First performed by Paul's Boys in the 1580s, but of uncertain date, Love's Metamorphosis is widely regarded as the most elegantly structured of Lyly's plays. The plot looks back, in part, to the account of Erisichthon's punishment for the desecration of Ceres' grove in Ovid's Metamorphosis, book 8, but the Ovidian story is woven into a wider network of interests turning upon aspects of love. A series of allusions to earlier Lylian compositions (Sappho and Phao and Galatea) invites the audience to view the play in terms of a continuum of work, exploring the status of Cupid and the nature and...