jams.2010.63.2.191

The Masque of Actaeon and the Antimasque of Mercury: Dance, Dramatic Structure, andTragic Exposition in Dido and AeneasAuthor(s): Andrew R. WalklingSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 63, No. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 191-242Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jams.2010.63.2.191 .

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I am grateful to Bruce Wood and the anonymous readers for this Journal, whose commentsand questions helped to enrich my thinking on Dido and Aeneas and prodded me on to a numberof additional ideas and revelations.

Page or folio numbers in the text refer to the publication or manuscript being discussed (thePriest Libretto, the Tenbury manuscript [score], or the Tatton Park manuscript [score]).

1. The likely date of this performance remains a matter of dispute; see Wood and Pinnock, “ ‘Unscarr’d by Turning Times’? The Dating of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas,” 372–90; Price,“Dido and Aeneas: Questions of Style and Evidence,” 115–25; and Walkling, “ ‘The Dating ofPurcell’s Dido and Aeneas’? A Reply to Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock,” 469–81.

2. See note 10.3. See Bryan White, “Letter from Aleppo: Dating the Chelsea School Performance of Dido

and Aeneas,” 417–28. In this article, White has convincingly redated the Chelsea performance—long believed to have occurred in 1689—to no later than July 1688. White’s new evidence alsocasts doubt on whether another document thought to refer to Dido actually does so: see his discussion (423) of Goldie, “The Earliest Notice of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.”

4. D’Urfey, New Poems, Consisting of Satyrs, Elegies, and Odes, 82–83. White suggests(“Letter from Aleppo,” 423) that D’Urfey’s epilogue might have been written for “a repetition ofDido and Aeneas” at the Chelsea venue, possibly in May or June of 1689.

5. See Eric Walter White, “New Light on Dido and Aeneas,” 14–34; and Price and Cholij,“Dido’s Bass Sorceress,” 615–18.

Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 63, Number 2, pp. 191–242 ISSN 0003-0139, electronic ISSN1547-3848. © 2010 by the American Musicological Society. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permissionto photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website,www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jams.2010.63.2.191.

The Masque of Actaeon and the Antimasqueof Mercury: Dance, Dramatic Structure, andTragic Exposition in Dido and Aeneas

ANDREW R. WALKLING

Few seventeenth-century operatic works are as well known to modernaudiences as Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate’s Dido and Aeneas; at thesame time, few have been so mercilessly buffeted by the storms of con-

tingent fortune. Virtually no aspect of this extraordinary composition hasbeen left untouched by ambiguity. Its performance circumstances are sparselyrecorded: a supposed premiere at the English royal court sometime in themid-1680s has left no known trace;1 the earliest documented performance, byschoolgirls in 1688, is memorialized through nothing more than a printedprogram libretto (of which only a single copy survives),2 a reference in a contemporary letter,3 and a poetic epilogue published in a verse miscellany;4subsequent appearances on the public stage in 1700 and 1704 are corre-spondingly obscure.5 Similarly, much uncertainty has surrounded the work’sgenre—is it an opera, as announced in large typeface on the first page of the1688 printed libretto and in most modern editions and recordings, or should



6. The classic political interpretation of the work is expounded in Buttrey, “Dating Purcell’sDido and Aeneas,” 51–62; this has, however, been largely discredited: see Price, Henry Purcelland the London Stage, 229–34; and Harris, Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” 17–20. For a morerecent interpretation, see Walkling, “Political Allegory in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas,” 540–71.

7. For a checklist of performance considerations—several of them informed by recent schol-arly work—that have been either ignored or haphazardly addressed in existing modern scores andrecordings, see Walkling, Review of Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (compact disc, Orchestra ofthe Age of Enlightenment, Harmonia Mundi France), para. 3.1.

it properly be considered a court masque, akin to its “sister” entertainment,John Blow’s Venus and Adonis? Finally, no amount of speculation, howeverwell informed, can definitively answer the question of what allegorical and political meanings might lie hidden in its text.6

Perhaps the most vexed aspect of Dido and Aeneas is the problematic stateof its sources, a consideration that bears significantly on all of the questionsoutlined above. As a literary and—in particular—a musical text, Dido survivesin a fragmentary state, presenting the mutilated remnant of what was once alarger, considerably more elaborate composition. The imperfect nature of thesource materials has exercised a powerful and often detrimental influence onour understanding of Dido and Aeneas, allowing a plethora of misapprehen-sions about the work to arise. These misapprehensions have affected not sim-ply how the piece is performed—both live and on recordings7—but the waysin which scholars assess Tate and Purcell’s exceptional artistic achievement. Inparticular, the significance of structural units and the importance of dance andtheatricality to the larger shape and meaning of the work are obscured as a re-sult of Dido’s truncated condition. This article addresses two interconnectedissues raised by the problem of the Dido sources and their incomplete evalua-tion by modern scholars. First, I will show how a detailed investigation ofDido’s structural elements can help us to better understand how the work mayhave looked in its original form. This entails exploring the complicated role ofdance music in the fabric of the drama. In the process I will offer analyses of in-dividual dances and discuss considerations relevant to the positioning of eachwithin the work as a whole. Building upon this approach, I will then turn towhat is perhaps the most perplexing dramatic moment in Dido, the “GroveScene” (act 2, scene 2), in order to demonstrate how the application of an an-alytical framework informed by dramatic structure and the theoretical modali-ties of court masque not only enables us to view this pivotal scene in anentirely new light, but also reveals its structural and dramatic centrality to thework’s overall meaning and rhetorical trajectory.

Textual and Bibliographical Problems

To a certain degree, Dido and Aeneas might be said to be a victim of its ownsuccess. Initially subject to a brief flurry of interest in the late eighteenth cen-tury, it has consistently held canonic status at least since its publication by the

192 Journal of the American Musicological Society



The Masque of Actaeon and the Antimasque of Mercury 193

Purcell Society in 1889, attracting the attentions of such modern British musi-cal luminaries as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, and, in particular,Benjamin Britten, who reedited the work for a landmark performance in1951.8 This longstanding celebrity has not, however, been all to the good. Asscholarly methods and documentation have evolved over more than a century,their rising and ebbing tide has carried along with it a substantial amount ofintellectual detritus and numerous untested assumptions about Dido that havefound a secure place in our received understanding of the piece, despite theirvulnerability to rigorous scholarly scrutiny. The most prominent of these en-during assumptions is, of course, that Dido was written for, rather than merelypresented at, Josias Priest’s boarding school for young ladies at Chelsea in thelate 1680s.9 Notwithstanding the emergence in the early 1990s of a scholarlyconsensus that Dido most likely originated in a court context, some recordingsare still, nearly two decades later, being released with liner notes that uncriti-cally persist in offering up the now-suspect view. Yet such a high-profile misap-prehension is far easier to correct than some of the more subtle notions thathave insinuated themselves into our thinking about Dido and Aeneas. Despitehaving no basis in established fact, these ideas persevere simply because schol-ars have neglected to return to them over time with a fresh eye and to interro-gate them in the light of a detached objectivity informed by modern criticalapproaches.

One of the most remarkable manifestations of this phenomenon has beenthe propensity to discount the contingent nature of the two earliest—andtherefore editorially fundamental—documentary witnesses to, respectively, thetext and the music of Dido and Aeneas. Each of these sources presents an as-sortment of editorial problems that have never been systematically addressed,even though they carry significant consequences for how we perceive thestructure and purpose of the work. The source that has long been given pri-macy in conditioning our understanding of both Dido’s text and its status asan autonomous theatrical piece is the eight-page printed libretto associatedwith the work’s performance at “Mr. JOSIAS PRIEST’s Boarding-School atCHELSEY ” in 1688.10 Comprising two folio gatherings, signed A and B,

8. For a survey of the later history of the work, see Harris, Henry Purcell’s “Dido andAeneas,” 124–64.

9. See Wood and Pinnock, “ ‘Unscarred,’ ” 373; Peter Holman was the first explicitly to ven-ture in print the idea that the Chelsea performance of Dido might not have been the work’s pre-miere: see his review of Dido and Aeneas, full score ed. Harris; compare also Michael Burden’sobservation in his review of Harris’s Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” 86, that “the most thatcan be said is that the work was ‘Perform’d at Mr. Josias Priest’s Boarding-School at Chelsey,’ thatDorothy Burke probably took part in the performance, and that it is possible that Priest did too.”For a lucid discussion of who “Mr. Josias Priest” might have been, see Thorp, “Dance in Late17th-Century London: Priestly Muddles,” 198–210.

10. Tate, An Opera Perform’d at Mr. Josias Priest’s Boarding-School at Chelsey. By YoungGentlewomen. This booklet survives in a unique copy at the Royal College of Music, London,where its (recently revised) shelfmark is D144. A facsimile can be found in Dido and Aeneas, ed. Laurie (1979), xiii–xx (note that no such facsimile appears in the earlier editions of Dido and




with a head-title on page 1 but no colophon or other printer’s details, this sim-ple and somewhat crude booklet betrays evidence of a rush job: there are mul-tiple typographical errors; scene markings and other stage directions arehaphazardly formatted; some directions and bits of text appear to have beengarbled through misreading;11 the system for punctuating speech prefixesseems to go awry on the final page; the last quarter of the final page suddenlyshifts to a smaller font, as the compositor belatedly realized that, with the textnot quite completed, his outside forme was about to fill up;12 and the poetNahum Tate’s first name is abbreviated as “Nat.” in the libretto’s head-title.Thus, although the “Priest libretto” presents what appears to be a more or lesscomplete text of the work, the fact that it is riddled with compositorial faultsand misleading formatting demands that we approach it both with great cau-tion and, at the same time, with a willingness to reimagine the relationship ofthis disfigured textual projection to the dramatic work originally written byTate and then set to music by Purcell.

One of the problems the Priest libretto presents is that, for all its faults andinconsistencies, it also contains elements that are more systematically applied.Scholars are thus faced with the difficulty of deciding how to interpret anom-alies in the print: are they simply to be dismissed as errors, or do they signalsome hidden intent on the part of the creators that may have been obscuredby the subsequent transmission history? We can consider this problem bylooking briefly at two related typographical features of the libretto: speech pre-fixes and leading. The Priest libretto is unusual among late seventeenth-century theatrical prints in establishing a separate, distinct left-hand columnfor all speech prefixes.13 With a single exception (for which, see note 68),

Aeneas ed. Laurie and Dart [1961, 1966, and 1974]); a facsimile was also issued in 1960 byBoosey and Hawkes, in conjunction with the score edited by Britten and Holst. The 1889 PurcellSociety edition, ed. Cummings (repr., [1942] and 1995), presented a “typeset facsimile” which,although deceptively close to the original in appearance, contains several small errors (xv–xxii;note that this “facsimile” does not appear in Cummings’s earliest edition, the vocal score pub-lished by Novello in 1888 and reprinted in 1951). Irena Cholij’s recent semi-diplomatic textualedition of the Priest libretto and the 1700 Measure for Measure playbook, “Dido and Aeneas withThe Loves of Dido and Aeneas in Measure for Measure,” 95–169, is unfortunately too flawed to beof use; see my review in Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 13, esp. paras. 3.3 and 4.2.

11. Examples include “Elisas ruin’d, ho, ho, ho,next Motion,” [sic] in act 3, scene 1 (p. 7);the stage directions “The Countreys Maids Dance” at the end of the prologue (p. 3) and “A Danceto Entertain Æneas, by Dido Vemon” in act 2, scene 2 (p. 6); and the consistent misprinting ofthe 2nd woman’s speech prefixes as “2 Women” throughout act 1 (three times on p. 4), despiteher reappearance as “2d. Wom.” in act 2, scene 2 (p. 6).

12. This may also explain the absence of a scene indication at the top of p. 8, where, it is gen-erally agreed, the setting changes from “the Ships” back to “the Palace” of act 1. However, otherexplanations are also possible—in the Priest libretto, the Ships scene for the sailors and witches atthe beginning of act 3 (p. 7) is particularly afflicted with minor typographical slips.

13. Aside from the related Venus and Adonis libretto of 1684 (see below), I have found noother example of a print that employs this striking “double-column” format. One that ap-proaches, but does not replicate, the format is the 1674 program libretto Songs and Masques inThe Tempest (two copies held at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, shelfmark S2943a).



14. The latter pertain entirely to speech prefixes for Dido, and all but one occur on the lastpage of the libretto.

15. See Walkling, Review of Henry Purcell’s Operas: The Complete Texts, ed. Burden, note 3.A similar pattern emerges in the related, albeit less dramatically complex, libretto for Venus andAdonis: in this case (out of fifty-one speech prefixes) the print presents no exceptions to the period/comma rule, and only a single instance of a comma being replaced by no punctuation atall (here also on the last page, at Venus’s final speech). For a facsimile of this libretto see Luckett,“New Source for Venus and Adonis,” 76–79.

16. Witness Cholij’s highly problematic edition of the Priest libretto, “Dido and Aeneas.”17. In fact, there are six choruses in Dido and Aeneas that can definitively be categorized as

“Type II” (plus a putative seventh chorus that would presumably fall into this category); see Table 2, pp. 204–5. Note that the typographical configuration being discussed here does not arisein the case of the remaining two Type II choruses precisely because their manifestations in thePriest libretto are obscured by far more serious typographical problems: “Haste, haste to town”(p. 6; see Fig. 5, p. 216) is presented as a continuation of Dido’s previous speech, without any reference to either Belinda or the Chorus, while “Come away, fellow sailors” (p. 7) is attributedonly to the Chorus, with no mention at all of the “First Sailor” (as he is designated in both theTenbury and the Tatton Park scores). The Measure for Measure libretto repeats the former error(p. 14), and assigns the nautical solo and chorus to the Sorceress (p. 26; see Price and Cholij,“Dido’s Bass Sorceress,” 616–17).

these are printed in italic type. On first inspection, the speech prefixes appearto deploy punctuation indiscriminately: some end with periods, some withcommas, and some with no punctuation at all. Yet closer analysis reveals whatappears to be a pattern, in which names that have been abbreviated are fol-lowed by a period, while those that are written out fully are followed by com-mas or, in a small, concentrated group of instances, are not punctuated.14 Thissystem is applied with remarkable consistency through the entire libretto: outof eighty-five speech prefixes, a mere seven do not conform to the rule.15 Thepractice evinced here, while not necessarily essential to the consideration oflarger interpretive questions, offers a stumbling block to editors as they strug-gle with competing pressures to present the text in either a “modernized” or a“diplomatic” format.16

If the compositor’s deployment of speech prefixes in the Priest libretto isgenerally taken at face value—that is, a speech prefix in the left-hand columnnaming a particular character is understood to indicate that the correspondingtext in the right-hand column should be sung by that character—we also needto take note of a second, slightly different usage pattern that emerges in fourinstances. These instances are related: each is associated with what I shall char-acterize below as a “Type II” chorus in Dido, and each reflects the composi-tor’s understandable concern to avoid repeating a passage of text that is sungthrough twice, first by a soloist or small ensemble and then by the chorus.Two appear in the prologue (“Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion /To the new-rising star of the ocean,” p. 1; and “See the Spring in all herglory / Welcomes Venus to the Shore,” p. 2; Figs. 3 and 2); one is in act 1(“Fear no danger to ensue, / The hero loves as well as you,” p. 4; Fig. 1); andone is in act 2, scene 2 (“Thanks to these lonesome vales, / These desert hillsand dales,” p. 6; Fig. 5).17 In each case, the Priest libretto’s compositor





exploits the flexibility of the “double-column” format, using the positioningof speech prefixes as a kind of shorthand to indicate the presence of asolo–chorus pairing: the first line of each two-line phrase is preceded by aspeech prefix for a named character (Phoebus, Venus, Belinda) who, we pre-sume, initially sings the passage; this is followed in three of the instances by theappearance of the prefix “Cho.” against the second line, meant to indicate thechoral reiteration of the entire passage. While the two examples that fall withinthe prologue cannot be properly assessed in this regard, since they have no ex-tant music, this usage would seem to be confirmed by reference to the twosettings from act 1 and act 2, scene 2, that do survive. One of these latter ex-amples is, of course, more complicated: the rondo-form “Fear no danger toensue” is initially sung not as a solo, but as a duet, between Belinda and the“Second Woman.” As Figure 1 shows, the compositor solved this problem byintroducing another layer into this alternative configuration of the left-handcolumn: now, Belinda and the Second Woman,18 the two performers of theduet, are each listed on one line against the text in the right-hand column and(since the text in question continues for another four lines) the indication forthe Chorus is simply moved down to the next line.19

What initially seems to be a straightforward practice with respect to the use(and, hence, implied meaning) of speech prefixes becomes more convolutedwhen we introduce a second factor into consideration. This is the issue of“leading,” that is, the placement of differently sized (or multiple) strips ofmetal between lines of composed type so as to adjust the amount of blankspace between lines of text on the printed page. In the Priest libretto, leadingis frequently used, in greater or lesser amounts, to separate the speeches of

18. Why this designation is misspelled (and therefore confusingly mischaracterized) as “2 Women” is another question. It may be that the manuscript copy of the libretto from which thecompositor was working offered no clear guidance as to the nature of the movement.

19. For a very different approach to understanding the typographical implications of this pas-sage, see Harris, Handel and the Pastoral Tradition, 132: “in the solo–chorus, ‘Fear no danger’,Tate writes one line for Belinda, one for the ‘2 women’ and four for the chorus.” The purpose ofthis reading is to contrast Tate’s presumed authorial intent with the final product, in which Purcell“sets all six lines as a duet between Belinda and one other woman . . . then repeats the entire piecefor chorus.” Harris’s larger goal in this section of her study (129–36) is to disprove the generallyaccepted belief that Purcell composed additional music, now lost, for the witches’ scene at the endof act 2, scene 2. Her argument is constructed upon the premise that Tate’s libretto, i.e., the orig-inal poetic text, differs in multiple ways from Purcell’s score—not merely in providing wordswhere there is no music, but in a host of other, smaller ways as well. These additional pieces of evi-dence for Purcell’s independent handling of the text, she argues, point to a larger pattern of delib-erate changes and omissions effected by the composer. Such an assessment, however, presentssignificant problems, as it allows features of the surviving printed witness—features that may havebeen driven by other typographical considerations—to be misconstrued as definitive markers ofthe poet’s intent. In her treatment of the text, Harris mistakenly elides “Tate’s libretto,” the dis-embodied object of her analytical concern, with the Priest libretto, a tangible but manifestly sub-ordinate printed text whose authority is at best limited, and at worst undependable, as a guide towhat Tate may actually have written.




individual characters. This practice, in introducing a horizontal organizationalschema to the libretto’s design that complements the vertical schema of the“double-column” format discussed above, is both visually helpful to readersand, for the most part, unproblematic with regard to interpretive issues. In thecase of the solo–chorus combinations discussed above, however, the questionof how to separate distinct speeches by means of leading seems to have left thecompositor uncertain about what procedure to follow, resulting in an unex-pected breakdown in consistency. Whereas normally leading would only occurbetween individual speeches, as Figure 1 shows, the text of “Fear no danger toensue,” associated with the three speech prefixes in the left-hand column (forBelinda, the Second Woman, and the Chorus), has been leaded as it would beif those speech prefixes were configured according to the standard usage ofthe rest of the libretto. The same is true of one of the other occurrences of thisconfiguration, “See the Spring in all her glory” (see Fig. 2). Yet the remainingtwo, “Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion” and “Thanks to theselonesome vales” (see Figs. 3 and 5), eschew the problematic leading, therebylargely avoiding the potential for interpretive confusion. Thus, the Priest li-bretto, with its perplexing mixture of consistent and inconsistent practices, admits of a variety of potential interpretations and approaches, all of which demand careful consideration.20

The second source essential to understanding Tate and Purcell’s work is, naturally, that which provides the most complete version of the music (and which adheres most faithfully to the harmonic and rhythmic practice associated with Purcell’s compositional style).21 In stark contrast to the Priest libretto, which dates from 1688, the “Tenbury manuscript,” generallyconsidered the earliest and most reliable musical score of Dido and Aeneas,22 has been shown by Ellen Harris to date from around 1775, some

20. Thus far, no one has attempted to carry out a detailed analysis of the physical evidence ofthe Dido and Venus libretti, including compositorial practice, font, and paper, that might enable usto determine what print shop Josias Priest employed to produce these exceptional objects in themiddle years of the 1680s.

21. Thus, a number of eighteenth-century sources that represent an “improved” version ofthe work, prepared in conjunction with performances at the Academy of Ancient Music in 1774and 1787, are not considered by modern editors seeking to “recover” Purcell’s original composi-tion; see Dido and Aeneas, ed. Laurie (1979), xii; and Harris, Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,”46–47 and 124–47 (the manuscript in the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC, notedby Laurie and Harris, is now identified by the shelfmark W.b.539).

22. Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Tenbury 1266 (5), “The Loves of Aeneas and Dido”; the manuscript was formerly in the library of St. Michael’s College, Tenbury Wells,Worcestershire. Since the mid-1960s, scholars have also recognized the importance of anothermanuscript of Dido, that copied by the Oxford music professor Philip Hayes sometime before1784 and now held at the National Trust property of Tatton Park in Knutsford, Cheshire (MR 2-5.3, pp. 1–72). As Margaret Laurie observes, the Tatton Park manuscript appears to have beencopied from the same source upon which the Tenbury manuscript is based (or a source closely re-lated thereto), and “contains some, though not all, of [Tenbury’s] obvious mistakes but where[Tenbury] has blank bars [Tatton Park] gives the correct reading. . . . Sometimes, though not




Figure 1 “Fear no danger to ensue,” from Priest libretto, p. 4. Reproduced by permission ofthe Royal College of Music, London.

Figure 3 “Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion,” from Priest libretto, p. 1. Reproducedby permission of the Royal College of Music, London.

Figure 2 “See the Spring in all her glory,” from Priest libretto, p. 2. Reproduced by permissionof the Royal College of Music, London.

always, it seems to give a more accurate rendering of the original” (Dido and Aeneas, ed. Laurie[1979], x). At the same time, Tatton Park engages in some of the eighteenth-century “improve-ments” of Purcell’s rhythms and harmonies found in other, less reliable, sources and thus, accord-ing to Ellen Harris, “cannot claim the primacy of the Tenbury score” (Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” 46). In the present article, relevant features of Tatton Park will be noted where themanuscript differs from Tenbury. I am grateful to Robert Thompson for loaning me his microfilmof this source.

23. Harris, Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” 45.

ninety years after the work’s probable first performance.23 Arguments to thecontrary notwithstanding, it is likely that the Tenbury score lacks substantial


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portions of Purcell’s original music. These sections, as Curtis Price has com-pellingly demonstrated, were probably stripped away during successive adapta-tions of the original work for public theatrical performance in 1700 and 1704,with the resulting truncated version serving as the source (or a stemmatic an-cestor) of Tenbury.24 Precisely what is lacking remains an open question. DidDido and Aeneas, for example, include a second overture, before the now-missing prologue, as some scholars have proposed?25 Were there conventionalinstrumental “act tunes” following acts 1 and 2, and perhaps at the end of theprologue as well?26 The Priest libretto, not surprisingly, offers no hints, its


24. Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 242, building upon ideas first presented inWhite, “New Light on Dido and Aeneas,” esp. 23–24; see the further discussion below. For the1700 production, individual acts of Dido were interpolated into an adapted version of WilliamShakespeare’s Measure for Measure: see [Gildon], Measure for Measure. No textual record exists of the 1704 performances of Dido as an afterpiece to Edward Ravenscroft’s The Anatomist(29 January and possibly 17 February) and Sir George Etherege’s The Man of Mode (8 April): seeHarris, Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” 48.

25. I am skeptical about this view, first advanced by Laurie in “Did Purcell Set The Tempest?”(45n8), who argues that the four-part G-minor overture labeled “Overture In Mr P Opera” inRoyal College of Music MS 1172, fol. 38, might constitute a separate “overture to the prologueof Dido and Aeneas.” I know of no precedent for a seventeenth-century operatic work containingtwo French overtures, pace Curtis Price who, in discussing this particular case, offers the exampleof Edward Ravenscroft’s 1697 tragedy The Italian Husband, a three-act play with incidental music (including an overture) by John Eccles, incorporating an autonomous masque of Ixion inact 3 that opens to a (lost) “Overture with Violins, Hautbois, Trumpets and Kettle-Drums,” whichsets the scene in “A Poetical Heaven” (Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 245n31; seeRavenscroft, The Italian Husband. A Tragedy, Acted at the Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-Fields, 27).While the known overture to Dido and Aeneas, at least as it survives in the Tenbury and TattonPark scores, is in C minor, the key with which act 1 opens, it was probably intended to be playedat the very beginning of the work, before the prologue. Indeed, we might wonder whether, giventhe apparent dependence of the Tenbury and Tatton Park manuscripts on the public perfor-mances of Dido in 1700 and 1704, the overture could have been transposed at that time intoC minor from some other key (presumably that of the prologue), so as to enable the overture andact 1 to be spliced together. On the other hand, it is worth considering whether the overturewould have been performed at all in the 1700 Measure for Measure production, and if so, where—at the beginning of “The First Entertainment” (p. 7), i.e., act 1? at the beginning of the prologue,which was repurposed as “The Fourth Entertainment” (p. 45)? If it did appear somewhere in thework, then Measure for Measure would constitute a companion example to Ravenscroft’s TheItalian Husband, since Gildon’s Shakespeare adaptation also had its own set of incidental music,including an overture, composed by John Eccles (in Newberry Library, Chicago, manuscriptbound with Case VM 3.1 P985, fol. 4r; see Charteris, “Some Manuscript Discoveries of HenryPurcell and His Contemporaries in the Newberry Library, Chicago,” 9). Whatever key the over-ture may originally have been in, I suspect that it would have been played twice, at the beginningof the prologue and again between the prologue and act 1, in keeping with the practice of thecontemporary French tragédie lyrique. We should note, however, that John Blow’s Venus andAdonis (see also note 26) takes a different approach, concluding its prologue with a “Tune forFlutes” that effectively functions as a conventional act tune.

26. The issue of act tunes is raised in Laurie, “Allegory, Sources, and Early PerformanceHistory,” 51–52. Laurie cites two other examples of three-act through-sung “operas” with acttunes: John Blow’s Venus and Adonis (ca. 1682) and Louis Grabu’s Albion and Albanius (1685).In the former case, we can compare the multiple early surviving scores of Blow’s masque, all of




main emphasis being, by definition, on the verbal text. On the other hand, acomparison of the Priest libretto with the Tenbury manuscript does seem totestify fairly unequivocally to the prior existence of two missing vocal sections:the extensive allegorical prologue, and the choral scene for the witches thatconcludes the second act (“Then since our charms have sped”).27 These andother issues, to be explored below, have—to a greater or lesser degree, andwhether consciously or not—left modern scholars, performers, and audiencesunable clearly to ascertain what Dido and Aeneas may actually have looked likein its original form. In an effort to digest the various possibilities into onecomprehensive register, an appendix to this article (pp. 235–37) offers a sug-gested list of the movements a “complete” performance of the work might beimagined to contain.

Dances and Choruses

Whereas, on the one hand, the loss of certain vocal sections from the originalversion of Dido and Aeneas can be affirmed with a good deal of confidence,and, on the other, the possible existence of certain incidental music can onlyever be guessed at, there is a third category that demands our more carefulconsideration. This category, which consists of dance music, offers a numberof provocative opportunities to consider the extent to which Dido, as we nowknow it, in fact constitutes a palimpsest whose full dimensions we have hith-erto failed to comprehend. Dance forms an essential component of the work’sartistic program, at least as presented in the Priest libretto, a cursory census ofwhich reveals seventeen readily identifiable discrete dance numbers, catalogedin Table 1. This would accord with Dido’s employment as a showcase for thestudents at a dancing master’s finishing-school, to say nothing of its supposedorigin as a court masque. Yet like the entire genre of early modern courtmasque from which they originate, the dances in Dido have proven extremelyephemeral. As Table 1 indicates, a mere four of them survive in the Tenburyscore as independent instrumental movements.28 This leaves thirteen dances

which provide the full set of act tunes, with the work’s own recently discovered “Priest libretto” of1684 (see note 15), which is notably silent on the subject.

27. Throughout this article, I follow the majority of the sources (all manuscript scores, as wellas the Measure for Measure playbook) in using the term “witches” to refer to what the Priest li-bretto calls “Inchanteresses” (or, more strictly speaking, “The Sorceress and her Inchanteress[es]”).The standard discussion of the place of witches in late seventeenth-century English drama isPlank, “ ‘And Now About the Cauldron Sing’: Music and the Supernatural on the RestorationStage,” 392–407; but see also Winkler, O Let Us Howle Some Heavy Note: Music for Witches, theMelancholic, and the Mad on the Seventeenth-Century English Stage, chap. 2 (18–62).

28. Using the alphabetical key provided in Table 1, these four dances can be identified as a celebratory chaconne for the court (ⓘ); an exuberant “echo dance,” characterized by rushingsixteenth-note scales in the violins, for figures associated with the witches (ⓚ); a hornpipe for thesailors (ⓞ); and a classic irregular antimasque dance, apparently for a costumed jack-o’-lanternand Spaniards—or perhaps sailors?—(ⓟ) which, in 1700, is assigned to wizards and witches.




Table 1 Dances in Dido and Aeneas, as Given in the Priest Libretto, 1688

Dance title (diplomatic transcription; Independent How usuallyAct/scene italics reversed) setting? performed

P.1 ea ⓐ The Tritons Dance. lost —P.1 E ⓑ The Nerieds Dance. lost —P.2 eb ⓒ The Spring and Nymphs Dance. lost —P.2 ⓓ The Shepherds and Shepherdesses (Q1700 om.) lost —

Dance.P.2 e ⓔ The Nymphs Dance. (Q1700 om.) lost —P.2 E ⓕ The Countreys Maids Dance. c lost —

1 e ⓖd Dance this Cho. / The Baske. e no cho./rep.1 ⓗ A Dance Gittars Chacony (Q1700 om.) no improv.1 E ⓘ The Triumphing Dance. yes +

2.1 ⓙ Enter 2 Drunken Saylors,a Dance (Q1700 om.) no duet2.1 E ⓚ Eccho Dance. / Inchanteresses f yes +

and Fairees.2.2 ⓛ Gitter Ground a Dance. (Q1700 om.) no improv.2.2 ⓜ A Dance to Entertain Æneas, by (Q1700 om.) no ritornello

Dido Vemon.2.2 E ⓝ The Groves Dance. g lost —

3.1 ehⓞ The Saylors Dance. yes +3.1 E ⓟ Jack of the Lanthorn leads the Spaniards / out of i yes +

their way among the Inchanteresses. / A Dance.3.2 E ⓠ Cupids Dance. (Q1700 om.) no cho./rep.

KEY:e = dance located at end of “French scene” (i.e., immediately before new character enters)E = dance located at end of full scene (sometimes also = end of act)(Q1700 om.) = dance omitted from 1700 Measure for Measure quarto playbooklost = dance comes from part of the libretto for which no music survivescho./rep. = dance usually performed during singing of chorus or to instrumental reprise of

chorus (“Fear no danger to ensue”; “With drooping wings ye Cupids come”)improv. = music probably improvised by guitarist at the time of the performance; guitar solo

usually interpolatedduet = dance usually performed during vocal duet (“But ere we this perform”)ritornello = dance usually performed during ritornello from preceding solo (“Oft she visits this

loved mountain”)— = dance usually not performed, or performed to music borrowed from elsewhere+ = dance performed to existing dance movement

a Status unclear: possibly danced while Venus enters in a flying chariot.b Status unclear: Shepherds and Shepherdesses may enter immediately after dance.c Q1700: “Enter Morris Dancers.” (This section is moved to the beginning of the scene in Q1700.)d Or ⓖ/��: see discussion below.e Q1700: “Dance to / this Cho.”f Q1700: “Echo Dance of Furies.”g Q1700: “The Grove Dance.”h Status unclear: Priest libretto has “The Sorceress and her Inchanteress” enter with the Sailors at the begin-ning of 3.1.i Q1700: “A Dance of Wizards and VVitches.”




mentioned in the Priest libretto for which no autonomous music exists. Theabsence of seven of these is easily accounted for, in that they fall within thelarger vocal units presumably excised en bloc in the early eighteenth century—six in the prologue and one (“The Groves Dance,” labeled ⓝ in Table 1) at theend of act 2, scene 2—all of which are labeled in Table 1 as “lost.”29 The re-maining six dances, however, pose a more substantial problem. This group,which includes five courtly dances (a presumably Iberian-inflected dance for aBasque [ⓖ]; two ground-bass dances apparently intended for ad libitum per-formance on solo guitar [ⓗ and ⓛ]; an entertainment performed by Dido’scourtiers [ⓜ]; and a mourning dance of Cupids [ⓠ]), as well as an antimasquedance for two drunken sailors (ⓙ), consists of items whose presence is clearlyindicated in the Priest libretto but for which no independent music appears inthe now-incomplete score.30 The absence of these six dances—the very fact ofwhich has been deftly obscured in the Tenbury score through the splicing to-gether of adjoining vocal numbers to create the illusion of a seamless, undam-aged musical text—presents a significant interpretive dilemma. In seeking toreconcile the contradictory evidence provided by libretto and score, editors,performers, and scholars alike have consistently pursued a path of lesser resis-tance, assigning dances to nearby vocal movements, or to their (editoriallyadded) instrumental reiterations, or to an existing instrumental ritornello—oreven, in the case of the guitar dances, simply eliminating them altogether.31

While this may be an appropriately pragmatic solution to a performancequandary, over time it has exercised an insidious influence on scholarship, en-abling the ad hoc arrangement initially put forward as a response to transitoryproduction issues to harden imperceptibly into unsubstantiated “fact,” erro-neously presumed to embody the authoritative witness of the sources.32 Yet

29. Two of the six “original” prologue dances (“The Shepherds and Shepherdesses Dance” [ⓓ]and “The Nymphs Dance” [ⓔ]) are not mentioned in the 1700 Measure for Measure playbook;another (ⓕ) is retained but appears to substitute morris dancers for “Countreys Maids”; and apresumably new “grand Dance” has been added at the end of an extrapolated scene featuringMars and Peace. The act 2, scene 2 dance (ⓝ) is included in the 1700 production, here moreplausibly labeled “The Grove Dance.”

30. For reasons that will be elucidated presently, my categorization runs counter to the con-ventional wisdom about Dido, which holds that at least six dances survive with music, includingthe four listed in note 28, as well as ⓖ (as danced to the chorus of “Fear no danger to ensue”) andⓜ (as danced to the ritornello following “Oft she visits this loved mountain”). For a discussionthat incorporates all six of these dances, see Semmens, “Dancing and Dance Music in Purcell’sOperas,” 180–96 and app. 4, esp. 282. The fact that ⓙ (as danced to the duet “But ere we thisperform”) and ⓠ (as danced to the chorus “With drooping wings ye Cupids come”) are not alsoconsidered in this group aptly illustrates the haphazard nature of prevailing editorial and criticaljudgments about Dido.

31. This despite the efforts of some editors to offer the means for reincorporating the move-ments into the work: see the edition of Dido and Aeneas by Laurie and Dart (1961/1966/1974,but not Laurie’s 1979 ed.), 103; and the vocal score, ed. Harris (but not her 1987 miniaturescore), 85–87.

32. A rare exception to this troubling propensity is Peter Holman, who raised the issue ofmissing dances more than two decades ago, as he subsequently explained in his 1990 review ofDido and Aeneas, ed. Harris, 619.




taking into account the unstable condition of those sources, we cannot elimi-nate the possibility that at least some of these dances were performed to inde-pendent musical numbers in the work’s earliest productions. Considered insuch a context, the questions surrounding these six dances, which I will call“deleted dances,” offer an important opportunity, not merely to raise newconjectures about the original status of the dances themselves but, in responseto such speculation, to reconsider broader questions about Dido and Aeneas,particularly with regard to the work’s structure and meaning.

As a first step toward fulfilling these aims, we must turn to the choruses inDido, to examine their role and their relationship to the dance movements. Itis noteworthy that all but three of the work’s dances appear immediately afterchoruses of one kind or another,33 and that a significant number of the cho-ruses segue directly into dances. If we subject the work’s choruses to detailedanalysis in terms of their characteristics and their relationships to adjacentdances, some interesting patterns emerge. Dido’s choruses fall into threebroad categories, as enumerated in Table 2. “Type I” choruses fulfill a func-tion similar to that of the conventional Greek chorus—what the sixteenth-century Italian theorist Angelo Ingegneri called coro stabile.34 They consist ofindependent choral statements providing aphoristic observations (or, in thecase of the witches, exclamations of a self-characterizing quality), and alwaysoccur in the middle, rather than at the end, of a scene. For purposes of clarifi-cation, Table 2 provides the complete texts of these brief, self-containednuggets of wisdom. As the table shows, in only a single instance is a Type Ichorus situated adjacent to a dance.35 In contrast, “Type II” choruses are dependent, that is, they involve the reiteration of statements, usually hortatoryin nature (“Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion / To the new-risingstar of the ocean”; “Fear no danger to ensue: / The hero loves as well asyou”), initially articulated by one or more solo singers (gods, shepherds,Carthaginian courtiers, a sailor). As Table 2 indicates, these choruses arenearly always followed by a dance.36 Moreover, all but one (“Thanks to these

33. The exceptions are “The Shepherds and Shepherdesses Dance” (ⓓ) in P.2, which followswhat appears to be a non-choral ensemble piece for two or more shepherdesses; the “DanceGittars Chacony” (ⓗ) in 1, which (though often omitted in modern performances) provides theessential dramatic bridge in which Aeneas overcomes Dido’s hesitancy, probably through an inti-mate courtly dance performed by the two principal characters; and “A Dance to Entertain Æneas,by Dido Vemon” (ⓜ) in 2.2, which will be discussed further below.

34. Ingegneri, Della poesia rappresentativa & del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, 81and 23. I am grateful to Paul Schleuse for drawing my attention to this terminology.

35. This exception, the second statement of the “Ho, ho, ho” chorus, is followed by thedance for two drunken sailors (ⓙ), one of the six deleted dances to be discussed below.

36. There are two apparent exceptions to this rule. The first, “See the Spring in all her glory,”falls at a particularly convoluted moment in the libretto (see Fig. 2): the scene has changed from“the Sea” to “the Grove” and the Nereids have departed, leaving Venus and Phoebus on stage toannounce the arrival of Spring (who, counterintuitively, has just appeared in order to “Welcome . . . Venus to the Shore”). But before Spring can utter a word, Phoebus and Venus exit to thesound of “Soft Musick,” most likely played to cover the mechanical noise of the gods’ respectiveflying chariots. The spectacle of Phoebus and Venus reascending to the sound of instrumental




Tab

le 2

Cho

ruse

s in

Did

o an

d A

enea

s

Act

/sc

ene

Typ

e I*

(fu

ll te

xt g

iven

)T

ype

II**

Typ

e II

I***

P.1

aT

RIT

ON

SA

ND

NE

RE

IDS

CO

ME

PAY

�ⓐ

bA

nd if

the

deiti

es a

bove

Are

vic

tims o

f the

pow

ers o

f lov

e,W

hat m

ust w

retc

hed

mor

tals

do?

�

text

b>

TO

PHO

EB

US

AN

DV

EN

US

OU

RH

OM

AG

E�ⓑ

P.2

aSE

ET

HE

SPR

ING

INA

LL

HE

RG

LO

RY

�“S

oft M

usic

k.”

b?H

ET

HA

TFA

ILS

OF

AD

DR

ESSI

NG

a�ⓒ

cL

ET

US

LO

VE

AN

DH

APP

YL

IVE

�ⓔ

d>

BU

TT

HE

JOL

LY

NYM

PHT

HE

TIS

�ⓕ

1a

Ban

ish so

rrow

, ban

ish c

are:

Grie

f sho

uld

ne’e

r app

roac

h th

e fa

ir.

�te

xt

aW

hen

mon

arch

s uni

te, h

ow h

appy

th

eir s

tate

;T

hey

triu

mph

at o

nce

o’er

thei

r foe

s an

d th

eir f

ate.

�

text

aFE

AR

NO

DA

NG

ER

TO

EN

SUE

�ⓖ

b

bC

upid

onl

y th

row

s the

dar

tT

hat’s

dre

adfu

l to

a w

arrio

r’s h

eart

,A

nd sh

e th

at w

ound

s can

onl

y cu

re

the

smar

t.

�

text

b>

TO

TH

EH

ILL

SA

ND

TH

EVA

LE

S�ⓘ

2.1

bH

arm

’s o

ur d

elig

ht a

nd m

ischi

ef a

ll ou

r ski

ll.

�te

xtb

Ho,

ho,

ho

[A]

�te

xtb

Ho,

ho,

ho

[B]

�ⓙ

b>

INO

UR

DE

EP-

VAU

LTE

DC

EL

L�ⓚ



2.2

aT

HA

NK

ST

OT

HE

SEL

ON

ESO

ME

VAL

ESc�ⓛ

d

bH

AST

E, H

AST

ET

OT

OW

N�

text

(2.2

c)

d>

TH

EN

SIN

CE

OU

RC

HA

RM

SH

AVE

SPE

D�ⓝ

3.1

aC

OM

EA

WA

Y, F

EL

LO

WSA

ILO

RS

�ⓞ

b>

DE

STR

UC

TIO

N’S

OU

RD

EL

IGH

Te

�ⓟ

3.2

cG

reat

min

ds a

gain

st th

emse

lves

con

spire

,A

nd sh

un th

e cu

re th

ey m

ost d

esire

.�

text

c>

WIT

HD

RO

OPI

NG

WIN

GS

�ⓠ

N.B

. Sig

nific

ant a

nom

alie

s in

the

tabl

e ab

ove

are

shad

ed. D

ance

s th

at d

o no

t app

ear

to fo

llow

cho

ruse

s(ⓓ

,ⓗ

,ⓜ

, and

the

puta

tive

� �)

are

not c

onsid

ered

inth

is ta

ble.

All

spel

lings

are

mod

erni

zed.

*Typ

e I:

inde

pend

ent c

hora

l sta

tem

ent (

gods

/co

urt:

apho

risti

c; w

itch

es:s

elf-

char

acte

rizi

ng)—

no d

ance

follo

ws

**T

ype

II: d

epen

dent

reite

rate

d ch

orus

(ho

rtat

ory)

—da

nce

follo

ws t

o co

nclu

de “

Fren

ch sc

ene”

***T

ype

III:

inde

pend

ent c

hora

l sta

tem

ent (

gods

/sh

ephe

rds/

cour

t:ho

rtat

ory;

wit

ches

:ant

icip

ator

y)—

danc

e fo

llow

s to

conc

lude

scen

e/ac

t

aN

o ch

orus

indi

cate

d in

Prie

st li

bret

to, b

ut a

Typ

e II

cho

ral r

eite

ratio

n of

this

text

seem

s pos

sible

(no

te, h

owev

er, t

hat t

he te

xt is

aph

orist

ic, r

athe

r tha

n ho

rtat

ory)

; no

scen

e ch

ange

indi

cate

d in

Prie

st li

bret

to, b

ut S

heph

erds

and

She

pher

dess

es p

roba

bly

ente

r her

eaft

er, t

here

by m

arki

ng a

“Fr

ench

scen

e” d

ivisi

on.

bO

r ⓖ/

� �: s

ee d

iscus

sion

begi

nnin

g p.

208

.c

Text

is d

eict

ic, r

athe

r tha

n ho

rtat

ory:

see

disc

ussio

n be

ginn

ing

p. 2

25.

dO

r ㉦/ⓛ

: see

disc

ussio

n be

ginn

ing

p. 2

23.

eFi

rst

two

lines

of

text

(“D

estr

uctio

n’s

our

delig

ht,

/ D

elig

ht o

ur g

reat

est

sorr

ow”)

are

sel

f-ch

arac

teriz

ing,

rat

her

than

ant

icip

ator

y; la

st t

wo

lines

(“E

lissa

die

s to

nigh

t, /

And

Car

thag

e fla

mes

tom

orro

w”)

rev

ert t

o ex

pect

ed a

ntic

ipat

ory

char

acte

r.





lonesome vales,” an exception that will be discussed in greater detail below)lead proximately, i.e., usually through a succeeding dance, to a “French scene”division, that is, a point at which one or more singing characters enter or leavethe stage. Like this type of chorus, “Type III” choruses are hortatory (or,when sung by the witches, anticipatory); however, unlike Type II choruses,those classified as Type III constitute independent choral statements, and, al-ways paired with a dance, are located at the end of each formal theatrical sceneor act.37

The information afforded by this analysis can help shed additional light onCurtis Price’s hypothesis that the truncated Tenbury score may reflect the suc-cessive paring-down of Dido and Aeneas for public theatrical performances inthe early eighteenth century. In the 1700 production, even though it hadbeen interpolated into Charles Gildon’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measurefor Measure, Dido was still a full-length, four-act work, with yet more new ma-terial added, both to the prologue and to act 2. The most drastic cuts, accord-ing to Price’s theory, would have been made in 1704, in order to shorten the(recently expanded) work for use as an afterpiece.38 Yet the textual violence inflicted on Dido really began earlier, with the elimination in 1700 of nearlyhalf the dances, possibly in an attempt to turn what had most likely been acourt masque (and subsequently a dance showpiece for young ladies) intosomething more suitable for public performance. All but one of the six now-

music might be understood to substitute for a dance at this point, while the exit of the two godstechnically triggers a “French scene” division (from P.2 a to P.2 b). The Measure for Measure play-book takes a more masque-like approach to Spring’s entry with the stage direction “Spring appears in an Arbour, with her Nymphs about her” (p. 46). This may, however, have been addedin 1700 to compensate for the displacement of the He/She dialogue “Tell me, prithee, Dolly”from the end of the prologue into the position immediately following the departure of Phoebusand Venus; though Spring and her nymphs are already technically on stage in the arbor, they arenonetheless said to “Enter” after the intervening dialogue and dance (p. “39,” recte 47).

The second exception, “Haste, haste to town,” is easily explained by the fact that the court isscattering in disarray upon the approach of the thunderstorm. The end of the chorus immediatelyushers in a French scene change (2.2 b to 2.2 c) with the descent of the Spirit posing as Mercuryto issue his fateful admonition to Aeneas. Certainly, no dancing would be appropriate at this junc-ture; indeed, its absence underscores the pivotal and dire nature of the scene that follows.

37. A single possible exception is “Let us love and happy live,” which, with its associateddance (ⓔ) concludes a French scene (P.2 c) rather than a full theatrical scene. While this wouldseem to make it a Type II chorus, it appears in the Priest libretto to be independent of any solomovement, and thus must be classified as Type III.

38. Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 242; see also Laurie, “Allegory, Sources, andEarly Performance History,” 48–52. Price notes that the 1700 alterations (carried out afterPurcell’s death) involved the addition of two new scenes and the reordering of some preexistingones (also see White, “New Light on Dido and Aeneas”). The resultant product, he speculates,was then revisited in early 1704, when Dido and Aeneas was performed as an afterpiece to twoplays—on this occasion, it was trimmed of its non-Purcellian excrescences, causing the inadvertentloss of the original material at the end of act 2 (scene 2 d). At the same time, the unusually digres-sive and now-irrelevant prologue was discarded entirely and the remaining scenes restored to theiroriginal order, albeit with some confusion about where act 1 ended and act 2 began.




missing dances mentioned in the Priest libretto are absent from the 1700source; on the other hand, textual cues for all four of the surviving indepen-dent dance movements (ⓘ, ⓚ, ⓞ, and ⓟ) do appear there. In fact, a particu-lar logic may have been applied to the excisions: a comparison of Table 2 withTable 1 shows that, with the single exception of the closing dance for cupids(ⓠ), each of the dances purged from the 1700 performance is in one way oranother anomalous with respect to the three types of chorus and their charac-teristics discussed above.39 In making these cuts, we should note, the Measurefor Measure adaptor (possibly Gildon himself ?40) greatly simplified the dra-matic structure of the work by ensuring that every dance retained in the production falls at the end of either a full or a French scene.

A careful consideration of the six deleted dances can offer new insights intoDido and Aeneas. This is particularly true of the two dances found in the“Grove Scene,” which will be scrutinized in detail below. However, it is usefulto provide brief individual discussions of the other four dances as well. Theseexaminations not only help us to ascertain the possible place of each dance inthe original score; they also contribute to the emerging picture of Dido as awork that both demands and rewards novel approaches that take into accounta range of considerations—literary, structural, contextual, and performative.

ⓖ: Dance this Cho. / The Baske.

Marking what is seemingly the only deleted dance to be retained in the 1700production, the stage direction Dance this Cho. / The Baske. appears immedi-ately after the rondo duet and Type II chorus “Fear no danger to ensue,” ascan be seen in Figure 1. Two questions arise in relation to this item: first, whatdoes it mean to “Dance this Cho.”? Second, how or where does “The Baske” fit in? With regard to the first question, it is necessary to ask what, precisely,dancing to a chorus entails—whether dancers performing to the (recapitu-lated) music of the chorus, once the singing has finished; dancers performing

39. These include ⓙ, which, uniquely, follows a Type I chorus; ⓛ, which appropriately fol-lows a Type II chorus but does not conclude a scene; and ⓔ, which follows a chorus independentof any solo movement, one that is therefore Type III, but which should be Type II, as it only con-cludes a French scene. The 1700 excisions also include ⓓ, ⓗ, and ⓜ, the three dances not associ-ated with any choral movement at all. A different rationale may apply to the elimination of ⓠ: as “The Third Entertainment” for Duke Angelo concludes, Isabella enters, prompting Angelo toobserve, “I see my Ev’ning Star of Love appear” (p. 28). Though Isabella has come on stage“Before ’tis quite done” (p. 26), Angelo cannot speak, even to himself, over the final sung chorusof Dido; however, an untexted, instrumental dance movement afterwards would be awkwardlyplaced in terms of the dramatic fabric, postponing while simultaneously inviting the delivery ofAngelo’s soliloquizing lines.

40. In expressing surprise that Gildon made no mention of Dido when, in 1710, he singledout Purcell’s greatest compositional achievements, Curtis Price (Henry Purcell and the LondonStage, 228–29, quoting [Gildon], Life of Thomas Betterton, 167) has neglected to observe that itis Betterton speaking in this passage, not Gildon.




while the chorus is being sung; or singers dancing while they themselves sing.Surviving evidence from late seventeenth-century England suggests thatdances of any kind to choruses are very rare in this period: aside from one inBlow’s Venus and Adonis (where a shepherd and shepherdess are clearly saidto dance “Whilst this Cho is singing”) and the example under discussion here,the only unambiguous examples of this phenomenon occur in the years after1698.41 On the other hand, given the unusual status of Venus and Dido asworks with a known or likely court provenance, we might not be surprised at this particular stage direction. Yet while the line “Dance this Cho.” seems atleast relatively clear, the issue is made more complicated by the addition of“The Baske.” on a separate line. The standard assumption has been that a cos-tumed “Basque” is meant to dance while the chorus is singing, or perhaps toan instrumental recapitulation of the number, as already noted. But shouldthese two lines really be read as a single stage direction? The libretto’s typo-graphical configuration, with the lines widely separated by leading, suggeststhat they might rather connote independent directions, the first (ⓖ) callingfor a courtly dance associated with the chorus, the second (which I will tenta-tively label ��) specifying an independent dance for one or more performerspersonating Basques, the music for which no longer survives.42 The Tenburyscore displays a characteristic reticence here, progressing directly from thesung chorus to the succeeding recitative passage with no indication for anykind of dance whatsoever (p. 14).

41. Burden, “To Repeat (or Not to Repeat)? Dance Cues in Restoration English Opera,”397–417. Of the fifty-eight examples Burden considers as candidates for dancing to the music of acontiguous or concurrent chorus (fifty-six of which are calendared in an appendix to his article),nearly all are either just as likely to have had independent dance movements (twenty-nine exam-ples) or may not have been dances at all (seventeen examples). Aside from Venus and Dido, onlyfour works considered by Burden show unequivocal evidence that dancing occurred either duringa chorus or to a recapitulation of its music. These include a group of three works produced at theturn of the eighteenth century—Phaeton (1698; discussed, but not included in Burden’s appen-dix), Rinaldo and Armida (1699; no. 39), and The Grove (1700; no. 40), each of which presentsa single instance—and The British Enchanters (1706), which gives two examples (nos. “65” and“66”). There is also a separate category of works from the period 1685–93, most of them associ-ated with Purcell, in which dancers participate with singers in a “grand chaconne” conceivedalong the lines of French tragédie lyrique : Albion and Albanius (1685; not considered byBurden), The Prophetess, or the History of Dioclesian (1690; no. 6), King Arthur (1691; nos. 9–10), and The Fairy-Queen (1692–93; nos. 17–18). Dancing during sung choruses had, we shouldnote, been common in the earlier seventeenth century, for example in Italian balli: see Carter,Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre, 138–66.

42. If this dance were an ensemble dance, the designation “The Baske” would presumably beunderstood to refer to the type of dance, rather than the identity of a single dancing character; seeLaurie and Dart’s editions of the score, where it is suggested in the apparatus that “The Baske”“probably means [. . .] a Basque Dance—not unlike an English Sword Dance” (1961: 109;1966/1974: 110; 1979: 102). A dance of seven Basques had also featured in the 1675 courtmasque Calisto, during the intermède following act 1: see Walkling, “Masque and Politics at theRestoration Court: John Crowne’s Calisto,” 47 (table 5) and 59n65.




Although there is no other point in the Priest libretto where two dances fallso closely together, we might nevertheless take into account some additionalconsiderations regarding the plausibility of this theory. First, the placement ofan independent dance after “Fear no danger” would certainly make dramaticsense: it immediately precedes the entry of Aeneas “with his Train,” and sucha dance, performed with the Carthaginian courtiers watching from the side-lines, would help to focus the mise en scène prior to this French scene changeand important development in the plot. Second, we should note that “Dancethis Cho.”—uniquely among the deleted dances—appears in the 1700 Mea -sure for Measure redaction, here bracketed against the sung text and marked“Dance to this Cho.”; but there is no mention of a Basque in this source. Thissuggests that the indicated choral dance may not be a deleted dance at all(since it would have had no independent music in the first place), but that, onthe other hand, there may still have been a separate dance for a Basque at thispoint in the original score that was excised in 1700.

ⓗ: A Dance Gittars Chacony

One of two dances for guitar, A Dance Gittars Chacony—located near the endof act 1—was probably intended as a kind of courtship dance for Aeneas andDido, designed to embody the crucial dramatic transition from Belinda’s aria“Pursue thy conquest, Love,” in which Dido continues to resist Aeneas’s en-treaties, to the chorus “To the hills and the vales,” which is meant to celebratethe couple’s union after the queen has relented. The deletion of the dancethus introduces an uncomfortable elision into the work’s dramatic fabric,which many modern productions have anachronistically sought to repair bymiming an intimate moment between the two principals while Belinda is stillsinging her aria. Like the similar “Gitter Ground a Dance” (ⓛ) discussed be-low, this was most likely an ad libitum piece intended to be performed by asolo guitarist improvising strummed chords and perhaps a melody over aground-bass line, the kind of music ideally suited to a solo or duo dance forhigh-ranking courtiers. We would therefore not expect to find any notatedmusic for such a dance, even in any putative Purcell autograph score.43 Evenso, the Tenbury manuscript may contain evidence of this dance’s deletion: ithas not, I believe, previously been remarked that at the point where the danceis supposed to be, the manuscript—whose copyist Curtis Price has shown tobe an exceptionally meticulous antiquarian44—appears to signal the lacuna byomitting what should be the final note of “Pursue thy conquest, Love,” inwhich the basso continuo line should resolve its perfect cadence to the tonic c.

43. A similar situation holds in cases of songs performed to popular or ballad tunes in playsand operas, as well as flourishes, fanfares, and other brief instrumental passages: for a discussion ofsome examples from Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen, see Burden, “The Dramatick Opera ‘Libretto’ asMonument,” 278–80.

44. Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 242–45.




Instead, the manuscript skips—after an intervening time-signature change anda direct that seemingly indicates the missing tonic—from the fourth beat’sdominant eighth-note g–G octave to the single-beat anacrusis (c–d eighthnotes in the bass with full ensemble above) of “To the hills and the vales” (seeFig. 4). Successive editors have silently supplied the “missing” c half note as abridge (in triple time) to the chorus without considering how it might, in fact,have been intended as a link to the improvised guitar chaconne.45

ⓙ: Enter 2 Drunken Saylors,a Dance [sic]

Enter 2 Drunken Saylors,a Dance comes at the end of the second “Ho ho ho”chorus for the witches in act 2, scene 1, where it is presented in the Priest li-bretto as a marginal note just above the signature and catchword at the foot ofpage 5. Modern performances typically superimpose this dance onto the suc-ceeding sung duet “But ere we this perform,”46 but the idea of two sailors ex-ecuting a dance while the two witches are singing seems generally inconsistentwith Baroque staging practices.47 Moreover, the transition from the sixteen-bar triple-time “Ho ho ho” chorus to the duple-time duet with anacrusis isparticularly awkward,48 suggesting that there may originally have been an-other movement between the two vocal numbers.

45. In the Purcell Society edition of the score (London: Novello, 1979), Margaret Laurieprovides a footnote (p. 26) indicating that the “first two beats are omitted in all parts” of theTenbury manuscript (see also the earlier Laurie/Dart editions, p. 20, where the note in questionis marked as editorial), while the critical apparatus to Harris’s 1987 miniature score—the only edi-tion of Dido besides those by Laurie and Dart to present a full critical apparatus—similarly notes(p. XXV), “All parts beats 1, 2 lacking” at this point in the manuscript. Neither editor, however,offers any further comment. The Tatton Park manuscript, we should note, supplies the missinghalf note in the bass (p. 16), though this is most likely attributable to the desire of the copyist, themusic professor Philip Hayes, to repair an obvious error in his source, something the Tenburyscribe, with his greater antiquarian interests, seems to have been less inclined to do. For Price’sdiscussion of the Tenbury scribe’s unorthodox approach to his source, see Henry Purcell and theLondon Stage, 242–45.

46. An exception is the 1994 recording of Dido and Aeneas by The Scholars BaroqueEnsemble (Naxos, 8.553108, released in 1997), which interpolates an arrangement of the tune“Row Well, Ye Mariners” from John Playford’s The English Dancing Master.

47. As Peter Holman has observed in his review of Dido and Aeneas, ed. Harris, 619: “Iknow of no case in the theatre works of Purcell or his contemporaries where dancers perform tosolo vocal music.” On dances performed to music associated with choruses, see note 41.

48. Editors have struggled with this transition over the years: Cummings (1888/1889) andBritten and Holst (1960/1961) conclude the 3/8 chorus with, respectively, a dotted quarter noteand a quarter note with fermata, and begin the duet with an independent quarter-note pickup forthe Second Witch in the new time signature (over two eighth notes in the bass in theBritten/Holst edition). Laurie and Dart (1961/1966/1974/1979) and Harris (1987, both eds.)follow Tenbury (p. 35) and Tatton Park (p. 32) more closely, ending the chorus with a dottedquarter note and overlaying the Second Witch’s anacrusis onto the last beat of the final 3/8 barover two sixteenth notes in the bass. Both Harris editions and Laurie’s 1979 Purcell Society editionbring the Second Witch in as a separate part, ignoring Tenbury’s elimination of a dot on the lastquarter note in the alto line, intended to accommodate the Second Witch’s eighth-note pickup




(Tatton Park is ambiguous on this point, seemingly showing a dot, but one that may have beenadded as an afterthought by Hayes); the earlier Laurie/Dart editions, however, exactly reproducethe configuration found in Tenbury. According to Harris’s theories about metrical continuity inDido (“Recitative and Aria in Dido and Aeneas,” 31–59), an eighth-note pickup in 3/8 and aquarter-note pickup in 2/2 would be equivalent. The Laurie/Dart and Harris editions demand animmediate segue from one movement to the next; however, both the Cummings and the Britten/Holst editions evidently intend there to be a pause between the two movements (possibly as a re-sult of their partial reliance on the “Ohki Manuscript,” now in the Nanki Music Library, Tokyo,but formerly owned by Cummings; see the comparison of the Tenbury and Ohki manuscripts ap-pended to Britten and Holst’s 1961 miniature score, p. VIII). Interestingly, Tatton Park gives a fer-mata over the final quarter note of the chorus (before the two-sixteenth-note anacrusis) in thebasso continuo line only, a potentially significant feature not mentioned in any of the editions. Notethat if the positioning of the segno and the configuration of the first-ending bar in Tenbury is readliterally, the Second Witch should not sing the anacrusis (“But”) on the repeat of this phrase;Tatton Park solves this by including the note in the first-ending bar before the repeat (p. 32).

Figure 4 Act 1 splice between “Pursue thy conquest, Love” and “To the hills and the vales”showing elision of “A Dance Gittars Chacony,” from MS Tenbury 1266 (5), p. 19. Used by per-mission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.


http://www.jstor.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1525/jams.2010.63.2.191&iName=master.img-003.png&w=311&h=325


49. Two of these are aphoristic in character and thus, predictably, appear as Type I choruses:“And if the Deity’s above, / Are Victims of the powers of Love, / What must wretched Mortalsdo[?]” in the prologue (p. 1) and “Cupid only throws the Dart, / That’s dreadful to a Warriour’sHeart” in act 1 (p. 5). The other three references in act 1 are “Pursue thy Conquest, Love” and“Let the Triumphs of Love and of Beauty be Shown,” both at the end of the act (p. 5), and theearlier “Cupid Strew your path with Flowers,” part of the “Fear no danger” entertainment (p. 4;see above and Fig. 1). The latter passage is somewhat problematic: most editors emend “Cupid”to “Cupids,” guided by the text as it appears in the Measure for Measure playbook (p. 8, with a su-perfluous apostrophe) and the Tenbury (pp. 11, 13) and Tatton Park (pp. 10, 11) manuscripts(Tenbury and Tatton Park also give “paths” for “path”). Certainly, the logical opposite (“CupidStrews . . .”) is less desirable as a poetic text, particularly in relation to Purcell’s musical setting. Yetthe Priest libretto’s rendering of the passage is in fact grammatically correct if one chooses to takeit as an implied subjunctive: “May Cupid strew your path with flowers.” While such a usage mayseem tortuous to modern readers, it is not out of keeping with Tate’s practice throughout this libretto which—as a rare example of a text prepared for through-composition—is particularly dis-tinguished for its spare poetic diction and economic handling of language. Ellen Harris, weshould note, does opt to retain this version of the text in her 1987 scores, pp. 14, 16 (vocal score)and 15, 18 (miniature score).

Two other references in Dido and Aeneas to “Love” are more generic, and are not consideredhere: “Prepare those soft returns to Meet, / That makes [sic] Loves Torments Sweet” in the pro-logue (p. 2) and “VVhen Royal Fair shall I be blest, / VVith cares of Love, and State distrest[?]”in act 1 (p. 4); these are more akin to the obviously non-Cupidic “But the Jolly Nymph Thitis thatlong his [i.e., the sun’s] Love sought / Has Flustred him now with a large Mornings draught” atthe conclusion of the prologue (p. 3).


ⓠ: Cupids Dance.

Like the previous dance, the deleted Cupids Dance. appears as a marginalnote, in this case at the very end of the Priest libretto. Modern audiences fa-miliar with Dido and Aeneas have long accustomed themselves to the notionthat the work must conclude with the mourning chorus “With droopingwings ye Cupids come,” a view that would appear to be validated by the anal-ogous configuration found in Blow’s Venus and Adonis. Yet Dido is consider-ably more saturated with dance than Venus, and thus the text’s invocation ofCupids in the closing moments of Tate and Purcell’s tragedy needs to be takenseriously. There are, in fact, several questions that must be addressed in orderto make sense of this stage direction and its context: first, whether there is infact a dance here, and, if so, who dances, to what music they dance, and wherethe dance takes place. Taken together, these considerations are implicated in alarger issue regarding the text of Dido and Aeneas, namely, the seeming om-nipresence of Cupid and “Cupids” throughout the work. The blind god him-self emerges as a largely distant figure, invoked on five occasions, four of whichappear in act 1, where they constitute a kind of unifying theme underlying theopening episode of the main drama.49 In two other instances, however, notthe god of love himself, but rather groups of “Cupids” are directly addressedin the imperative mood: “Go Revel ye Cupids, the day is your own” (p. 5) and“With drooping Wings you Cupids come, / To scatter Roses on her Tomb”(p. 8). Is the latter injunction to be understood as addressing some onstage




characters, most likely played by small children, who are to enter and dance,perhaps while strewing rose petals? Blow’s Venus and Adonis, performed onlya few years earlier, had featured “little Cupids” in a prominent role in act 2—dancing, and also singing in the charming “Cupids Lesson,” in which theyironically learn to spell the word “mercenary.” Here, the bucolic pastoralscene is meant to foreshadow the tragedy of Adonis’s death as played out inthe final act, where the Cupids presumably return in silence, responding toVenus’s injunction, “With Solemn pomp let mourning Cupids bear / my softAdonis through ye yeilding Aire”;50 in Dido and Aeneas, by contrast, these innocent figures seem to appear only at the moment of the work’s tragic dé-nouement. In spite of this notable distinction, however, it is certainly plausiblethat the creators of Dido chose to incorporate into their more dramatically se-rious work some echo of the earlier production, which we now know to havebeen presented both at court and at Josias Priest’s school in Chelsea.Certainly, as in Venus and Adonis, the libretto’s unambiguous invocation ofCupids in the closing moments of the tragedy would seem to imply some-thing beyond a mere textual reference.

This, of course, does not solve the question of whether or not there is adeleted dance at the conclusion of Dido’s act 3. Michael Burden expresses hisdoubts by including the “Cupids Dance” in his list of dances that he believesmight have been performed to a repeat of the preceding chorus (in this case,“With drooping wings”).51 But as Curtis Price and others have noted, theTenbury score appears to signal a lacuna at this point, ending the piece with-out the terminal pen flourish used elsewhere in the manuscript volume, andeven omitting a final bar line (p. 79).52 In the light of my assessment ofBurden’s case, discussed above, I would contend that Dido and Aeneas couldvery well have closed with a final, solemn dance, set to its own independentmusic, for a group of young performers dressed as mourning Cupids, whichcertainly would have added a crowning touch to the protagonist’s heartrend-ing demise.53

50. Walkling, “Court, Culture, and Politics in Restoration England: Charles II, James II, andthe Performance of Baroque Monarchy” 2:605–6. The inclusion of “A Mourning Cupid [who]goes cross ye Stage and shakes an Arrow at her” at the beginning of the third act in two earlysources of Venus seems to have been a late addition; see ibid. 2:321–22.

51. Burden, “To Repeat (or Not to Repeat)?” 409 (no. 4).52. See Holman, Review of Dido and Aeneas, ed. Harris, 619. A similar phenomenon occurs

at the end of act 2, scene 2, where the Tenbury scribe writes a double bar but omits the conven-tional terminal pen flourish (p. 53), thereby apparently signaling his awareness that the conclud-ing chorus and dance for the witches are missing. The Tatton Park manuscript, on the other hand,does include a flourish at the end of the piece (p. 72), though it mirrors the ambiguity expressedin Tenbury at the end of act 2, scene 2 (p. 49).

53. Of course, we should always consider the possibility that the stage direction “CupidsDance” was simply added by Josias Priest, and did not form a part of the putative original courtperformance of Dido. In this case, Priest almost certainly would have set the dance to an instru-mental reiteration of the final chorus, since he is unlikely to have had new music composed for hisproduction.




Whatever the case with regard to the musical configuration of this dance,the situation is complicated by the appearance in the Priest libretto of thebracketed marginal stage direction “Cupids appear in the / Clouds o’re herTomb” against the opening lines of Dido’s final recitative and aria. This cuewould seem to indicate the use of an upper stage in the scenic discovery space,a noteworthy moment, given the relative paucity of scenic effects in the work:apart from the descent of the Spirit to Aeneas in act 2, scene 2, to be discussedin detail below, the only other spectacular effects occur in the opening scene ofthe prologue: “Phæbus 54 Rises in the Chariot, Over the Sea, The Nereids outof the Sea” and “Venus Descends in her Chariot, The Tritons out of the Sea”(p. 1).55 This conjunction of a stage direction calling for the appearance ofCupids with the subsequent “Cupids Dance” might lead us to conclude thatthe dancing itself took place in the upper discovery space—after all, thedancers would have been smaller than the average theatrical performer. Onthe other hand, the implication of the latter stage direction is that these maynot be the same Cupids (i.e., “Cupids Dance” as opposed to “The CupidsDance”).56 Could there, then, have been two sets of Cupids in the closing mo-ments of Dido and Aeneas—one group dancing on the main stage, anotherposing silently in the clouds above? In fact, I would contend that this is pre-cisely the case, for the appearance of the Cupids in the clouds above Dido’stomb (the tomb itself possibly having been revealed by the drawing of shutterson the lower discovery space) does not represent the first time viewers of theearliest performances would have witnessed them in this location. Though thePriest libretto is largely silent on the issue, I believe that there is also a group ofCupids enveloped by clouds in the prologue, and that they appear with Venusas she “Descends in her Chariot” to greet Phoebus. Here is the exchange be-tween the two gods on pp. 1–2 (with speech prefixes regularized):

54. Note that in every instance save one, the compositor has spelled “Phoebus” using a liga-tured italic “ae” rather than “oe,” resulting in fifteen occurrences of “Phaebus” or the speech pre-fix “Phae.”—ten on page 1 and five on page 2. The single exception is “Phœbus pale deludingBeames,” on page 7.

55. The 1700 Measure for Measure production appears to have added a rising and sinkingcave and flying furies to act 2, scene 1; however, there is no reason to believe that these wouldhave been part of the original conception of the work’s mise en scène.

56. A related question is whether “Cupids” in the Priest libretto is intended to function as anoun—thus making it part of a stage direction—or as a possessive adjective, either singular orplural, indicating a named dance for which music would likely have been composed. A survey ofthe libretto reveals substantial inconsistencies in the use of the apostrophe for the possessive casethroughout the text. Comparable issues are raised by a number of other similarly identified dancesin Dido, particularly in the prologue; all of these, including the surviving “The Saylors Dance”(ⓞ), are prefaced with a definite article and occupy their own line of text. However, the anom-alous typographical configuration of “Cupids Dance” may have been determined by the spaceshortage on p. 8, discussed above.




Venus Fear not Phæbus, fear not me,A harmless Deity.

These are all my Guards ye View,What can these blind Archers do[?]

Phoebus Blind they are, but strike the Heart[.]Venus What Phæbus say’s is alwayes true.

They Wound indeed, but ’tis a pleasing smart.

In conversing with Phoebus about the “blind Archers” in her entourage,Venus clearly references something that would be visually present for the audi-ence: “These are all my Guards ye View.” Suspended above the stage in herchariot, Venus might well be accompanied by a gaggle of blindfolded Cupids,arrayed behind her inside a painted cloud border framing the upper stage. Iwould even go so far as to propose that these cloud-borne Cupids were them-selves painted onto canvas rather than real—a scenic effect that would havesupplemented the already busy theatrical panorama (two gods in flying chari-ots above a stage crowded with Tritons and Nereids) with a potentially limit-less supply of chubby putti populating the sky above.57 If this surmise iscorrect, the deployment of scenic spectacle in Dido and Aeneas can be seen toengage in a delicious binarism: the celebratory opening scene of the prologuepresents us with throngs of Cupids hovering in the sky to celebrate the tri-umph of Venus, while at the precise opposite end of the work, both struc-turally and emotionally, the same painted, blindfolded Cupids reappear to markthe tragic end of the heroine, to “Keep here your Watch and never part,”while live dancing Cupids “scatter Roses on her Tomb” in the space below.

The “Grove Scene”

While the four deleted dances discussed above can be considered indepen-dently, a more complex set of circumstances surrounds the other two, “GitterGround a Dance” (ⓛ) and “A Dance to Entertain Æneas, by Dido Vemon”(ⓜ), both of which appear in act 2, scene 2, the “Grove Scene” (see Fig. 5).My suggestion that the deleted dances of Dido and Aeneas may provide a keyto understanding more clearly how this musical-theatrical work functions interms of scope, dramatic coherence, and meaning is especially pertinent to theexplication of this scene, which presents us with one of Dido’s most baffling

57. The use of painted multitudes floating in clouds to enhance visual splendor at a climacticmoment would have been nothing new in the English masque tradition at this time: for the bestexample, see Sir William Davenant’s Salmacida Spolia (1640), the designs for which are repro-duced in Orgel and Strong, Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court 2:752–54 (cat. 409) and756–61 (cats. 413–14). The relevant stage direction reads in part: “. . . at that instant, beyond allthese, a heaven opened full of deities; which celestial prospect, with the chorus below, filled all the wholescene with apparitions and harmony” (p. 734, lines 461–64). For examples of the phenomenon inthe Restoration theatre, see Visser, “Scenery and Technical Design,” 84.




moments. The Grove Scene offers an intriguing anomaly in the fabric of theplot, as literary and mythological inconsistencies in the first half of the sceneappear to blunt the force of the latter half, with its presentation of Aeneas’scrucial encounter with the forged likeness of Mercury. Modern performancesof this scene typically hew closely to the structure presented in the Tenburyscore, which—prior to breaking off suddenly towards the end—faithfully ad-heres to the dialogue given in the Priest libretto. After a brisk introductory ritornello with rustic overtones, the scene proper commences with a solo forBelinda. In a lilting binary aria with saraband-like inflections, she establishesthe rural setting and idyllic mood:

Figure 5 “The Grove Scene,” opening section, encompassing 2.2 a–b, from Priest libretto, p. 6.Reproduced by permission of the Royal College of Music, London.





Thanks to these Lo[n]esome58 Vailes,These desert Hills and Dales.So fair the Game, so rich the Sport,Diana’s self might to these Woods Resort.

Once the chorus has echoed these observations, elaborating the imitative tex-ture initially set up between Belinda and the basso continuo in the latter partof the aria, the drama’s impetus is channeled into a more intimate, soloisticvein. Following the “deleted” guitar dance (ⓛ), we are reintroduced to thecharacter known only as the “Second Woman,” who first appeared in act 1 as aprominent courtier, a lesser confidante to Queen Dido who consistently reaf-firmed Belinda’s importunities on behalf of Aeneas. Singing the second ofDido and Aeneas’s three structurally determinative ground-bass arias,59 theSecond Woman localizes and extrapolates the scenario already laid out byBelinda and the chorus:

Oft she Visits this Loved60 Mountain,Oft she bathes her in this Fountain.Here Acteon met his Fate,

Pursued by his own Hounds,And after Mortal Wounds[,]Discovered [too,] too late.61

A masterpiece of musical theatricality, this aria successively builds and re-leases tension as it recounts the tragic fate of Actaeon, transformed into a stagafter blundering upon Diana at her ablutions, then hunted down and killed byhis own dogs. Set in D minor, a key associated in Purcell’s music and else-where with eroticism,62 the aria draws strength from its restless eighth-notebass line and the juxtaposition of the vocal line’s more deliberate quarternotes, punctuated by florid melismatic passages with dotted rhythms (see Ex. 1). Conventional word-painting devices characterize the first half of the

58. The Priest libretto gives “Lovesome.”59. As in Dido’s ground-bass aria “Ah, Belinda” in act 1, the stability of the melodic pattern

in this aria is briefly disrupted, first by a brief modulation to A major at the second iteration of“mortal wounds,” and then with a somewhat longer shift to F major near the end of the string ritornello.

60. The Tenbury score gives “lone” (p. 46), a reading that, while neither authoritative norlikely, has been accepted in some modern scholarly editions (despite the unambiguous “lov’d”found in Tatton Park [p. 41]). Cf. Ovid’s “Vallis erat . . . / nomine Gargaphie, succinctae sacraDianae” (Metamorphoses 3.155–56), and, regarding the fountain itself, “hic dea silvarum venatufessa solebat / virgineos artus liquido perfundere rore” (3.163–64).

61. The Priest libretto prints a period after “Wounds” in the preceding line, and for this linereads “Discovered, discovered too late.” I have altered the libretto’s indentations in this passage inorder to reflect its interesting prosodic structure: three four-foot trochaic lines (the last of whichhas a truncated final foot) followed by three three-foot iambic lines.

62. See Price, Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 21–22.




aria, particularly on the key rhyming words: Purcell deploys melodic shapingin the music for “mountain,” “in this fountain,” and “pursued,” while har-monic anomalies emphasize “fate,” “hounds,” “wounds,” and “too late.”Once the entire text has been sung, the composer introduces a fresh sense ofhorror by reiterating the last two lines of the passage followed by the crucialthird line, setting them to an ominous rising chromatic motif that commenceson a� and creeps upward beat by beat through b ��, b�, and c� pulls back brieflyto a�, then continues through (d�–)e �� (e�–)f � and f ��, and climaxes on g� atthe middle syllable of “Acteon” before resolving down a fourth to the tonic d�for the concluding “fate.” Even as the singer utters her final word, the stringshave already launched into a strident ritornello expressing a quick descendingD-minor triad succeeded by an expansive descending V–I scale in the samekey. After repeating this pattern, the ritornello progresses upwards again, moving through a�, b ��, and c��, then f �, g�, and a� (the major equivalent ofthe expected d�, e�, f �, a shift accompanied by a modulation to the relative keyof F major in the bass); it then presents a brief descending pattern consistingof a falling fifth and tritone (a�–d�, g�–c��), and finally returns to the tonicthrough a III–I stepwise downward movement (f �, e�, d�). The compositionalcare lavished upon this movement, its spacious concluding ritornello, and itscentral position in the work’s overall dramatic structure all urge us to look forsome greater significance in this ostensible digression from the events at hand.Certainly, the presence of the guitar ground just before and the “Dance toEntertain Æneas” immediately after the Actaeon text in the Priest librettowould seem to provide evidence of a more complex performative moment.But under the prevailing interpretation, that moment remains a largely attenu-ated one: the guitar dance is generally either shortened or eliminated alto-gether, and, with the obvious typographical error “Dido Vemon” typicallyemended to “Dido’s Women,” the latter dance is glibly assigned to the ex-tended musical ritornello just discussed.

This customary solution neatly ties together the otherwise loose strands ofdramatic action up to the point where the ritornello ends, but it also sets upwhat is often considered the most clumsy transitional moment in the work’sfast-paced, compressed action. As the bass strikes a pedal D, Aeneas seemsabruptly to change the subject, introducing a fanfare-like motif to which heannounces,

Behold upon my bending Spear,A Monsters Head stands bleeding[,]VVith Tushes far exceeding,Th[o]se did Venus[’] Huntsm[a]n Tear.63

By “Tushes,” the fanfare has subsided, and Aeneas’s boastful reference toVenus’s shepherd lover Adonis softens into an unexpected A major—only to

63. The Priest libretto gives a period after “bleeding,” and reads “These” and “Huntsmen”in the last line.




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Oft she bathes her in this foun - tain. Here, here

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Example 1 Ground-bass aria, “Oft she visits this loved mountain,” from act 2, scene 2




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his own hounds, And af - ter, af - ter mor - tal wounds, And

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be superseded by a more forceful shift to D major and Dido’s anxious obser-vation, “The Skies are Clouded, heark how Thunder / Rends the MountainOaks asunder,” a remark twice interrupted by bursts of rapid-fire sixteenthnotes in the violins. The onset of the storm (promised in the previous scene bythe malevolent witches) propels the Grove Scene into new territory, supplant-ing its former theatrical repose with taut dramatic action. At Belinda’s urging,the courtiers scurry away to the safety of the city. Aeneas, remaining behind, isconfronted by the sham Mercury, who orders him to leave Carthage. The be-fuddled hero resolves, rather injudiciously, to obey the decree, pausing brieflyto lament his betrayal of Dido and to rage against the gods. Once he has madehis exit, the witches reappear (in the now-lost portion of the scene) to cele-brate their victory, commanding “the Nymphs of Carthage” to perform “ADance that shall make the Spheres to wonder, / Rending those fair Grovesasunder.” The scene then concludes with “The Groves Dance” (ⓝ).

The Grove Scene—in particular its first half, prior to the onset of thestorm—presents an interpretive puzzle in which questions about dramatic andmusical structure intersect with literary and mythological inconsistencies tounsettle our received understanding of this scene’s setting, structure, and pur-pose, and ultimately its meaning as a part of the larger work. Were we tometonymize the tempestuously tragic plot of Dido and Aeneas as, say, a de-structive hurricane, we might conceive of the Grove Scene as the hurricane’seye: pivotal to the drama, yet strangely, even unnervingly, cerebral and calm—a moment of stasis in an otherwise turbulent story. The reader looking overthe text is at first hard-pressed to articulate exactly what is happening. Thecharacters appear to be outdoors, away from the city of Carthage. They seemto have been hunting: this has been confirmed in act 2, scene 1 by the witches’remark that Dido and Aeneas “are now in Chase, / Hark, . . . the cry comeson apace,” which is punctuated by the sound of hunting horns played on theviolins.64 Moreover, Aeneas subsequently appears, albeit somewhat incongru-ously, with the head of a boar impaled on a spear. Hunting is clearly an under-lying motif of this scene: Belinda praises the location for its “Game” and

64. The Priest libretto reads “Hark, how the cry comes on apace.” The arpeggiated eighth-note triplets of the hunting horns that punctuate the witches’ statements bear a striking similarityin their configuration to the sixteenth-note peals of thunder in the subsequent scene. The follow-ing diagram illustrates how, with one exception (shown in square brackets), the two passages arestructurally and conceptually identical:

SINGER: remarks on an event taking place in the distance (D MAJOR)[VIOLINS: burst of sound (D-MAJOR TRIAD)]—witches’ scene only

SINGER: “Hark!” (V/D)VIOLINS: burst of sound (D-MAJOR TRIAD)

SINGER: “Hark!” (I/D)SINGER: interprets the sound, implicitly relating it to the observed event (D MAJOR)

VIOLINS: burst of sound (D-MAJOR TRIAD), concluding the passage.One wonders whether the Priest libretto’s “Hark, how the cry . . .” might represent Tate’s origi-nal text (cf. “Hark, how thunder”), which Purcell may have altered in order to achieve greater




“Sport,” “fair” and “rich” enough to lure even Diana; the Actaeon story carries this a step further, introducing the legendary confrontation betweenthe young hunter and the huntress-goddess. But why does the SecondWoman suddenly seize upon this tale, as if cued by Belinda’s apparently pass-ing, even conventional, invocation of Diana? Might not the equally familiarstory of Diana and Endymion, for example, hold greater relevance to the cir-cumstances of the newly united Dido and Aeneas? And how are we to accountfor the Woman’s conspicuously inaccurate contention that “Here Acteon methis fate”? Even if the statement “Oft she Visits this Loved Mountain, / Oftshe bathes her in this Fountain” might be taken as valid for the immortalDiana, surely no one in the royal party supposes Actaeon’s untimely demise tohave transpired in a grove in North Africa. The story as related in Ovid’sMeta morphoses leaves little room for ambiguity regarding provenance: a grand-son of Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes, Actaeon “met his Fate” inGargaphia, a valley below Mount Cithaeron, near the town of Plataea inBoeotia, containing a sacred fountain of the same name.65 Yet the SecondWoman’s aria conveys a pointed insistence. “Here, here,” she asserts on twoseparate occasions, each time enunciating the deictic verbal gesture in forcefulquarter notes preceded by quarter rests. By evoking what seems an obvioussuspension of disbelief, the Second Woman motions toward the theatrical, as ifurging her auditors’ complicity in a staged presentation of the Actaeon myth,artificially situated in this grove or, as Belinda later describes it, “this openField” outside Carthage.

Likening the Second Woman’s aria to similar ground-bass movementsfound in Purcell’s court odes of the time, Peter Holman has characterized thisscene as “an ode-like situation, entertaining Dido and Aeneas, [that] createsthe necessary moment of repose before the storm and the appearance of thefalse Mercury.”66 But the episode goes well beyond the restricted confines ofode with its highly wrought poetic tropes of praise couched in elaboratemetaphorical conceits and presented in the form of a direct address to thehonoree. While odes are generally understood to have been static in perfor-mance, the episode here is noteworthy for its theatricality, characterized by anair of presence and immediacy, the use of third-person, indicative language,and the conjoining of song and dance. Dance, in particular, forms an integralpart of the scene, and once again offers us a new way to understand the extra-

dramatic effect. It should be noted that the libretto assigns the text (along with several surround-ing lines) exclusively to the Sorceress, whereas Purcell’s score adds interest by dividing the passagebetween the Sorceress and the First Witch. For a further discussion of these two “fanfare” pas-sages, see note 81. As Roger Savage observed long ago, a comparison of the court’s and witches’scenes in Dido and Aeneas reveals many noteworthy parallels: see Savage, “Producing Dido andAeneas,” 399.

65. Metamorphoses 3.155–56 (see note 60); Herodotus describes the distance betweenGargaphia and Plataea as “ten furlongs” (Histories 9.51.1).

66. Holman, Henry Purcell, 200.




ordinary palimpsest that is Dido and Aeneas. As we have noted, the Tenburymanuscript supplies only two instrumental passages for this episode: the briefintroductory statement before Belinda sings and the longer, more elaborate ritornello that proceeds out of the Second Woman’s aria. Neither of these isnecessarily a dance movement, although some dancing might conceivablyhave occurred during the latter segment (a possibility to which modern prac-tice attests). The Priest libretto, on the other hand, offers a tantalizing glimpseof how the scene might originally have been conceived (see Fig. 5), especiallyif we understand the dances specified there to demand substantial, indepen-dent movements: the Belinda/chorus combination is followed by the “GitterGround a Dance” (ⓛ), after which comes the Second Woman’s solo (with itsinstrumental ritornello). This, in turn, leads to the “Dance to EntertainÆneas, by Dido Vemon” (ⓜ), which segues into Aeneas’s declaration regard-ing the decapitated boar. The reasoning already presented readily supports theargument for regarding the “Dance to Entertain Æneas” as an autonomousmusical item, not intended to occur during the “Oft she Visits” ritornello.And Peter Holman has suggested that the guitar dance could be envisioned asa full-blown passacaglia, a dance normally set in D minor, the key in whichthis scene is cast.67 Considered from such a perspective, the episode takes on anew expansiveness and breadth of pacing, and its center of balance shifts.Dance attains a status equal to that of song; Belinda’s opening statement as-sumes the contours of a prologue; and the Second Woman’s tale of Actaeonmetamorphoses from an unexpected digression into the central expositorypassage of an extended theatrical episode—an episode that then proceeds tothe boastful exclamation, not of Aeneas (who is, we should note, the son ofthe selfsame Venus invoked in the passage), but of the young hunter Actaeon,as personated by the Trojan prince.68 What we have here is not so much an odeas the vestige of a full-blown masque—a “Masque of Actaeon”—performedfor Dido by her courtiers, and featuring the queen’s new lover in the title role.

Table 3 itemizes the components of this enlarged episode. In proposing theconjectural reconstruction in the third column, I have opted for a perhapsoverly expansive view of how the masque might have looked, including suchentirely speculative elements as an ensemble dance (here designated ㉦) to aninstrumental recapitulation of the Type II chorus “Thanks to these Lo[n]e -some Vailes,” and the addition of stage action—a dumb-show presenting asummary of the Actaeon story, perhaps?—to the ritornello after the SecondWoman’s solo. While these represent mere surmise, they serve to emphasizethe breadth of possibility offered by the extended masque posited here.69

67. Ibid.68. One wonders if there might be any significance to the fact that Aeneas’s speech prefix

here is the only one in the entire libretto not printed in italics.69. As I have already argued (note 41), the prevalence of dances performed to instrumental

recapitulations of choral movements appears to be far more limited in late seventeenth-centuryEnglish operatic works than has been suggested. On the other hand, the incorporation of ㉦




immediately before the guitar ground (ⓛ) would set up an interesting parallel between the firstpart of the Masque of Actaeon and the solo–chorus–recapitulated dance (ⓖ)–independent dance ( ��) complex initiated by the duet “Fear no danger” postulated for act 1. In the latter instance, aswe have seen, the Priest libretto does clearly call for a dance (whether simultaneous or consecu-tive) to the music of the chorus. Thus, despite its relative rarity elsewhere (only eight definite ex-amples of any kind can be found in post-1689 operatic works, and three of these constitute aseparate category, being parts of Purcellian grand chaconnes), the phenomenon of a dance per-formed to a choral recapitulation does have potential applicability to Dido and Aeneas. This no-tion is further supported by the presence of a related form—a dance performed while a chorus isbeing sung—in Blow’s Venus and Adonis, of which only four other instances are definitivelyknown in this period.

A recent attempt to address this issue in the case of “Thanks to these lonesome vales” can befound in the recording of Dido and Aeneas by The Scholars Baroque Ensemble (see note 46).The Tenbury and Tatton Park scores call for a straightforward binary movement here, sungthrough by Belinda in its entirety and then repeated in full as a (Type II) chorus. Assuming thatthe Chorus is meant to repeat the B section (a point on which the two scores are slightly ambigu-ous) the original sources give the following pattern:

||: A Belinda :||: B Belinda :||: A Chorus :||: B Chorus :||The Scholars Baroque Ensemble adds a third, instrumental iteration of the tune, while eliminatingthe uncertain repeat of the B section in both the choral and the instrumental iterations; the pat-tern becomes:||: A Belinda :||: B Belinda :||: A Chorus :|| B Chorus ||: A Instrumental :|| B Instrumental ||

Table 3 Dido and Aeneas, Act 2, Scene 2 (“The Grove”), Opening Section (a–b): “TheMasque of Actaeon”

Tenbury score Priest libretto Conjectural reconstruction

[Ritornello] — Ritornello“Thanks to these lonesome (dittoa) Solo aria

vales” (Belinda)“Thanks to these lonesome (ditto [implied by text]) Choral reiteration

vales” (Chorus)— — ?Reprise: solo/ensemble dance ㉦— “Gitter Ground a Dance.” Solo/ensemble dance (passacaglia) ⓛ“Oft she visits this lo[ved]b (ditto) Solo aria (ground)

mountain” (Second Woman)

[Ritornello] — Ritornello [?dumb-show]— “A Dance to Entertain Ensemble dance ⓜ

Æneas, by Dido[’s Wo]m[e]n.”“Behold, upon my bending (ditto) Dramatic recitative

spear . . .” (Aeneas)

“The skies are clouded . . .” (ditto) MASQUE INTERRUPTED

(Dido)

N.B. Shaded items in Conjectural reconstruction show material not indicated in Tenbury score.

a Priest libretto: “Lovesome”b Tenbury score: “lone”




These two interpolations excepted, each item in the proposed reconstructiondraws authority from either the Tenbury score or the Priest libretto or both; itis simply a case of disentangling the constituent parts that have hitherto beenpermitted to overlap as a result of our faulty assumptions about the piece.

The possibility that the opening portion of the Grove Scene is meant toconstitute a masque-within-the-masque, in which the vocal numbers familiarto us today would have been fleshed out by a sequence of dance movementswhose music no longer survives, allows us to reconsider some other per -plexing features of this episode. For example, the pointedly deictic languageand descriptive visual imagery of the three speeches here—Belinda’s scene-setting introduction, the remarks of the Second Woman, and Aeneas’s“Behold . . .” —are, within the larger context of Dido and Aeneas, virtuallyunique to this episode.70 Belinda’s lines, with their exceptional tone and con-tent, make far more sense if read as an effort to present and contextualize thenewly revealed stage set introduced at the commencement of the masque: ascene of “Woods” and “desert [i.e., deserted or uninhabited] Hills and Dales”with an artificial fountain. Similarly, the Second Woman’s cryptic invocation ofthe Actaeon story becomes comprehensible when understood as the secondpart of the masque’s prologue-like exposition. This ushers in the mimetic por-tion of the performance, in which the noble amateur actor Aeneas assumes theguise of Actaeon, a character from classical mythology whose story has per-haps been chosen to complement the court’s just-completed hunting expedi-tion. The physical connection between the masque and the hunt is also aconsideration: however artificial Belinda’s “Lo[n]esome Vailes” may be, theproduction clearly does take place outdoors, as the impending storm forces

This approach closely resembles my suggestion in proposing the addition of ㉦ as a reiterateddance movement after the vocal sections have been performed in full. A more radical approach istaken in the 2001 recording of Dido and Aeneas by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment(Harmonia Mundi France, HMC 901683), which substitutes an antiphonal Belinda–Choruscombination for the first binary iteration and performs a second iteration with instruments only;this results in the following:

|| A Belinda || A Chorus || B Belinda || B Chorus ||: A Instrumental :|| B Instrumental ||Note that this performance also seems to acknowledge the ambiguity of the scores, mentionedabove, by not repeating the B section of the third iteration. The Belinda–Chorus antiphonal con-figuration (minus the instrumental reiteration), which does not appear in either the Tenbury orthe Tatton Park score, originates with the edition of Cummings (1888–89), and can be found ona number of mostly early recordings of Dido, including those directed by Raybould (1936),Lambert (1945), Gregory (1951), Capdevielle (1951), Schmidt-Isserstedt (1955), Deller(1964), Barbirolli (1966), Leppard (1971 and 1978), Harnoncourt (1983), and Corboz (1985).

70. The only other points in Dido and Aeneas at which such language appears are Belinda’spaired exhortations introducing Aeneas at the beginning of 1 b (p. 4) and 3.2 b (p. 8), respectively(“See[, see,] your Royal Guest appears, / How God[-]like is the Form he bears” and “SeeMadam[, see] where the Prince appears, / Such Sorrow in his Looks he bears, / As wou’d con-vince you still he’s true”), and the Sorceress’s “See the Flags and Streamers Curling, / Anchorsweighing, Sails unfurling” in 3.1 b (p. 7).




the sudden interruption of the performance, almost before it has gotten fullyunderway, and the participants are compelled to abandon the “open Field”with its temporary stage, and scramble for the shelter of the nearby town.71

Taken together, these considerations serve not merely to explicate the curi-ous circumstances of the Grove Scene, but to support its wholesale reconfigu-ration as a key dramatic episode. The scene, we should note, falls at the precisemidpoint of Dido’s multilayered scenic structure, in particular the palindromicconfiguration established through the Manichaean oscillation between courtand witches, Palace and Cave or Ships, that mark the first, second, fourth, andfifth scenes.72 The Grove stands apart, comprehending both court and witcheswithin its bounds, while at the same time strictly counterpoising the twogroups on opposite sides of the fateful meeting of Aeneas with the Spirit, theonly actual encounter between the two worlds. Indeed, the Grove Scene is a study in diametrics: situated at the center of the work’s symmetrical framework—the scene, as we have noted, includes the second of Purcell’sthree ground-bass arias—it nonetheless incorporates stark opposites, includingthe Masque of Actaeon, a static tableau that appears to offer no tangible plotdevelopment, as well as the critical turning point at which Aeneas is trickedinto leaving Carthage, the peripeteia that sends the drama hurtling towards itscatastrophic dénouement.

To invoke the notion of catastrophe here is to reference another structuralprinciple at work in Dido and Aeneas: the four classical stages of tragedy, asdevised by Aelius Donatus in the fourth century and refined by J. C. Scaligerin the sixteenth. These stages—protasis, the introduction of the characters; epitasis, the elaboration of the plot; catastasis, in which elements of the plotcombine to direct it towards a tragic result; and catastrophe, where the conse-quences of the tragic outcome are displayed—are scrupulously applied in Tateand Purcell’s work. Act 1 gives us protasis in the revelation of Dido’s disquietand the causes from which it stems, and epitasis with the appearance ofAeneas, his vows of constancy to Dido and his scorn for the fates, and Dido’sacceptance of his assurances. Act 2, scene 1 presents a second, parallel protasis/epitasis pair, as the Sorceress and witches introduce themselves andthen disclose their plot to ruin the queen. The catastasis is produced byAeneas’s fateful encounter with the Spirit and his decision to abandon hispledge and depart for Rome; the two scenes of act 3 then display the double-headed catastrophe as the witches celebrate their triumph while Dido con-fronts Aeneas over his betrayal, laments her fate, and dies. Table 4 presents a

71. For a fascinating discussion of the self-conscious use of theatrical imagery and techniquesin Virgil’s original exposition of the Dido story see Pobjoy, “Dido on the Tragic Stage,” 41–64.

72. In the Priest libretto, these are act 1; act 2, scene 1; and act 3, scenes 1 and 2. It is inter-esting to note, however, that the somewhat different act structure presented in the Tenbury andTatton Park scores, which is considered lopsided and thus generally rejected, groups the Palaceand Cave together as act 1 and allows the Grove Scene to stand alone as act 2, a configuration thatcould potentially make sense if it included a full-scale Masque of Actaeon.




comparative synopsis of the main structural elements of Dido and Aeneas, including act/scene divisions, scene designations (with French-scene subdivi-sions), deployment of characters, stages of tragedy, and tonal structure, withreferences to certain apposite musical elements.73 This table further under-scores the central position of the Masque of Actaeon, which falls directly between the protatic–epitatic development of the plot and its catastatic– catastrophic unraveling. Offering a moment of repose, the inert apex of thedrama’s elliptical arc, this concentrically figured masque-within-the-masquealso forms what Alastair Fowler has termed the “sovereign mid point” of thework: that narrative and structural locus of royal power where the monarchsits enthroned in state, an emblem of the divinely ordained hierarchy of theuniverse.74 Such a figure is intimately bound up with seventeenth-centurycourt masque as a generic construct: masque represents and enacts royal au-thority by positing itself not as theatrical diversion but as an emanation fromthe monarch’s supreme will, as pure Platonic idea in respect to which the tan-gible world of everyday reality is mere shadow. If Dido and Aeneas is indeedfirst and foremost a court masque (and only secondarily an “opera”), the situ-ating of the Masque of Actaeon at and as its sovereign midpoint accentuatesthe emblematic nature of the work.

The problem, of course, is that the Masque of Actaeon is never finished.When Dido, the enthroned monarch and chief auditor of the highly wroughtcourtly presentation, notices the impending thunderstorm and cuts offActaeon/Aeneas in mid-speech (leaving him hanging unresolved on the dom-inant of D minor75), the very fact of the masque’s interruption lays bare thefailure of sovereign teleology at the Carthaginian court, setting in motion the catastatic machinery that impels the work relentlessly toward its tragic conclusion.76 The dispersal of the court and its theatrical endeavor by the

73. The outline of the tonal plan is derived from the discussion presented in Price, HenryPurcell and the London Stage, 241.

74. Fowler, Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry, 24.75. Dido’s interruption of Aeneas is made all the more abrupt by the rhythmic uncertainty of

the transitional moment as it appears in the Tenbury score (p. 48): in this ostensibly common-time measure, Aeneas’s quarter-note on “tear” is followed (after a change of clef and key) by aneighth note, a dotted-eighth and sixteenth note, three (implicitly slurred) thirty-second notes, andan eighth note (Dido’s “The Skies are clouded”), amounting to a total of only 2 3/8 of the threebeats needed to complete the measure. Modern editions universally “correct” this irregularity,adding an eighth-note rest at the key change before Dido’s entrance and emending the threethirty-second notes to either three triplet sixteenth-notes (Cummings, 1888/1889; Britten/Holst, 1960/1961) or two thirty-second notes and one sixteenth note (Laurie/Dart, 1961/1966/1974/1979; Harris, 1987)—the latter of which precisely follows the configuration foundin Tatton Park (p. 44). Note that the Laurie/Dart editions of 1961/1966/1974 give a sixteenthnote on Dido’s first word “The . . .,” preceded by a dotted-eighth-note rest; this emendation isabandoned in Laurie’s 1979 Purcell Society edition.

76. For a more detailed consideration of the dynamics of the “interrupted masque,” includ-ing the episode under discussion here, see Walkling, “The Apotheosis of Absolutism and theInterrupted Masque: Theater, Music, and Monarchy in Restoration England,” 193–231.




Tab

le 4

Mus

ical

and

Dra

mat

ic S

truc

ture

in D

ido

and

Aen

eas

Scen

e di

visio

n:

Scen

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Key

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Act

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Act

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Act

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prot

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fA

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bSo

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††

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Act

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aD

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ASQ

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Act

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Act

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Act

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Act

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[2]

[Pal

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aD

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Act

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[2]

bD

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tast

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‡



The Masque of Actaeon and the Antimasque of Mercury 229K

EY:

* =

loca

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of g

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= lo

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und-

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of “

Typ

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see

Tab

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) an

d as

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ce

N.B

. “T

ype

II”

chor

uses

not

con

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ed in

this

tabl

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are

Clo

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rs m

ay r

etur

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Des

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our d

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has q

ualit

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f bot

h T

ype

I an

d T

ype

III

chor

uses

; see

Tab

le 2

, not

e e.




machinations of the witches is not merely a plot development—one, weshould note, that has no precedent in Virgil’s Aeneid—but a critical structuralcomponent of the work’s meticulously assembled dramatic framework.

What particularly strikes us, even before the interruption has occurred, isthe strange unsuitability of Aeneas to assume the posture of a masquing hero.Consistently derided by modern critics as a weak character—“a completebooby,” as Joseph Kerman famously put it77—Aeneas has always seemedoddly miscast as the great hunter, brandishing his “bending Spear” with itsimpaled boar’s head. The reconfiguring of Aeneas as a masquer, performingthe role of the hero Actaeon, does little to alleviate this disjunction, for theTrojan prince manifestly has no aptitude for the part. With the masque’sabrupt termination, his borrowed heroism is immediately deflated, leavinghim to succumb, with barely a whimper of protest, to the directive issued bythe impersonated Mercury.78 Yet more remarkable than Aeneas’s deficiency asa heroic figure is his lack of critical acumen, as displayed in his failure even toquestion the bona fides of the supposed god. Aeneas, of course, is not privy tothe Priest libretto’s stage direction reminding us that what we are witnessing is“The Spirit of the Sorceress . . . in likness of Mercury,” not Mercury himself, buthe seems oddly credulous as the apparition “descends to [him]” using the kindof mechanical theatrical effect whose employment in Dido and Aeneas is oth-erwise restricted solely to the opening scene of the prologue and the conclu-sion of the final act.79 In this instance, with the now abandoned “desert Hillsand Dales” stage set standing empty except for the bewildered spear-wielding“Actaeon,” we might imagine the Spirit descending, not out of a presumedopen sky (as a real god would do), but rather from between the cloud bordersmasking the fly space of the Carthaginian court’s purpose-constructed out-door theatre.80 From the moment of this stunning meta-theatrical gesture for-ward, the fraudulent nature of the whole encounter is rooted in its overt andself-conscious theatricality. The scene that ensues is a construct of theSorceress’s creative imagination, posited as a dramatic counterpoint to thecourtly theatrics of the Masque of Actaeon. We have already been prepared forthis conceptual leap in act 2, scene 1, when the Sorceress introduces her ployusing the language of theatrical mimesis: the Spirit will appear “In Form ofMercury himself [,] / As sent from Jove” (p. 5).

77. Kerman, Opera as Drama, 43.78. For an illuminating exploration of the interaction between Aeneas and the “real”

Mercury in Virgil’s original, see Feeney, “Leaving Dido: The Appearance(s) of Mercury and theMotivations of Aeneas,” 105–27.

79. As we have seen (note 36), Mercury’s descent immediately upon the heels of the Type IIchorus “Haste, haste to town” constitutes the only place in Dido and Aeneas where such a chorusis not followed by a dance (or analogous scenic effect with instrumental accompaniment, in thecase of the “Soft Musick” that marks the transition from P.2 a to P.2 b).

80. For other examples of masques built or conjured in “outdoor” spaces as represented onthe seventeenth-century English stage, see Walkling, “Apotheosis of Absolutism,” esp. 227.




Aeneas’s failure, then, is pointedly presented as a consequence of his inabil-ity to distinguish between the real and the contrived, and this flaw reflects di-rectly back on the interrupted masque in which he has just performed: asAeneas proves incapable of understanding (and, hence, bridging) the disconti-nuity between the theatricalized hero Actaeon and himself, so is he obliviousto the cues, provided by dramatic convention, that should enable him to dis-criminate between a real deity and a false one in this second theatrical “enter-tainment.” The notion of deliberate theatricality serving as a fundamentalbasis for the witches’ successful plot links the two stage pieces even moreclosely together. Both rely upon the deployment of theatrical convention (onmore than one level), and both play with the tension caused by Aeneas’s inca-pacity to distinguish between reality and artifice.81 Yet it is only when“Mercury” appears that Aeneas’s flaw, latent in the earlier courtly Masque ofActaeon, achieves salience, triggering the devastating sequence of events tofollow.

If the standard conventions of court masque dictate a teleological progres-sion from chaos to order, from evil to good, a masque embedded in a tragedymust necessarily reverse that process, allowing the “main masque,” with itsroyalist triumphalism, to be interrupted and supplanted by an antimasque inwhich the forces of wickedness prevail. Here, then, the deus-ex-machina ad-vent of the Spirit, bearing his counterfeit divine injunction, constitutes whatwe might describe as an “Antimasque of Mercury,” a coup de thêátre specifi-cally conceived so as to exploit the debilitating weakness of the hero and oblit-erate the Masque of Actaeon’s now-crippled royalist instrumentality. Thissuccessful deception of Aeneas is naturally an occasion for rejoicing, and thewitches do so in act 3, scene 1 (“Our Plot has took, / The Queen[’s] forsook,ho, ho, ho” [p. 7]), once the preparations of the sailors have confirmed theadvent of the hoped-for catastrophe. But just as the witches exult in their tri-umph here as part of the main current of the drama, it is also fitting that a dis-tinct, more emblematized round of celebration be incorporated into thevictorious antimasque in act 2, scene 2, immediately upon the heels ofAeneas’s fateful decision. Appropriately for a masque, this separate and distinctcelebration centers on dancing:

Then since our Charmes have Sped,A Merry Dance be Led[]By the Nymphs of Carthage to please us.

81. An additional dramatic and musical linkage might be seen in the paired “fanfare” passagesdiscussed in note 64. Each offers a description, by a member of the opposite party, of a real-worldevent that directly precedes and is associated with one of the theatrical episodes: the royal huntingexcursion, as overheard by the witches, is followed by the performance of the masque, while theonset of the thunderstorm, remarked upon by Dido, segues immediately into the staged appear-ance of “Mercury.”




They shall all Dance to ease us[:]A Dance that shall make the Spheres to wonder,Rending those fair Groves asunder.

The Groves Dance. (p. 7)

This important scene, frequently omitted from modern performances of Didoand Aeneas because of its missing music,82 serves both as a final articulation ofthe plot’s catastasis, antecedent to the catastrophe evinced in act 3 by the ac-tions of the sailors and Aeneas, and as a logical conclusion to the Antimasqueof Mercury now that evil has seized control, effecting the transference fromtheatricalized representation to embodied reality that should have been theprovince of the main, royal masque. The climactic moment of a court masquetraditionally brought together the harmonious movement of body (throughdance) and machine (through scenic spectacle) to express cosmic order and toprovoke awe and wonder in the mind of the beholder. Here, we see the anti-masque reversal of this dynamic: the dance to be performed will “make theSpheres to wonder.” It is not, we should note, a conventional antimasquedance of debasement and internal fragmentation—that is reserved for the“Jack of the Lanthorn” dance (ⓟ) in act 3, arguably the best example of itskind in Purcell’s oeuvre—but rather a sublime embodiment of transcendentevil, worthy to function on the level of the cosmos and yet utterly alien to thatstate of being on account of its destructive, rather than constitutive, force. Theproclivity for destruction is played out in the dance itself, whose terrible poweris focused into a single act of obliteration—“Rending those fair Groves asunder”—that encapsulates the general cataclysm about to be visited upon

82. Such omission is unfortunate, particularly given the multiple “reconstructions” of thisscene from which performers can choose. Published reconstructions employing other music byPurcell can be found in the scores edited by Britten and Holst (pp. 46–51), and Laurie and Dart(1961: 103–5; and 1966/1974: 104–6, but not included in Laurie’s 1979 Purcell Society ed.).The Britten/Holst reconstruction has appeared on three recordings: by the English Opera GroupOrchestra and Purcell Singers (conducted by Britten; 1959, reissued 1999); the AldeburghFestival Strings and London Opera Chorus (1978, reissued 2001); and the Leningrad ChamberOrchestra (sung in Russian; 1978, reissued 2002). The Laurie/Dart reconstruction is performedon the recording by the Academy of the Begynhof, Amsterdam (1989; this is the only recordingthus far to also present a reconstruction of the prologue, using the version assembled from otherPurcell music by Laurie and Dart [1961/1966/1974, 77–102, but not included in Laurie’s 1979ed.], with one ritornello added). One other published reconstruction, which has never beenrecorded commercially, is by Michael Tilmouth and consists primarily of original music (publishedas an appendix to Savage, “Producing Dido and Aeneas,” 405–6, and repr. in Dido and Aeneas:An Opera, ed. Price [1986], 183–87). Four unpublished reconstructions of this scene adaptingother music by Purcell can be found on recordings by the Mermaid Theatre Com pany (1952,reissued 2008; and 1951 live recording, released 2006), the Kammerorchester des Nord -deutschen Rundfunks and Monteverdi-Chor Hamburg (1968, reissued 2005), the Orchestra ofthe Age of Enlightenment (2001), and Musica ad Rhenum (2004). There is also an unpublishedreconstruction composed by Bruce Wood that appears on two recordings, by Les Arts Florissants(1995) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (2008).




the main protagonists. But the annihilation of “those fair Groves,” like every-thing else in court masque, needs to be understood on a physical as well as ametaphorical level. If the cosmic “Rending” of the groves represents an apoca-lyptic unraveling of the courtly world, its theatrical counterpart can be foundin the demolition of the set, the artificial “Lo[n]esome Vailes” whose labori-ous manufacture has come to naught by dint of the Masque of Actaeon’s ig-nominious termination. The witches, then (through the agency of theotherwise unidentified “Nymphs of Carthage”83) effect what could be read asa metatheatrical strike of the now-empty masquing stage, or perhaps a moreconventional endotheatrical moment akin to the famous destruction scenefrom the conclusion to Lully and Quinault’s opera Armide, premiered in Parisin February, 1686.84

The analogy to the sorceress Armide reminds us that the power, inBaroque theatre, to stage a play-within-a-play was typically allotted to the fig-ure of the magician, who combined in his or her character the attributes of divinely ordained monarch and adroit stage machinist.85 The Antimasque ofMercury aptly demonstrates this principle, in contradistinction to the very un-magical Masque of Actaeon, whose main plot, introduced by Aeneas’s open-ing line “Behold upon my bending Spear . . .” barely gets underway beforethe tables are irrevocably turned. The fact that we never see enough of thismasque to determine with any real clarity how its internal meaning is intendedto be read86 is, I believe, intentional, for the significance of the episode lies notwithin its dramatic storyline but rather in its emblematized situatedness at theheart of the larger work. Through its engendering of uncertainty, the Masque

83. We might consider whether these should be identified with the “Nymphs on the Shore”abandoned by the sailors in the very next scene (p. 7)—or, for that matter, with the Nymphs ofSpring or other characters (Shepherdesses, Country Shepherdesses, Country Maids) who appearin the second scene of the prologue, which is also set in “the Grove” (pp. 2–3). This is, in fact, onlyone of several instances of characters in the prologue seemingly resurfacing in the main drama, in-cluding Phoebus (cf. “Phœbus pale deluding Beames, / Guilding more deceitful Streams,” p. 7),Venus (cf. “VVith Tushes far exceeding, / Th[o]se did Venus [’] Huntsm[a]n Tear,” p. 6), andthe blindfolded, probably painted Cupids discussed above, pp. 214–15.

84. For a discussion of this scene in which Armide’s situation is provocatively compared withthat of Virgil’s Dido, see Tollini, Scene Design at the Court of Louis XIV, 108–10 and figs. 31 and32 (misreferenced in the text). The date of the supposed court premiere of Dido is still a matter ofdisagreement (see note 1); however, destruction scenes of this type were relatively common inboth French and Italian scenography of the seventeenth century; for one explanation of how toengineer such an effect see Sabbattini, Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne’ teatri, bk. 2, chap.10 (“How to Stage the Total Destruction of the Scene”), trans. John H. McDowell in Hewitt,Renaissance Stage, 109–11.

85. For an excellent discussion of this concept, see Wygant, “Pierre Corneille’s Medea-Machine,” 537–52.

86. Curtis Price, for example, speculates in passing that the invocation of the Actaeon myth“joins the hunting metaphor to the idea of Dido’s being destroyed from within by shame”(Henry Purcell and the London Stage, 252).




of Actaeon contributes to the growing sense of disquiet that underpins act 2,scene 2, where our initial presentiment assumes material form only in the gen-uinely catastatic Antimasque of Mercury. The fragility and evanescence of themasque give way to the tangible power of the antimasque, the court yields tothe maleficent conjurers, and theatre and theatricality become vehicles forscrutinizing the apparatus of a dramatic calamity that, I have suggested else-where, may have struck contemporary viewers as uncomfortably familiar.87

Considered in this light, the Grove Scene, with its three distinct components—the Masque of Actaeon, the intervening cloudburst, and theAntimasque of Mercury—offers a new way to understand the complex dra-matic plotting of Dido and Aeneas. Essential to this expository structure,through which the work traverses the stages of tragic development, is the dy-namic established through an appropriation of the configuration, conventions,and associative meanings of court masque. As the static center of the largerwork, a “sovereign mid point” characterized by the theatrical breadth of its al-ternating vocal and dance numbers and its stately portrayal of the unfortunatetale of Actaeon through emblematic mini-episodes, the Masque of Actaeonconstitutes the fulcrum of the tragedy in which it is embedded. At the sametime, it offers a dramatic and musical adumbration of the impending peri -peteia. From the opening D-minor strains of its orchestral introduction, themasque reverses the theme of act 1, in which Cupid had constituted the pre-vailing motif, strewing paths with flowers, throwing darts, and pursuing hisconquest. With Aeneas and Dido finally united at the act’s close, the courturges us on to a bucolic celebration:

To the Hills and the Vales, to the Rocks and the MountainsTo the Musical Groves, and the cool Shady Fountains.Let the Triumphs of Love and of Beauty be Shown,

Go Revel ye Cupids, the day is your own. (p. 5)

Yet once we have reached the “Musical groves” and the promised entertain-ment materializes, Love is nowhere to be found. In his place is offered themorbid tale of Actaeon, a story that not only generates foreboding through itsominous subject matter, but also alerts us to the impending rupture betweenthe protagonists through its deployment of the distancing mechanisms ofcourt theatrics, which preclude the kind of stichomythic interactions that char-acterize Aeneas and Dido’s developing—if troubled—relationship.88 The re-sulting dramatic void, compounded by the masque’s abrupt termination,allows the Antimasque of Mercury to fill the power vacuum, appropriating thework’s trajectory to its own nefarious ends. Given the story’s necessary depen-dence upon Virgil and the traditions handed down from Classical mythology,we would hardly expect it to have a different outcome; rather, it is the means

87. Walkling, “Political Allegory in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.”88. For more on this particular dynamic, see Walkling, “Apotheosis of Absolutism,” 212–13.




by which Tate and Purcell arrive at their catastrophe that merit our attention.Their late seventeenth-century rendering of the well-worn tale is governed bya Renaissance aesthetic in which the story line is reshaped to suit the dra-maturgical and performative requirements of the Restoration court. In thiscontext, the metatheatrics of the Masque of Actaeon and the Antimasque ofMercury are crucial to the meaning and relevance of the work overall, and represent much more than courtly trappings, added for purposes of ambience.With its multifaceted deployment of dance, storytelling, stage effects, genericreferentiality, tragic plotting, and the use of theatrical balance and counter-poise to emblematize dramatic tension, Dido and Aeneas’s composite masque-within-a-masque is no mere tangent to the plot, but an episode thatencapsulates the turning point of the larger story and directs us allegoricallytoward the destruction that is to come.

Appendix Suggested Movement List for a Reconstructed“Complete” Production of Dido and Aeneas

N.B. Items in boldface represent surviving musical numbers; italicized items are speculative in-terpolations deriving no authority from any original source. All spellings are modernized.

Act/scene Movement title Movement type

Overture instrumental

P.1 a From Aurora’s spicy bed solo (Phoebus)Phoebus strives in vain to tame ’em duet (2 Nereids)Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion solo (Phoebus)Tritons and Nereids come pay your devotion chorus IITritons Dance dance ⓐ

P.1 b Look down ye orbs and see solo (Nereid)Whose luster does outshine solo (Phoebus)And if the deities above chorus IFear not Phoebus, fear not me solo (Venus)Blind they are, but strike the heart dialogue (Phoebus, Venus)Earth and skies address their duty solo (Phoebus)To Phoebus and Venus our homage we’ll pay chorus IIINereids Dance dance ⓑ

P.2 a See the Spring in all her glory solo (Venus)See the Spring in all her glory chorus IISoft Music instrumental

P.2 b Our youth and form declare solo (Spring)He that fails of addressing solo (Spring)He that fails of addressing chorus IISpring and Nymphs Dance dance ⓒ

P.2 c Jolly shepherds come away duet or trio? (Shepherdesses)Shepherds and Shepherdesses Dance dance ⓓLet us love and happy live chorus IIINymphs Dance dance ⓔ





P.2 d Tell, tell me, prithee Dolly dialogue (He, She)But the jolly nymph Thetis that long his love sought chorus IIICountry Maids Dance dance ⓕOverture instrumental [reprise?]

1 a Shake the cloud from off your brow solo (Belinda)Banish sorrow, banish care chorus IAh! Belinda, I am pressed solo (Dido)Grief increases by concealing dialogue (Belinda, Dido,

2nd Woman)When monarchs unite, how happy their state chorus IWhence could so much virtue spring solo (Dido)A tale so strong and full of woe dialogue (Belinda, 2nd

Woman, Dido)Fear no danger to ensue duet (Belinda, 2nd

Woman)Fear no danger to ensue chorus IIFear no danger to ensue dance (ensemble) ⓖBasque Dance dance (solo) ��

1 b See, your royal guest appears dialogue (Belinda, Dido, Aeneas)

Cupid only throws the dart chorus IIf not for mine, for empire’s sake solo (Aeneas)Pursue thy conquest, Love solo (Belinda)Guitar Chaconne dance ⓗTo the hills and the vales, to the rocks chorus III

and the mountainsTriumphing Dance dance ⓘFirst Act Tune instrumental

2.1 a Ritornello instrumentalWeyward sisters, you that fright solo (Sorceress)

2.1 b Say, beldam, say, what’s thy will solo (Witch)Harm’s our delight and mischief all our skill chorus IThe queen of Carthage, whom we hate solo (Sorceress)Ho, ho, ho chorus IRuin’d ere the set of sun duet (2 Witches)The Trojan prince you know is bound solo (Sorceress)Ho, ho, ho chorus IDrunken Sailors Dance dance ⓙBut ere we this perform duet (2 Witches)In our deep vaulted cell the charm we’ll prepare chorus IIIEcho Dance dance ⓚHorrid musica instrumental

2.2 a Ritornello instrumentalThanks to these lonesome vales solo (Belinda)Thanks to these lonesome vales chorus IIMasque Dance dance (ensemble)㉦Guitar Ground dance (solo) ⓛ





Oft she visits this loved mountain solo (2nd Woman)Ritornello instrumentalDance to Entertain Aeneas by Dido’s Women dance ⓜBehold, upon my bending spear solo (Aeneas)

2.2 b The skies are clouded solo (Dido)Haste, haste to town: this open field solo (Belinda)Haste, haste to town: this open field chorus II

2.2 c Stay, prince, and hear great Jove’s command dialogue (Spirit, Aeneas)Jove’s commands shall be obeyed solo (Aeneas)

2.2 d Then since our charms have sped chorus IIIGroves Dance dance ⓝSecond Act Tune instrumental

3.1 a Ritornello instrumentalCome away, fellow sailors, your anchors solo (Sailor)

be weighingCome away, fellow sailors, your anchors chorus II

be weighingSailors Dance dance ⓞ

3.1 b See the flags and streamers curling solo (Sorceress)Our plot has took duet (2 Witches)Our next motion solo (Sorceress)Destruction’s our delight, delight our chorus I/III

greatest sorrowJack O’Lantern Leads the Spaniards dance ⓟ

3.2 a Your counsel all is urged in vain solo (Dido)3.2 b See, madam, see where the prince appears solo (Belinda)

What shall lost Aeneas do solo (Aeneas)Thus on the fatal banks of Nile dialogue/duet (Dido,

Aeneas)3.2 c But death, alas, I cannot shun solo (Dido)

Great minds against themselves conspire chorus IThy hand, Belinda: darkness shades me solo (Dido)When I am laid in earth may my wrongs create solo (Dido)With drooping wings ye cupids come chorus IIICupids Dance dance ⓠ

a Improvised; cue taken from Tenbury score.

Works Cited

Scores and Librettos

Eccles, John. Measure for Measure. Overture and incidental music. Newberry Library,Chicago. Manuscript score bound with Case VM 3.1 P985, fol. 4r.

“Priest Libretto.” See under Tate, Nahum, in this section.Purcell, Henry. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst.

Vocal score. London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1960.




———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst. Miniaturescore. London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1961.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by William Cummings. Vocal score. London andNew York: Novello, Ewer and Company, 1888. Reprint, London: Novello andCompany, 1951.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by William Cummings. Full score. The Works ofHenry Purcell, vol. 3. London and New York: Novello, Ewer and Company(Purcell Society), 1889. Reprint, New York: Broude Brothers, [1942]. Reprint,New York: Dover, 1995.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Ellen T. Harris based on the edition by Edward J.Dent (1925). Vocal score. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Ellen T. Harris. Miniature score. London:Eulenberg, 1987.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Margaret Laurie and Thurston Dart. Short score.London: Novello and Company, 1961, 1966; Sevenoakes: Novello, 1974.

———. Dido and Aeneas. Edited by Margaret Laurie. Full score. The Works of HenryPurcell, vol. 3. Sevenoaks: Novello (Purcell Society), 1979.

———. Dido and Aeneas: An Opera. Edited by Curtis Price. Norton Critical Score.New York: Norton, 1986.

———. “Dido and Aeneas.” Manuscript score. National Trust property of TattonPark in Knutsford, Cheshire (MR 2-5.3, pp. 1–72). [Known as the Tatton Parkmanuscript.]

———. “The Loves of Aeneas and Dido.” Manuscript score. Bodleian Library,Oxford, MS Tenbury 1266 (5). [Known as the Tenbury manuscript.]

Tate, Nahum. An Opera Perform’d at Mr. Josias Priest’s Boarding-School at Chelsey. By Young Gentlewomen. Libretto. [?London]: n.p., [1688]. [Known as the Priest libretto.]

Tatton Park manuscript. See in this section under Purcell, “Dido and Aeneas.”Manuscript score. National Trust property.

Tenbury manuscript. See under Purcell, “The Loves of Aeneas and Dido,” in this section.

Recordings

Academy of the Begynhof. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Roderick Shaw, direc-tor. Globe, 1989. GLO 5020.

Aldeburgh Festival Strings/London Opera Chorus. Dido and Aeneas, by HenryPurcell. Steuart Bedford, director. Originally issued 1978. Decca, 2001. 468 561-2.

Les Arts Florissants. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. William Christie, director.Erato, 1995. 4509-98477-2.

English Group Orchestra/Purcell Singers. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell.Benjamin Britten, director. Originally issued 1959. BBC Music, 1999. BBCB8003-2.

Kammerorchester des Norddeutschen Rundfunks/Monteverdi-Chor Hamburg. Didoand Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Sir Charles Mackerras, director. Originally issued1968. Archiv, 2005. DG 4775350.




Leningrad Chamber Orchestra. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. ValentinNesterov, director. Originally issued 1978. Manchester Files, 2002. CDMAN 138.

Mermaid Singers and Orchestra. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Geraint Jones,director. Originally recorded 1951. Walhall Eternity Series, 2006. WLCD 0186.

———. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Geraint Jones, director. Originally issued1952. EMI Classics, 2008. 50999 5 09691 2 8.

Musica ad Rhenum. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell/Pan and Syrinx, by JohnErnest Galliard. Jed Wentz, director. Brilliant Classics, 2004. 92464.

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. RenéJacobs, director. Harmonia Mundi France, 2001. HMC 901683.

———. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Steven Devine and Elizabeth Kenny, directors. Chandos, 2009. CHAN 0757.

The Scholars Baroque Ensemble. Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell. Naxos, 1997.8.553108.

Other Materials

Burden, Michael. “Dido and Aeneas.” Review of Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,”by Ellen T. Harris. Musical Times 130 (1989): 85–86.

———. “The Dramatick Opera ‘Libretto’ as Monument.” In Texte et Représentation:Les arts du spectacle (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles), edited by Benoît Bolduc, 255–87; spe-cial issue of Texte: Revue de critique et de théorie littéraire 33–34 (2003). Toronto:Éditions Trintexte, 2004.

———. “To Repeat (or Not to Repeat)? Dance Cues in Restoration English Opera.”Early Music 35 (2007): 397–417.

Buttrey, John. “Dating Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.” Proceedings of the Royal MusicalAssociation 94 (1967–68): 51–62.

Carter, Tim. Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,2002.

Charteris, Richard. “Some Manuscript Discoveries of Henry Purcell and HisContemporaries in the Newberry Library, Chicago.” Notes: Quarterly Journal of theMusic Library Association 37 (1980–81): 7–13.

Cholij, Irena. “Dido and Aeneas with The Loves of Dido and Aeneas in Measure forMeasure.” In Henry Purcell’s Operas: The Complete Texts, edited by Michael Burden,95–169. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

D’Urfey, Thomas. New Poems, Consisting of Satyrs, Elegies, and Odes: Together with aChoice Collection Of the Newest Court Songs, Set to Musick by the best Masters of theAge. London: for J. Bullord and A. Roper, 1690.

Feeney, Denis. “Leaving Dido: The Appearance(s) of Mercury and the Motivations of Aeneas.” In A Woman Scorn’d: Responses to the Dido Myth, edited by MichaelBurden, 105–27. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

Fowler, Alastair. Triumphal Forms: Structural Patterns in Elizabethan Poetry.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Reprint, 2010.

[Gildon, Charles]. The Life of Mr. Thomas Betterton, the late Eminent Tragedian.London: for Robert Gosling, 1710.

[———]. Measure for Measure. Or Beauty the Best Advocate. As it is Acted at the Theatrein Lincolns-Inn-Fields. VVritten Originally by Mr. Shakespear: And now very much




Alter’d; VVith Additions of several Entertainments of Musick. London: for D. Brownand R. Parker, 1700.

Goldie, Mark. “The Earliest Notice of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.” Early Music 20(1992): 392–400.

Harris, Ellen T. Handel and the Pastoral Tradition. London: Oxford University Press,1980.

———. Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas.” Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.———. “Recitative and Aria in Dido and Aeneas.” In Studies in the History of Music,

Vol. 2, Music and Drama, 31–59. New York: Broude Brothers, 1988.Hewitt, Barnard, ed. The Renaissance Stage: Documents of Serlio, Sabbattini and

Furttenbach. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1958.Holman, Peter. Henry Purcell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.———. Review of Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, edited by Ellen T. Harris, full and vocal

scores. Music and Letters 71 (1990): 617–20.Ingegneri, Angelo. Della poesia rappresentativa & del modo di rappresentare le favole

sceniche. Ferrara: Vittorio Baldini, 1598.Kerman, Joseph. Opera as Drama. Revised ed. Berkeley: University of California Press,

1988.Laurie, Margaret. “Allegory, Sources, and Early Performance History.” In Dido and

Aeneas: An Opera, edited by Curtis Price, 42–59. Miniature score. New York:Norton, 1986.

———. “Did Purcell Set The Tempest?” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 90(1963–64): 43–57.

Luckett, Richard. “A New Source for Venus and Adonis.” Musical Times 130 (1989):76–79.

Orgel, Stephen, and Roy Strong. Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court. 2 vols.London: Sotheby Parke Bernet; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1973.

Plank, Steven E. “ ‘And Now About the Cauldron Sing’: Music and the Supernaturalon the Restoration Stage.” Early Music 18 (1990): 392–407.

Pobjoy, Mark. “Dido on the Tragic Stage: An Invitation to the Theatre of Carthage.”In A Woman Scorn’d: Responses to the Dido Myth, edited by Michael Burden, 41–64.London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

Price, Curtis. “Dido and Aeneas: Questions of Style and Evidence.” Early Music 22(1994): 115–25.

———. Henry Purcell and the London Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1984.

Price, Curtis, and Irena Cholij. “Dido’s Bass Sorceress.” Musical Times 127 (1986):615–18.

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Sabbattini, Nicola. Pratica di fabricar scene e machine ne’ teatri. Ravenna: Pietro de’Paoli/Gio[vanni] Battista Gio[v]annelli, 1638.

Savage, Roger. “Producing Dido and Aeneas: An Investigation into Sixteen Problemswith a Suggestion to Conductors by Michael Tilmouth in the Form of a Newly-composed Finale to the Grove Scene.” Early Music 4 (1976): 393–406. Reprintwith revisions in Purcell, Dido and Aeneas: An Opera, edited by Curtis Price,




255–77. Reprint with further revisions in The Purcell Companion, edited by MichaelBurden, 445–68. London: Faber and Faber, 1994; Portland, OR: Amadeus Press,1995.

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———. “Court, Culture, and Politics in Restoration England: Charles II, James II,and the Performance of Baroque Monarchy.” PhD diss., Cornell University, 1997.

———. “ ‘The Dating of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas’? A Reply to Bruce Wood andAndrew Pinnock.” Early Music 22 (1994): 469–81.

———. “Masque and Politics at the Restoration Court: John Crowne’s Calisto.” EarlyMusic 24 (1996): 27–62.

———. “Political Allegory in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.” Music and Letters 76(1995): 540–71.

———. Review of Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas (compact disc: Harmonia Mundi,France, 2001 Clare College Chapel Choir, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment,directed by René Jacobs). Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 11, no. 1 (2005),http://www.sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v11/no1/walkling.html (accessed 1 March2010).

———. Review of Purcell, Henry Purcell’s Operas: The Complete Texts, edited by Michael Burden. Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 13, no. 1 (2007),http://www.sscm-jscm.org/v13/no1/walkling_purcell.html (accessed 1 March 2010)

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Abstract

Problems associated with the main surviving sources of Purcell’s Dido andAeneas (the 1688 “Priest” libretto and GB-Ob MS Tenbury 1266) have re-sulted in the persistence of fundamental misconceptions regarding the scopeand nature of the work. Through a detailed examination of the “deleteddances” and their relationship to other components, such as choruses, it ispossible to reconstruct what the original piece may have looked like. Thisprocess prompts a reconsideration of the “Grove Scene” in act 2, which isshown to contain a masque–antimasque pair featuring Aeneas in the role ofActaeon and the Sorceress’s Spirit playing the part of Mercury. In contrast tothe conventional structure in which the masque triumphs over the anti-masque, in Dido the opposite is true, a circumstance that underscores and ef-fectuates the tragic nature of the work.

Keywords: Henry Purcell, Dido and Aeneas, opera (English Baroque), courtmasque, dance and dramatic structure



jams.2010.63.2.191

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