoured me with this late embassy.
2.2.Sp7Lycaon
We are satisfied. Princes, sit round and feast.
You are this day Lycaonʼs welcom’st guest.
2.2.Sp8Jupiter
This meat distasts me. Doth Lycaon feast us
Like cannibals? Feed us with human flesh?
Whence is this portent?
2.2.Sp11Lycaon
Behold him here. He’s at the table with you.
This is the Epyreʼs head, and these his limbs.
Thinks Melliseus that Lycaon can,
Descended of the valiant Titanois,
Bury his hatred and entomb his spleen
Without revenge? Blood in these wars was shed,
And for that blood your hostage lost his head.
2.2.Sp12Jupiter
Bear wrong that list and those can brook it best.
I was not born to suffʼrance. Thoughts, mount high!
A king hath wronged me, and a king shall die.
2.2.Sp14Jupiter
A confined fray, an alarm.
Jupiter and the Epyrians
beat off Lycaon and his followers.
Down with the tyrant and that hateful crew,
And in their murdʼrous breasts your blades imbrue.
2.2.Sp16Jupiter
Exeunt
Lycaon’s fled. Make good the palace gates,
And to th’amazed city bear these limbs,
So basely by the tyrant massacred.
Haply his subjects, by our words prepared,
May shake their bondage off, and make this war
The happy means to rid a tyrant thence.
Bear in your left hands these dismembered limbs,
And in your right your swords, with which make way,
Courage, brave Epyres, and a glorious day.
2.3
Alarm.
Lycaon makes head again,
and is beat off by Jupiter and the Epyrians. Jupiter seizeth the room of
Lycaon
2.3.Sp1Jupiter
Lycaon’s once more fled. We by the help
Of these, his people, have confined him hence.
To whom belongs this crown?
2.3.Sp61 Lord
Fair prince, whom heaven hath sent by miracle,
To save us from the bloodiest tyrannies
That eʼer were practised by a mortal prince,
We tender thee our fortunes. Oh, vouchsafe
To be our lord, our governor, and king,
Since all thy people jointly have agreed,
None of that tyrantʼs issue shall succeed.
2.3.Sp8Jupiter
Exeunt
We not refuse the bounty of the heavens
Expressed in these your voices. We accept
Your patronage, and ’gainst Lycaonʼs tyrannies
Henceforth protect you. But our conquest yet
Is all uncertain. Second us, dear subjects,
To assure our conquests. First we must provide
Our safety, ere attempt the helm to guide.
2.4
Alarm.
Enter Callisto
2.4.Sp1Callisto
Enter in a hurry with weapons
drawn, Jupiter and his soldiers
What mean these horrid and these shrill alarms
That fright the peaceful court with hostile cries?
Fear and amazement hurry through each chamber;
Th’affrighted ladies light the darkest rooms
With their bright beauties. Whence, O whence ye gods,
Are all yon groans, cries, and inhumane sounds
Of blood and death? Lycaon, where is he?
Why in this dire and sad astonishment
Appears not he to comfort my sad fears,
And cheer me in this dull distemperature?
2.4.Sp2Jupiter
The iron-barred doors and the suspected vaults,
The barricaded gates, and every room
That boasted of his strength is forced to obey
To our free entrance. Nothing can withstand
Our opposite fury. Come, let’s ransack further.
But stay! What strange dejected beauty’s this
That on the sudden hath surprised my heart,
And made me sick with passion?
2.4.Sp6Jupiter
These weapons, lady, come to grace your beauty,
And these my arms shall be your sanctuary
From all offensive danger. Cheer your sorrow.
Let your bright beauty shoot out of this cloud
To search my heart, as it hath dazed my eyes.
Are you a queen enthroned above the elements,
Made of divine composure, or of earth,
Which I can scarce believe?
2.4.Sp7Callisto
I am myself.
Uncivil stranger, you are much too rude
Into my private chamber to intrude.
Go, call the king, my father.
2.4.Sp8Jupiter
Are you then
Lycaonʼs daughter? (Wonder without end,
That from a fiend an angel should descend.)
O love, till now I never felt thy dart.
But now her painted eye hath pierced my heart.
Fair, can you love?
2.4.Sp10Jupiter
Women, fair queen, are nothing without men.
You are but ciphers, empty rooms to fill,
And till menʼs figures come uncounted still.
Shall I, sweet lady, add unto your grace,
And but for numberʼs sake supply that place.
2.4.Sp11Callisto
You’re one too many. And of all the rest
That bear menʼs figure, we can spare you best.
What are you, sir?
2.4.Sp16Jupiter
The sunshine of my smiles and jocund love
Shall from your browsʼ bright azure elements
Disperse all clouds. Behold, my crown is yours.
My sword, my conquest, I am of myself
Nothing without your soft compassionate love.
For proof, ask what the heaven, earth, air, or sea
Can yield to men by power or orison,
And it is yours.
2.4.Sp20Jupiter
By all my honours, and by all the sweets
I hope for in your loveʼs fruition,
Your will’s your own.
2.4.Sp24Jupiter
More cruel than the tyrant that begat thee!
Hadʼst thou ask’t love, gold, service, empiry,
This sword had purchased for Callisto all.
Oh most unkind. In all this universe,
There’s but one jewel that I value high,
And that, unkind, you will not let me buy.
To live a maid, what isʼt? ’Tis to live nothing/
’Tis like a covetous man to hoard up treasure,
Barred from your own use, and from othersʼ pleasure.
Oh think, fair creature, that you had a mother,
One that bore you, that you might bear another.
Be you as she was, of an infant glad,
Since you from her have all things that she had.
Should all affect the strict life you desire,
The world itself should end when we expire.
Posterity is all, heavenʼs number fill,
Which by your help may be increased still.
What is it when you lose your maiden-head,
But make your beauty live when you be dead
In your fair issue?
2.4.Sp26Jupiter
Exit Callisto
Her order is mere heresy, her sect
A schism, ’mongst maids not worthy your respect.
Men were got to get; you born, others to bear.
Wrong not the world so much. Nay, sweet, your ear.
This flower will wither, not being cropped in time.
Age is too late, then do not lose your prime.
Sport whil’st you may, before your youth be past.
Lose not this mould that may such fair ones cast.
Leave to the world your like for face and stature,
That the next age may praise your gifts of nature.
Callisto, if you still grow thus precise,
In your strict vow succeeding beauty dies.
2.4.Sp28Jupiter
And there all beauty shall be kept in jail,
Which with my sword, aye with my life, I’d bail.
What’s that Diana?
2.4.Sp292 Lord
She is the daughter of an ancient king,
That swayed the Attic scepter, who, being tempted
By many suitors, first began this vow.
And leaving court betook her to the forests.
Her beauteous train are virgins of best rank,
Daughters of kings and princes, all devoted
To abandon men and choose virginity.
All these being first to her strict orders sworn,
Acknowledge her their queen and empress.
2.4.Sp32Jupiter
Exeunt
Well remembered.
Posts of these news shall be to Epyre sent,
Of us, and of our new establishment.
Next, for Callisto—but of that no more.
We must take firm possession of this state
Our sword hath won, Lycaon lost so late.
2.5
Enter with music, before Diana,
six satyrs, after tham all their nymphs, garlands on their heads, and
javelins in their hands, their bows and quivers. The satyrs sing.
2.5.Sp1
Hail beauteous Diane, Queen of Shades,
That dwells beneath these shadowy glades,
Mistress of all those beauteous maids,
That are by her allowed.
Virginity we all profess,
Abjure the worldly vain excess,
And will to Dian yield no less
Than we to her have vowed.
The shepherds, satyrs, nymphs, and fawns,
For thee will trip it oʼer the lawns.
Come, to the forest let us go,
And trip it like the barren doe.
The fawns and satyrs still do so,
And freely thus they may do.
The fairies dance, and satyrs sing,
And on the grass tread many a ring,
And to their caves their ven’son bring,
And we will do as they do.
The shepherds, &c.
Our food is honey from the bees,
And mellow fruits that drop from trees.
In chase we climb the high degrees
Of every steepy mountain.
And when the weary day is past,
We at the evening hie us fast.
And after this our field repast,
We drink the pleasant fountain.
The shepherds, &c.
2.5.Sp2Diana
These sports our fawns, our satyrs, and our selves
Make, fair Callisto, for your entertain.
Pan, the great god of shepherds, and the nymphs
Of meads and fountains that inhabit here,
All give you welcome, with their rural sports,
Glad to behold a princess of your birth
A happy citizen of these meads and groves.
These satyrs are our neighbours and live here,
With whom we have confirmed a friendly league
And dwell in peace. Here is no city-craft.
Here’s no court-flattery. Simpleness and sooth,
The harmless chase, and strict virginity
Is all our practice. You have read our orders,
And you have sworn to keep them, fair Callisto.
Speak, how esteem you them?
2.5.Sp3Callisto
With reverence,
Great queen. I am sequestered from the world,
Even in my soul hate manʼs society
And all their lusts. Suggestions, all court pleasures,
And city curiosities are vain,
And with my finer temper ill agree
That now have vowed sacred virginity.
2.5.Sp4Diana
We will not of your sorrows make recital
So lately suffered by the hand of chance.
We are from the world, and the blind goddess Fortune
We dare to do her worst, as, living here
Out of her reach, us she of force must spare.
They can lose nothing that for nothing care.
2.5.Sp8Diana
Is there no princess in our train
As yet unmatched to be her cabin-fellow,
And sleep by her?
2.5.Sp9Atlanta
Madam, we all are coupled
And twinned in love, and hardly is there any
That will be won to change her bedfellow.
2.5.Sp10Diana
Enter Jupiter like a nymph, or a
virago
You must be single till the next arrive.
She that is next admitted of our train
Must be her bed-companion. So ʼtis lotted.
Come fawns, and nymphs, and satyrs, girt us round
Whilst we ascend our state and here proclaim
A genʼral hunting in Dianaʼs name.
2.5.Sp11Jupiter
There I stride too wide. That step was too large for one that professeth
the straight order. What a pittiful coil! Shall I
have to counterfeit this woman, to lisp forsooth, to simper, and set
my face like a sweet gentlewomanʼs made out of ginger-bread? Shall I
venture or no? My face I fear not, for my beard being in the nonage
durst never yet look a barber in the face. And for my complexion, I
have known as brown
lasses as my self have gone for current. And for my stature, I am not
yet of that giant size, but I may pass for a bona
roba, a ronceval, a virago,
or a good manly lass. If they should put me to spin, or to sow, or any such
gentlewoman-like exercise, how should I excuse my bringing up? Tush, the
hazard is nothing compared with the value of the gain. Could I manage
this business with art, I should come to a hundred pretty sights in a
year, as in the summer when we come to flea our smocks, &c. I hope
Diana doth not use to search her maids before she entertains them. But
howsoever
Be my loss certain, and my profit none,
ʼTis for Callisto’s love, and I will on.
2.5.Sp12Diana
We’ll chase the stag, and with our beagles shrill
The neighbouring forests with loud echoes fill.
2.5.Sp13Jupiter
Is this a heaven terrestrial that contains
So many earthly angels? Oh amazement!
Diana with these beauties circled round,
Pal’d in with these bright pales, bears more state,
Than gods have lent them by the power of fate.
I am destroyed.
2.5.Sp16Diana
A manly lass, a stout virago!
Were all our train proportioned to thy size,
We need not fear menʼs subtle treacheries.
Thy birth and fortunes?
2.5.Sp17Jupiter
Madam, I derive
My birth from noble and high parentage.
Respect of your rare beauty, with my love
And zeal I still bear to a virginʼs life,
Have drawn me to your service.
2.5.Sp18Diana
Welcome, lady.
Her largeness pleaseth me. If she have courage
Proportioned with her limbs, she shall be champion
To all our wrongèd ladies. You, Atlanta,
Present her oath.
Her oath is given on Dianaʼs bow.2.5.Sp27Atlanta
With ladies you shall only sport and play,
And in their fellowship spend night and day.
2.5.Sp30Jupiter
By all the powers both earthly and divine,
If eʼer I lose’t, a woman shall have mine.
2.5.Sp31Diana
Now you’re ours, you’re welcome. Kiss our hand.
You promise well, we like you, and will grace you.
And if with our election yours agree,
Callisto here your bedfellow shall be.
2.5.Sp32Jupiter
You Gods, your will eternize me to your choice.
Madam, I seal both with my soul and voice.
2.5.Sp33Diana
Exeunt
Then hand each other and acquaint yourself.
And now let us proceed in the pursuit
Of our determined pastimes, dedicate
To the entertainment of these beauteous maids.
Satyrs and fawns, ring out your pleasing choir.
This done, our bugles shall to heaven aspire.
2.6
Horns winded, a great noise of hunting.
Enter Diana,
all her nymphs in the chase, Jupiter pulling Callisto back.
2.6.Sp1Diana
Wind horns.
Enter the satyrs as in the
chase.
Follow! Pursue! The stag hath took the mountain.
Come, let us climb the steep cliffs after him.
Let through the air your nimble javelins sing,
And our free spoils home with the evening bring.
2.6.Sp3Satyr
Wind horns.
Enter
Jupiter and Callisto
The nimble ladies have outstripped us quite.
Unless we speed we shall not see him fall.
We are too slow in pursuit of our game.
Let’s after though, since they out-strip our eyes.
Run by their notes that from their bugles rise.
2.6.Sp4Callisto
Haste, gentle lady, we shall lose our train
And miss Diana’s pastime in the chase.
Hie then to stain our javelins gilded points
In blood of yon swift stag, so hot pursued.
Will you keep pace with me?
2.6.Sp5Jupiter
I am tired already.
Nor have I yet been to these pastimes breathed.
Sweet, shall we here repose ourselves a little?
2.6.Sp7Jupiter
Fear not, you shall come time enough to fall.
Either you must be so unkind to me
As leave me to these deserts solitary,
Or stay till I have rest, for I am breathless
And cannot hold it out. Behold a place
Remote, an arbor seated naturally,
Trimmed by the hand of nature for a bower,
Screened by the shadowy leaves from the sunʼs eye.
Sweet will you sit, or on the verdure lie?
2.6.Sp9Jupiter
I’ll find you pastime, fear not. O, my angel!
Whither wilt thou transport me? Grant me measure
Of joy! Be free; I surfeit on this pleasure.
2.6.Sp11Jupiter
Sooth, I will.
I thirst in seas and cannot quaff my fill.
Behold, before me a rich table spread,
And yet poor I am forced to starve for bread.
We be alone, the ladies far in chase,
And may I die an eunuch by my vow,
If bright Callisto you escape me now.
Sweet bedfellow, your hand! What have I felt,
Unless blanched snow, of substance not to melt?
2.6.Sp15Jupiter
So shall I wrong mine eyes
To leave your face to look upon the skies.
Oh, how I love thee! come, let’s kiss and play.
2.6.Sp25Jupiter
My sweet, lie still, for we are far from men.
Lie down again. Your foot I oft have praised.
Aye, and your leg. Nay, let your skirt be raised.
I’ll measure for the wager of a fall
Who hath the greatest great, or smallest small.
2.6.Sp35Jupiter
Oh, but I
In this Elysium could both live and die.
I can forbear no longer, though my rape
Be punished with my head. She shall not ʼscape.
Say, sweet, I were a man?
2.6.Sp36Callisto
Thus would I rise,
And fill the dales and mountains with my cries.
A man! Oh heaven! To gain Elysiumʼs bliss,
I’d not be said that I a man should kiss.
Come, letʼs go wound the stag.
2.6.Sp37Jupiter
Stay! Ere you go,
Here stands one ready that must strike a doe.
And thou art she. I am Pelagiusʼ king,
That thus have singled thee. Mine thou shalt be.
2.6.Sp41Jupiter
He carries her away in his arms
Exeunt
Not they, nor all Diana’s angel-train,
Were they in sight, this prize away should gain.
3.1
Enter Homer
3.1.Sp1Homer
Young Jupiter doth force this beauteous maid,
And after would have made her his bright queen.
But, discontent, she in the forest stayed,
Loath of Diana’s virgins to be seen.
Oft did he write, oft send, but all in vain.
She never will return to court again.
Eight moons are filled and waned when she grows great,
And young Joveʼs issue in her womb doth spring.
This day, Diana doth her nymphs entreat
Unto a solemn bathing, where they bring
Deflowered Callisto. Note how she would hide
That which time found, and great Diana spied.
A dumb show. Enter Diana and all her nymphs
to bathe them: she makes them survey the place. They unlace themselves,
and unloose their buskskins. Only Callisto refuseth to make her ready.
Diana sends Atlanta to her, who, perforce unlacing her, finds her great
belly and shows it to Diana, who turns her out of her society, and
leaves her. Callisto, likewise in great sorrow, forsakes the
place.Exit all but Homer.Her crime thus found, she’s banished from their crew.
And, in a cave, she childs a valiant son
Called Archas, who doth noble deeds pursue,
And by Joveʼs gift, Pelagia’s seat hath won,
Which after by his worth and glorious fame,
He hath trans-styled Arcadia by his name.
But we return to Titan, who by spies
Hath learned that Saturn hath kept sons alive.
He now assembles all his strange allies,
And for the crown of Crete intends to strive.
Of their success and fortunes we proceed,
Where Titanʼs sons by youthful Jove must bleed.
3.2
Enter Titan,
Lycaon, Enceladus, and Aegeon in arms, drums, colours, and
attendants
3.2.Sp1Titan
Now are we strong, our giant issue grown.
Our sons in several kingdoms we have planted,
From whence they have derived us brave supplies
From Sicily, and from th’ Aegean sea,
That of our son Aegeon bears the name.
We have assembled infinites of men
To avenge us on proud Saturnʼs perjury.
3.2.Sp2Lycaon
What I have said to Titan, I’ll make good,
ʼTis rumoured Melliseusʼ foster-child—
He that expulsed me from Pelagia’s crown
And in my high tribunal sits enthroned—
Is Saturn’s son, and styled Jupiter.
Besides my daughter by his lust deflowered,
On us the poor distressèd Titanoys
He hath committed many outrages.
3.2.Sp3Aegeon
All which we’ll punish on King Saturnʼs head,
I that have made th’Aegean confines shake,
And with my powerful voice affrighted heaven,
From whose enragèd eyes the darkened skies
Have borrowed lustre and Promethian fire,
Will fright from Crete the proud Saturnian troop,
And thousand hacked and mangled soldiers bring
To entomb the glories of the Cretan king.
3.2.Sp4Enceladus
That must be left to great Enceladus,
The pride and glory of the Titanʼs host.
I that have curbed the billows with a frown,
And with a smile have made the ocean calm,
Spurned down huge mountains with my armèd foot,
And with my shoulders lift the valleys high,
Will in the wrinkles of my stormy brow,
Bury the glories of the Cretan king,
And on his slaughtered bulk brain all his sons.
3.2.Sp6Enceladus
Do thou stand still,
Whil’st I the foes of Titan pash and kill.
Am I not eldest from great Titanʼs loins,
The Saturnistʼs hereditary scourge?
Leave all these deeds of horror to my hand.
I like a trophy oʼer their spoils will stand.
3.2.Sp8Enceladus
Come, arm your sinewy limbs.
With rage and fury, fright pale pity hence,
And drown him in the sweat your bodies still.
With hostile industry, toss flaming brands
About your fleecy locks to threat their cities
With death and desolation. Let your steel,
Glistʼring against the sun, daze their bright eyes,
That, with the dread of our astonishment,
They may be sunk in Lethe, and their grave
May be the dark vault called oblivious cave.
3.2.Sp11Enceladus
Set on them. Waste their confines as we march,
And let them taste the rage of sword and fire.
Th’alarmʼs given, and hath by this arrived
Even at the walls of Crete, the citadel
Where the cathedraled Saturn is enthroned.
3.2.Sp12Titan
Exit
Warlike Aegeon and Enceladus,
Noble Lycaon, lend us your assistance
To forage as we march. Plant desolation
Through all this fertile soil. Be this your cry:
Revenge on Saturn for his perjury.
3.3
Enter Saturn with beard and hair overgrown, Sibylla,
Juno, drum, colours, and soldiers.
3.3.Sp1Saturn
None speak. Let no harsh voice presume to jar
In our distressèd care. I am all sad,
All horror and afrightment, since the slaughter
And tragic murder of my firstborn Ops,
Continued in the unnatural massacre
Of three young princes. Not a day hath passed me
Without distaste. No night but double darkened
With terror and confused melancholy.
No hour but hath had care and discontent
Proportioned to his minutes. Not an instant
Without remorse and anguish. Oh, you crowns!
Why are you made and metaled out of cares?
I am overgrown with sorrow, circumvailed
With multiplicity of distempratures,
And Saturn is a king of nothing else
But woes, vexations, sorrows, and laments.
To add to these the threatʼnings of red war,
As if the murder of my princely babes
Were not enough to plague an usurpation,
But they must add the rage of sword and fire.
To affright my people. These are miseries
Able to be comprised in no dimension.
3.3.Sp2Juno
My father shall not macerate himself.
Iʼll dare to interupt his passions,
Although I buy it dearly with his hate.
My lord, you are a king of a great people,
Your power sufficient to repulse a foe
Greater then Titan. Though my brothersʼ births
Be crowned in blood, yet am I still reserved
To be the hopeful comfort of your age.
3.3.Sp3Saturn
My dearest Juno, beautiful remainder
Of Saturnʼs royal issue, but for thee
I had ere this with these my fingers torn
A grave out of the rocks to have entombed
The wretched carcass of a caitiff king.
And I will live, be’t but to make thee queen
Of all the triumphs and the spoils I win.
Speak, what’s the project of their invasion?
3.3.Sp41 Lord
That the king of Crete
Hath not, according to his vows and oaths,
Slain his male issue.
3.3.Sp5Saturn
Have I not their bloods
Already quaffed to angry Nemesis?
Have not these ruthless and remorseless eyes,
Unfatherlike, beheld their panting hearts
Swimming in bowls of blood? Am I not son-less?
Nay childless too, save Juno whom I love?
And dare they then? Come, our continued sorrow
Shall into scarlet indignation turn,
And my sonsʼ blood shall crown their guilty heads
With purple vengeance. Valiant lords, set on,
And meet them to their last destruction.
3.3.Sp7Saturn
Stay! Because we’ll ground our wars
On justice, fair Sibylla, on thy life,
I charge thee tell me, and dissemble not:
By all the hopes in Saturn thou hast stored,
Our nuptial pleasures, and affairs of love,
As thou esteem’st our grace, or vengeance fear’st,
Resolve me truly. Hast thou sons alive?
Sibylla kneelsThese tears and that dejection on thy knee,
Accompanied with dumbness, argue guilt.
Arise and speak.
3.3.Sp8Sibylla
Let Saturn know, I am a woman then,
And more, I am a mother. Would you have me
A monster, to exceed in cruelty
The savagest of savages? Bears, tigers, wolves,
All feed their young. Would Saturn have his queen
More fierce then these? Think you Sibylla dare
Murder her young, whom cruel beasts would spare?
Let me be held a mother, not a murdress.
For Saturn, thou hast living three brave sons.
But where? Rather than to reveal to thee,
That thou may’st send their guiltless blood to spill,
Here cease my life, for them thou shalt not kill.
3.3.Sp9Saturn
Amazement, war, the threatʼning Oracle,
All muster strange perplexions ’bout my brain,
And rob me of the true ability
Of my direct conceivements. Doubt and war,
Titanʼs invasion, and my jealousy
Make me unfit for answer.
3.3.Sp101 Lord
Royal Saturn,
’Twas pity in the queen so to preserve them.
Your strictness slew them. They are dead in you,
And in the pity of your queen survive.
3.3.Sp11Saturn
Enter a lord
Divine assistance plunge me from these troubles.
Mortality here fails me. I am wrapped
In millions of confusions.
3.3.Sp122 Lord
Arm, great Saturn!
Thy cities burn. A general massacre
Threatens thy people. The big Titanoys
Plough up thy land with their invasive steel.
A huge unnumbered army is at hand
To set upon thy camp.
3.3.Sp13Saturn
Exeunt
All my disturbances
Convert to rage, and make my spleen as high
As is their topless fury to encounter
With equal force and vengeance. Go, Sibylla.
Convey my beauteous Juno to the place
Of our best strength, whil’st we contend in arms
For this rich Cretan wreath. The battle done,
And they confined, we’ll treat of these affairs.
Perhaps our love may with this breach dispense.
But first to arms to beat th’intruders hence.
3.4
Alarm. Enter Titan, Lycaon, Enceladus, Aegeon
3.4.Sp3Enceladus
This Gigomantichia be eternized
For our affright and terror: If they fly,
Toss rocks, and topps of mountains after them
To stumble them, or else entomb them quick.
3.4.Sp4Aegeon
They have already got into the town,
And barricaded ’gainst us their iron gates.
What means then shall we find to startle them?
3.4.Sp5Enceladus
What, but to spurn down their offensive mures?
To shake in two their adamantine gates,
Their marble columns by the ground-sills tear,
And kick their ruin’d walls as high as heaven?
3.4.Sp6Titan
Exeunt
Pursue them to their gates, and ’bout their city
Plant a strong siege. Now Saturn all my suffrances
Shall on thy head fall heavy, we’ll not spare
Old man or babe. The Titans all things dare.
3.5
Alarm.
Enter Saturn, Sibylla, Juno, with other lords of Crete
3.5.Sp1Saturn
The heavens have, for our barbarous cruelty
Done in the murder of our firstborn Ops,
Poured on our head this vengeance. Where, oh where
Shall we find rescue?
3.5.Sp3Saturn
Bid wolves be mild and tigers pitiful!
Command the Libyan lionʼs abstinence.
Teach me to mollify the Corsic rock
Or make the Mount Chymera passable.
What monarch wrapped in my confusions,
in my confusions,Can tell what patience means?
3.5.Sp5Saturn
Oh, either teach me rescue from these troubles,
Or bid me everlastingly, aye ever,
Sink in despair and horror.
3.5.Sp6Sibylla
Oh, my lord,
You have from your own loins issue reserved,
That may redeem all these calamities.
3.5.Sp8Sibylla
From Saturn and Sibylla.
That royal prince, King of Pelagia,
And famous Melliseusʼ foster-child,
Whom all the world styles by the noble name
Of Jupiter, he is King Saturn’s son.
3.5.Sp9Saturn
Thou hast, Sibylla, kept that son alive
That only can redeem me from this thraldom?
Oh, how shall we acquaint young Jupiter
With this his fatherʼs hard success in arms?
3.5.Sp10Sibylla
My care did ever these events foresee,
And I have sent to your surviving son
To come unto your rescue. Then, great Saturn,
In your wifeʼs pity seem to applaud the heavens
That make me their relentful minister,
In the repairing of your downcast state.
3.5.Sp11Saturn
If royal Jupiter be Saturn’s son,
We shall be either rescued or revenged,
And now I shall not dread those Titanois,
That threaten fire and steel.
3.5.Sp13Saturn
Thou art my anchor, and the only column
That supports Saturnʼs glory. O my Jupiter!
On thee the basis of my hopes I erect,
And in thy life King Saturnʼs fame survives.
Are messengers dispatched to signify
My son of our distress?
3.5.Sp15Saturn
Exeunt
Then, Titan and the proud Enceladus,
Hyperion, and Aegeon with the rest,
Of all the earth-bred race we weigh you not.
Threaten your worst. Let all your eyes spark fire.
Your flaming nostrils like Avernusʼ smoke,
Your tongues speak thunder, and your armèd hands
Fling trisulc lightning. Be you gods above,
Or come you with infernal hatred armed,
We dread you not. We have a son survives
Shall calm your tempests, beauteous Juno comfort,
And cheer Sibylla. If he undertake
Our rescue, we from danger are secure.
We in his valour all our lives assure.
3.6
A flourish.
Enter
Jupiter and Melliseus with attendants
3.6.Sp1Melliseus
Fair prince, for less by your deserts and honour
You cannot be, your fortunes and your birth
Are both unknown to me. My two fair daughters
As a swathed infant brought you to my court.
But whence, or of what parents you proceed,
I am merely ignorant.
3.6.Sp2Jupiter
Enter Callisto
pursued by her young son Arcas
Then am I nothing,
And till I know whence my descent hath been,
Or from what house derived, I am but air,
And no essential substance of a man.
3.6.Sp3Callisto
Help, help! For heavenʼs sake, help! I am pursued,
And by my son, that seems to threat my life.
3.6.Sp7Callisto
O thou most false, most treacherous, and unkind!
Behold Callisto by her son pursued.
Indeed, thy son. This little savage youth
Hath lived ’mongst tigers, lions, wolves, and bears,
And since his birth partakes their cruelty.
Arcas his name. Since I Diana left,
And from her chaste train was divorced, this youth
I childed in a cave remote and silent.
His nurture was amongst the savages.
This day I by misfortune moved his spleen,
And he pursued me with revenge and fury.
And had I not forsook the shades and forests,
And fled for rescue to these wallèd towns,
He had slain me in his fury. Save me then.
Let not the son the mother sacrifice
Before the fatherʼs eye.
3.6.Sp8Jupiter
Arcas my son,
My young son, Arcas, Jupiterʼs firstborn.
Oh, let me hug thee, and a thousand times
Embrace thee in mine arms. Lycaonʼs grand-child,
Callisto’s son. Oh will you beauteous lady
Forsake the forests and yet live with us?
3.6.Sp9Callisto
Exit Callisto
No, thou false man, for thy perjurous lusts
lustsI have abandoned human subtleties.
There, take thy son, and use him like a prince,
Being son unto a princess. Teach him arts,
And honoured arms. For me, I have abjured
All peopled cities, and betook myself
To solitary deserts. Jove, adieu.
Thou proving false, no mortal can be true
3.6.Sp10Arcas
Since she will needs be gone, be pleased then.
Wearied with beasts, I long to live ’mongst men.
3.6.Sp11Jupiter
Enter the Clown, with
letters
Yet stay Callisto. Why wilt thou outrun
Thy Jupiter? She gone, welcome my son.
My dear son Arcas, whom if fortune smile,
I will create lord of a greater style.
3.6.Sp14Clown
Then this letter is to you, but is there not one in your Court, called—
Let me see— Have you here never a “gibbet-maker”?
3.6.Sp16Clown
Aye, Jupiter. That’s he that I would speak with. Here’s another letter to
you, but ere you read it, pray let me ask you one question.
3.6.Sp20Clown
They read
Because I would know whether you know your own
father, but if you do not, hoping you are in good health, as your father
scarce was, at the making hereof. These are to certify you.
3.6.Sp22Clown
For mine own part, though I know not what belongs to the getting of
children, yet I know how to father a child, and because I would be
loathe to have this parish troubled with you, I bring you news where you
were born. I was the man that laid you at this manʼs door, and if you
will not go home quietly, you shall be sent from constable to constable,
till you come to the place where you were begot. Read further and tell
me more.
3.6.Sp24Jupiter
Am I the son of Saturn, king of Crete?
My father baffled by the Titanoys?
May all my toward hopes die in my birth,
Nor let me ever worthily inherit
The name of royalty, if by my valour
I prove me not descended royally.
3.6.Sp26Jupiter
Should I have wished a father through the world,
It had been Saturn. Or a royal mother,
It had been fair Sibylla, queen of Crete.
Great Epireʼs king, peruse these tragic lines,
And in thy wonted bounty grant supplies
To free my noble father.
3.6.Sp28Jupiter
Exeunt
Manet Clown
Come then, arm!
Assemble all the powers that we can levy.
Arcas, we make thee of Pelagia king,
As King Lycaonʼs grand-child and the son
Of fair Callisto. Let that clime henceforth
Be called Arcadia and usurp thy name.
Go then and press th’Arcadians to the rescue
Of royal Saturn, this great king and I
Will lead th’Epyrians. Fail me not to meet,
To redeem Saturn, and to rescue Crete.
3.6.Sp29Clown
Exit Clown
I have no mind to this buffeting. I’ll walk after fair and softly, in
hope that all the buffeting may be done before I come. Whither had I
better go: home by land, or by sea? If I go by land and miscarry, then I
go the way of all flesh. If I go by sea and miscarry, then I go the way
of all fish. I am not yet resolved. But howsoever, I have done my
message so cleanly that they cannot say the messenger is bereaved of any
thing that belongs to his message.
3.7
Alarm.
Enter Titan, Lycaon, Enceladus, with Saturn, Juno, and
Sibylla prisoners.
3.7.Sp1Titan
Down, treacherous lord, and be our foot-pace now
To ascend our high tribunal. Where’s that godhead
With which the people avèd thee to heaven?
3.7.Sp2Enceladus
’Tis sunk into the deep abysm of hell.
Tear from his head the golden wreath of Crete.
Tread on his captive bulk and with thy weight,
Great Titan, sink him to the infernal shades
So low, that with his trunk his memory
May be extinct in Lethe.
3.7.Sp3Saturn
More than tyrannous
To triumph oʼer the weak and to oppress
The low dejected. Let your cruelty
Be the sad period of my wretchedness.
Only preserve my lovely Juno’s life,
And give Sibylla freedom.
3.7.Sp4Enceladus
By these gods,
We neither fear nor value but contend
To equal in our actions: both shall die.
There shall no proud Saturnian live to brave
The meanest of the high-born Titanois.
3.7.Sp5Lycaon
Raze from the earth their hateful memory,
And let the blood of Titan sway the earth.
Speak, are the ports and confines strongly armed
’Gainst all invasions?
3.7.Sp6Titan
Alarm.
Enter Aegeon
Who dares damage us?
Let all the passages be open left.
Unguarded let our ports and havens lie.
All danger we despise. Mischance or dread
We hold in base contempt.
3.7.Sp8Aegeon
Arm, royal Titan! Arm, Enceladus!
A pale of brandished steel hath girt thy land.
From the earthʼs caverns break infernal fires
To make thy villages and hamlets burn.
Tempestuous ruin in the shape of war
Clouds all thy populous kingdom. At my heels
Confusion dogs me, and the voice of death
Still thunders in mine ears.
3.7.Sp10Enceladus
A flourish.
Enter,
marching, King Melliseus, Jupiter, Arcas, drum, and followers
Come angels armed or devils clad in flames,
Our fury shall repel them. Come they girt
With power celestial or infernal rage,
We’ll stand their fierce opposure. Royal Titan,
Aegeon, and Hyperion, don your arms.
Bravely advance your strong orbicular shields
And in your right hands brandish your bright steel.
Drown your affrightments in th’amazed sounds
Of martial thunder, diapasoned deep.
We’ll stand them, be they gods; if men, expel
Their strengthless force, and stound them low as hell.
3.7.Sp11Titan
Whence are you that intrude upon our confines?
Or what portend you in these hostile sounds
Of clamorous war?
3.7.Sp17Enceladus
There pause. That word disturbs all thy claim,
And proves that Titan seats him in his own.
3.7.Sp18Titan
If Saturn, as thou say’st, hath sons alive,
His oath is broken, and we are justly seized
Of Creta’s crown by his late forfeiture.
3.7.Sp19Aegeon
Thy tongue hath spoke thy own destruction,
Since whom King Saturn spared our swords must kill,
And he is come to offer up that life
Which hath so long been forfeit.
3.7.Sp20Jupiter
Tyrants, no.
The heavens preserved me for a further use:
To plague your offspring that afflict the earth,
And with your threatʼnings spurn against the gods.
3.7.Sp22Jupiter
Are you there, cannibal? Man-eating wolf?
Lycaon, thou art much beholding to me.
I womaned first Callisto and made thee
A grandfather. Dost not thank me for it?
See, here’s the boy. This is Arcadia’s king.
No more Pelagia now, since thy exile.
3.7.Sp23Titan
To thee that styl’st thyself King Saturn’s son:
Know thou wast doomed before thy birth to die,
Thy claim disabled, and in saving thee
Thy father hath made forfeit of his crown.
3.7.Sp24Jupiter
Know, Titan, I was born free as my father,
Nor had he power to take that life away
That the gods freely gave me. Tyrants see,
Here is that life you by indenture claim.
Seize it and take it, but before I fall,
Death and destruction shall confound you all.
3.7.Sp25Enceladus
Alarm.
The battles join, Titan is slain, and his party
repulsed.
Destruction is our vassal, and attends
Upon the threatʼning of our stormy brows.
We trifle hours. Arm all your fronts with horror,
Your hearts with fury, and your hands with death.
Thunder meet thunder, tempests storms defy.
Saturn and all his issue this day die.
3.8
Enter Aegeon.
3.8.Sp1Aegeon
Exit
Where’s now the high and proud Enceladus
To stop the fury of the adverse foe,
Or stay the base flight of our dastard troops?
Titan is slain, Hyperion strews the earth,
And thousands by the hand of Jupiter
Are sent into black darkness. All that stand
Sink in the weight of his high Jovial hand,
To shun whose rage, Aegeon, thou must fly.
Crete with our hoped conquests all adieu.
We must propose new quests, since Saturn’s son
Hath by his puissance all our campe oʼerrun.
3.9
Alarm.
Enter
Enceladus leading his army. Jupiter leading his. They make a stand.
3.9.Sp1Enceladus
None stir! Be all your arms cramped and diseased,
Your swords unuseful. May your steely glaives
Command your hands, and not your sinews them,
Till I by single valor have subdued
This murderer of my father.
3.9.Sp2Jupiter
Here he stands
That must for death have honour at thy hands.
None interrupt us. Singly we’ll contend
And ’twixt us two give these rude factions end.
3.9.Sp3Enceladus
Two royal armies then on both sides stand
To view this strange and dreadful monomachy.
Thy fall, Saturnian, adds to my renown,
For by thy death I gain the Cretan crown.
3.9.Sp4Jupiter
Alarm.
They combat with javelins first, after with swords and targets. Jupiter kills Enceladus.Death is thy due; I find it in thy stars,
Whil’st our high name gives period to these wars.
Exit Jupiter with the body of
Enceladus.
3.10
Jupiter enters in
victory, with Saturn, Sibylla, Juno,
Melliseus, Arcas, and the lords of Crete.
3.10.Sp1Saturn
Never was Saturn deified till now,
Nor found that perfectness the gods enjoy.
Heaven can assure no greater happiness
Than I attain in sight of Jupiter.
3.10.Sp2Sibylla
O my dear son, born with my painful throws,
And with the hazard of my life preserved,
How well hast thou acquitted all my travails
In this thy last and famous victory?
3.10.Sp3Jupiter
This tells me that yon royal King of Crete
My father is, and that renownèd queen
My mother—all which proves by circumstance,
That ’tis but duty that by me’s achieved.
Only yon beauteous lady stands apart
I know not how to style.
3.10.Sp7Jupiter
Royal Saturn,
If ever I deserved well as a victor,
Or if my warlike deeds, yet bleeding new,
And perfect both in eyes and memory
May plead for me; oh, if I may obtain,
As one that merits, or entreat of you,
As one that owes, being titled now your son,
Let me espouse fair Juno. And bright lady,
Let me exchange the name of sister with you
And style you by a nearer name of wife.
Oh, be my spouse, fair Juno!
3.10.Sp9Saturn
What is it I’ll deny my Jupiter?
She is thy own. I’l royalize thy nuptials
With all the solemn triumphs Crete can yield.
3.10.Sp10Melliseus
Epyre shall add to these solemnities,
And with a bounteous hand support these triumphs.
3.10.Sp12Saturn
They all march off and leave Saturn alone.
Then to our palace
Pass on in state. Let all rareties
Shower down from heaven a largesse, that these bridals
May exceed mortal pomp. March! March, and leave me
To contemplate these joys, and to devise
How with best state this night to solemnize.
3.10.Sp13Saturn
Exit
Saturn at length is happy by his son,
Whose matchless and unrivaled dignities
Are without peer on earth. Oh joy! Joy? Corsive
Worse than the throes of childbirth, or the tortures
Of black Cimmerian darkness. Saturn, now
Bethink thee of the Delphian Oracle.
He shall his fatherʼs virtue first excel,
Seize Crete, and after drive him down to hell.
The first is past: my vertues are exceeded.
The last I will prevent, by force or treason.
I’ll work his ruin ere he grow too high.
His stars have cast it, and the boy shall die.
More sons I have; more crowns I cannot win.
The gods say he must die, and ʼtis no sin.
4.1
Enter Homer
4.1.Sp1Homer
A dumb show.
Enter Jupiter, Juno, Melliseus, Arcas as to revels. To them, Saturn draws
his sword to kill Jupiter, who only defends himself, but being hotly
pursued, draws his own sword, beats away Saturn, Exit Saturn seizeth his crown, and
swears all the lords of Crete to his obeisance, so.
Exit
O blind ambition and desire of reign,
What horrid mischief wilt not thou devise?
The appetite of rule, and thirst of reign
Besots the foolish, and corrupts the wise.
Behold! A king suspicious of his son
Pursues his innocent life, and without cause.
O blind ambition, what hast thou not done
Against religion, zeal, and natureʼs laws?
But men are born their own fates to pursue.
Gods will be gods, and Saturn finds it true.
4.1.Sp2Homer
Saturn against his son his force extended,
And would have slain him by his tyrannous hand,
Whilst Jupiter alone his life
defended.
.But when no prayers his fury could withstand,
fury could withstand,He used his force, his
father drove from Crete,
, his
father drove from Crete,And as the Oracle before had told
Usurped the crown. The lords kneel at his feet,
And Saturnʼs fortunes are to exile sold.
But leaving him, of Danae, that bright lass,
, of Danae, that bright lass,How amorous Jove first wrought her to his power,
How she was closed in a fort of brass,
And how he scaled it in a golden shower:
Of these we next must speak. Courteous and wise,
Help with your hands, for Homer wants his eyes.
4.2
A flourish.
Enter Jupiter, Juno, the lords of Crete, Melliseus, Arcas, Neptune and
Pluto.
4.2.Sp1Jupiter
Our unkind father, double
tyrannous
To prosecute the virtues of his son,
Hath sought his own fate, and by his ingratitude
Left to our head th’imperial wreath of Crete,
Which gladly we receive. Neptune from Athens,
And Pluto from the Lower Tartary:
Both welcome to the Cretan Jupiter.
Those stars that governed our nativity,
And stripped our fortunes from the hand of death,
Shall guard us and maintain us.
4.2.Sp2Neptune
Noble Saturn,
Famous in all things, and degenerate only
In that inhumane practice ’gainst his sons,
Is fled us, whom we came to visit freely,
And filial duties to express. Great Athens,
The nurse and fostʼress of my infancy,
of my infancy,I have instructed in the sea-manʼs craft,
And taught them truly how to sail by stars.
Besides, the unruly jennet I have tamed
I have tamedAnd trained him to the saddle for my practice.
The horse to me is solely consecrate.
4.2.Sp3Pluto
I from the bounds of lower Tartary
Have traveled to the fertile plains of Crete.
Nor am I less in lustre of my fame
Than Neptune or renownèd Jupiter.
Those barren kingdoms I have riched with spoils,
with spoils,And not a people traffics in those worlds
For wealth or treasure, but we custom them
And they enrich our coffers. Our armed guards
Prey on their camels and their laden mules,
And Pluto’s through the world renowned and feared.
And, since we have missed of Saturn lately fled,
It glads me yet I freely may survey
I freely may surveyThe honours of my brother Jupiter.
4.2.Sp10Jupiter
Nay, hand him lords. He is your kinsman too.
He is your kinsman too.Arcas my son, of fair Callisto born.—
I hope, fair Juno, it offends not you.
It was before your time.
4.2.Sp12JupiterAside
She shall be a star.
And all the queens and beauteous maids on earth
That are renowned for high perfections,
We’ll woo and win. We were born to sway and rule.
Nor shall the name of wife be curb to us,
Or snaffle in our pleasures. Beauteous Io,
our pleasures. Beauteous Io,And fair Europa, have by our trans-shapes,
,And guiles of love already been deflowered.
Nor lives she that is worthy our desires,
But we can charm with courtship. (To all) Royal brothers,
) Royal brothers,What news of note is rumored in those realms
Through which you made your travels?
4.2.Sp14Jupiter
His renown,
And her fair beauty oft hath pierced our ears.
Nor can we be at peace, till we behold
That face fame hath so blazed on. What of her?
4.2.Sp15Neptune
Of her enclosure in the Darreine Tower,
Girt with a triple mure of shining brass.
of shining brass.Have you not heard?
4.2.Sp16Jupiter
But we desire it highly.
What marble wall or adamantine gate,
What fort of steel or castle forged from brass
Love cannot scale or beauty not break through?
Discourse the novel, Neptune.
, Neptune.4.2.Sp17Neptune
Thus it was.
The queen of Argos growing great, the king
great, the kingSends, as the custom is, to th’Oracle,
To know what fortunes shall betide the babe.
Answer’s returned by Phoebus and his Priests:
The queen shall child a daughter beautiful,
Who, when she grows to years, shall then bring forth
A valiant princely boy, yet such a one
That shall the king his grandsire turn to stone.
Danae is born, and as she grows to ripeness
So grew her fatherʼs fear. And to prevent
His ominous fate pronounced by th’Oracle,
He moulds this brazen tower, impregnable
Both for the seat and guard, yet beautiful
As is the gorgeous palace of the sun.
4.2.Sp18Jupiter
Ill doth Acrisius to contend and war
Against th’unchanging fates. I’ll scale that tower,
Or rain down millions in a golden shower.
I long to be the father of that babe,
Begot on Danae, that shall prove so brave,
And turn the dotard to his marble grave.
ʼTis cast already! Fate be thou my guide,
Whil’st for this amorous journey I provide.
4.2.Sp20Neptune
So full of jealous fears is King Acrisius
That, save himself, no man must near the fort.
Only a guard of beldams past their lusts,
past their lusts,Unsensible of love, or amorous pity,
of love, or amorous pity,Partly by bribes hired, partly curbed with threats,
Are guard unto this bright imprisoned dame.
4.2.Sp21Pluto
Too pitiless and too obdur’s the king,
the king,To cloister beauty from the sight of man.
But this concerns not us.
4.2.Sp22Jupiter
Exit
That fort I’ll scale,
Though in attempting it be death to fail.
Brothers and princes, all our courtʼs rarities
Lie open to your royal’st entertainment.
Yet pardon me, since urgence calls me hence
To an enforcèd absence. Nay, Queen Juno,
You must be pleased; the cause imports us highly.
Feast with these princes till our free return.
Attendance, lords. We must descend in
gold.
Or yon imprisoned beauty ne’r behold.
4.3
Enter four old beldams, with other women
4.3.Sp11 Beldam
Here’s a coil to keep fire and tow asunder. I wonder the king
should shut his daughter up so close. For any thing I see, she hath no
mind to a man.
asunder. I wonder the king
should shut his daughter up so close. For any thing I see, she hath no
mind to a man.4.3.Sp22 Beldam
Content yourself. You speak according to your age and appetite. We that
are full fed may praise fast. We that in our heat of youth have drunk
our bellyfuls may deride those that in the heat of their bloods are
athirst. I measure her by what I was, not by what I am. Appetite to love
never fails an old woman, till cracking of nuts leaves her. When Danae
hath no more teeth in her head then you and I, I’ll trust a man in her
company, and scarce then. For if we examine our selves, we have even at
these years qualms and rhumes, and devises comes over our stomachs when
we but look on a proper man.
4.3.Sp31 Beldam
That’s no question! I know it by myself, and whil’st I stand sentinel,
I’ll watch her for that, I warrant her.
4.3.Sp51 Beldam bell rings.
Enter Acrisius.
If any stand sentinel in her quarters, we shall keep quarter here no
longer. If the princess miscarry, we shall make gunpowder, and they say
an old woman is better for that than saltpeter.
The alarm bell rings.4.3.Sp8Acrisius
Ladies, well done. I like this providence
And careful watch oʼer Danae. Let me find you
Faithless, you die. Be faithful and you live
Eternized in our love. Go, call her hither.
Be that your charge. The rest keep watchful eye
On your portcullised entrance, which forbids
entrance, which forbidsAll men, save us, free passage to this place.
See! Danae is descended. Fair daughter,
Enter DanaeHow do you brook this palace?
4.3.Sp9Danae
Like a prison.
What is it else? You give me golden fetters,
As if their value could my bondage lessen.
4.3.Sp10Acrisius
The architecture’s sumptuous, and the building
Of cost invaluable. So rich a structure
For beauty, or for state, the world afords not.
Is not thy attendance princely, like a queenʼs?
Are not all these thy vassals to attend?
Are not thy chambers fair, and richly hung?
The walks within this barricadoed mure
mureFull of delight and pleasure for thy
taste
And curious palate? All the chiefest cates
the chiefest catesAre from the furthest verges of the earth
Fetched to content thee. What distates thee then?
4.3.Sp11Danae
That which alone is better than all these:
My liberty. Why am I cloistered thus
And kept a prisoner from the sight of man?
What hath my innocence and infancy
Deserved to be immured in brazen walls?
Can you accuse my faith or modesty?
Hath any loose demeanour in my carriage
Bred this distrust? Hath my eye played the rioter?
Or hath my tongue been lavish? Have my favours,
Unvirginlike, to any been
profuse,
to any been
profuse,That it should breed in you such jealousy,
Or bring me to this durance?
?4.3.Sp12Acrisius
None of these.
I love my Danae. But when I record
The oracle, it breeds such fear in me
That makes this thy retainment.
4.3.Sp13Danae
The oracle?
Wherein unto the least of all the gods
Hath Danae been unthankful, or profane,
To bondage me that am a princess free,
And votaress to every deity?
4.3.Sp14Acrisius
I’ll tell thee, lady. The unchanging mouth
Of Phoebus hath this oracle pronounced:
That Danae shall in time child such a son
such a sonThat shall Acrisius change into a stone.
4.3.Sp15Danae
See your vain fears. What less could Phoebus say?
Or what hath Danae’s fate deserved in this?
To turn you into stone: that’s to prepare
Your monument and marble sepulchre.
The meaning is, that I a son shall have,
That when you die shall bear you to your grave.
Are you not mortal? Would you ever live?
Your father died, and to his monument
You like a mourner did attend his hearse.
What you did to your father, let my son
Perform to you" prepare your sepulchre.
Or shall a stranger bear you to your tomb,
When from your own blood you may store a prince
To do those sacred rights? Or shall vain fears
Cloister my beauty and consume my years?
4.3.Sp16Acrisius
Exit
Our fears are certain, and our doom as fixed
As the decrees of gods. Thy durance here
Is with limit endless.
Exit DanaeGo attend her
Unto her chamber, there to live an anchoress
And changeless virgin to the period
Of her last hour. And you, to whom this charge
Solely belongs, banish all womanish pity.
Be deaf unto her prayers, blind to her tears,
Obdur to her relenting passions.
to her relenting passions.Should she, as heaven and th’Oracle forbid,
By your corrupting lose that precious gem
We have such care to keep and lock safe up,
Your lives are doomed. Be faithful, we desire,
And keep your bodies from the threatened fire.
4.3.Sp171 Beldam
Heaven be as chary of your highnessʼ life as we of Danae’s honour. Now if
she be a right woman, she will have a mind only to lose that which her
father hath such care to keep. There is a thing that commonly sticks
under a womanʼs stomach.
4.3.Sp182 Beldam
What do we talking of things? There must be no meddling with things in
this place. Come, let us set our watch, and take our lodgings before the
princessʼ chamber,
Exit.4.4
Enter Jupiter
like a peddler, the Clown his man, with packs at their backs.
4.4.Sp3Jupiter
Thou know’st I have stuffed my pack with rich jewels to purchase one
jewel worth all these.
4.4.Sp5Jupiter
If we get entrance, sooth me up in all things, and if I have
recourse to the princess, if at any time thou seest me whisper to her,
find some trick or other to blind the Beldamsʼ eyes.
me up in all things, and if I have
recourse to the princess, if at any time thou seest me whisper to her,
find some trick or other to blind the Beldamsʼ eyes.4.4.Sp6Clown
She that hath the best eyes of them all, I have a trick to make her nose
stand in her light.
4.4.Sp8Clown
I have my memorandums about me. As I can bear a pack, so I can bear a
brain, and now I talk of a pack, though I know not of the death of any
of your friends, I am sorry for your heaviness.
4.4.Sp9Jupiter
Love and my hopes do make my load seem light.
This wealth I will unburden in the purchase
Of yon rich beauty. Prithee ring the bell,
4.4.Sp10Clown
Enter the 4 Beldams.
Nay, do you take the rope in your hand for luckʼs sake. The moral is, because you shall ring all in.
He rings the bell sake. The moral is, because you shall ring all in.4.4.Sp14Jupiter
Save you, gentle matrons. May a man be so bold as ask what he may call
this rich and stately tower?
4.4.Sp153 Beldam
Thou seem’st a stranger to ask such a question,
For where is not the tower of Darreine known?
4.4.Sp16Clown
It may be called the tower of Barren for ought I see, for here is none
but are past children.
4.4.Sp174 Beldam
This is the rich and famous Darreine Tower,
Where King Acrisius hath enclosed his daughter,
The beauteous Danae, famous through the world
For all perfections.
4.4.Sp18Jupiter
Oh then ’tis here. Ay, here I must unload.
Coming through Crete, the great King Jupiter
Entreated me to call here at this tower,
And to deliver you some special jewels
Of high prized worth, for he would have his bounty
Renowned through all the earth. Down with your pack,
For here must we unload.
4.4.Sp223 Beldam
Comes he with presents, and shall he unpack at the gate? Nay, come into
the porterʼs lodge, good peddlers.
4.4.Sp244 Beldam
And I can tell thee, peddler, thou hast that courtesy that never any man
yet found but the King Acrisius.
4.4.Sp25Jupiter
You shall be well paid for your courtesy.
Here’s first for you, for you, for
you, for you.
4.4.Sp301 Beldam
Shut the gate for fear the king come, and, if he ring, clap the peddlers
into some of yon old rotten corners. And hath King Jupiter been at all
this cost? He’s a courteous prince, and bountiful. Keep you the peddler
company; my lady shall see mine too.
4.4.Sp321 Beldam
Run, run, you that have the best legs, and tell my lady. (Exit 2, 3, and 4
Beldam.) —But have
you any more of the same?
) —But have
you any more of the same?4.4.Sp33Clown several jewels.
“Have we,” quoth he? We have things about us we have not
showed yet, and that every one must not see would make those
few teeth in your head to water. I would have you think I have ware too,
as well as my master.
Enter in state Danae with the beldams, looking upon three every one must not see would make those
few teeth in your head to water. I would have you think I have ware too,
as well as my master. several jewels.4.4.Sp341 Beldam
Yonder’s my lady. Nay, never be abashed, peddler
There’s a face will become thy jewels as well as any face in
Crete or Argos either. Now, your token.
4.4.Sp35Jupiter
I have lost it: ʼtis my heart. Beauty of angels,
Thou art o’er matched. Earth may contend with heaven,
Nature thou hast, to make one complete creature,
Cheated even all mortality. This face
Hath robbed the morning of her blush, the lily
Of her blanched whiteness, and like theft committed
Upon my soul. She is all admiration.
But in her eyes I ne’er saw perfect lustre.
There is no treasure upon earth but yonder
She is! Oh, I shall lose myself!
4.4.Sp38Danae
Did he bestow these freely? Danae’s guard
Are much indebted to King Jupiter.
If he have store, we’ll buy some for our use
And wearing. They are wondrous beautiful.
Where’s the man that brought them?
4.4.Sp391 Beldam
Here, forsooth, lady. —Hold up your head and blush not! My lady will not
hurt thee, I warrant thee.
4.4.Sp40Jupiter
This jewel, madam, did King Jupiter
Command me to leave here for Danae.
Are you so styled?
4.4.Sp41Danae
If sent to Danae,
’Tis due to me. And would the king of Crete,
Knew with what gratitude we take his gift.
4.4.Sp42Jupiter
Madam, he shall. —Sirrah, set ope your pack,
And what the ladies like let them take freely.
4.4.Sp43Danae
Much have I heard of his renown in arms,
His generousness, his virtues, and his fullness
Of all that nature can bequeath to man.
His bounty I now taste, and I could wish
Your ear were his, that I might let him know
What interest he hath in me to command,
4.4.Sp44Jupiter
His ear is mine. Let me command you, then.
Behold, I am the Cretan, Jupiter,
That rate your beauty above all these gems.
What cannot love? What dares not love attempt?
Despite Acrisius and his armed guards,
Hither my love hath brought me to receive
Or life or death from you, only from you.
4.4.Sp45Danae
We are amazed, and the large difference
Betwixt your name and habit breeds in us
Fear and distrust. Yet if I censure freely,
I needs must think that face and personage
Was ne’er derived from baseness. And the spirit
To venture and to dare to court a queen,
I cannot style less than to be a kingʼs.
Say that we grant you to be Jupiter,
What thence infer you?
4.4.Sp49Jupiter
Madam, you have not seen a clear stone
For colour or for quickness. —Sweet,
your ear.
4.4.Sp52Clown
Not all at these years. I spy his knavery. Now would he have me keep them
busied, whilst he courts the lady.
4.4.Sp54Clown
As for example, here’s a silver bodkin. This is to remove dandruff, and
dig about the roots of your silver-haired fur. This is a tooth-picker,
but you having no teeth, here is for you a coral to rub your gums. This
is called a mask.
4.4.Sp56Clown
Then you have one wrinkle more behind. You that are dim-eyed, put this
pitiful spectacle upon your nose.
4.4.Sp57Jupiter
As I am son of Saturn, you have wrong
To be cooped up within a prison strong.
Your father like a miser cloisters you
But to save cost. He’s loate to pay your dower,
And therefore keeps you in this brazen tower.
What are you better to be beautiful,
When no manʼs eye can come to censure it?
What are sweet cates untasted? Gorgeous clothes
Unworn? Or beauty not beheld? Yon beldams
With all the furrows in their wrinkled fronts
May claim with you like worth, ay and compare.
For eye to censure you none can, none dare.
4.4.Sp59Jupiter
Oh, think you I would lie
(With any save Danae). Let me buy
This jewel, your bright love, though rated higher
Than gods can give, or men in prayers desire.
4.4.Sp61Jupiter
That shows how much I love you, sweet.
I come this beauty, this rare face, to save,
And to redeem it from this brazen grave.
Oh, do not from manʼs eye this beauty screen,
These rare perfections, which no earthly queen
Enjoys save you. ’Twas made to be admired.
The gods, the Fates, and all things have conspired
With Jupiter, this prison to invade,
And bring it forth to that for which ’twas made.
Love Jupiter, whose love with yours shall meet,
And having born you hence, make at your feet
Kings lay their crowns, and mighty emperors kneel.
Oh, had you but a touch of what I feel,
You would both love and pity.
4.4.Sp63Jupiter
Exit Danae
Now by thee
(For what I most affect, by that I swear)
I from this prison will bright Danae bear,
And in thy chamber will this night fast seal
This covenant made.
4.4.Sp752 Beldam
My lady calls. We have trifled the night till bedtime. Some attend the
princess; others see the peddlers packed out of the gate.
4.4.Sp76Clown
Will you thrust us out to seek our lodging at midnight? We have paid for
our lodging, a man would think. We might have lain cheaper in any inn in
Argos.
4.4.Sp77Jupiter
This castle stands remote, no lodging near.
Spare us but any corner here below,
Be’t but the inner porch, or the least staircase,
And we’ll begone as early as you please.
4.4.Sp782 Beldam
Consider all things; we have no reason to deny that. What need we fear?
Alas, they are but peddlers, and the greatest prince that breathes would
be advised ere he durst presume to court the princess Danae.
4.4.Sp791 Beldam
Exit four beldams.
He court a princess? He looks not with the face. Well peddlers, for this
night take a nap upon some bench or other, and in the morning be ready
to take thy yard in thy hand to measure me some stuff, and so to be gone
before day. Well, good-night; we must attend our princess.
4.4.Sp80Jupiter
Gold and reward, thou art mighty and hast power
O’er aged, young, the foolish, and the wise,
The chaste, and wanton, foul, and beautiful.
Thou art a god on earth, and canst all things.
4.4.Sp81Clown
Not all things, by your leave. All the gold in Crete cannot get one of
yon old crones with child. But shall we go sleep?
4.4.Sp82Jupiter
Exit
Sleep thou, for I must wake for Danae.
Exit ClownHence, cloud of baseness. Thou hast done enough
To blear yon Beldams. When I next appear
To you, bright goddess, I will shine in gold,
He puts off his disguiseDecked in the high imperial robes of Crete,
And on my head the wreath of majesty.
For ornament is a prevailing thing,
And you, bright queen, I’ll now court like a king.
4.5
Enter the four old beldams, drawing out Danaeʼs bed, she in it. They place four tapers at at the four corners.4.5.Sp1Danae
Command our eunuchs with their pleasing’st tunes
To charm our eyes to rest. Leave us all, leave us.
The god of dreams hath with his downy fan
Swept oʼer our eyelids, and sits heavy on them.
4.5.Sp3Danae
Exit four beldams.
Then to your chambers, and let wakeless slumbers
Charm you in depth of silence and repose.
4.5.Sp5Danae
Enter Jupiter crowned with his
imperial robes.
Let music through this brazen fortress sound,
Till all our hearts in depth of sleep be drowned.
4.5.Sp6Jupiter
He lies upon her bed
Silence that now hath empire through the world,
Express thy power and princedom. Charming sleep,
Deathʼs younger brother, show thyself as still-less
As death himself. None seem this night to live,
Save Jove and Danae. But, that goddess won,
Give them new life breathed with the morning sun.
Yon is the door that in forbidding me
She bade me enter. Womenʼs tongues and hearts
Have different tunes, for where they most desire,
Their hearts cry “on” when their tongues bid “retire”.
All’s whist. I hear the snorting beldams breathe
Soundness of sleep. None wakes save love, and we
Yon bright imprisoned beauty to set free.
O thou more beauteous in thy nakedness
Than ornament can add to—
How sweetly doth she breath? How well become
Imaginary deadness? But I’ll wake her
Unto new life. This purchase I must win.
Heavenʼs gates stand ope, and Jupiter will in.
Danae?
4.5.Sp9Danae
What mean you, prince? How dare you enter here,
Knowing if I but call your life is doomed,
And all Creteʼs treasure cannot guard your person?
4.5.Sp10Jupiter
You tell me now how much I rate your beauty,
Which, to attain, I cast my life behind me,
As loved much less than you.
4.5.Sp12Jupiter
Repentance I’d not buy
At that high rate, ten thousand times to die.
You are mine own, so all the Fates have said,
And by their guidance come I to your bed.
The night, the time, the place, and all conspire
To make me happy in my long desire.
Acrisiusʼ eyes are charmed in golden sleep.
Those beldams that were placed your bed to keep,
All drownèd in Lethe. Save your downy bed,
White sheets, and pillow where you rest your head,
None hears or sees. And what can they devise,
When they, heaven knows, have neither ears nor eyes?
4.5.Sp13Danae
Beshrew you, sir, that for your amorous pleasure
Could thus sort all things, person, place, and leisure.
Exclaim I could, and a loud uproar keep,
But that you say the crones are all asleep.
And to what purpose should I raise such fear,
My voice being soft, they fast, and cannot hear?
4.5.Sp14Jupiter
They are deaf in rest. Then gentle sweet, lie further.
If you should call, I thus your voice would murther,
And strangle with my kisses.
4.5.Sp17Danae
The bed is drawn
in.
Good my lord, forbear.
What do you mean? O heaven! Is no man near?
If you will needs, for modestyʼs chaste law,
Before you come to bed, the curtains draw,
But do not come. You shall not by this light!
If you but offer’t, I shall cry out right.
O God, how hoarse am I, and cannot? Fie!
Danae thus naked and a man so nigh?
Pray, leave me sir. He makes unready still.
Well, I’ll even wink, and then do what you will.
4.6
Enter the Clown, newly
waked
4.6.Sp1Clown
I would I were out of this tower of brass, and from all these brazen-
faced beldams. If we should fall asleep, and the king come and take us
napping, where were we? My lord stays long, and the night grows short,
the thing you wot of hath cost him a simple sort of jewels. But if,
after all this cost, the thing you wot of would not do, if the peddler
should show himself a piddler, he hath brought his hogs to a fair
market. Fie upon it, what a snorting forward and backward these beldams
keep? But let them sleep on. Some in the house I am sure are awake, and
stirring too, or I miss my aim. Well, here must I sit and wait the good
hour, till the gate be open, and suffer my eyes to do that, which I am
sure my cloak never will, that is, to take nap.
Exit.4.7
Enter Jupiter
and Danae in her nightgown.
4.7.Sp2Jupiter
Beauteous queen, I must,
But thus conditioned: to return again,
With a strong army to redeem you hence,
In spite of Argos, and Acrisius,
That dooms you to this bondage.
4.7.Sp3Danae
Then farewell.
No sooner meet but part? Remember me,
For you, great prince, I never shall forget!
I fear you have left too sure a token with me
Of your remembrance.
4.7.Sp6Jupiter
Exit
Enter the ClownI sooner should forget
My name, my state, than fail to pay this debt.
The day-star ’gins t’appear. The beldams stir,
Ready t’unlock the gate. Fair queen, adieu.
4.7.Sp10Jupiter
Enter the four beldams in hasete
Some cloud to cover me. Throw oʼer my shoulders
Some shadow for this state. The crones are up,
And wait t’unprison us. Nay, quickly fellow.
4.7.Sp121 Beldam
Exeunt diverse ways
Where be these peddlers? Nay, quickly! For heavenʼs sake, the gate is
open. Nay when? Farewell, my honest friends, and do our
humble duties to the great King Jupiter.
5.1
Enter Homer5.1.Sp1Homer
Fair Danae doth his richest jewel wear,
That son of whom the Oracle foretold,
Which cost both mother and the grandsire dear,
Whose fortunes further leisure shall unfold.
Think Jupiter returned to Crete in haste,
To levy arms for Danaeʼs free release,
But hindered till the time be fully past,
For Saturn once more will disturb his peace.
A dumb
show. Enter King Tros and Ganymede with attendants, to him. Saturn makes
suit for aid, shows the king his models, his inventions, his several
metals, at the strangeness of which King Tros is moved, calls for drum,
and clours, and marches with SaturnThe exiled Saturn by King Tros is aided,
Tros that gave Troy her name, and there reigned king.
Crete by the help of Ganymede’s invaded,
Even at that time when Jove should succors bring
To rescue Danae, and that warlike power,
Must now his native territories guard,
Which should have brought her from the brazen tower,
For to that end his forces were prepared.
We grow now towards our port and wished bay.
Gentleʼs your love, and Homer cannot stray.
5.2
Enter Neptune
and Pluto
5.2.Sp2Pluto
’Tis given out,
To conquer Argos. But my sister Juno
Suspects some amorous purpose in the king.
5.2.Sp3Neptune
Sound.
Enter Jupiter,
Arcas, with drum and soldiers
And blame her not: the fair Europaʼs rape,
Brought from Ægenor, and the Cadmian rape;
Io the daughter of old Inachus,
Deflower’d by him; the lovely Semele,
Fair Leda, daughter to King Tyndarus;
With many more may breed a just suspect.
Nor hath he spared fair Ceres, Queen of Grain,
Who bare to him the bright Proserpina.
Such scapes may breed just fears, and what knows she
But these are to surprise fair Danae.
5.2.Sp4Jupiter
Enter King Melliseus
Arm, royal brothers. Crete’s too small an isle
To comprehend our greatness. We must add
Argos and Greece to our dominions.
And all the petty kingdoms of the eart,
Shall pay their homage unto Saturn’s son.
This day we’ll take a muster of our forces,
And forward make for Argos.
5.2.Sp10Melliseus
Rather guard
Your native confines. See upon your coast,
Saturn with thirty thousand Trojans landed,
landed,And in his aid King Tros and Ganymede.
5.2.Sp11Jupiter
Sound.
Enter, with drums and colours, King Tros, Saturn, Ganymede, with other lords and attendants.
In never worse time could the tyrant come
Than now, to break my faith with Danae.
O beauteous love! I fear Acrisiusʼ ire
Will with severest censure chastise thee,
And thou wilt deem me faithless and unkind
For promise-breach. But what we must, we must.
Come, valiant lords. We’ll first our own defend
Ere against foreign climes our arm extend.
5.2.Sp12Saturn
Degenerate boys, base bastards, not my sons!
Behold, the death we threatened in your cradles
We come to give you now. See here King Tros,
In pity of deposed Saturnʼs wrongs,
Is come in person to chastise your pride,
And be the heavenʼs relentless justicer.
5.2.Sp13Jupiter
Not against Saturn as a father, we,
But as a murderer, lift our opposite hands.
Nature and heaven gives us this privilege,
To guard our lives ʼgainst tyrants and invaders.
That claim we, as we’re men, we would but live.
Then take not from us what you cannot give.
5.2.Sp14Tros
Where hath not Saturnʼs fame abroad been spread
For many uses he hath given to man?
As navigation, tillage, archery,
Weapons and gold? Yet you for all these uses
Deprive him of his kingdom.
5.2.Sp17Ganymede
Those filial duties you so much forget
We come to teach you. Royal kings, to arms!
Give Ganymede the onset of this battle,
That being a son knows how to lecture them,
And chastise their transgressions.
5.2.Sp18Saturn
Alarm.
The battles join. The Trojans are repulsed.
Exit Saturn, Tros, and Trojans.
Ganymede,
It shall be so. Power out your spleen and rage
On our proud issue. Let the thirsty soil
Of barren Crete quaff their degenerate bloods,
And surfeit in their sins. All Saturnʼs hopes
And fortunes are engaged upon this day.
It is our last and all, be’t our endeavour
To win’t for ay, or else to lose it ever.
5.3
Enter Tros and Saturn.
5.3.Sp2Saturn
Amid’st the throng of weapons, acting wonders.
Twice did I call aloud to have him fly,
And twice he swore he had vowed this day to die.
5.3.Sp4Saturn
Exit
Tush, ʼtis vain.
To seek to save him we shall lose ourselves.
The day is lost, and Ganymede lost too
Without divine assistance. Hie, my lord,
Unto your ships. No safety lives a land,
land,Even to the oceanʼs margent we are pursued,
Then save yourself by sea.
5.3.Sp6Saturn
Exit
To sea must Saturn too,
To whom all good stars are still opposite.
My crown I first bought with my infantʼs blood,
Not long enjoyed, till Titan wrested it,
Re-purchased, and re-lost by Jupiter.
These horrid mischiefs that have crowned our brows
Have bred in us such strange distemprature,
That we are grown dejected and forlorn.
Our blood is changed to ink, our hairs to quills,
Our eyes half buried in our queachy plots.
Consumptions and cold agues have devoured
And eat up all our flesh, leaving behind
Nought save the image of despair and death.
And Saturn shall to after ages be
That star that shall infuse dull melancholy.
To Italy I’ll fly, and there abide,
Till divine powers my place above provide.
5.4
Alarm. Enter Ganymede compassed in with soldiers. To them, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Arcas, Melliseus5.4.Sp1Jupiter
Yield, noble Trojan. There’s not in the field
One of thy nation lifts a hand save thee.
5.4.Sp2Ganymede
Why that’s my honour, when alone I stand
ʼGainst thee and all the forces of thy land.
5.4.Sp3Jupiter
I love thy valour, and would woo thy friendship.
Go freely where thou wilt, and ransomless.
5.4.Sp4Ganymede
Why, that’s no gift. I am no prisoner,
And therefore owe no ransom, having breath.
Know I have vowed to yield to none save death.
5.4.Sp5Jupiter
Alarm
They fight, and losing their weapons, embrace.
I wish thee nobly Trojan, and since favour
Cannot attain thy love, I’ll try conclusions,
And see if I can purchase it with blows.
5.4.Sp14Pluto
Peace with her golden wings hovers oʼer Crete,
Frighting hence discord, and remorseless war.
Will Jupiter make up for Argos now?
5.4.Sp15Melliseus
Winter draws on. The sea’s unnavigable,
To transport an army. There attends without
A lord of Argos.
5.4.Sp17Argos Lord
As one distressed by fate, and miserable.
Of King Acrisius, and his fort of brass,
Danaeʼs enclosure, and her beldam guard,
Who but hath heard? Yet through these brazen walls
Love hath broke in, and made the maid a mother
Of a fair son, which, when Acrisius heard,
Her female guard unto the fire he dooms.
His daughter, and the infant prince her son,
He puts into a mastless boat to sea,
To prove the rigour of the stormy waves.
5.4.Sp18Jupiter
Acrisius, Argos, and the world shall know
Jove hath been wronged in this. Her further fortunes:
Canst thou relate?
5.4.Sp19Argos Lord
I can. As far as Naples
The friendly winds her mastless boat transports.
There succoured by a courteous fisherman
She’s first relieved, and after that presented
To King Pelonnus, who at this time reigns,
Who, ravished with her beauty, crowns her queen,
And decks her with th’imperial robes of state.
5.4.Sp20Jupiter
Exeunt omnes
What we have scanted is supplied by fate.
Here then cease arms, and now court amorous peace
With solemn triumphs. And dear Ganymede,
Be henceforth called the friend of Jupiter.
And if the Fates hereafter crown our brows
With divine honours, as we hope they shall,
We’ll style thee by the name of cup-bearer,
To fill us heavenly nectar, as fair Hebe
Shall do the like to Juno our bright queen.
Here end the pride of our mortality.
Opinion, that makes gods, must style us higher.
The next you see us, we in state must shine,
Eternized with honours more divine.
5.5
Enter Homer5.5.Sp1Homer
Exeunt
Of Danae, Perseus was that night begot,
Perseus that fought with the Gorgonian shield,
Whose fortunes to pursue time suffers not.
For that, we have prepared an ampler field.
Likewise how Jove with fair Alcmene lay;
Of Hercules, and of his famous deeds;
How Pluto did fair Proserpine betray:
Of these my muse, now travelled, next proceeds.
Yet to keep promise, ere we further wade,
The ground of ancient poems you shall see,
And how these, first born mortal, gods were made,
By virtue of divinest poesy.
The Fates, to whom the heathen yield all power,
Whose dooms are writ in marble to endure,
Have summoned Saturnʼs three sons to their tower,
To them the three dominions to assure
Of Heaven, of Sea, of Hell. How these are scanned,
Let none decide but such as understand.
Sound, a dumb show. Enter the
three fatal sisters, with a rock, a thread, and a pair of shears,
bringing in a globe, in which they part three lots. Jupiter draws
heaven, at which Iris descends and presents him with his eagle, crown
and scepter, and his thunder-bolt. Jupiter first ascends on thʼeagle,
and after him Ganymede.To Jupiter doth high Olympus fall,
Who thunder and the trisulc lightning bears,
Dreaded of all the rest in general.
He on a princely eagle mounts the spheres.
Sound. Neptune draws the sea, is mounted upon a seahorse. A robe and
trident with a crown are given him by the Fates.Neptune is made the lord of all the seas,
His mace a trident, and his habit blue.
He can make tempests, or the waves appease,
And unto him the seamen are still true.
Sound, thunder and tempest. Enter at four several corners the four Winds.
Neptune riseth disturbed. The Fates bring the four winds in a chain, and
presnt them to Aeolus as their king.And for the winds, these brothers that still war
Should not disturb his empire, the three Fates
Bring them to Aeolus, chained as they are,
To be enclosed in caves with brazen gates.
Sound. Pluto draws hell. The Fates put upon him a burning robe, and
present him with a mace and burning crown.Pluto’s made emperor of the ghosts below,
Where with his black guard he in darkness reigns,
Commanding Hell, where Styx and Lethe flow,
And murderers are hanged up in burning chains.
But leaving these, to your judicial spirits
I must appeal, and to your wonted grace,
To know from you what eyeless Homer merits,
Whom you have power to banish from this place.
But if you send me hence unchecked with fear,
Once more I’ll dare upon this stage t’appear.
Notes
Annotations
1.1
The 1611 quarto is divided into acts. Gaines was the first scholar to divide the play
into scenes. See Textual Introduction for a discussion of scene divisions in this
edition.
crares
small boats
Gaines emends to
crayersbut the one-syllable
craresfits the meter better.
The examples in the OED show that both
crayerand
crarewere early modern spellings (OED crayer|crare noun).
Aside
This aside is marked in Q1 after Dianaʼs
What can you do?.Collier places it in the margin after
To bright Diana and her train Iʼll stand,perhaps suggesting that this line, with its sexual pun on
stand,as well as
More than the best here canare spoken as asides. Gaines places the aside before
Thatʼs more than I can promiseand indicates that
Well, proceedand subsequent lines are spoken
To them(Gaines 2.6.113).
(Thatʼs … proceed.
The compositor has wrongly put parentheses around the part of the line that is spoken
to Atlanta. Collier and Gaines recognize the error and correct it in their respective
ways.
Jupiter alone his life defended
Jupiter merely defended his own life
his
Saturnʼs
He … force
Jupiter is the subject here
his father
Jupiterʼs father (i.e., Saturn); Jupiter drove his father from Crete
leaving him
ceasing to speak of him (i.e., Saturn)
father, double tyrannous
double tyrannous / To prosecute the virtues of his sonis a subordinate clause modifying
our unkind father.I have followed Collierʼs punctuation instead of Gainesʼ.
fostʼress
foster parent
jennet
horse
Specifically a
small Spanish horse(OED n.1)
riched
enriched
yet
Possibly a compositorial misreading of
yt(a common abbreeviation for
that) in the manuscript. Both Collier and Gaines retain Q1ʼs
yet.
Nay, … lords
This dialogic stage direction indicates that Pluto and Neptune have not taken Arcasʼs
hands.
She … strumpet
Gaines marks this line as an aside. One might experiment in performance with this
moment of strife between Juno and Jupiter. Jupiter hears Junoʼs denigration of Callisto.
Does Juno hear Jupiterʼs resolve woo and win all the
beauteous maids on earth? What is happening on stage during this lengthy aside?
It was … star
The quarto sets each of these three half lines on their own compositorial lines. I
have tagged the second and third as a shared verse line, because of the isocolon on
She was/shall be a.
One might experiment in performance with the rapidity of responses. Does Juno make
a speedy rejoinder to Jupiterʼs
It was before your time? Does she take a moment to formulate her response?
snaffle in
bridle
snaffle is a transitive verb meaning “to put a bit on a horse”. See OED v1 1.
transhapes
changes of shape, metamorphoses; see OED trans-shape | transhape, where all three
examples come from Heywood.
Heywood appears to be the only early modern writer to use transhape as a noun. In addition to OEDʼs examples from The Golden Age, The Silver Age, and Loveʼs Mistress, Heywood uses the term as a noun in Gynaikeion. He also accounts for more than half of the uses of transhape as a verb in the EEBO-TCP corpus up to 1640. Transhape is a more common spelling than trans-shape.
Argos king
king of Argos
mure
wall
novel
piece of news(Gaines).
beldams
an aged woman(OED n.2).
Unlike Gaines, we treat this term as a generic noun rather than a proper name.
Unsensible of
Incapable of being affected by(Gaines).
obdurʼs
obdurate is (i.e., is stubborn)
That fort … fail
Gaines marks these two lines as an aside.
We … behold
Gaines marks this concluding couplet as an aside.
tow
flax.
barricadoed
barricaded
pleasure … All
Collier offers a plausible alternative punctuation of this passage. He puts a question
mark after
pleasureand treats
For thy taste and curious palateas the dependent opening clause of
All the chiefest cates / Are […] Fetched to content thee.
durance
forced confinement
record
remember, take to heart(Gaines).
child
give birth to
obdur
obdurate
gem
virginity (metaphoric)
off
Go off, discharge(Gaines).
The Clown, punning on the double meaning of
charge(responsibility; munition), continues the verbal play with
fireand
off.
sooth
to support, or back up, (a person) in a statement or assertion(OED verb 3).
The OED cites this line from The Golden Age as an example of this now-obsolete meaning.
Gaines unnecessarily emends the spelling to “soothe”.
Now, gold,
Jupiter apostrophizes (speaks to) the gold
Gaines marks this speech as an aside.
1 Beldam
Q, Collier, and Gaines all assign both A4 Sc4 Sp30 and A4 Sc4 Sp32 to 1 Beldam. However, one of the two speeches might be assigned to another beldam.
The speaker of A4 Sc4 Sp48 orders one of the other beldams to
Keep […] the peddler companywhile she shows the peddlerʼs gift to Danae; the speaker of A4 Sc4 Sp50 orders
you that have the best legsto run to Danae. Assigning both speeches to the same speaker may open up comic possibilities, with 1 Beldam feigning lameness and staying behind when she recognizes that the peddler has more presents.
that
that which
Exit 2, 3, and 4 Beldam.
This edition adds an exit for three of the beldams, on the grounds that each beldam
is given one jewel and the subsequent original stage direction has Danae looking
upon three several jewels.1 Beldam remains behind.
—Sweet, your ear.
The compositor of Q used italics and an opening parenthesis to signal the aside here.
4.6
This edition adds a scene break here. The Q1 stage direction reads
The bed is drawne in, and enter the Clowne new wakʼt.Both Collier and Gaines split this two-part paratactic stage direction into its two component parts and drop the
and.Collier does not provide scene divisions; even though Gaines does provide scene divisions, he does not add one here, even though the stage is technically cleared.
Jove … way
I follow Gaines in assigning this line to Arcas, on the grounds that
it seems unlikely that Jupiter would invoke Jove (i.e., himself) to ‘guide us in our wayʼ(Gaines 77n).
Trojans
Q1ʼs
Troianscould equally well be modernized as “Troyans”, a more common early modern name for the inhabitants of Troy, from whom Londoners imagined themselves to be descended.
5.3
Gaines does not begin a new scene here. I do, on the grounds that this scene is one
of the
rest and regroupscenes so common in early modern battle sequences.
a
on
Collations
1.1
of Crete
Aside
succeed. / Maugre the envious gods, the brat
succeed. Maugre the envious gods the brat
Q1:
succeed, / Maugre the envious Gods, the brat
(Aside)
Q1:
(aside,
(Thatʼs … proceed.
Q1:
That’s more then I can promise (well proceed)
Thatʼs more than I can promise.—Well, proceed.
Arcas my son, / My young son … firstborn.
3.8
3.9
Jupiter kills Enceladus.
Q1:
Jupiter kills Enceladus, and enters with victory,
Jupiter kills Enceladus, and enters with victory.
Exit Jupiter with the body of Enceladus.
3.10
Jupiter enters in victory, with Saturn,
Q1:
and enters with victory, Iupiter, Saturne,
and enters with victory. Jupiter, Saturn,
Homer
growing
all in
Here’s first for you, for you, for you, for you.
Exit 2, 3, and 4 Beldam.
4.6
5.3
Characters
Homer
The narrator of The Golden Age, Homer
introduces each act and closes out the play. He also summarizes the
non-dramatized events that occur between each act, serving as the
playgoerʼs guide to the world of classical myth.
In the classical context,
Homerwas credited with writing the epic poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey, as well as the Homeric Hymns through which we know important myths about the gods, such as the story of Persephone, or the story of how Apollo took over the oracle at Delphi.
1 Lord
2 Lord
3 Lord, sent to the Oracle
Saturn
Saturn is the younger son of Uranus and Vesta, the younger brother of
Titan, and the father of Jupiter. Because he is more popular with
the people, he usurps the throne of Crete from his elder brother,
with Vestaʼs support. Saturn plays three distinct roles in The Golden Age: he begins as our tragic hero,
before quickly becoming a tyrant, and then finally becoming a fully
fledged villain in the final act.
In classical myth, Saturn (Greek equivalent: Kronos/Cronus) was the
father of Jupiter and the king of the Titans. Having overthrown his
own father Uranus, Saturn was in turn overthrown by his son Jupiter.
Although Saturn was originally a god of the harvest, the similarity
between the Greek name Cronus and the Greek word for
time (chronos) resulted
in Saturn becoming associated with time; thus
Father Timeis still frequently depicted with Saturnʼs scythe.
Many Renaissance writers and artists depicted Saturn as a destructive
force of time, possibly due to his association with the scythe; as a
result, both Saturn the figure and Saturn the planet were associated
with melancholy and various evils (Brumble 300–301).
Vesta
Vesta is the dowager queen of Crete, the widowed wife of Uranus, the
mother of Saturn and Titan, and the grandmother of Jupiter. She
supports Saturnʼs bid for the throne, and she comes up with the
scheme to trick Saturn by presenting him with a bowl of blood and
sending Jupiter away to be raised in the court of Melliseus. After
this point, Vesta does not reappear in The Golden
Age.
In classical myth, Vesta (Greek equivalent: Hestia) was the goddess
of the hearth, the sister of Jupiter, and the daughter of Saturn.
Vesta was one of the three virgin goddesses of classical myth, the
other two being Diana and Minerva.
In the Renaissance, Vesta was the subject of two traditions. Some
mythographers described her as the goddess of heavenly fire.
However, others described her as the goddess of earthly fire, or
sometimes as just the earth. According to mythographer Alexander
Ross, when people referred to Vesta as the earth, she was called the
mother of Saturn, but when she was referred to as the earthʼs fire,
she was his daughter (Brumble
347).
Sibylla
Sibylla is the wife of Saturn and the mother of Jupiter. She aids in
Vestaʼs scheme to save Jupiterʼs life, and is later the one who
confesses to Saturn that Jupiter is alive.
In the classical context, the term sibyl referred to
various oracles and prophetesses throughout antiquity in both Greece
and Italy, such as the sibyl at Cumae.
Many Renaissance sources seem to have thought of the sibyls as pagan
versions of Old Testament prophets, and several writers and artists
suggest that the sibyls gave prophecies of the birth of Christ (Brumble 310).
Titan
Titan is the elder son of Uranus and Vesta, and the elder brother of
Saturn. When Saturn takes the throne from him, Titan is upset and
declares he will give up his title only if Saturn agrees to kill any
sons he might have. Later, when Titan learns that Jupiter lives, he
assumes that Saturn has preserved the child on purpose and invades
Crete.
In classical myth, titan was a title bestowed upon
Saturn and his siblings by their father Uranus after they deposed
him; the word roughly means “stretchers”, in reference
to how they stretched beyond their means to seek power. The term
eventually came to be applied to various gods who existed prior to
Jupiterʼs rule.
Lycaon
Lycaon, Titanʼs son, is the king of Pelagia and the father of
Callisto. He is the one who suggests to Titan that Saturn not be
allowed to have heirs. Later, when Jupiter arrives to end a war
between Pelagia and Epyre, Lycaon kills the lord of Epyre he was
given as a hostage, attempting to serve his remains to Jupiter and
his lords in a stew; for this crime, Jupiter overthrows Lycaon.
Later, Lycaon joins his brothers to aid his father in invading
Crete.
In classical myth, Lycaon was a mortal king of Pelagia who, wishing
to test whether Jupiter was truly omniscient, killed one of his own
sons, put his remains in a stew, and served it to Jupiter to see if
he would notice. Immediately recognizing what Lycaon had done,
Jupiter turned Lycaon into a wolf as punishment.
Clown
The Clownʼs main role in The Golden Age is
to provide aid to the royal family of Crete; he first delivers the
infant Jupiter to Melliseusʼ court in secret, then later confirms
the adult Jupiterʼs true parentage, and finally aids Jupiterʼs quest
to seduce Danae by distracting the beldams. On his first appearance,
he summons the Nurse to Sibyllaʼs lying-in chamber and volunteers an
ecomiastic list of Saturnʼs god-like innovations and
achievements.
There is no classical equivalent for the Clown. He is firmly in the
native English dramatic tradition.
Nurse
The nurse delivers Jupiter as a baby. She was with Sibylla and Vesta
when they attempted to kill Jupiter, and later aided the two in
faking Jupiterʼs murder. The nurse is introduced at the same time as
the clown.
While there are nurses in classical myth, the nurse in The Golden Age does not have any specific
classical equivalent. The character has more in common with
comparable figures in English drama.
Jupiter (Jove)
Also called Jove in the text, Jupiter is the main character of The Golden Age after A1. He is the son of Saturn
and Sibylla, but is raised in Epyre by Melliseus. Jupiter is shown
to be a skilled fighter in his conquering of Pelagia, as well as his
defeats of Titan, Enceladus, and Saturn. Jupiter is also
characterized as a predatory womanizer: he rapes Callisto, marries
his sister Juno, seduces Danae, and is said by his brothers to have
lain with many more women besides. In A5 Sc3, Jupiter is appointed
by the Fates to preside over Olympus as the god of the heavens.
In classical myth, Jupiter (Greek equivalent: Zeus) is the king of
the gods, and the god of the sky, storms, lightning, hospitality,
and justice. With his lightning bolts, Jupiter overthrew his father
Saturn. Taking all sources into account, Jupiter is the father of
over 100 children in classical myth, only three of whom are by his
wife Juno.
In Renaissance tradition, Jupiterʼs status as the chief god of the
classical pantheon led him to be heavily associated with the
Christian God, and he was therefore associated in allegories of
Nature with a higher, purer form of air and light. Because of these
two associations, Jupiter was generally regarded as a more orderly
god like Apollo or Minerva, who could stand against gods of the
passions like Venus (Brumble
192–193).
Callisto
Callisto is the daughter of Lycaon. When Jupiter falls in love with
her beauty, Callisto flees and takes refuge with Dianaʼs huntresses.
Jupiter dresses as a woman to pursue Callisto and forces himself
upon her. Exiled from Dianaʼs circle, Callisto gives birth to
Archas, who repeatedly tries to kill her until she leaves him in
Jupiterʼs care. Callisto then departs the stage and does not
return.
In classical myth, Callisto was one of Dianaʼs most loyal huntresses.
Jupiter took on Dianaʼs form to trick and rape Callisto, who became
pregnant. When Callistoʼs pregnancy was discovered by Diana, she was
exiled from Dianaʼs company, whereupon Callisto was transformed into
a bear. Later, when Callistoʼs son encountered his mother, he did
not recognize her and prepared to kill what he thought was an
ordinary bear. To prevent this tragedy, Jupiter turned Callisto into
the constellation Ursa Major.
Most Renaissance philosophy and interpretations of the story of
Callisto viewed her as an allegory for the bestializing effect of
lust (as she transformed into a bear upon losing her virginity, even
though she was the victim rather than the lustful perpetrator), and
as a warning about the importance of taking action to protect oneʼs
(female) virginity (Brumble
62–63).
Satyr
The satyrs in The Golden Age are followers
of Diana, and join her company in both song and the hunt.
In classical myth, satyrs were minor gods of (male) fertility, and
were primarily associated with the wine god Bacchus. Satyrs were
also frequently responsible for acts of rape.
Nymphs
The nymphs are followers of Diana, and seem to be members of her
company. They join the satyrs in song.
In classical myth, nymphs were minor goddesses of natural features,
such as trees, streams, and mountains. They were frequently pursued
by lustful male deities.
Diana
Diana is the goddess of viginity with whom Callisto seeks refuge. She
leads a group of young virgin women, all of whom have sworn oaths of
chastity. With little effort, Jupiter tricks Diana into believing
that he is a woman.
In classical myth, Diana (Greek equivalent: Artemis) was the daughter
of Jupiter. She was the goddess of hunting, the wilderness, and
virginity. Diana was responsible for watching over girls before they
were married, and she was accompanied by a number of nymphs and
mortal maidens who had sworn to remain virgins forever. Diana was
one of three virgin goddesses in classical myth, the other two being
Vesta and Minerva.
Atlanta
Atlanta is one of Dianaʼs huntresses, and appears to be the lead
huntress.
In classical myth, Atalanta (the classical spelling for Atlanta) was
one of the few female heroes. Although she was associated with
Diana, she was not actually a member of Dianaʼs train. Atalanta was
raised by a mother bear, slew the Calydonian boar, and joined
Jasonʼs argonauts in the Argonautica.
Atalanta eventually married the hero Hippomenes.
Aegeon
Aegeon is one of Titanʼs sons, who aids in his invasion of Crete.
He does not have a counterpart in classical myth.
Enceladus
The eldest son of Titan, Enceladus aids his father in his invasion of
Crete.
In classical myth, Enceladus was one of the Gigantes, a group of
giants spawned by Terra in an attempt to overthrow the Olympians.
Enceladus was killed by Minerva and Hercules.
Juno
Juno is the daughter of Saturn and Sibylla. Saturn thinks she is his
only living child. She is also the sister of Jupiter, and marries
him. Juno becomes jealous when Jupiter mentions other women.
In classical myth, Juno (Greek equivalent: Hera) was the sister and
wife of Jupiter, therefore making her queen of the gods. She was the
goddess of marriage and adult women. Juno appeared in myth primarily
to take revenge on Jupiterʼs lovers and children.
Melliseus
Melliseus is the king of Epyre and foster-father of Jupiter.
In classical myth, Melliseus was the father of the nymphs who nursed
Jupiter as an infant. The name roughly means “bee
man”.
Arcas
Arcas is the son of Jupiter and Callisto. When Callisto leaves Arcas
with Jupiter, Jupiter gives Arcas the kingdom of Pelagia and renames
it Arcadia in his honour.
In classical myth, Arcas was the son of Jupiter and Callisto. He was
born after Callisto was turned into a bear, and raised by the people
of Arcadia, where Arcas became the first king. In some versions of
the story, Arcas was transformed into the constellation Ursa Minor
alongside his mother.
Neptune
Neptune is the son of Saturn and Sybilla. He is the younger brother
of Jupiter, and the elder brother of Pluto. Neptune was sent away as
an infant by Vesta, Sybilla, and the nurse, and secretly raised in
Athens where he became king and taught the people how to sail. Upon
learning of his true parentage, Neptune brings his army to Crete to
aid Jupiter against Saturnʼs invasion. In A5 Sc3, the Fates appoint
Neptune to be the god of the seas.
In classical myth, Neptune (Greek equivalent: Poseidon) was the god
of the sea and earthquakes. He was the elder brother of Jupiter;
Neptune complains in the Iliad about the
fact that his younger brother can tell him what to do. Neptune was
also associated with horses, which he is said to have created from
sea foam. Neptune and Minerva competed to be the patron god of
Athens. Minerva won, and the city was named after her (Minervaʼs
Greek equvalent is Athena).
Pluto
Pluto is the youngest son of Saturn and Sybilla, and the younger
brother of Jupiter and Neptune. Like his brothers, Pluto was sent
away from Crete in his infancy by Vesta, Sybilla, and the nurse.
Pluto established a kingdom of raiders in lower Tartary and gathered
great wealth. Upon learning of his true parentage, Pluto brought his
army to Crete to aid Jupiter against Saturn. In A5 Sc3, the Fates appoint
Pluto to preside over Hell as the god of the dead.
In classical myth, Pluto (Greek equivalent: Hades) was the eldest son
of Saturn and the elder brother of Neptune and Jupiter. He was the
god of the dead and presided as king over the Underworld. While
Pluto accepted all deceased mortals into his realm, he was best
known for devising eternal punishments for wicked mortals, such as
having Sisyphus roll a bolder uphill for all eternity. Pluto was the
husband of Proserpine, to whom he generally remained faithful.
Because the Underworld was located under the earth, all of the
riches that could be found under the earth were considered part of
Plutoʼs domain; thus he was also a god of wealth.
1 Beldam
The four beldams were tasked by King Acrisius to guard Danaeʼs tower
against any intruders. Due to the cunning of the clown, the beldams
failed in their task.
2 Beldam
3 Beldam
4 Beldam
Acrisius
Acrisius is the king of Argos, and the father of Danae. Having
received a prophecy that he will be killed by his grandson, Acrisius
constructs a bronze tower in which to imprison Danae, so that she
will not encounter any men and therefore will not have any children.
After Jupiter sneaks into the tower and impregnates Danae, Acrisius
has Danae and her infant son placed on a mastless boat and sent out
to sea; he also condemns the beldams to be burned alive.
In classical myth, Acrisius was a former king of Argos. He was the
father of Danae, and the grandfather of the hero Perseus. When
Acrisius received a prophecy from the oracle that he would be killed
by his grandson, he locked his daughter away in a tower. When Danae
inevitably bore Jupiterʼs son despite her imprisonment, Acrisius had
both her and the infant locked in a box and thrown into the sea.
Many years later, while Acrisus was secretly watching a sporting
event in which Perseus was participating, a discus thrown by Perseus
veered off course and accidentally hit Acrisius in the head, killing
him.
Danae
Danae is the daughter of Acrisius. She is locked in a tower by her
father in order to thwart a prophecy. Entranced by stories of
Danaeʼs beauty, Jupiter sneaks into her tower to woo her. Danae
resists Jupiterʼs advances at first, but eventually falls for him,
and expresses sadness when Jupiter leaves the next morning. When
Acrisius discovers that Danae has had a child, he puts her and her
son on a mastless boat, which eventually winds up on the shores of
Naples. The king of Naples then makes Danae his queen.
In classical myth, Danae was the mother of Perseus by Jupiter. She
was locked in a tower by her father so that she would not bear him
the grandson who was fated to kill him. Upon witnessing Danaeʼs
beauty, Jupiter entered her tower in the form of a shower of gold,
and made her pregnant. Upon discovering that Danae had given birth,
her father locked both Danae and her son in a box, and had them
thrown into the sea. Fortunately, the box floated. Danae and Perseus
eventually washed up on the shores of the island of Seriphos, where
they were rescued by a fisherman. Perseus embarked on his quest to
slay Medusa so that Danae would not have to marry the king of
Seriphos.
Because Jupiter entered Danaeʼs tower as a shower of gold, several
Renaissance writers interpret Danae as an allegory for the
corruptive power of wealth over womenʼs chastity. Other writers,
however, compared Jupiter to the Holy Spirit, and thus compared
Danae to the Virgin Mary (Brumble 93–94).
Tros
Tros is the founder and king of Troy. After Saturn has been dethroned
and chased from Crete, he flees to Troy and shows King Tros his
inventions. Impressed, Tros agrees to lend Saturn the aid of his
army in retaking Crete, but their invasion is unsuccessful.
In classical myth, Tros was the mythological founder-king of
Troy.
Ganymede
Ganymede is the son of King Tros and therefore a prince of Troy. He
accompanies his father in the attempt to help Saturn reclaim the
throne of Crete. While the invasion is unsuccessful, Ganymede
continues to fight even though the army is retreating. Ganymede
challenges Jupiter to a duel and loses; impressed by each otherʼs
valour, the two instead embrace in friendship. In A5 Sc3,
Ganymede follows Jupiter to Olympus on the back of a giant
eagle.
In classical myth, Ganymede was a mortal prince of Troy. One day,
while Ganymede was attending to a flock of sheep, Jupiter looked
down from Olympus and was struck by the young manʼs beauty. Jupiter
took the form of an eagle and carried Ganymede off to Olympus, where
he made Ganymede immortal. Ganymede then became Jupiterʼs
cup-bearer.
Argos Lord
A lord of Argos who informs Jupiter and company of Danaeʼs fate.
Fates
The Fates appear in the dumbshow at the end of A5 to appoint Jupiter,
Neptune, and Pluto their godly domains, and present them with their
regalia.
In classical myth, the Fates were three immortal sisters who presided
over the destinies of all mortals. Their main function was to decide
when a mortal would die, which was symbolized when they cut a thread
that represented the mortalʼs lifespan. In the Theogony, the Fates are said to be the daughters of
Nyx, the personification of night. However, later sources call them
the daughters of Jupiter.
Aeolus
Aeouls appears in the dumbshow
at the end of A5, where the Fates present
him with the winds, over which he will preside.
In classical myth, Aeolus was a mortal king of the floating island of
Aeolia, where he controlled the winds. In the Odyssey, Aeolus presents Odysseus with a bag that
contains all the storm winds, so that no storm will prevent Odysseus
from making it home. However, when Odysseusʼs men open the bag and
the ship is blown back to Aeolia, Aeolus considers this accident to
be an omen from the gods and refuses to help Odysseus a second
time.
Hyperion
A non-speaking character. Enceladus addresses Hyperion in A3 Sc6.
In classical myth, Hyperion was one of the twelve Titans. He was the
son of Uranus and Terra, and the brother of Saturn.
Prosopography
Brett Greatley-Hirsch
Brett Greatley-Hirsch is Professor of Renaissance Literature and Textual Studies at
the University of Leeds. He is a coordinating editor of Digital Renaissance Editions, co-editor of the Routledge journal Shakespeare, and a Trustee of the British Shakespeare Association. He is the author (with Hugh
Craig) of Style, Computers, and Early Modern Drama: Beyond Authorship (Cambridge, 2017), which brings together his interests in early modern drama, computational
stylistics, and literary history. His current projects include editions of Hyde Park for the Oxford Shirley (with Mark Houlahan) and Fair Em for DRE, a history of the editing and publishing of Renaissance drama from the eighteenth
century to the present day, and several computational studies of early modern dramatic
authorship and genre. For more details, see notwithoutmustard.net.
Cameron Stirling
Cameron Stirling is an English Honours student at the University of Victoria and the
holder of a 2024–2025 Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award.
James D. Mardock
James Mardock is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Associate
General Editor for the Internet Shakespeare Editions, and a dramaturge for the Lake
Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and Reno Little Theater. In addition to editing quarto
and folio Henry V for the ISE, he has published essays on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Renaissance
literature in The Seventeenth Century, Ben Jonson Journal, Borrowers and Lenders, and contributed to the collections Representing the Plague in Early Modern England (Routledge 2010) and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt (Cambridge 2013). His book Our Scene is London (Routledge 2008) examines Jonsonʼs representation of urban space as an element in
his strategy of self-definition. With Kathryn McPherson, he edited Stages of Engagement (Duquesne 2013), a collection of essays on drama in post-Reformation England, and
he is currently at work on a monograph on Calvinism and metatheatrical awareness in
early modern English drama.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Navarra Houldin
Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them)
completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During
their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs
Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and
sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.
Sarah Neville
Sarah Neville is an associate professor of English and Theatre, Film and Media Arts
at the Ohio State University. She specializes in early modern English literature,
bibliography, theories of textuality and Shakespeare in performance, chiefly examining
the ways that authority is negotiated in print, digital and live media. She is an
assistant editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016-17), for which she edited five plays in both old and modern-spelling editions,
as well as an associate coordinating editor of the Digital Renaissance Editions. She
regularly publishes on textual theory, digital humanities, pedagogy, and scholarly
editing. Neville’s book, Early Modern Herbals and the Book Trade: English Stationers and the Commodification
of Botany (Cambridge, 2022), demonstrates the ways that printers and booksellers of herbals
enabled the construction of scientific and medical authority in early modern England.
A theatre director and film artist who is a great believer in experiential learning,
Neville is the founder and creative director of Ohio State’s Lord Denney’s Players, an academic theatre company that enables students to see how technologies of textual
transmission have shaped the reception of Shakespeare’s plays.
Thomas Heywood
Bibliography
Brumble, H. David. Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: A Dictionary of Allegorical
Meanings. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Orgography
Digital Renaissance Editions (DRE1)
Anthology Leads and Co-Coordinating Editors: Brett Greatley-Hirsch, Janelle Jenstad,
James Mardock, and Sarah Neville.
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Witnesses
Bevis, N.F., ed. A Critical Edition of Callisto, or The Escapes of Jupiter. MA Dissertation. University College London, 1960.
Collier, J. Payne, ed.
The Golden and Silver Ages: Two Plays. London: Printed
for the Shakespeare Society, 1851.
Gaines, Barry, and Grace Ioppolo, eds. The Collected Works of Thomas Heywood. Volume 3. Middle Plays. Oxford University Press, 2023.
Heywood, Thomas. The
Golden Age. Or the Liues of Jupiter and Saturne, with the deifying of the
Heathen Gods. London: Printed for William Barrenger, 1611. DEEP 567.
STC 13325. Wiggins 1637.
Janzen, Henry David. The Escapes of Jupiter: A Critical Edition. PhD Dissertation. Wayne State University, 1969.
Shepherd, Richard Herne, ed. The Dramatic Works of Thomas
Heywood Now First Collected with Illustrative Notes and a Memoir of the Author in
Six Volumes. London: John Pearson, 1874.
This edition, edited by
Janelle Jenstad and Cameron Stirling.
Metadata
| Authority title | The Golden Age, with the Lives of Jupiter and Saturn |
| Type of text | Primary Source |
| Publisher | This unpublished text is made available by Linked Early Modern Drama Online in the LEMDO Classroom. |
| Series | |
| Source |
Modernized by Janelle Jenstad and Cameron Stirling
|
| Editorial declaration | Modernized according to the DRE Editorial Guidelines. This text uses Canadian spellings. |
| Edition | Released with LEMDO Classroom 0.2.1 |
| Sponsor(s) |
Digital Renaissance EditionsAnthology Leads and Co-Coordinating Editors: Brett Greatley-Hirsch, Janelle Jenstad,
James Mardock, and Sarah Neville.
|
| Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
| Document status | draft |
| Funder(s) | Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Jamie Cassels Undergraduate Research Award |
| License/availability |
All rights reserved. Intellectual copyright in this edition is held by the editor(s).
Editions in the LEMDO Classroom are not yet in their final form and are not ready
for publication in any other LEMDO anthology. Reuse and quotation are strictly forbidden
except as follows: (1) students are welcome to cite from these editions for their
coursework, and (2) directors are welcome to adapt the modern text for performance.
Scholars may quote from the edition with the knowledge and consent of LEMDO, but they
are advised to wait for the edition to be published in its destination anthology before
citing from it; scholars who do want to cite or allude to a Classroom edition should
be aware that the Classroom edition will be retired when the full, final edition is
published in its host anthology, and are advised to contact the LEMDO Director for
advice on citing.
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