Jonson opens his masque with a conversation among two heralds, a printer, a chronicler, and a factor (a kind of columnist or correspondent). All are in some sense in the news business, though their approaches differ; the traditional heralds are startled by the capitalist assumptions of the printer, who asks them the cost-price of their news. The characters discuss a number of contemporary issues, culminating in the news from the Moon – which allows for satire on a range of subjects. The Moon is described as "an earth inhabited...With navigable seas and rivers...forests, parks, coney-ground, meadow-pasture, what not?" With all the similarities between Earth and Moon, though, there are differences; the Moon's denizens have no spoken language, rather communicating by signs – which renders all the lawyers mute. They also have no tailors; as a result, the lunar "self-lovers" have all died. This conversation climaxes in the anti-masque, which is a dance of "Volatees," a race of lunar bird-men. The serious portion of the masque follows, in which the "scene opens" to disclose the principal masquers, led by
Prince Charles, who descend, "shake off their icicles," and dance, to the accompaniment of music and song. The masque also features the inevitable lavish praise of King James. The lunar bird-men derive from the
True History of
Lucian, perhaps through the medium of
Rabelais' Pantagruel. ==Modern music==