The Woman in the Moon

Its unique status in that playwright's dramatic canon – it is the only play Lyly wrote in blank verse rather than prose – has presented scholars and critics with a range of questions and problems.

The Woman in the Moon was entered into the Stationers' Register on 22 September 1595, and was first published in quarto in 1597 by the bookseller William Jones.

The title page of the quarto states that the play was presented before Queen Elizabeth I, though no specific performance is mentioned.

[4] In Order of Appearance: The play is set in the world of Greek mythology, at the time of the very beginning of the human race, when the first woman was not yet created.

Concord seals her soul to her body with an embrace, and the new woman is given the best gifts of the seven planets of traditional astronomy and astrology.

The seven planets, however, are unhappy that Pandora has been given their best qualities, and decide to spite Nature with a malevolent demonstration of their power.

He inspires Pandora with ambition, vanity, and superciliousness – so much so that she obtains his sceptre and tosses it to Juno when the queen of the gods comes in search of her husband (he hides himself in a cloud).

Pandora inflicts her pride upon the hapless shepherds: she orders them to behead a wild boar, promising her glove to the man who brings the trophy to her.