Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority is an allegorical stage play of the first decade of the 17th century, generally attributed to the academic playwright Thomas Tomkis.
Tomkis borrowed and adapted his main plot from the classical myth of the Judgement of Paris; but particular features of his work depend upon more contemporaneous influences, including Spenser's The Faerie Queene,[4] Du Bartas' La Sepmaine,[5] and Sir John Davies's Nosce Teipsum.
The 1607 quarto of Lingua is very unusual in that it provides highly detailed and specific descriptions of the costumes worn by the actors: And the rest of the play's figures are similarly, gaudily accoutered.
As noted above, the play's plot derives from the story of the Judgement of Paris: like Eris among the Olympian gods, Lingua inspires dissension and competition among the five senses by offering a prize for the worthiest of them.
She leaves a golden crown and a royal robe in a grove in "Microcosmus", with this inscription: The five quarrel over who should receive the gifts; they go so far as to prepare for physical combat, though "Communis Sensus", the viceregent of Queen Psyche, forestalls that extremity.
The play features a range of other personifications – Terra, Comedus, Phantastes, Lumen (light), Coelum (the sky), and others – even Tobacco, "the king of Trinidado" who has "conquered all Europe."