Love's Metamorphosis
John Lyly
 Set in Arcadia, the play's plot contains two strains: the main plot features Ceres and three of her nymphs, Nisa, Celia, and Niobe; the three foresters or shepherds who love them, Ramis, Montanus, and Silvestris; and Cupid. Cupid punishes the nymphs for their disdain of the shepherds, by transforming them into a rock, a rose, and a bird. The subplot involves the churlish and brutal peasant Erisichthon, who chops down a sacred tree and thereby takes the life of Fidelia, a transformed nymph. Ceres punishes him with famine, and he responds by selling his daughter Protea to a merchant. Protea escapes her servitude via a prayer to Neptune and a disguise as a fisherman; she returns home, and masquerades as the revenging ghost of Ulysses to rescue Petulius, her beloved, from a Siren. Ceres appeals to Cupid to release her nymphs; Cupid agrees, if Ceres will pardon Erisichthon. (The faithful love of Protea for Petulius has earned her Cupid's protection.) The nymphs are restored to their original forms once they agree to accept the three humans as husbands; the quadruple wedding is held at the house of Erisichthon. Love's Metamorphosis differs from most of Lyly's plays in that it lacks the overtly comical and farcical elements that Lylian dramas normally possess. Strikingly, the play features none of the witty pages that are standard for Lyly. As a result, some critics have speculated that the extant text is a revised version of a more typical Lyly original.