The Masque Of Blackness
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The Masque Of Blackness
''The Masque of Blackness'' was an early Jacobean era masque, first performed at the Stuart Court in the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall Palace on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1605. It was written by Ben Jonson at the request of Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, who wished the masquers to be disguised as Africans. Anne was one of the performers in the masque along with her court ladies, all of whom appeared in blackface makeup. In a ceremony earlier on the day, Charles I of England, Anne's second son (who was still in Scotland at Dunfermline Palace) was given the title of Duke of York. The plot of the masque follows the ladies arriving at the royal court to be "cleansed" of their blackness by King James; a stage direction that was impossible to fulfill on stage. They had been instructed by a riddle to seek the land "Britannia". The theme of the masque was a commentary on the Jacobean debate on the Union and the disparate identities of the people of Britain. ''The M ...
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Inigo Jones, Design For Masque Of Blackness 1605
Inigo derives from the Castilian rendering (Íñigo) of the medieval Basque name Eneko. Ultimately, the name means "my little (love)". While mostly seen among the Iberian diaspora, it also gained a limited popularity in the United Kingdom. Early traces of the name Eneko go back to Roman times, when the Bronze of Ascoli included the name forms ''Enneges'' and ''Ennegenses'' among a list of Iberian horsemen granted Roman citizenship in 89 B.C.E. In the early Middle Ages, the name appears in Latin, as ''Enneco'', and Arabic, as ''Wannaqo'' (ونقه) in reports of Íñigo Arista (c. 790–851 or 852), a Basque who ruled Pamplona. It can be compared with its feminine form, Oneca. It was frequently represented in medieval documents as Ignatius (Spanish "Ignacio"), which is thought to be etymologically distinct, coming from the Roman name Egnatius, from Latin ''ignotus'', meaning "unknowing", or from the Latin word for fire, ''ignis''. The familiar Ignatius may simply have served as a ...
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Hymenaei
''Hymenaei,'' or ''The Masque of Hymen,'' was a masque written by Ben Jonson for the marriage of Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and performed on their wedding day, 5 January 1606. The costumes, sets, and scenic effects were designed by Inigo Jones, and the music composed by Alfonso Ferrabosco. One of Jonson's earlier masques, ''Hymenaei'' is significant in the evolution of the masque form in the early 17th century; its two sets of contrasting dancers constituted one step in the evolution of the anti-masque that Jonson would realize fully in ''The Masque of Queens'' three years later (1609). Performance The stage was set as an altar for a Roman wedding; behind the altar, between gold-painted statues of Hercules and Atlas, a great sphere was suspended from the ceiling on wire so fine it was invisible to the audience. The side of the sphere facing the viewers was painted as a globe of the Earth, in blue and silver. ...
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Catherine Howard, Countess Of Suffolk
Katherine (or Catherine) Knyvett, Countess of Suffolk (1564–1638) was an English court office holder who served as lady-in-waiting to the queen consort of England, Anne of Denmark. Private life She was born in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, the oldest child of Sir Henry Knyvet and his wife Elizabeth Stumpe. Her uncle was Sir Thomas Knyvet, who foiled the gunpowder plot.Early in her life, she married Richard Rich, son of Robert Rich, 2nd Baron Rich, and grandson of Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich. After his death in 1580 she then married Sir Thomas Howard, who twenty years later was named the Earl of Suffolk. On the death of her father in 1598 she inherited Charlton Park, Wiltshire, which thereafter became the seat of the Earls of Suffolk. Courtier Howard gained a place in Queen Elizabeth's bedchamber and the title of Keeper of the Jewels in 1599. She continued to hold comparable positions after the Union of the Crowns in the reign of James VI and I. On 8 June 1603 King James ...
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Penelope Rich, Lady Rich
Penelope Rich, Lady Rich, later styled Penelope Blount (''née'' Devereux; January 1563 – 7 July 1607) was an English court office holder. She served as lady-in-waiting to the English queen Anne of Denmark. She was the sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and is traditionally thought to be the inspiration for "Stella" of Sir Philip Sidney's '' Astrophel and Stella'' sonnet sequence (published posthumously in 1591).Stephen, p. 1007 She was married to Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick) and had a public liaison with Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, whom she married in an unlicensed ceremony following her divorce from Rich. She died in 1607. Early life and first marriage Born Penelope Devereux at Chartley Castle in Staffordshire, she was the elder daughter of Walter Devereux, 2nd Viscount Hereford, later 1st Earl of Essex and Lettice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys and Catherine Carey, and sister of William Knollys, later 1st Earl of Banb ...
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Elizabeth De Vere, Countess Of Derby
Elizabeth Stanley (née de Vere), Countess of Derby, Lord of Mann (2 July 1575 – 10 March 1627), was an English noblewoman and the eldest daughter of the Elizabethan courtier and poet Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. She was the Lord of Mann from 1612 to 1627, and prior to holding the title, she had taken over many administrative duties appertaining to the Isle of Man's affairs. Elizabeth was the first female to rule as the island's head of state. She served as a Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth I of England before her marriage to William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. Her wedding or (more likely) that of Elizabeth Carey to Thomas, son of Lord Berkeley, was the occasion for the first performance of William Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream.'' Family and early years Elizabeth Vere was born on 2 July 1575 at Theobalds House, Hertfordshire, the eldest surviving daughter of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and Anne Cecil, the daughter of statesman William Cecil, 1s ...
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Lucy, Countess Of Bedford
Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford ( Harington; 1580–1627) was a major aristocratic patron of the arts and literature in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, the primary non-royal performer in contemporary court masques, a letter-writer, and a poet. She was an ''adventurer'' (shareholder) in the Somers Isles Company, investing in Bermuda, where Harrington Sound is named after her. Parentage and marriage Lucy Harington was the daughter of Sir John Harington of Exton, and Anne Keilway. She was well-educated for a woman in her era, and knew French, Spanish, and Italian. She was a member of the Sidney/Essex circle from birth, through her father, first cousin to Sir Robert Sidney and Mary, Countess of Pembroke; she was a close friend of Essex's sisters Penelope Rich and Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland, and the latter named one of her daughters Lucy after her. Lucy Harington married Edward Russell, 3rd Earl of Bedford, on 12 December 1594, when she was thirteen years ...
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Seahorse
A seahorse (also written ''sea-horse'' and ''sea horse'') is any of 46 species of small marine fish in the genus ''Hippocampus''. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek (), itself from () meaning "horse" and () meaning "sea monster" or "sea animal". Having a head and neck suggestive of a horse, seahorses also feature segmented bony armour, an upright posture and a curled prehensile tail. Along with the pipefishes and seadragons (''Phycodurus'' and ''Phyllopteryx'') they form the family Syngnathidae. Habitat Seahorses are mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate salt water throughout the world, from about 45°S to 45°N. They live in sheltered areas such as seagrass beds, estuaries, coral reefs, and mangroves. Four species are found in Pacific waters from North America to South America. In the Atlantic, ''Hippocampus erectus'' ranges from Nova Scotia to Uruguay. ''Hippocampus zosterae, H. zosterae'', known as the dwarf seahorse, is found in the Bahamas. Colonies hav ...
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Niger God Of The Niger River
) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesRépublique du Niger, "Loi n° 2001-037 du 31 décembre 2001 fixant les modalités de promotion et de développement des langues nationales." L'aménagement linguistique dans le monde
(accessed 21 September 2016)
, languages = , religion_ref = , religion_year = 2012 , religion = , demonym = Nigerien , capital = , coordinates ...
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Oceanus
In Greek mythology, Oceanus (; grc-gre, , Ancient Greek pronunciation: , also Ὠγενός , Ὤγενος , or Ὠγήν ) was a Titan son of Uranus and Gaia, the husband of his sister the Titan Tethys, and the father of the river gods and the Oceanids, as well as being the great river which encircled the entire world. Etymology According to M. L. West, the etymology of Oceanus is "obscure" and "cannot be explained from Greek". The use by Pherecydes of Syros of the form "Ogenos" (''Ὠγενός'') for the name lends support for the name being a loanword. However, according to West, no "very convincing" foreign models have been found. A Semitic derivation has been suggested by several scholars, while R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a loanword from the Aegean Pre-Greek non-Indo-European substrate. Nevertheless, Michael Janda sees possible Indo-European connections. Genealogy Oceanus was the eldest of the Titan offspring of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). Hesiod lists hi ...
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Triton (mythology)
Triton (; grc-gre, Τρίτων, Trítōn) is a Greek mythology, Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively. Triton lived with his parents in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea. Later he is often depicted as having a conch shell he would blow like a trumpet. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Triton(s) became a generic term for a merman (mermen) in art and literature. In English literature, Triton is portrayed as the messenger or herald for the god Poseidon. Triton of Lake Tritonis of ancient Libya is a namesake mythical figure that appeared and aided the Argonauts. Moreover, according to Apollonius Rhodius, he married the Oceanids, Oceanid of said region, Libya (Greek myth), Libya. Sea god Triton was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's ''Theogony''. He was the ruler (possesso ...
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Merman
Mermen, the male counterparts of the mythical female mermaids, are legendary creatures, which are male human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down, but may assume normal human shape. Sometimes they are described as hideous and other times as handsome. Antiquity Perhaps the first recorded merman was the Assyrian-Babylonian sea-god Ea (called Enki by the Sumerians), linked to the figure known to the Greeks as Oannes. However, while some popular writers have equated Oannes of the Greek period to the god Ea (and to Dagon), Oannes was rather one of the ''apkallu'' servants to Ea. The ''apkallu'' have been described as "fish-men" in cuneiform texts, and if Berossus is to be believed, Oannes was indeed a being possessed of a fish head and man's head beneath, and both a fish tail and manlike legs. But Berossus was writing much later during the era of Greek rule, engaging in the "construction" of the past. Thus even though figurines have been unearth to corroborate this ...
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Alfonso Ferrabosco The Younger
Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger (c. 1575 – March 1628) was an English composer and viol player of Italian descent. He straddles the line between the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Biography Ferrabosco was born at Greenwich, the illegitimate son of the Italian composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the elder. His mother might have been Susanna Symons, whom Alfonso the elder later married. Ferrabosco the younger was left under the guardianship of Gomer van Awsterwyke, a member of Queen Elizabeth I's court. Although Alfonso the elder asked for Alfonso the younger to be sent to him in Italy, where he had moved with his wife, the Queen insisted that he stay in England. Ferrabosco remained in Gomer van Awsterwyke's care until Awsterwyke's death in 1592. At this time he started a long career as a court musician. After the Union of the Crowns he became the private music tutor of Prince Henry and a groom of privy chamber, with a salary of £50. Ferrabosco was paid for "making the songs" ...
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