Summary
Cupid and Mercury appear on stage and discuss their disguises as pages. Mercury tells Cupid that he has taken to serving a gallant named Hedon. Hedon enters with Anaides and boasts about his seduction skills with women. When Hedon exits, Mercury tells Cupid that Hedon is ignorant and proud, like all courtiers.
Amorphus and Asotus enter, boasting about and congratulating one another on their rhetorical skill. Asotus is a spendthrift who enlists Amorphus's help in transforming him into a courtier. Mercury informs Cupid that Amorphus and Asotus are self-involved and deceitful. Crites enters, and Mercury describes him to Cupid as a man of excellent temper and honor.
A group of ladies enter. Mercury mistakes them for Cynthia's ladies-in-waiting. Cupid informs Mercury that the true ladies-in-waiting are divine in nature, and that these ladies would disappear in the presence of Cynthia. One of the ladies informs Cupid and Mercury that they are on their way to a fountain recently discovered by Amorphus. They go on to say that all the lords and ladies who have drunk from the fountain are "languishing upon the rushes" like dead fish.
Analysis
Act Two of the play continues to explore the ironic representation of courtiers and other noblemen in the court of Elizabeth I. The character of Hedon takes his name from the term hedonism, which denotes the singular pursuit of pleasure and self-indulgence above all else. Hedon is first and foremost concerned with the pleasurable facets of gallantry: his primary motivation is indulgence, and Mercury and Cupid note how these qualities render him an ignorant and prideful courtier compared to someone more noble, like Crites. Because Cynthia's Revels is considered part of the poetomachia or War of the Theatres, it is believed that Jonson crafted the character of Hedon as a caricature of fellow playwright John Marston. That Hedon is the physical incarnation of the philosophy of hedonism lends insult to Marston, an insult that Marston returned by satirizing Jonson in his play What You Will just one year later.
Another plot device Jonson uses to satirize the court is the friendship between Asotus and Amorphus. Asotus is foolish and irresponsible with his money, and he seeks the help of Amorphus to help him fulfill the role of courtier. Amorphus agrees to help his friend, emphasizing that there are certain behaviors he must exude and certain rhetorical skills he must obtain in order to successfully pass as a courtier. By dramatizing how someone can become a courtier through these learned behaviors, Jonson satirizes the notion of courtiers more generally, suggesting that their high status is merely performed rather than a measure of inherent merit. It is important to note that while Jonson pokes fun at those at court, he does not satirize Elizabeth herself – indeed, Cynthia does not appear in the play until the very end. In this way, Jonson provides lighthearted critique of those surrounding the queen without going so far as to challenge the supremacy of the monarch and commit treason.
