Christmas, His Masque

The masque opens with the entrance of a personified Christmas and his attendants, one of whom leads the way in, beating a drum. Christmas is dressed in a doublet and hose (color unspecified) and a "high-crowned hat;" he has a "long thin beard" and white shoes. Christmas is soon followed by his ten children, who are led in, on a string, by Cupid (who is dressed like a London apprentice, with his wings at his shoulders). The "Sons and Daughters" of Christmas are Carol, Misrule, Gambol, Offering, Wassail, Mumming, New-Year's-Gift, Post and Pair,^[1] and even Minced-Pie and Baby-Cake. Each has his or her own fantastic get-up. Carol, for instance, wears a tawny coat and a red cap, and has a flute in his belt. Mince-Pie is attired "like a fine cook's wife, drest neat," while Gambol is dressed "like a tumbler, with a hoop and bells." Each of the ten is followed by a torchbearer-attendant, carrying marchpanes, cakes, bottles of wine, and other holiday gear. (The specific details of the costumes and furnishings, like "an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it," participate in a dense web of folklore connections. Baby-Cake comes last in the procession of children, for example, because miniature "twelvetide" cakes were associated with Twelfth Night, the last day of the Christmas holiday season.)

Cupid is soon joined by his mother Venus, who like her son is dressed down in contemporary London garb: the goddess appears as a "deaf tire-woman"^[2] who lives in Pudding Lane. The speeches of Venus and the other characters are rich in contemporary allusions and references; Venus, for example, mentions Richard Burbage and John Heminges, prominent actors with the King's Men. The masque proceeds to singing and dancing, with the stated intent to present "A right Christmas, as of old it was."

Christmas, His Masque was produced too late to be included in the first folio collection of Jonson's works in 1616; it was the first masque in the second folio of 1641. It also exists in manuscripts.