disguise, and what is more, each of these, supposing the other to be what her apparel betokens, falls in love with her.  After a while, however, Diana becomes suspicious of the stranger nymph, and her followers make a capture of the boy-god, whom they identify by the burn on his shoulder caused by Psyche’s lamp, and set him to untie love-knots.  There follows one of those charming songs for which Lyly is justly, or unjustly, famous[216].

    O Yes, O yes, if any Maid,
    Whom lering Cupid has betraid
    To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne,
    And would in madnes now see torne
    The Boy in Pieces—­Let her come
    Hither, and lay on him her doome.

    O yes, O yes, has any lost
    A Heart, which many a sigh hath cost;
    Is any cozened of a teare,
    Which (as a Pearle) disdaine does weare?—­
    Here stands the Thiefe, let her but come
    Hither, and lay on him her doome.

    Is any one undone by fire,
    And Turn’d to ashes through desire? 
    Did ever any Lady weepe,
    Being cheated of her golden sleepe,
    Stolne by sicke thoughts?—­The pirats found,
    And in her teares hee shalbe drownd. 
    Reade his Inditement, let him heare
    What hees to trust to:  Boy, give eare!

This is the position of affairs when Venus appears in search of her wanton, and is shortly followed by the irate Neptune.  After some disputing, Neptune, to quiet the strife between the goddesses, proposes that Diana shall restore the runaway to his mother, in return for which he will release the land for ever from its virgin tribute.  This happily agreed upon, the only difficulty remaining is the strange passion between the two girls.  Venus, however, proves equal to the occasion, and solves the situation by transforming one of them into a man.  An allusion to the story of Iphis and Ianthe told in the ninth book of the Metamorphoses suggests the source of the incident[217].  Otherwise the play appears to be in the main original.  The exposing of a maiden to the rage of a sea-monster has been, of course, no novelty since the days of Andromeda, but it is unnecessary to seek a more immediate source[218]; while the intrusion of Cupid in disguise among the nymphs was doubtless suggested by the well-known idyl of Moschus, and probably owes to this community of source such resemblance as it possesses to the prologue of the Aminta.  A comic element is supplied by a sort of young rascals, and a mariner, an alchemist, and an astrologer, who are totally unconnected with the rest of the play.  The supposed allusions to real characters need not be taken seriously.  Lyly’s rascals are generally recognized as the direct ancestors of some of Shakespeare’s comic characters, and we not seldom find in them the germ at least of the later poet’s irresistible fun.  Take such a speech as Robin’s:  ’Why be they deade that be drownd?  I had thought they