The printed edition of Cary's play includes a dedication to Elizabeth Cary.[5] It is unknown whether this refers to the sister of Cary's husband, Henry Cary, or the wife of his brother Philip Cary.[5]
The play is then preceded by an invocation to the goddess Diana:
When cheerful Phoebus his full course hath run, His sister's fainter beams our hearts doth cheer: So your fair brother is to me the sun, And you his sister as my moon appear. You are my next belov'd, my second friend, For when my Phoebus' absence makes it night, Whilst to th'antipodes his beams do bend, From you, my Phoebe, shines my second light. He like to Sol, clear-sighted, constant, free, You Luna-like, unspotted, chaste, divine: He shone on Sicily, you destin'd be T'illumine the now-obscurèd Palestine. My first was consecrated to Apollo, My second to Diana now shall follow.[6]
Scholars have suggested that the last two lines of the invocation, "My first was consecrated to Apollo; / My second to Diana now shall follow" support the argument that Cary may have written a play previous to The Tragedy of Mariam.[5]
