0 a type of theatre entertainment including poetry, singing, and dancing, performed in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, especially at a royal court (= the official home of a king or queen)
The way historians have used drama and masque provides useful insights.
This work was, of course, technically a civic pageant, not a court masque.
We must remember that masque performances were great occasions, replete with distractions - royalty, nobility, fancy dress, beautiful women, glorious jewellery.
The transition from stage to gardens, from a passive to an active entertainment, suggests that the masque resonated uniquely with audiences.
But we would be reckless to assume that even so royalist a form as the masque contains nothing but pure sycophancy.
In this short masque-like work, the four elements of earth, air, fire and water present themselves and pay their obeisance to the new monarch.
Not even the world of masque was free from such ambivalences.
To complicate the issue, the degree and nature of political content in these operas, masques and plays is far from a settled matter.
