Summary
Niger tells Oceanus that his daughters were visited by a bright figure one evening as they bathed in a lake.
The figure told them that they must seek a land whose name ends in "-tania." There, the sun is not harsh and the climate is temperate, because the land is governed by another "sun" who forms beauty simply by looking.
Niger explains that ever since his daughters were given this instruction, they have sought the "-tania" land, traveling to Mauritania, Lusitania, and Aquitania, but all to no avail.
Suddenly, the moon appears, bedecked in a silver cloak and bathed in light.
Niger interrupts Oceanus to celebrate the arrival or Aethiopia, the moon goddess.
He asks Aethiopia to beautify his daughters, as they have always been loyal to her.
Aethiopia assures Niger that his request will be heeded, and tells him that it was indeed she who appeared to his daughters that evening by the lake.
Analysis
In this section of the masque, Jonson introduces the fundamental purpose behind the performance: praise of King James I and his court. The genre of the masque denotes a short play whose primary objective is to glorify the monarch for whom it is being performed. In the case of The Masque of Blackness, the play was commissioned by Queen Anne of Denmark for the celebration of Twelfth Night, and Queen Anne even played the role of one of the daughters of Niger in the original performance.
When Niger explains that his daughters have been instructed to seek a land ending in "-tania," audiences would have likely seen where the rest of the play was heading, especially considering the details that the mysterious figure (later revealed to be Aethiopia herself) provides about this land: the climate is temperate, governed by a "sun" with such benevolence and power that it can change the color of the daughters' skin. The metaphor of the king (or other monarch) as a sun was a common one in early modern literature and culture, and audiences would have understood immediately that these instructions refer to the power and magnificence of King James I.
Historical context is also helpful in reading this section of the play. The Masque of Blackness was originally performed in 1605, two years after King James I succeeded Queen Elizabeth I on the throne.
Elizabeth, also known as the Virgin Queen, spent much of her reign cultivating an image of herself as pure, constant, and powerful despite (or because of) never marrying. Along with this image came portrayals of the queen as extremely pale-skinned, which was meant to denote her chastity and, by extension, her "marriage" to England.
When James came to the throne, many had their doubts given his Scottish heritage and the fact that his mother was Mary, Queen of Scots – Elizabeth I's ill-fated rival. The celebrated power of the British "sun" in The Masque of Blackness therefore helps align James with the ideals that Elizabeth had cultivated for women during her own reign, likely speaking to how James I was himself a capable and constant monarch.
