After Jupiter's amour with Europa, the daughter of Agenor, king of Phaenicia, he again incenses Juno by a new affair in the same family; viz. with Semele, niece to Europa, and daughter to Cadmus king of Thebes. Semele is on the point of marriage with Athamas; which marriage is about to be solemniz'd in the temple of Juno, goddess of marriages, when Jupiter by ill omens interrupts the ceremony; and afterwards transports Semele to a private abode prepar'd for her. Juno, after many contrivances, at length assumes the shape and voice of Ino, sister to Semele; by the help of which disguise and artful insinuations, she prevails with her to make a request to Jupiter, which being granted must end in her utter ruin.

This fable is related in Ovid Metam. L. 3 but there Juno is said to impose on Semele in the shape of an old woman, her nurse. 'Tis hoped, the liberty taken in substituting Ino instead of the old woman will be excus'd: it was done, because Ino is interwoven in the design by her love of Athamas; to whom she was married, according to Ovid; and because her character bears a proportion with the dignity of the other persons represented. This reason, it is presumed, may be allowed in a thing intirely fictitious; and more especially being represented under the title of an opera, where greater absurdities are every day excused.

It was not thought requisite to haue any regard either in rhyme or equality of measure, in the lines of that part of the dialogue which was design'd for the recitative stile in musick. For as that stile in musick is not confin'd to the strict observation of time and measure, which is requir'd in the composition of airs and sonata's, so neither is it necessary that the same exactness in numbers, rhymes, or measure, should be observed in the formation of odes and sonnets. For what they call recitative in musick, is only a more tuneable speaking, it is a kind of prose in musick; its beauty consists in coming near nature, and in improving the natural accents of words by more pathetick or emphatical tones.