Endymion, the Man in the Moon by John Lyly

First produced: 1588; first published, 1591

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Comedy

Time of plot: Antiquity

Locale: Ancient Greece

Principal characters

• Endymion, a courtier
• Cynthia, the queen, loved by Endymion
• Tellus, in love with Endymion
• Eumenides, Endymion’s friend
• Semele, loved by Eumenides
• Corsites, in love with Tellus
• Dipsas, an enchantress
• Geron, her long-lost husband
• Sir Tophas, a fop
• Floscula, Tellus’s friend
• Dares and Samias, Eumenides’ pages
• Bagoa, a servant of Dipsas

The Story:

To his friend Eumenides, Endymion declares his love for Cynthia, goddess of the Moon. Eumenides chides Endymion, reminding him of the Moon’s inconstancy, whereupon Endymion extols inconstancy and change as virtues, attributes of everything beautiful. Convinced that Endymion is bewitched, Eumenides prescribes sleep and rest for the lovesick swain, but Endymion rejects the advice and berates his friend.

In the hope of misleading his friends, Endymion has also professed love for Tellus, a goddess of the Earth. Enraged by his apparent perfidy, Tellus swears to take revenge. Because she still loves Endymion, Tellus is unwilling for him to die; therefore, she resolves to resort to magic and witchcraft in order to awaken his love for her. Her friend Floscula warns that love inspired by witchcraft will be bitter, but Tellus ignores the warning and leaves to consult Dipsas, an enchantress.

In contrast to Endymion and Tellus, Sir Tophas habitually scoffs at love and has dedicated his life to war—against blackbirds, mallards, and wrens. When mocked by Endymion’s and Eumenides’ pages, Dares and Samias, Sir Tophas swears to kill them, but he pardons them when they explain that they have been speaking in Latin. Meanwhile, Tellus has found Dipsas, whom she consults about the possibility of killing Endymion’s love for Cynthia and supplanting it by magic with love for the Earth goddess herself. Dipsas declares that since she is not a deity, she can only weaken love, never kill it. At Tellus’s request, Dipsas agrees to enchant Endymion in such a way that his protestations of love for Cynthia will be doubted. Accompanied by Floscula and Dipsas, Tellus confronts Endymion in a garden and tries to make him confess his love for Cynthia. Although he admits that he honors Cynthia above all other women, he insists that he loves Tellus.

Later, the two pages, Dares and Samias, stroll in the gardens with their own ladyloves, whom they have shown Endymion and Eumenides in the act of mooning over their own loves. As a jest, Dares and Samias ask the two women to feign love for Sir Tophas, who, as usual, is playing at warfare in the gardens. The women comply, but Sir Tophas, ignoring them, reiterates his contempt for love and his passion for war.

Still later, Dipsas comes upon Endymion asleep in a grove. Assisted by Bagoa, her servant, Dipsas casts a spell on Endymion to keep him in a sleep from which he will not awaken until he is old and gray. In a dream, three women appear to Endymion, and one of them starts to stab him. When asked by the third woman to stop, the first woman peers into a looking glass and throws down her knife. At this moment, an old man appears carrying a book that contains only three pages. Endymion refuses to read the book until the man has torn up two of the pages.

When informed of Endymion’s mysterious slumber, Cynthia agrees with Eumenides that the sages of the world should be consulted about a remedy. Angered by the impertinence of Tellus, Cynthia makes her a prisoner in Corsites’ palace, where she is to weave tapestries depicting stories of people who have been punished for their long tongues.

On the way to Thessaly, where Cynthia is sending him to seek a cure for Endymion, Eumenides meets Geron, an old hermit. Geron says that if Eumenides were a faithful lover, he could learn the cure from a magic fountain nearby. Since Eumenides has always been true to Semele, the fountain promises to grant any single wish he might make. Although tempted to wish that his love for Semele might be requited, he dutifully asks for a cure for his friend. The fountain answers that the cure is a kiss from Cynthia.

Tellus, slowly pining away in prison, promises Corsites, her jailer and suitor, that she will marry if he can perform the impossible task of bringing Endymion to a cave, where she might see him once more. Corsites undertakes this task but is put to sleep by fairies guarding Endymion’s body.

Thus Cynthia finds two sleeping men when she arrives at the grove accompanied by wise men who she hoped will wake Endymion. The sages succeed in waking only Corsites, who freely confesses his love for Tellus and what that love has inspired him to do. At last, Eumenides returns and persuades Cynthia to attempt the cure. Upon her kiss, Endymion wakes, but his forty-year slumber has withered him: He is so senile that he cannot stand. At Cynthia’s request, however, he relates his strange dream, explaining that, in the book that the old man gave him to read, he saw Cynthia being attacked by beasts of ingratitude, treachery, and envy. Cynthia promises to listen later to a fuller account of this vision.

A short time later, Bagoa discloses that Tellus and Dipsas were responsible for enchanting Endymion. For her pains, Bagoa is transformed into an aspen tree by Dipsas. Cynthia is more lenient than Dipsas. Learning that Tellus was motivated by unrequited love, Cynthia forgives her and gives her to Corsites as his wife. Dipsas, too, is pardoned, on condition that she will be reunited with Geron, her husband, whom she sent away many years ago. This reunion displeases Sir Tophas, who has discarded his armor out of love for Dipsas; he is content, however, when Cynthia disenchants Bagoa and gives her to Tophas as his wife. To Eumenides, she promises Semele, but Semele objects on the grounds that Eumenides did not ask for her at the magic fountain. She is placated, however, when Geron explains that Eumenides would not have learned the fountain’s secret had he not been faithful. Most important, Cynthia restores the youth of Endymion and tells him to persevere in his love.

Bibliography

Braunmuller, A. R., and Michael Hattaway, eds. The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama. 2d ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Although none of the essays in this collection deals specifically with Lyly, there are references to Endymion and some of his other plays listed in the index. These references help place his plays within the broader context of English Renaissance drama.

Hunter, G. K. John Lyly: The Humanist as Courtier. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962. The work against which subsequent criticism of Lyly is compared. Suggests that Lyly was motivated primarily by a desire to establish himself at Elizabeth I’s court. Concentrates on Endymion more than any other play.

Knapp, Robert S. “The Monarchy of Love in Lyly’s Endimion.” Modern Philology 73 (May, 1976): 353-367. Argues that Lyly is intentionally enigmatic, mixing a wide range of possible interpretations under the general heading of love allegory.

Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift. “The Allegory of Wisdom in Lyly’s Endimion.” Comparative Drama 10, no. 3 (Fall, 1976): 235-257. Analyzes the play in terms of sixteenth century religious and philosophical thought, with special reference to Neoplatonic conceptions of love.

Pincombe, Michael, ed. The Plays of John Lyly: Eros and Eliza. New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. A study of Lyly’s eight plays, including Endymion, with a separate chapter devoted to each. Focuses on the courtly aspects of his plays, the majority of which were written for court performance.

Saccio, Peter. The Court Comedies of John Lyly: A Study in Allegorical Dramaturgy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. Suggests a complex dramaturgical structure involving both moral and political allegory. Includes an eighteen-page section on Endymion and many other references to the play.