Hymen's Triumph

Samuel Daniel's masque, Hymen's Triumph, was performed in February 1614, as part of the festivities at the wedding of Jean Drummond, daughter of Patrick, third Lord Drummond, to Robert Ker of Cessford, first Lord Roxborough. The text used in this reprint derives from the manuscript now in Edinburgh University Library. It was prepared under Daniel's supervision as a presentation copy to Lady Roxborough, and differs in various ways from the printed texts of 1615 and 1623. By 1621 it had come into the hands of Jean Drummond's distant relative, the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden, who gave it in 1626 to the College of King James, afterwards known as the University of Edinburgh. In his introduction the editor, John Pitcher, Fellow of St John's College, Oxford, gives a full account of the occasion and of the manuscript itself.