occasion pay no less than £40,000 for the jewel used in the mask of Indian and Chinese Knights, this was in the first year of his reign, when his predecessor's hoarded wealth was still there for the lavishing, and the special purpose was to be served of impressing Henri IV through his diplomatic representative.[1] When there were gifts, they were as a rule trifling, and incidental to the 'device' of the mask. The abortive scheme of 1562 provides for a grandguard and a sword and girdle. Elizabeth got on one occasion flowers of silk and gold, signifying victory, peace, and plenty; on another snowballs of lamb's wool sweetened with rose-water in a mask of Janus; on a third looking-glasses with posies inscribed on them in a mask of Pedlars. In The Twelve Goddesses the maskers presented their emblems, and Sibylla laid them in the temple. In the Mask of Blackness the Daughters of Niger presented their fans. In Tethys' Festival there were a trident for James and a sword, worth 20,000 crowns, and a scarf for Henry. In the Mask of Squires Anne plucked a bough from a golden tree, wherewith to disenchant the Knights. Often the gifts were represented by the merely conventional offering of a copy of verses, or of shields bearing imprese or painted allegorical devices, such as were also brought by the runners in tilts.[2] These sometimes required interpretation and led to some preliminary 'commoning' with the guests of honour. Interchanges of wit at this stage between Elizabeth and Mary Fitton in 1600 and James and Philip Herbert in 1604 are upon record. But of course the chief 'commoning' was when the maskers 'took out' the principal spectators of the opposite sex to dance. Whether the Jacobean maskers kissed the ladies whom they took out I do not know, but this was the earlier custom.[3] At any rate the 'taking out' is the critical moment of intimacy between performers and spectators in the mask, and serves, even more than the gifts and even more than the personal compliments in theme and speech, to distinguish it
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiii (Daniel, Twelve Goddesses).
- ↑ Cf. ch. iv.
- ↑ R. J. i. 5. 95; Hen. VIII, i. 4. 95,
I were unmannerly to take you out.
And not to kiss you.The amorous tradition of the 'commoning' which apparently frightened some of the ladies at Henry's court, survived under Elizabeth. In Lyly's Euphues and his England (Works, ii. 103), Philautus takes Camilla by the hand in a mask and begins 'to boord hir' in this manner, 'It hath ben a custome faire Lady, how commendable I wil not dispute, how common you know, that Masquers do therfore couer their faces that they may open their affections, & vnder y^{e} colour of a dance, discouer their whole desires'; cf. Reyher, 23.
