Which any print of goodness will not take, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour 5 -When thou DIDST not, favage, KNOW thy own meaning, but would gabble like A thing moft brutish, I endow'd thy purpofes With words to make them known.] The benefit which Profpero here upbraids Caliban with having bestowed, was teaching him language. He fhews the greatnefs of this benefit by marking the inconvenience Caliban lay under for want of it. What was the inconvenience? This, that he did not know his own meaning. But fure a brute, to which he is compared, doth know its own meaning, that is, knows what it would be at. This, indeed, it cannot do, it cannot be its meaning to others. And this certainly is what Profpero would fay: When thou COULDST not, favage, SHOW thy own meaning, The following words make it evident, but wouldft gabble like A thing moft brutish, And when once [Show] was corrupted to [know] the tranfcribers would of courfe change [couldf] into [didft] to make it agree with the other falfe reading. There is indeed a fenfe, in which Know thy own meaning, may be well applied to a brute. For it may fignify the not having any reflex knowledge of the opera tions of its own mind, which, it would feem, a brute hath not. Though this, I fay, may be applied to a brute, and confequently to Caliban, and though to remedy this brutality be a nobler be nefit than even the teaching language; yet fuch a fenfe would be impertinent and abfurd in this place, where only the benefit of language is talked of by an exact and learned fpeaker. Befides, Profpero exprefly fays, that Caliban had purposes; which, in other words, is, that he did know his own meaning. WARBURTON. When thou did not, favage, Know thy own meaning, -] By this expreffion, how. ever defective, the poet feems to have meant -When thou did utter founds, to which thou hadft no determinate meaning: but the following expreffion of Mr. Addifon, in his 389th Spectator, concerning the Hottentots, may prove the best comment on this paffage, having no language among them but a confufed gabble, which is neither well underflood by themselves, or others. 66 STEEVENS. 6 With words that made them known: But thy vild race Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore waft thou Who hadft deferv'd more than a prifon. Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curfe: 7 The red plague rid you, For learning me your language! Pro. Hag-feed, hence! Fetch us in fewel; and be quick, thou we'rt beft, To answer other bufinefs. Shrug'ft thou, malice? If thou neglect'ft, or doft unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps; Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar, That beafts fhall tremble at thy din. Cal. No, 'pray thee! I must obey his art is of fuch power, It would controul my dam's god Setebos, And make a vaffal of him. 6 Pro. So, flave; hence! [Afide. [Exit Caliban. Enter But thy vild race] Race, in this place, feems to fignify original difpofition, inborn qualities. In this fenfe we ftill fay The race of wine; thus in Maflinger's New Way to pay old Debts. "There came, not fix days fince, from Hull, a pipe "Of rich Canary. "Is it of the right race?" and fir W. Temple has fomewhere applied it to works of literature. STEEVENS. ? -the red plague-] I fuppofe from the redness of the body, univerfally inflamed. JOHNSON. The eryfipelas was anciently called the red plague. STEEVENS. "My dam's god, Setebos." 8 -- A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has obferved on the authority of John Barbot, that "the Patagons are reported to "dread a great horned devil, called Setebos." -It may be asked however, how Shakespeare knew any thing of this, as Barbot was a voyager of the prefent century?-Perhaps he had read Eden's History of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, p. 434. that "the Enter Ferdinand at the remoteft part of the ftage, and Ariel invifible, playing and finging. Fer. Where fhould this mufick be? i' the air, or the earth? "the giantes, when they found themselves fettered, roared like bulls, and cryed upon Setebos to help them."-The metathefis in Caliban from Canibal is evident. FARMER. We learn from Magellan's voyage, that Setebos was the fupreme god of the Patagons, and Cheleule was an inferior one. TOLLET. • Court'fied when you have, and kifs'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of fome dances. The wild waves whift; i. e. the wild waves being filent (or whift) as in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, b. vii. c. 7. f. 59. So was the Titanefs put down, and whift. And Milton feems to have had our author in his eye. ftanza 5. of his Hymn on the Nativity. The winds with wonder whift, Smoothly the waters kifs'd. See So again, both lord Surrey and Phaer, in their tranflations of the fecond book of Virgil: -Conticuere omnes. "They whifted all." and Lylly in his Maid's Metamorphofis, 1600. But every thing is quiet, whift, and still." STEEVENS. It founds no more:-and fure, it waits upon Ariel's Song. Full fathom five thy father lies, This mufis crept by me upon the waters ;] -a "a foft and folemn breathing found Rofe like a team of rich diftill'd perfumes, "And fole upon the air." STEEVENS. But Full fathom five thy father lies, &c.] Gildon, who has pretended to criticife our author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfelefs piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. Let us confider the business Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The commiffion Profpero had intrusted to him, in a whifper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to difpofe him to the quick fentiments of love, while he, on the other hand, prepared his daughter for the fame impreffions. Ariel fets about his bufinefs by acquainting Ferdinand, in an extraordinary manner, with the afflictive news of his father's death. A very odd apparatus, one would think, for a love-fit. And yet, as odd as it appears, the poet has fhewn in it the finest conduct for carrying on his plot. Profpero had faid I find my zenith doth depend upon A moft aufpicious fiar ; whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes In confequence of this his prefcience, he takes advantage of every favourable circumstance that the occafion offers. The principal affair is the marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to fecure this point, it was neceffary they fhould be contracted before the affair came to Alonfo the father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this ftorm and fhipwreck, caufed by VOL. I. D him, But doth fuffer a fea-change3, Hark, now I hear them,-ding-dong, bell. Fer. The ditty does remember my drown'd father:This is no mortal bufinefs, nor no found * That the earth owes :-I hear it now above me. him, would work upon Alonfo's temper. It might either foften him, or increase his averfion for Profpero as the author. On the other hand, to engage Ferdinand, without the confent of his father, was difficult. For, not to speak of his quality, where fuch engagements are not made without the confent of the forereign, Ferdinand is reprefented (to fhew it a match worth the feeking) of a moft pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent his contracting himfelf without his father's knowledge. The poet therefore, with the utmost address, has made Arcl perfuade him of his father's death to remove this remora. WARBURTON. I know not whether Dr. Warburton has very fuccefsfully defended thefe fongs from Gildon's accufation. Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, muft be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance, they express nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal difcovery. The reafon for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminu tive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the songs of Ariel. JOHNSON. 3 But doth fuffer a fea-change.] "And underwent a quick immortal change," Milton's Mafque. STEEVENS. "The name thou ow's not." To use the word in this fenfe is not peculiar to Shakespeare I meet with it in B. and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush: "If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince, Pro. |