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The stage shows the mouth of the Underworld. Venus and Cupid visit Pluto, King of the Underworld, and complain that the arrows from Cupid's bow are no longer effective on the women of Mantua, who are scorning their lovers. Cupid asks Pluto to bring the spirits of women who rejected love up from the Underworld to show what fate awaits them in the afterlife. Pluto agrees and the spirits of the "female ingrates" enter and dance "two by two...with grave steps" as Pluto sings a warning to the women in the audience. As said ingrates return to the underworld, one of them sings a lament regretting she must leave the "pure and serene air."
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