University of Virginia Library

The TEMPLE of LOVE A Masque. Presented by the Queens Majesty, and her Ladies at Whitehall.

At the lower end of the Banqueting House, opposite to the State was a Stage of six foot high, and on that was raised an Ornament of a new Invention agreeable to the Subject, consisting of Indian Trophies: on the one side upon a basement sate a naked Indian on a whitish Elephant, his legs shortning towards the neck of the beast, his tire and bases of several coloured feathers, representing the Indian Monarchy: On the other side an Asiatique in the habit of an Indian Borderer, riding on a Camel; his Turbant and Coat differing from that of the Turks, figured for the Asian Monarchy: over these hung shields like Compartiments: In that over the Indian was painted a Sun rising, and in the other an half Moon; these had for finishing the Capital of a great pillaster, which served as a ground to stick them of, and bore up a large freeze or border with a Coronice. In this over the Indian lay the figure of an old man, with a long white hair and beard, representing the flood Tigris; on his head a wreath of Canes and Seadg, and leaning upon a great urne, out of which run water, by him, in an extravagant posture stood a Tyger. At the other end of this freeze lay another naked man, representing Meander, the famous River of Asia, who likewise had a great Silver Urne, and by him lay an Unicorn, In the midst of this border was fixed a rich Compartiment, behind which was a crimson Drapery, part of it born up by naked Children tack'd up in several Pleats, and the rest was at each end of the Freeze tyed with a great knot, and from thence hung down in foulds to the bottom of the Pedastals: in the midst of this Compartiment in an Oval was written TEMPLUM AMORIS: all these Figures were in their natural colours bigger than the life, and the Compartiments of Gold. A Curtain flying up the first Sceane was discover'd, in which appeared a spacious grove of shady trees; and afar off on a Mount with a winding way to the top, was seated a pleasant bower, environed with young Trees, and in the lower part walkes planted with Cypress, representing the place where the Soules of the Anciant Poets are feigned to reside: the delight of this prospect was quickly diverted to the sight of a more strange apparition; for, out of the heaven by little and little broke forth a great Cloud of a Rosie Colour, which being come down some little way, began to open, and in it was seen sitting a beautiful woman, her garment was Sky-colour set all with Stars of Gold, her head was crowned with Laurel, with a spangled vaile hanging down behind, and her hair in artificial curles graciously dress'd, representing Divine Poesie, and by her a milk white Swan, as she descends singing; out of those venerable shades came forth a company of ancient Greek Poets, as Demodicus, Fœmius, Homer, Hesiod, Terpander, and Sapho a Poetesse in habits varied and of several colours, with laurel wreaths on their heads. Divine Poesie sung this:
Divine Poesie.

The Poets.
Soul of our Science! how inspir'd we come?
By thee restor'd to voyces that lay dumbe,
And lost in many a forgotten Tombe.

D. Poesie.
Y'are spirits all; and have so long
From flesh, and frailty absent bin,
That sure though Love should fill your song,
It could not relish now of sin.

The Poets.
Vex not our sad remembrance with our shame!
We have bin punish'd for ill-gotten fame,
For each loose verse, tormented with a flame.

D. Poesie.
Descend then, and become with me,
The happy Organs to make known
In an harmonious Embassie,
Our great affair to yonder Throne.

She being descended to the ground in a Majestick pace, goes up the State, attended by the fore-named Poets; and the Cloud that brought her down, closeth as it ascends.
D. Poesie.
Thou Monarch of mens hearts rejoyce!
So much thou art belov'd in heaven,
That Fate hath made thy reign her choyce,
In which Love's blessings shall be given.

The Poets.
Truth shall appear, and rule 'till she resists
Those subtle charmes, and melts those darker mists,
In which Lov's Temple's hid from Exorcists.

D. Poesie.
Those Magi that with pleasant Arts
To their false Temple led of yore
The noblest youth, with'ring their Hearts
With lustful thoughts, shall be no more.

The Poets.
For Indamora with her beauties light,
The truer Temple shall restore to sight,
The false shall be obscur'd in endless Night.

The Song after they have retir'd (playing on their Instruments) by the Chorus of Poets.

After this, Divine Poesie, and the Poets go forth; then the whole Scæne changeth into Mist and Clouds, through which some glimpse of a Temple is here and there scarcely discern'd.

The Entry of the Magicians.

Out of Caves from under ground come forth three Magicians, one more eminent than the rest, their habits of strange fashions, denoting their qualities, and their persons deformed.
(1)
Tell me, thou wise Protector of our Art,
Why dost thou walk with such a hideous brow?
Darkness, and Clouds do hover o're thine eyes;
Thou look'st as thou hadst suck'd the vapor of
A poys'nous Fenne, till it has made thee drunk,
There's venom'd foam about thy lips.

(2.)
Is thy belov'd
Old witch, dead and entomb'd? or hast thou heard
Ill news from hell? Does the grand fiend
Chain up thy spirits from thy use? Speak, Art
Thou not within thy Circle still a Soveraign Prince?
When thou dost lift with magick power thy white
Inchanted Scepter thus, do not the thin
Unbodied people bow and obey?

(3.)
O the Temple of Love, the mists that hid,
And so reserv'd it from our sinful use,
(Whilst we seduc'd the more voluptuous race
Of Men, to give false worship in our own) must be
Dispell'd! this is the sad ill news; and it
Is come from Heaven! A troublesome Deity
(Whom forsooth they stile Divine Poesie)
This morne proclaim'd it from a falling Cloud.

(2.)
Who? Divine Poesie?

(3.)
I know her well.

(1.)
But who shall bring this mischief to our Art?

(3.)
Indamora, the delight of Destiny!
She, and the beauties of her Train; who sure
Though they discover Summer in their looks,
Still carry frozen Winter in their blood.
They raise strange doctrines, and new sects of Love:
Which must not woo or court the Person, but
The Mind; and practice generation not
Of Bodies but of Souls.

(2.)
Believe me, my Magical friends,
They must bring bodies with'em that worship
In our pleasant Temple: I have an odd
Fantastick faith perswades we there will be
Little pastime upon earth without Bodies.
Your Spirit's a cold Companion at midnight.

(1.)
Have we so long mis-led and entertain'd
The youthful of the world, I mean their bodies)
And now do they betake themselves unto
The dull imaginary pleasures of
Their soules? This humor cannot last.

(2.)
If it should, we may rid our Temple
Of all our Persian Quilts, imbroyder'd Couches,
And our standing Beds; these (I take it) are
Bodily implements; our soules need 'em not.
But where shall this new Sect be planted first?

(3.)
In a dull Northern Ile, they call Britaine.

(2.)
Indeed 'tis a cold Northerly opinion;
And I'le lay my life begot since their late
Great Frosts; It will be long enough e're it
Shall spread, and prosper in the South! Or if
The Spaniard or Italian ever be
Perswaded out of the use of their bodies,
I'le give mine to a Raven for his Supper.

(3.)
The Miracle is more increas'd, in that
It first takes birth and nourishment in Court.

(2.)
But my good damn'd friend tell me? Is there not
One Courtier will resent the cause, and give
Some countenance to the affairs of the body?

(3.)
Certain young Lords at first disliked the Philosophy
As most uncomfortable, sad, and new;
But soon inclin'd to a superior vote,
And are grown as good Platonical Lovers
As are to be found in an Hermitage, where he
That was born last, reckons above fourscore.

To these come forth in hast another Magician, in shape and habit differing from the other, and spake as followeth.
(1.)
Here comes a brother of our mistick Tribe!

(3.)
He knows th'occasion of our grief, and by
His hast imports discoveries more strange!

(4.)
News! news! my sad companions of the shade!
There's lately landed on our fatal shore
Nine Persian youths, their habit and their looks
So smooth, that from the Pleasures i'th Elisian fields
Each female ghost will come, and enter in
Their flesh again, to make embraces warm.

(2.)
I hope these are no Platonical Lovers,
No such Carthusian Poets as do write
Madrigals to the mind? more of thy news!

(4.)
The rest infers small joy, and little hope:
For though at first their youth and eager thoughts
Directed them where our gay Altar stood,
And they were ready too for sacrifice,
I cannot tell what luckless light inform'd
Their eyes, but Loves true Temple straight they spy'd
Through the ascending mists, and would have enter'd it
To read grave frosty Homilies,
And antick laws of chastity, but that
(As my swift Spirit brought me word) a voyce
Sent from within bad them with reverence
Desist till Indamora did appear, for then
The Gates would open, and the mists dry up:
That thus conceal'd it from the general view,
Which now their expectation doth attend.

(3.)
'Tis time to wake our drowsie Art, and try,
If we have power to hinder Destiny.
Mount! mount! our charmes! fetch me, whilst you aspire,
A Spirit of the Element of fire!

(2.)
Me one of Ayre!

(1.)
The water me supplies!

(4.)
Mine from the center of the earth shall rise!

(3.)
These shall infuse their sev'ral qualities
In men; if not t'uphold the faction of
The flesh, yet to infect the queasie age
With blacker Sins: if we (now we have joyn'd
The force of all the Elements t'assist
The horror of our will) shall not prevail
Against this hum'rous vertue of the Time,
Nature, our weakness must be thought thy crime.

2.
To these I'le add a sect of modern Divels;
Fine precise Fiends, that hear the devout close
At ev'ry vertue but their own, that claim
Chambers and Tenements in heaven, as they
Had purchas'd there, and all the Angels were
Their harbingers. With these I'le vex the world.

(3.)
'Tis well design'd! Thanks to thy courteous Art!
Let's murmure softly in each others ear,
And those we first invok'd, will straight appear!
Enough! they come! to'th woods let's take our flight,
We have more dismal business yet e're night.

The Antimask of the Spirits.

1. Entry.

The fiery Spirits all in flames, and their Vizards of a Cholerick Complexion.

The Airy Spirits with sanguine vizards, their Garments and Caps all of feathers.

The Watery Spirits were all over wrought with scales, and had fishes heads and fins.

The Earthy Spirits had their garments wrought all over with leaveless trees and bushes, with Serpents an other little Animals here and there about them, and on their heads barren rocks.

2. Entry.

Brought in by the fiery Spirits, were debosht and quarrelling men with a loose Wench amongst them.

3. and 4. Entry.

Brought in by the Spirits of Ayr, were of amorous men and women in ridiculous habits and Alchimists.

5. Entry.

Brought in by the Spirits of Water, were drunken Dutch skippers.

6. Entry.

Brought in by the Spirits of Earth, were Witches, Userers, and Fools.

7. Entry.

Was of a Modern Divel, a sworn enemy of Poesie, Musick, and all ingenious Arts, but a great friend to murmuring, libelling, and all seeds of discord, attended by his factious followers; all which was exprest by their Habits and Dance.

After these was an entry of three Indians of quality, of Indamora's train in several strange habits, and their dance as strange.

A Persian Page comes leaping in.
Hey! hey! how light I am? all soul within?
As my dull flesh, were melted through my skin?
And though a Page when landed on this shore,
I now am grown a brisk Ambassador!
From Persian Princes too, and each as fierce
A Lover, as did ever sigh in verse!
Give Audience then, you Ladies of this Isle!
Lord how you lift your fannes up now, and smile!
To think (forsooth) they are so fond to take
So long a journey for your beauties sake!
For know, th'are come! but sure, e're they return,
Will give your female ships some cause to mourn!
For I must tell you, that about them all
There's not one grain, but what's Platonical!
So bashful that I think they might be drawn
(Like you) to wear close Hoods, or vailes of Lawn.
My Master is the chief that doth protect,
Or (as some say) miss-lead this precise sect:
One heretofore that wisely could confute
A Lady at her window with his Lute,
There devoutly in a cold morning stand
Two hours, praysing the snow of her white hand;
And when he could not rule her to's intent,
Like Tarquin he would proffer ravishment.
But now, no fear of Rapes, untill he find
A maydenhead belonging to the mind.
The rest are all so modest too, and pure,
So virginly, so coy, and so demure,
That they retreat at kissing, and but name
Hymen, or Love, they blush for very shame:
Ladies! I must needs laugh! you'le give me leave
I hope; and 'tis to think how you deceive
Your selves with all this precious art, and care
Tane in your glass to dress your looks, and hair!
When (in good faith!) they heed no outward merit,
But fervently resolve to wooe the Spirit!
Hah! do you all look melancholy now;
And cast a Cloud of anger o're the brow?
'Tis time to flye, and my best swiftness use,
For fear I'm kill'd with Bodkins for my news.
The Page retires, and the Noble Persian youths make their entry, apparelled in Asian Coats of Sea-green embroidered that reached down above their knees, with buttons and loops before, and cut up square to their hips, and returned down with two short skirts; the sleeves of this Coat were large without seam, and cut short to the bending of the Arm, and hanging down long behind, trimm'd with buttons as those of the breast; out of this came a sleeve of white Sattin embroydered, and the Basis answerable to the sleeve, hung down in gathering underneath the shortest part of their Coat; on their heads they wore Persian Turbants silver'd underneath, and wound about with white Cypress, and one fall of a white feather before. Their Dance ended, the mist and Clouds at an instant disappear, and the Scene is all changed into a Sea somewhat calm, where the billows moving sometimes whole, and sometimes breaking, beat gently on the land, which represented a new and strange prospect; the nearest part was broken grounds and Rocks, with a mountainous Countrey, but of a pleasant aspect, in which were trees of strange form and colour, and here and there were placed in the bottom several Arbors like Cottages, and strange beasts and birds, far unlike the Countrey of these parts, expressing an Indian Landschape. In the Sea were several Islands, and a far off a Continent terminating with the Horizon. Out of a Creek came waving forth a Barque of an Antique design, adorn'd with Sculpture finishing in Scrowles, that on the Poope had for Ornament a great masque head of a Sea-God; and all the rest enrich'd with embost work touch'd with silver and gold. In the midst of this Barque sat Orpheus with his Harp, he wore a white Robe girt, on his shoulders (was tyed with a knot) a Mantle of Carnation, and his head crown'd with a Laurel Garland: with him, other persons in habits of Seamen, as Pilots and Guiders of the Barque, he playing one strain, was answered with the voyces and Instruments of the Brachmani joyn'd with the Priests of the Temple of Love, in extravagant habits sorting to their titles: whilst this Barque moved gently on the Sea, heaving and setting, and sometimes rowling, arrived near to the farther shore, it turn'd and return'd to the port from whence it came.

The Song of the Brachmani, in Answer to Orpheus his Harp.

The Barque having taken port, the Masquers appear in a Maratime Chariot, made of a spungie Rockstuff mixt with shels, Sea-weeds, Corral, and Pearl, born upon an Axletree with golden wheels without a rimme, with flat spokes like the blade of an Ore comming out of the Naves. This Chariot was drawn by Seamonsters, and floated with a sweet motion in the Sea: Indamora Queen of Narsinga, sate enthron'd in the highest part of this Chariot, in a rich seat, the back of which was a great Skallpo Shell. The habit of the Masquers was of Isabella Colour, and Watchet, with Bases in large panes cut through, all over richly embroidered with silver, and the dressing of their heads was of silver, with small falls of white feathers tipp'd with Watchet. This sight thus moving on the water, was accompanied with the Musick and Voyces of the Chorus.
The Song ended, all the fore part of the Sea was in an instant turn'd to dry land, and Indamora with her Contributary Ladies descended into the room, and made their entry. Then for entermedium the Musick began again, and sung this Song.

The SONG.

The Masquers having a while reposed, danced their second Dance, which ended, and the Queen being seated under the State by the King, the Sceæn was changed into the true temple of Chast Love; this Temple instead of Columnes had terms of young Satyrs bearing up the returns of Architrane Freeze and Coronice, all enrich'd of Gold-Smiths work, the farther part of the Temple running far from the eye was design'd of another kind of Architecture, with Pillasters, Neeches, and Statues, and in the midst a stately gate adorn'd with Colomns and their Ornaments, and a Frontispice on the top, all which seemed to be of burnish'd Gold. Into this Temple enters Sunesis and Thelema; Sunesis a man of a noble Aspect, and richly attir'd; his garment of Cloth of Gold reaching down below his knees, and girt with a tuck at the wast, with wide sleeves turn'd up; his mantle of Watchet fastned on both shoulders, and hanging long down behind, a Garland of Sinope on his head, with a flame of fire issuing out of it, his Buskins were yellow, wrought with Gold. Thelema a young woman in a Robe of changeable Silk, girt with several tucks, under her breast, and beneath her wast, and great leaves of silver about her shoulders hanging down to the midst of her Arm; upon her head a Garland of great Marigolds, and puffs of silver'd Lawn between. And at her shoulders were Angels wings, these sung this Dialogue, assisted by the Chori.

The SONG.

Sunesis and Thelema.
Sunesis.
Come melt thy soul in mine, that when unite,
We may become one vertuous appetite.

Thelema.
First breath thine into me, thine is the part
More heavenly, and doth more adorne the heart.

Both.
Thus mix'd, our love will ever be discreet,
And all our thoughts and actions pure,
When perfect Will, and strengthened Reason meet,
Then Love's created to endure.

Chorus.
Were Heaven more distant from us, we would strive
To reach't with Pray'rs to make this Union thrive.

Whilst this Song continued, there came softly down from the highest part of the heaven a bright and transparent Cloud, which being come to the middle part of the Ayr it opened, and out of it came Amianteros, or Chast Love flying down, clad all in Carnation and White, and two Garlands of Laurel in one hand, and crown'd with another of the same; whilst he descended the Cloud closeth again and returns upwards, and is hidden in the heavens; Chast Love being come down to the earth, was accompanied by Sunesis and Thelema, Divine Poesie, Orpheus, and the rest of the Poets up to the State, the great Chorus following at a distance, where they sung this Song.

The Song.

Amianteros, or Chast Love.

Sunesis.
To CHARLES the Mightiest and the Best,
And to the Darling of his breast,
(Who rule b' example as by power)
May youthful blessings still increase,
And in their Off-spring never cease,
Till Time's too old to last an hower.

Chorus.
These wishes are so well deserv'd by thee,
And thought so modest too by Destiny,
That heaven hath seal'd the grant as a Decree.

After which they all retire to the Scæne, and Indamora and her Ladies begin the Revels with the King and the Lords, which continue the most part of the night. Thus ended this Masque, which for the newness of the invention, variety of Scænes, Apparitions, and richness of habits was generally approved to be one of the most magnificent that hath been done in England.