Like many Renaissance court spectacles, the underlying message of Le Balet Comique de la Reine is concerned with the struggle between chaos and order, and the triumph of reason and moral virtue over the baser, primal passions of mankind. The Homeric Circe story proved to a highly appropriate vehicle for the elucidation of these themes.
In The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century, Francis Yates states that, it was quite common for Renaissance writers and artists to refer to contemporary mythological manuals for their knowledge of mythology, rather than the original classical texts (131). It appears that Balthazar Beaujoyeulx derived his knowledge and interpretation of the Circe story from Natale Conti's Mythologiae. In the libretto to Le Balet Comique, Beaujoyeulx includes four allegorical interpretations of the Circe story. These interpretations are all based on the mythological manual of Natale Conti (239-40,note 8).
The first exposition in Beaujoleux's libretto quotes Conti on the physical interpretation of the Circe story. Circe, as the daughter of the Sun and Perseis, daughter of the Ocean, is a mixture of heat and humidity. She "is the composite of the elements which can only result from the movement of the Sun, her father who is Form, and of Perseis her mother who is Matter. "Circe has the magical power to transform men into beasts, because the corruption of one thing is the generation of another thing formed from it, but not its first shape." But Circe has no power over the elements, "because the corruption, generation and mutation of the elements (represented by the four Nymphs who served Circe and gathered herbs for her magic potions) is perpetual." (MacClintock,p.99)
The second allegory, authored by Sieur de la Chesnaye, is also based on material provided in Conti's manual. The ideas stem from Platonic writings on natural philosophy. In this allegory, the author relates the Circe fable to images of universal generation, with Circe representing the revolving of the year. The nymphs are the roots, grasses, flowers and seeds (100).
The moral allegory likens heat and dampness (Circe was engendered by Sun and Sea) to desire and lust. Therefore, Circe represents man's natural instincts, while Ulysses personifies the "part of the soul capable of reasoning". Ulysses companions having succumb to their "natural" impulses, resort to vices which cause them to act as animals. The material for this interpretation of the Circe fable was also extracted from Conti's work.
In the final allegory, Lord Gordon, Chamberlain to the King, has expanded on the moral and physical meanings of the fable as found in Conti, and given them a more detailed application to the plot. Gordon states that Circe represents "that desire in general which rules and dominates all living things and is mingling of the divine and sensual." This mingling leads some men to virtue and others to vice.
This is the most explicit and in-depth of the allegorical interpretations. It is essentially an allegorical discourse on moral virtue in which Gordon distinguishes between those possessing an inner beauty, stemming from generous and valorous actions directed by virtue, and those seduced by external beauty, which leads men to "ruin and eternal perdition."
The author makes deliberate mention of the Queen, Princesses and ladies of the court as possessing the inner beauty and virtue that bring,
immortal pleasures and delights. The Naiads and Dryads are nymphs of the water and the woods, that is to say, the good spirits scattered throughout the universe. They are the servants of the Queen (Miverna), who live with her in pleasure and liberty...They stand for the virtue and knowledge through which the minds of men are prepared and disposed for good.(103)
In this allegorical interpretation, Gordon relates the possession of moral virtue specifically to the Valois court and indicates that the impact of this lesson in morality is directed at the body politic.
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