Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love
                        
                     
                                                         
                
                    Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love
                                            
                            By Ben Jonson
                            
                                15 Apr, 2020                            
                            
                         
                                        
                                                                        Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker.�
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                                                Cynthia's Revels; Or, The Fountain of Self-Love is a late Elizabethan stage play, a satire written by Ben Jonson. The play was one element in the Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker. The play begins with three pages disputing over the black cloak usually worn by the actor who delivers the prologue. They draw lots for the cloak, and one of the losers, Anaides, starts telling the audience what happens in the play to come; the others try to suppress him, interrupting him and putting their hands over his mouth. Soon they are fighting over the cloak and criticizing the author and the spectators as well. In the play proper, the goddess Diana, also called Cynthia, has ordained a "solemn revels" in the valley of Gargaphie in Greece. The gods Cupid and Mercury appear, and they too start to argue. Mercury has awakened Echo, who weeps for Narcissus, and states that a drink from Narcissus's spring causes the drinkers to "Grow dotingly enamored of themselves."  Less