Entertainment was often a part of the wedding celebration for nobles. So, Prospero commands Ariel and other spirits to perform a short play (within the play) as a means of expressing his blessing on the engagement between Miranda and Ferdinand. During the Renaissance a popular form of short entertainment was the masque. A masque was essentially a private form of courtly entertainment performed in the palaces and manors of royalty. The masque nearly always included music and singing and dancing and could include dialogue as well. The actors could be amateur or professional, but the entertainment usually included elaborate costumes and spectacular sets as well. Like a singing or dancing number in a modern musical, the main action of the plot in The Tempest comes to a halt to allow a few moments of merriment and fantasy.
Although Shakespeare writes less than 80 lines for his masque (lines 60-138), the time for the presentation could be quite lengthy, depending on how much time the director devotes to the background music and the dancing number.
In this wedding celebration masque, the three principal characters are the mythological Iris, Ceres, and Juno. In some cases the actor playing Ariel might also perform the part of Ceres, but that was not necessarily true in every performance. The other actors – spirits under the command of Ariel – are a number of nymphs (minor nature goddesses) and reapers (farmers, people who harvest a crop) who perform a dance.
Iris is the first of the actors to appear on the stage and speak. The mythological Iris is the goddess of the rainbow and the messenger for Juno. Juno is the Roman queen of the gods, and she is the goddess of love and marriage. Juno is the Roman equivalent to Hera of Greek mythology.
Iris begins her speech by calling out for Ceres to come join her and contribute to the wedding celebration. Ceres was the goddess of agriculture, but she was also a goddess of nature and fertility more generally. Thus, her blessing on a couple getting married would ensure them of having many healthy children.
Iris calls for Ceres to leave the fields of grain and the pastures where sheep graze and to leave the lands made wet by April (personified as the bringer of rain) for the growth of flowers. Even during the Renaissance, people well knew the proverb that “April showers bring forth May flowers.” Iris humorously describes the peony flowers as the kind that “cold nymphs” use to make “chaste crowns” (66). In this instance the word nymph refers to any girl or maiden who is cold or chaste: she refuses to accept the company of men. Iris is suggesting that Ceres would be using her time better to bless a couple getting married rather than to create flowers for women who will never procreate. Iris adds that the rejected suitors of these women are “lass-lorn” – they are sad and forlorn and lonely. Iris is also suggesting that Ceres should drop her work on growing “broom-groves” (66-67), yellow flowers, for these bachelors and instead spend time celebrating the betrothal of Ferdinand and Miranda. Ceres arrives as called, but she asks Iris if Venus (the Roman goddess of love and beauty) and her son Cupid (the blind god of love) will be at the celebration (lines 67-68). The question refers to the mythological tale of how Venus and Cupid caused the Roman god Dis (the god of the underworld; called Pluto or Hades by the Greeks) to fall in love with Prosperine, who is the daughter of Ceres. Dis seized Prosperine and carried her away to his underworld kingdom. Thus, Ceres does not like Venus and Cupid at all.
Iris assures Ceres that Venus and Cupid will not be at the celebration, and music then begins to announce the arrival of Juno (at line 101).
Juno and Ceres then sing a song together to bless the young couple (lines 106-17). During the Renaissance, stagehands might use a mechanical apparatus to raise the two singers above Miranda and Ferdinand to give the illusion of goddesses blessing the young couple from the heavens.
At the end of the masque, Iris calls forth the naiads (minor nature goddesses, nymphs of the rivers and lakes) and the harvesters (or reapers) to perform a dance for the happy couple.