Tempe Restored was a Caroline era
masqueThe masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
, written by
Aurelian TownshendAurelian Townshend was a seventeenth-century English poet and playwright.-Life:Very little is well established about Townshend's life...
and designed by
Inigo JonesInigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
, and performed at Whitehall Palace on
Shrove TuesdayShrove Tuesday is a term used in English-speaking countries, especially in Ireland, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, and parts of the United States for the day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of fasting and prayer called Lent.The...
, February 14,
1632The year 1632 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*On February 14, Tempe Restored, a masque written by Aurelian Townshend and designed by Inigo Jones, is performed at Whitehall Palace....
. It was significant as an early instance in which a woman appeared in a speaking role in a public stage performance in England.
The show
At this point in the reign of King
Charles ICharles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
, two large-scale masque productions were being staged at Court each winter season. For 1632,
Albion's Triumph, another masque written by Townshend and dedicated to the King, had been staged on
Twelfth NightTwelfth Night is a festival in some branches of Christianity marking the coming of the Epiphany and concluding the Twelve Days of Christmas.It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as "the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the...
, January 6;
Tempe Restored, a masque dedicated to Queen
Henrietta MariaHenrietta Maria of France ; was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I...
, followed a month later. (It had originally been scheduled for mid-January but was delayed by an illness of the Queen — a "soreness" in one of her eyes.) The Queen was intimately involved in the creation of the masque; she appeared and danced in it, along with fourteen of her ladies in waiting. (One of the fourteen was
Lucy Hay, Countess of CarlisleLucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle was an English courtier known for her beauty and wit. She was involved in many political intrigues during the English Civil War.-Life:...
.) The role of
CirceIn Greek mythology, Circe is a minor goddess of magic , described in Homer's Odyssey as "The loveliest of all immortals", living on the island of Aeaea, famous for her part in the adventures of Odysseus.By most accounts, Circe was the daughter of Helios, the god of the sun, and Perse, an Oceanid...
in the masque was filled by a Frenchwoman, identified in the text as "Madame Coniack;" this may have been Elizabeth Coignet, a gentlewoman of the Queen's court. A "Mistress Shepherd" was also in the cast; she sang the role of the ancient Greek goddess of
HarmonyIn Greek mythology, Harmonia is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia, and her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discordia.-Origins:...
.
Townshend based his text on a French masque (or
ballet de cour) of fifty years before; titled
Balet Comique de la Royne, it was written by
Balthasar de BeaujoyeulxBalthasar de Beaujoyeulx , originally Baldassare de Belgiojoso was an Italian violinist, composer, and choreographer.-Career:...
and performed in
1581-Events:*Stationer Thomas Marsh publishes Seneca's Tragedies in English, a collected edition of ten dramas written by Seneca the Younger , translated by Jasper Heywood, John Studley, Alexander Neville, Thomas Newton, and Thomas Nuce...
by the French queen, Louise de Vaudemont. In the production of Townshend's masque, a young
Thomas KilligrewThomas Killigrew was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.-Life and work:...
, then a page to the King, appeared in the role of "a Fugitive Favourite." In Townshend's version as in the French work, Circe is enraged at the escape of one of her captive lovers, who has run to the
Vale of TempeThe Vale of Tempe is a gorge in northern Thessaly, Greece, located between Olympus to the north and Ossa to the south. The valley is 10 kilometers long and as narrow as 25 meters in places, with cliffs nearly 500 meters high, and through it flows the Pineios River on its way to the Aegean Sea...
. Circe dominates the first part of the performance, which features anti-masques danced by American Indian, barbarian, and animal figures. (The animals were Circe's transformed lovers, who combined human and animal characteristics; one, for example, was a scholar or "pedant" who'd been changed into an ass. In addition to the pedant/ass, six barbarians, and seven Indians, the anti-masques featured dancers costumed as five hogs, four lions, three apes, two hounds, and a hare.) The anti-masque is dominated by a montrous being called the "Pagoda," a faux-Oriental demon with black wings, long claws, and a bestial countenance. Circe is supplanted by Harmony for the masque's serious second portion, which includes figures from classical mythology like
JupiterIn ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
and
Pallas AthenaIn Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
. Henrietta Maria danced the role of "Divine Beauty," and descended to the stage in a bejeweled golden chariot.
Women onstage
English actresses were not yet appearing on the stage in 1632 — though in Italy and France the prejudice against female performers was already in abeyance. (French actresses had appeared in England, to general hostility.) Henrietta Maria took a speaking role in a private
1626The year 1626 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*Izaak Walton marries Rachel Floud.*John Beaumont is made a baronet.-New books:*Francis Bacon - The New Atlantis*Robert Fludd - Philosophia Sacra...
performance of
Honorat de Racan'sHonorat de Bueil, seigneur de Racan was a French aristocrat, soldier, poet, dramatist and member of the Académie française....
pastoralThe adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
Artenice, though this was far from a public performance.
Tempe Restored was another step in the process of women appearing onstage in England. In the next year, the Queen would take a speaking role in Walter Montagu's masque
The Shepherd's ParadiseThe Shepherd's Paradise was a Caroline era masque, written by Walter Montagu and designed by Inigo Jones. Acted in 1633 by Queen Henrietta Maria and her ladies in waiting, it was noteworthy as the first masque in which the Queen and her ladies filled speaking roles...
.
The role of women in
Tempe Restored has drawn the attention of modern critics. Special notice has been taken of the point in the masque at which Circe dismisses Pallas Athena with the line, "Man-maid, begone!" — because Circe was played by a woman while Athena, in the traditional way, was played by a male performer.
Cost
The Venetian ambassador to the Stuart Court, who witnessed
Tempe Restored, described it in a letter as "a sumptuous masque performed with wonderfully rich decorations." Even so, the cost for the masque, at around £800, was fairly modest, compared to other masques of the era.
Lawes and Comus
The English composer
Henry LawesHenry Lawes was an English musician and composer.He was born at Dinton in Wiltshire, and received his musical education from John Cooper, better known under his Italian pseudonym Giovanni Coperario, a famous composer of the day...
appeared in
Tempe Restored, and two years later composed the music for
John MiltonJohn Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's masque
ComusComus is a masque in honour of chastity, written by John Milton. It was first presented on Michaelmas, 1634, before John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater at Ludlow Castle in celebration of the Earl's new post as Lord President of Wales.Known colloquially as Comus, the mask's actual full title is A...
(
1634The year 1634 in literature involved some significant events.-Events:*January 1 - The King's Men perform Cymbeline at the court of King Charles I of England.*January 22 - The King's Men perform Davenant's The Wits at the Blackfriars Theatre....
).
Comus has clear resemblances with Townshend's work — to the degree that one scholar has called
Comus a sequel to
Tempe Restored. Alice Egerton, the young daughter of the
Earl of BridgewaterJohn Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater KB, PC was an English peer and politician.The son of the Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley and Elizabeth Ravenscroft, he was a Member of Parliament for Callington from 1597 to 1598, and for Shropshire in 1601. Knighted on 8 April 1599, he was Baron of the...
for whom
Comus was staged, participated in both productions. The music for
Tempe Restored, composer(s) unknown, has not survived.
Publication
Townshend's text was published shortly after its 1632 premier, in a
quartoThe size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms is commonly used by libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books, ranging from "folio" , to "quarto" and "octavo"...
edition issued by the booksellers R. Allel and G. Baker. In that edition, Townshend specifies that "the subject and allegory of the masque, with the descriptions and appearances of the scenes," originated with Inigo Jones and not with the author of the verse. (The masque features personifications of Invention, Knowledge, Theory, and Practice, who talk about the glories of architecture.) Scholars have speculated that Townshend might well have been unhappy with Jones's primacy in the project, and that this may have been why he generally avoided masque writing for the Court during the remainder of his career.