Masque of Amazons, A
Anon. (1579)
NB. This title has also been associated with 'A Masque of Knights'; see Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues below.
Historical Records
'A Maske of Amazons' is listed in the Revels accounts of 1578/9 as one of the masques performed 'before her maiestie the ffrench Imbassadour being presente the sonday night after Twelfdaie [11 January] whereof one was' (Feuillerat 286, 287).
Theatrical Provenance
English Court at Richmond.
Probable Genre(s)
Masque.
Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues
There were many references to Amazons in early to mid-Elizabethan culture. Histories from antiquity that included encounters with this fierce but intriguing land of woman warriors were frequently translated into English. The tales of the labours of Hercules and the conquests and rule of Theseus and, depending on the myth, their challenges and conquests involving Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons would have been well known to Elizabethan courtly audiences.
The stories of conquests, either by or of Amazon warrior queens who eschewed marriage (and male heirs), also pointed to Queen Elizabeth, who was in attendance and who, according to Wiggins, was addressed directly at the beginning of the event (Wiggins, 657). This masque was staged when Elizabeth was being courted by Francis, Duke of Anjou (there is more speculation on the historical backdrop of this masque in the 'For What It's Worth' below).
The Amazon Masque appears to have been part of a double masque, performed simultaneously with 'A Masque of Knights' (listed as a separate play in LDP but redirected to this page). The medievalization of the Amazon myth, that is the coupling of ancient Amazons and Greek warriors with heroic medieval knights, implies Chaucerian influence (via Boccaccio). In Chaucer's 'The Knight's Tale,' Theseus and Ypolita, epic warriors from antiquity, find themselves drawn into the post-Boethian, high medieval world of knightly challenges, courtly love, and tragic romance. It is in Chaucer and Lydgate (both reprinted throughout the 16th century) that Theseus becomes 'Duke' of Athens.
An immediate, accessible, and popular rendering of the Amazon history was the story of the Amazons in the Second Tome of William Painter's Palace of Pleasure (1567). Amazons would remain in the popular imagination, of course, well beyond this event, appearing in such popular Englished editions as Thomas North's Plutarch (1579), and in the fourth of the Ten Tragedies of Seneca (1581). When Shakespeare set A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Athens of Theseus and Hippolyta, he was using characters that had been well known for a long time to court and public audiences from a variety of popular print sources.
References to the Play
In a letter dated 15 January 1579, Bernadino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in London, writes to Gabriel de Zayas about a series of state issues and international intrigues. Mendoza mentions in passing a recent grand ball at court during which there was 'an entertainment in imitation of a tournament, between six ladies and a like number of gentlemen, who surrendered to them' (see 'Simancas: January 1579', in Calendar of State Papers, Spain).
Critical Commentary
The play was performed for the French ambassador. Sibley notes that the resident French ambassador was Mauvissiere, but also points to Feuillerat's belief (n287, 4) that the reference was to Simier, the Duke of Alençon's envoy (Sibley 183).
Chambers is more straightforward, holding that this double masque was in fact staged 'for the entertainment of the French ambassador, M. de Simier,' who had come as an envoy concerning Alençon's marriage to Elizabeth (1.166).
The double masque involved the Amazons arriving at court to dance with the lords, followed by the knights, who danced with the ladies. The Amazons and the knights then stage a fight at barriers. The knights surrender (Wiggins, 657). The Revels Office records for this event are quite detailed and are enlightening to students of the elaborate staging, props, and costumes (in this case, gilded costumes) of court masques and also those interested in the details of how the Office of the Revels organized such an event (see Wiggins's detailed description of how the drama was staged, 657).
For What It's Worth
The following points may be of more significance to historians of the Elizabethan crown than to historians of lost plays, and indeed they may have been noticed already, but this masque event, the 'Masque of the Amazons' and the 'Masque of the Knights', happened during a critical time, one during which history may have been changed completely.
For years Elizabeth and Leicester (Dudley) had danced about a potential engagement, one discouraged by Elizabeth’s ministers. By 1578, what was done was done, and Elizabeth had offers from other potential suitors, at that specific time the Duke of Anjou.
In September of 1578, Simier, Anjou’s envoy, revealed to the Queen that Leicester had secretly married Lettice Knollys without the Queen’s permission and Leicester became persona non grata (Loades, 210). It may be of significant (or of no significance at all) that Leicester’s Men performed 'Greek Maid, A' at Richmond seven days in advance of the double masque.
A marriage to Anjou at that time was probably still a real possibility, as Simier’s assumed presence indicates. Although Anjou was seemingly rejected in November of 1578, nothing had quite yet been resolved publicly about a potential marriage (Loades, 213).
This Masque seems to mark more than a pleasant diversion. The symbolism of a female queen, for years obstinate to marriage, coupled with the popular lore of the obstinate and fierce Amazonians and presumably their queens also, was too present to regard this masque, plotless though it may seem, as just a pleasant diversion.
Moving to dramatic history proper, it should be added that John Jowett connects this court masque with the masque scene in Timon of Athens, specifically the possible emblematic motifs suggested by the stage directions in Timon (13). The Masque's connection with A Midsummer Night's Dream is obvious, and leads one to yearn for more information about how Shakespeare connected a marital theme with an Amazon queen in a venue which may have been attended by the same queen well over a decade later. The answer to this question may lie in the records of the Office of the Revels.
Works Cited
Site created and maintained by Thomas Dabbs, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo; updated 5 December 2016.