Play: Comus

Overview
Comus is a masque by John Milton first performed in 1634 at Ludlow Castle. Framed as a pastoral masque, it stages a moral encounter between chastity and seduction, presenting a young Lady who resists the blandishments of Comus, a debauched magician and master of revels. The piece blends dramatic action, lyric songs, and moral argument to probe questions of virtue, reason, and self-mastery.
Milton uses the masque form's pageantry and music while shaping it around a serious ethical drama rather than courtly flattery. The work balances theatrical spectacle with sustained philosophical reflection, producing a piece that functions both as entertainment and as moral allegory.

Plot
Two brothers, out hunting, lose their way and become separated from their sister. The Lady wanders alone and encounters a strange grove where Comus presides over a banquet of intoxicants and enchantment. Comus, who delights in corrupting innocence, vows to ensnare the young woman and attempts to seduce her through flattery, reasoned sophistry, and magical illusion.
Refusing his temptations, the Lady maintains her chastity and dignity, rejecting both the sensual pleasures on offer and the false rationalizations Comus deploys. While she is threatened and drugged, her brothers, guided by an Attendant Spirit, break into the enchanted hall. The Lady calls on the gentle power of the river-nymph Sabrina, who answers and dispels the spell, restoring the Lady's freedom. The piece concludes with music, thanksgiving, and a celebration of temperance and liberty.

Characters
Comus personifies sensual vice and intellectual sophistry, using eloquence to rationalize indulgence. The Lady represents chastity, purity, and steadfast reason; her eloquent speeches combine moral firmness with warm humanity. The two brothers embody filial devotion and martial honor, determined to rescue their sister but constrained by the limits of force and the need for prudence.
The Attendant Spirit functions as a mediator between the masque's supernatural world and human actors, providing guidance and a moral framework. The figure of Sabrina, a benign nymph, offers divine or natural intervention that ultimately vindicates virtue and undoes enchantment.

Themes and Ideas
Central themes include chastity, the supremacy of reason over passion, and the hazards of rhetorical seduction. Milton explores how language and rhetoric can be used both to enlighten and to deceive, showing Comus's persuasive talk as a tool of moral corruption. Self-discipline and inner liberty are presented as the true sources of strength, with the Lady's moral autonomy triumphing over brute force and hedonistic temptation.
The masque also examines the relationship between nature and grace, portraying supernatural aid as aligned with moral truth. The rescue by Sabrina suggests a harmonious bond between purity and the natural order, while the Attendant Spirit's counsel underscores a providential order that rewards virtue.

Style and Language
Milton writes the piece chiefly in blank verse, interspersed with songs and lyrical passages that showcase his early poetic gifts. The language moves between elevated, classical diction and intimate moral argument, allowing long, rhetorical speeches to unfold ideas about virtue and temptation. Musical elements and choruses give the masque a ceremonial air, while vivid imagery, especially of the enchanted hall and the natural world, creates contrasting atmospheres of corruption and purity.
Milton's rhetorical skill is on display in both Comus's seductive sophistry and the Lady's clear, calm rebuttals. Imagery of light and darkness, restraint and excess, runs throughout, reinforcing the ethical stakes.

Historical Context and Reception
Comus was composed for a provincial aristocratic audience but bears marks of Milton's evolving Puritan sensibility and classical learning. Its emphasis on individual conscience and moral autonomy would resonate with later readers who saw in Milton a defender of liberty of mind. The masque has been admired for its moral intensity and lyric beauty, and particular passages, such as the invocation of Sabrina, have been celebrated for their musical charm.
As a dramatic hybrid, Comus bridges courtly spectacle and serious moral drama, remaining one of Milton's most performed and anthologized early works and continuing to provoke discussion about the interplay of rhetoric, virtue, and theatricality.