Herculean Labors (Metaphor)
At the beginning of the play, Oceanus implores Niger to tell him why he has changed the currents of his waters, saying, "But what's the end of thy Herculean labors, / Extended to these calm and blessed shores?" By comparing Niger and his efforts to Hercules, Oceanus suggests that Niger's rerouting of the currents is an impressive feat (Hercules was a mythical figure who performed 12 miraculous labors). Here, Oceanus implies that Niger must have a very good reason for this change.
The Diamond of the Earth (Metaphor)
In describing the incredible greatness of majestic Britannia, Aethiopia uses a descriptive metaphor: "For were the world, with all his wealth, a ring, / Britannia, whose new name makes all tongues sing, / Might be a diamant worthy to inchase it." Here, Aethiopia suggests that Britain's splendor and value are so incomparable on the earth that it is, in essence, the diamond in the ring of the world, the brightest spot of beauty and worth on the entire planet.
The Sun King (Metaphor)
When Aethiopia describes Britain's majesty, she refers to a magnificent "sun" that governs the land, saying, "Ruled by a sun, that to this height doth grace it : / Whose beams shine day and night, and are of force / To blanch an Æthiop, and revive a corse. / His light sciential is, and, past mere nature, / Can salve the rude defects of every creature." This metaphor refers to King James I as a sun, a common comparison made in early modern literature about whichever monarch was sitting on the throne. The masque, like most court performances, is primarily used to flatter the king.
The Orient Flood (Metaphor)
To open the play, the Chorus introduces Niger by saying, "Sound, sound aloud / The welcome of the orient flood, / Into the west." In this metaphor, the singing chorus is calling the company led by Niger an "orient flood," a metaphor evoking an image of Eastern civilization flooding into the West, where it can see the magnificence of Western civilization and realize its superiority. This meeting of Niger and Oceanus is essentially the crossroads of the East and the West, and, tellingly, Niger is the one coming to beg Oceanus for sage advice.
Phaëton (Metaphor)
As Niger describes the events that have led him to Oceanus, he explains that poets have altered conceptions of beauty in the West. He refers to an ancient Greek myth to make his point, saying, "Letting their loose and winged fictions fly / To infect all climates, yea, our purity; / As of one Phaëton, that fired the world, / And that, before his heedless flames were hurl'd / About the globe, the Æthiops were as fair / As other dames; now black, with black despair."
This metaphor is a complex one. Phaëton, in the fictional account written by Ovid, is a demigod, the son of Helios, who asks his father for the privilege of flying the sun chariot across the earth for a day. His father relents, despite the warning that the horses are too strong, and while Phaëton is flying the chariot, he loses control and flies too close to the sun. This unnatural event is, in Greek mythology, the source of the Africans' black skin: the sun's heat brought all their blood to the surface. Before this event, they were as fair-skinned as the rest of the world.
In this quote, Niger is talking about the poets who have been praising light skin over dark skin, making the rest of the world value paleness in beauty over darkness. He is likening this "infection" to the actions of Phaëton: in both cases, the Africans possessed beauty like the rest of the world before the foolishness of mortals turned their beauty to dark despair.
