Editing Salmacida Spolia (section)

==Overview==
The masque was unique in that both Charles I and his queen, [[Henrietta Maria of France|Henrietta Maria]], performed in it; the Queen's mother, [[Marie de' Medici]], was in the audience. In the masque, The King "personated" the role of Philogenes ("lover of the people"), a good but misunderstood ruler. Philogenes endures a fierce tempest that features the spirit of Discord, to reach an ensuing prosperous calm. A chariot descends from the cloudy heavens, carrying the personifications Concord and the Good Genius of Great Britain. The Queen, pregnant at the time, also descends from the heavens, "in a transparent brightness of thin exhalations, such as the gods are feigned to descend in."

A complex anti-masque featured, among other characters, quack doctors offering "cures" that can only make the chaos greater—for example, "Essence of dissimulation to enforce Love" and "An Opiade of the spirit of Muskadine taken in good quantity to bedward, to make one forget his Creditors." The anti-masque figures, as shown in Jones's surviving sketches, were "bizarrely dressed, physically deformed, and even obscene...one of them is equipped with an enormous erect penis...."<ref>Raylor, p. 114.</ref> The King dispels evil influences from a "golden throne surrounded by palm trees and heroic statues."<ref>Leapman, p. 329.</ref>

The masque featured elaborate dancing, and the sophisticated [[special effects]] that were Jones's specialty: for example,

:"[storm and gale, etc., and:] in the midst was a globe of the Earth, which at an instant falling on fire, was turned into a Fury, her hayre upright, mixt with snakes, her body leane wrinkled and of a swarthy colour [etc.]"

The masque concluded with an idealized cityscape of London, replete with "magnificent buildings," and with another of Jones's famous and stunning cloudscapes, "a heaven opened full of deities."

The royal couple were highly pleased with the masque, and danced it again on the next [[Shrove Tuesday]]. The public response, such as there was among the restricted audience, appears to have been less positive, as contemporary witnesses reported more "disorder" among the crowd than usual. An element of negativity in the masque's reception was comprehensible, since it attributes the disorder of the realm to the stubbornness of the King's subjects ("the people's giddy fury"), and hints that the royal power won't always be held in check.

Davenant later adapted aspects of ''Salmacida Spolia'' to create his famous ''[[The Siege of Rhodes]],'' the "first English opera."<ref>McGuire, p. 89.</ref>

As was often the case, the masque was published in [[book size|quarto]] soon after its performance, in this instance by the bookseller [[Thomas Walkley]].<ref>The quarto is dated "1639," since prior to 1751 the English began the new year on 25 March, not 1 January. See: [[Old Style and New Style dates]].</ref> It was reprinted in a [[book size|duodecimo]] volume in 1750, by William Rufus Chetwood.