not seem monstrous to wise men, that the heart of the greatest
conqueror of the world should be found in the hands of the weakest
creature of nature? of a woman? of a captive? Ermines have fair
skins but foul livers; sepulchres, fresh colours but rotten bones;
women, fair faces but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast
a camp to govern, not a chamber; fall not from the armour of Mars
to the arms of Venus, from the fiery assaults of war to the
maidenly skirmishes of love, from displaying the eagle in thine
ensign to set down the sparrow. I sigh, Alexander, that, where
fortune could not conquer, folly should overcome.

In _Endymion_ we find a much more complex plot, but less that is natural
and attractive. Historical tradition and the unchanging habits of lovers
give their sanction to most of the scenes in _Campaspe_. But _Endymion_
carries us into the realm of mythology, where all is unreal and where
the least heaviness in the pencil of fancy must convert things that
should appear golden into dull lead. Lyly's wit strives gallantly to
maintain the light tints, pressing fairies and moonbeams into his
service, and ransacking the stores of improbability in despair of
mingling the impossible and the possible effectively; but the gilt, if
not entirely lost, wears very thin in places.

Endymion is in love with Cynthia, the Moon, though aware that his
aspiration must remain for ever hopeless. Tellus, the Earth, herself
enamoured of Endymion, jealously resolves to punish his indifference to
her by deep melancholy. Accordingly she visits the witch, Dipsas, by
whose magic aid the youth, found resting on a bank of lunary, is
bewitched to sleep until old age. Not for this crime but for a minor
one, Tellus is sentenced by Cynthia to imprisonment under the care of
Corsites. Eumenides, the loyal friend of Endymion, seeks everywhere for