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From the Argument prefixed to Act III we know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden mist called up by Maudlin.
Thus Aeglamour, in so far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the rest of the personae.
After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is supposed to have been drowned in the Trent. Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here!
The hermit is, of course, introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth quoting : The chase is o'er, the hart is slain!
As they discourse they become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks to himself like a madman. Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his distracted fancy breaks out afresh: To distract him Karoline sings a song.
In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to 'firk it like a goblin' about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a 'superstitious commendation' of her.
When they have left the stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country maidens.
The chief faults of the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away. The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but only to find that her lover has drowned himself.
The names are not those of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring.
Certain incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between these and the less polished huntsmen.
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