The Tragedy of Mariam

“You are my next belov’d, my second Friend,

For when my Phoebus absence makes it Night,

Whilst to th’ Antipode his beames do bend,

From you my Phoebe, shines my second Light.” 

This is the middle verse of Cory’s three-stanza dedication of the play to the goddess Diana. In it, she describes the light of night—her “second light” that she relies upon when the sun is shining elsewhere. There is probably a triple play on the moon’s symbolism involved here: the idea of women as trustworthy friends, the notion that reflections or second thoughts are superior to first thoughts, and an allusion to Cary’s propensity from childhood to read by candlelight after dark.

“So at his death your Eyes true droppes did raine,

Whome dead, you did not wish alive againe.

When Herod liv’d, that now is done to death,

Oft have I wisht that I from him free:

Oft have I wisht that he might lose his breath,

Oft have I wisht his Carkas dead to see.”

With these words in her opening soliloquy, Mariam reflects on the ambivalence she feels regarding Herod’s supposed execution. Before Herod went to Rome, she had actually wished that he would die and that she could see his dead body. Now she is surprising herself with the tears she is weeping for him. This is one of several ironic moments in the play, and it highlights Mariam’s powerlessness; even the fulfillment of her wishes doesn’t go as she expects it to.

“Felicitie, if when she comes, she finds

A mourning habite, and a cheerless looke,

Will thinke she is not welcome to thy minde,

And so perchance her lodging will not brooke.

Oh keepe her whilest thou hast her, if she goe

She will not easily returne againe” 

Alexandra here is telling Mariam to cheer up and stop mourning Herod. She anthropomorphizes happiness, calling it “Felicitie” and describing it as someone she has longed to meet with no luck.