Cynthia's Revels

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 so-called Poetomachia or War of the Theatres between Jonson and rival playwrights John Marston and Thomas Dekker.

The play was first performed in 1600 at the Blackfriars Theatre by the Children of the Chapel, one of the troupes of boy actors active in that era. The Children acted the play at the English Royal Court during the 1600/01 Christmas season — though it was not a success with the audience there.

The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 23 May 1601, with the title Narcissus the Fountain of Self-Love. It was published in quarto later that year by the bookseller Walter Burre, under the title The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia's Revels. The play next appeared in print when it was included in the first folio collection of Jonson's works in 1616. A prefatory note to the folio text identifies the principal actors in the cast of the original 1600 production: Nathan Field, John Underwood, Salathiel (or Salomon) Pavy, Robert Baxter, Thomas Day, and John Frost. Pavy played the role of Anaides.

There are significant differences between the Q and F texts of the play. Scenes IV,i and IV,iii are longer in F, and Act V is entirely new. Also, the character called Criticus in Q is named Crites (Greek for "judge") in F. It is thought that Jonson's original long play was cut down for performance by the boys.

In Satiromastix, another play of the Poetomachia, Thomas Dekker accuses Jonson of having portrayed himself as Criticus, who is described as "a creature of almost perfect and divine temper" (Cynthia's Revels, II,iii). Some commentators have argued that Jonson was not quite so vain as to describe himself this way, and that, based on an allusion elsewhere in Jonson's works, Criticus may instead represent John Donne. Individual commentators have tried to identify other characters in the play with historical and literary figures of the era (Anaides, for example, being Marston — or Dekker), though a firm scholarly consensus on identifications has not evolved.

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