The opening pages of this play give directions as to the setting and costume of the first (and only) scene. These directions are quite extensive, being the product of Inigo Jones, one of the era's foremost architectural minds. The scene's setting is that of a stormy, tumbling ocean, occupied by six blue-haired mermen. The two principal speakers in the dialogue, Oceanus and Niger, come in riding on life-size seahorses, while Niger's twelve daughters are carried in an enormous seashell. Niger and his daughters have black skin, and the costumes of all involved are variations on the colors azure and silver.
The tritons and the sea-maids sing an entry song, proclaiming Niger's arrival to Oceanus's presence. ("Niger" is a reference to the Niger River, an African river that flows west into the ocean; this meeting between Niger and Oceanus is a dramatized account of the Niger reaching and entering the Atlantic Ocean.) Oceanus asks the reason for Niger's sudden presence in his oceanic realm. Niger responds that he is on a mission to help his daughters, who have become aware that blackness is not as beautiful as whiteness, and who desire to find a certain land of beauty that will wash their blackness from them in order to become beautiful again. They had been told that the land they were seeking ended in "-tania" and has neither sunrise nor sunset, so they had tried Mauritania, Lusitania, and Aquitania, all to no avail.
At this point, Aethiopia (the moon) appears to Niger and reveals that the land they are seeking is called Britannia, a kingdom far north whose magnificence is so great that it could be called the diamond on the ring of the world. The sun in that wonderful kingdom has the power to wash out their undesirable blackness, replacing it with pure, beautiful whiteness, so long as the daughters of Niger bathe in sea-dew and perform various other strange but necessary rituals at given times before appearing in his presence. The play ends with the daughters of Nigel rejoicing with their mermen, and all involved conclude the performance with a song.
