Comus, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: on Michaelmasse Night, before the Right Honorable John Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales

Comus, A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: on Michaelmasse Night, before the Right Honorable John Earl of Bridgewater, Lord President of Wales, by Milton, first printed, anonymously and untitled, 1637.

This work was written at the suggestion of Milton's friend H. Lawes to celebrate the earl of Bridgewater's entry on the presidency of Wales and the Marches. Although described as a ‘masque’, Comus depends little on spectacle and may be defined as a pastoral drama. Comus himself is a pagan god invented by Milton, son of Bacchus and Circe, who waylays travellers and transforms their faces to those of wild beasts by means of a magic liquor. The Lady, benighted in a forest and separated from her brothers, comes across Comus in the guise of a shepherd; he leads her off to his cottage, offering protection. The brothers appear and are told what has happened by the Attendant Spirit Thyrsis, also disguised as a shepherd; he warns them of the magic power of Comus and gives them a root of the plant Haemony as protection. The scene changes to ‘a stately Palace’, where Comus with his rabble tempts the Lady to drink his magic potion. She defends herself and Chastity with such spirit that even Comus feels her possessed of ‘some superior power’. At this point the brothers burst in. Unfortunately they have not secured the wand of Comus and are unable to release the Lady from her enchanted chair, which provides an opportunity for Thyrsis to invoke Sabrina, goddess of the neighbouring river Severn, in the lovely song ‘Sabrina Fair, | Listen where thou art sitting’. She arrives, the Lady is freed, and the Lady and her brothers are returned to Ludlow.