Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 4).pdf/72

 ''The Twelve Months. 1608-12''

[MS.] Formerly penes Collier, but not now among his papers in Egerton MS. 2623.

Editions by J. P. Collier, Five Court Masques (1848), 131, with title 'The Masque of the Twelve Months'.

The maskers are the twelve Months; the antimaskers Pages; the presenters Madge Howlet, Pigwiggen a Fairy, Beauty, Aglaia, the Pulses, Prognostication, and Somnus; the musicians the twelve Spheres.

The locality is not given, but the presence of a king is contemplated. The text is disordered, but can easily be reconstructed, as follows: Madge Howlet, 'going up towards the King', and Pigwiggen speak the opening dialogue (Collier, 137). The Spheres sing the first song calling Beauty from her fort, the Heart (140). This is the scene; on it are plumes, 'the ensignes of the darling of the yeare, delicious Aprill'. Beauty, Aglaia, and the Pulses, 'beating before them up towardes the King', speak a dialogue (131). The Pages dance an 'antemasque' (133). Beauty and Aglaia speak a dialogue (134). The maskers appear, and are presented by Beauty (134). The second 'antemasque' is danced (134). Beauty and Aglaia speak a dialogue (134). Prognostication enters, and prognosticates (135). The maskers descend, and Beauty describes April, a prince 'lov'd of all, yett will not love', with a 'triple plume' (135). After a second song, 'they dance their entrie' (141). Beauty and Aglaia speak a dialogue (136). There is a third song (141). 'They dance their mayne dance: which done, Bewty invites them to dance with the Ladies' (137). There is a fourth song (142). 'They dance with the Ladies, and the whole Revells follows' (137). Beauty calls on Somnus (140). There is a last song (142). 'They dance their going off' (140).

Brotanek, 346, suggests 1 Jan. 1612 as a probable date. I agree with him that 'charming all warre from his mild monarchie' (136) suggests James I, although I do not think that 'our fairy King' (137) is necessarily a reminiscence of the Mask of Oberon, especially as this fairy king is James and not Henry. In any case 'the heart of the yeare' (132), 'prime of this newe yeare' (135), 'this winter nighte' (141) do not require a performance on 1 Jan. In fact, April and not January leads the months in the mask. I would add to Brotanek's notes that April is clearly danced by a Prince of Wales, and that 'lov'd of all, yett will not love' fits in with the uncertainty as to Henry's matrimonial intentions which prevailed in 1612. But he is not very likely to have given two masks in the winter of 1611-12, nor is there any evidence of any mask that winter except the ''Love Restored of 6 Jan. Of course The Twelve Months'' may never have been actually performed. I have thought that it might have been the mask abandoned by Anne on account of the death of the Queen of Spain in Dec. 1611 (cf. Jonson, Love Restored). Beauty, 'our fairy Queene', is said to be 'Great president of all those princely revells' in honour of the 'fairy King'. But the mask is danced by