Melpomene, the mournfull'st Muse of nine.

As she ends she is accosted by Mercury, who has been sent to summon Paris to appear at Juno's suit before the assembly of the gods on a charge of partiality in judgement. A pretty dialogue ensues in broken fourteeners, in which the subtle god elicits a description of the shepherd from the unsuspecting nymph--it too contains some delicate reminiscences of the lover's duet.

Mercury. Is love to blame?

Oenone. The queen of love hath made him false his troth.

Mer. Mean ye, indeed, the queen of love?

Oen. Even wanton Cupid's dame.

Mer. Why, was thy love so lovely, then?

Oen. His beauty height his shame;
The fairest shepherd on our green.

Mer. Is he a shepherd, than?

Oen. And sometime kept a bleating flock.

Mer. Enough, this is the man.

In the next scene we find Paris and Venus together. First the goddess directs the assembled shepherds to inscribe the words, 'The love whom Thestylis hath slain,' as the epitaph of the now dead Colin. When these have left the stage she turns to Paris:

Sweet shepherd, didst thou ever love?

Paris. Lady, a little once.

She then warns him against the dangers of faithlessness in a passage which is a good example of Peele's use of the old rimed versification, and as such deserves quotation.

My boy, I will instruct thee in a piece of poetry,
That haply erst thou hast not heard: in hell there is a tree,
Where once a-day do sleep the souls of false forsworen lovers,
With open hearts; and there about in swarms the number hovers
Of poor forsaken ghosts, whose wings from off this tree do beat
Round drops of fiery Phlegethon to scorch false hearts with heat.
This pain did Venus and her son entreat the prince of hell
T'impose on such as faithless were to such as loved them well:
And, therefore, this, my lovely boy, fair Venus doth advise thee,
Be true and steadfast in thy love, beware thou do disguise thee;
For he that makes but love a jest, when pleaseth him to start,
Shall feel those fiery water-drops consume his faithless heart.

Paris. Is Venus and her son so full of justice and severity?

Venus. Pity it were that love should not be linkèd with indifferency.[[209]]

Then follow Colin's funeral, the punishment of the hard-hearted Thestylis, condemned to love a 'foul crooked churl' who 'crabbedly refuseth her,' and the scene in which Mercury summons Paris before the Olympian tribunal. Here we find him in the next act. The gods being seated in the bower of Diana, Juno and Pallas, and Venus and Paris appear 'on sides' before the throne of Jove, and in answer to his indictment the shepherd of Ida delivers a spirited speech. Again the verse is of no small merit. Defending himself from the charge of partiality in the bestowal of the prize, he argues:

Had it been destinèd to majesty--
Yet will I not rob Venus of her grace--
Then stately Juno might have borne the ball.
Had it to wisdom been intitulèd,
My human wit had given it Pallas then.
But sith unto the fairest of the three
That power, that threw it for my farther ill,
Did dedicate this ball--and safest durst
My shepherd's skill adventure, as I thought,
To judge of form and beauty rather than
Of Juno's state or Pallas' worthiness--...
Behold, to Venus Paris gave the fruit,
A daysman[[210]] chosen there by full consent,
And heavenly powers should not repent their deeds.

After consultation the gods decide to dismiss the prisoner, though we gather that he is not wholly acquitted.