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brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done!
but I would fain die a dry death.
[Exit.
SCENE II. The Island: before the Cell of Pros-
pero. Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.
Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them:
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they porish'd,
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er1
It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The freighting2 souls within her.

Pro.
Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira.

Pro.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro.

'Tis time I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magick garment from me.-So': [Lays down his mantle.

Lie there, my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have

comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art

So safely order'd, that there is no soul—

No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

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further.

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio
I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,
Without a parallel; those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger, being transported,
And wrapped in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mira. Sir, most heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom

Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

You have often

Mira.
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.-

Pro.

The hour's now come;
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not
Outs three years old.

Mira.

that

Certainly, sir, I can.
Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image tell me,
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Mira.

"Tis far off;

And rather like a dream than an assurance

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1 i. e. or ever, ere ever; signifying, in modern Eng-"foreslowed and trashed." lish, sooner than at any time.

2 Instead of freighting the first folio reads fraughting. 3 The double superlative is in frequent use among our elder writers.

4 To meddle, is to mir, or to interfere with.

5 Lord Burleigh, when he put off his gown at night, used to say "Lie there, Lord Treasurer."-Fuller's Holy State, p. 257.

6 Out is used for entirely, quite. Thus in Act iv: "And be a boy right out."

7 Abysm was the old mode of spelling abyss; from its French original abisme.

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There was another word of the same kind used in Falconry (from whence Shakspeare very frequently draws his similies ;) "Trassing is when a hawk raises aloft any fowl, and soaring with it, at length descends therewith to the ground."-Dictionarium Rusticum, 1704.

Probably this term is used by Chapman in his ad dress to the reader prefixed to his translation of Homer "That whosesoever muse dares use her wing, When his muse flies she will be trass't by his, And show as if a Bernacle should spring Beneath an Eagle."

There is also a passage in the Bonduca of Beaumon and Fletcher, wherein Caratach says:

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As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,-like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie,'-he did believe
He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost hear?

Mira.

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd

And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan: Me, poor man!-my library
Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable: confederates
(So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples,
To give him annual tribute, do him homage;
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
The dukedom, yet unbow'd, (alas, poor Milan !)
To most ignoble stooping.
Mira.
O the heavens.

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Pro. By Providence divine.
Some food we had, and some fresh water, that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

Out of his charity, (who being then appointed
Master of this design,) did give us; with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much; so, of his g
tleness,

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then From my own library, with volumes that

tell me,
If this might be a brother.

Mira.
I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pro.
Now the condition.
This king of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit ;
Which was, that he in lieu3 o' the premises,-
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,-
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom; and confer fair Milan,
With all the honours, on my brother: Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose, did Antonio open

The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness,
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me, and thy crying self.

Mira.

Alack, for pity!

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then, Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint,* That wrings mine eyes to't.

Pro.

Hear a little further, And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us; without the which, this story Were most impertinent. Mira.

That hour destroy us? Pro.

Wherefore did they not

Well demanded, wench;

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common rate of men has generally a son below it. Heroum filii noxæ.

1 Who having made his memory such a sinner to truth as to credit his own lie by telling of it."

2 Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, has clearly wn that we use one word, But, in modern English, or two words Bot and But, originally (in the Anglo Saxon) very different in signification, though (by repeated abbreviation and corruption) approaching in sound. Bot is the imperative of the A. S. Botan, to boot. But is the imperative of the A. S. Be-utan, to be out. By this means all the seemingly anomalous uses of But may be explained; I must however content myself with referring the reader to the Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 190. Merely remarking that but (as distinguished from Bot) and be-out have exactly the same meaning, viz. in modern English, without.

3 In lieu of the premises; that is, "in consideration of the premises,-&c." This seems to us a strange use of this French word, yet it was not then unusual. "But takes their oaths in lieu of her assistance." Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess.

I prize above my dukedom.

Mira.

But ever see that man!

Pro.

"Would I might

Now I arise:

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arriv'd; and here
Have I, thy school-master, made thee more pat
Than other princes can, that have more time
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.

Mira. Heavens thank you for't! And now
pray you, sir,
(For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason
For raising this sea-storm?
Pro.
Know thus far forth.-
By accident most strange, bountiful fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore: and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star; whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes,
Will ever after droop.-Here cease more questions;
Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,
And give it way;-I know thou can'st not choose.-
[MIRANDA sleeps.
Come away, servant, come: I am ready now;
Approach, my Ariel; come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I

come

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds": to thy strong bidding, task
Ariel, and all his quality.

Hast thou, spirit,

Pro. Perform'd to point1" the tempest that I bade thee?

4 Hint is here for cause or subject. Thus in a future passage we have:-" Our hint of woe."

5 Quit was commonly used for quitted.

6 To deck, or deg, is still used in the northern coun. ties for to sprinkle.

7 An undergoing stomach is a stubborn resolution

a temper or frame of mind to bear.

8 This is imitated in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess; "tell me, sweetest,

What new service now is meetest
For the satyre; shall I stray
In the middle air, and stay
The sailing racke, or nimbly take
Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night,
For a beame to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea,

And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves, &c."

9 Ariel's quality is not his confederates, but the powers of his nature as a spirit, his qualification in sprighting 10 i. e. to the minutest article, literally from the French a point, so in the Chances,

"are you all fit? To point, Sir"

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Why, that's my spirit!

Pro.
But was not this nigh shore?
Ari.

Close by, my master.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari.

Not a hair perish'd; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than be ore: and as thou bad'st me, In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle : The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs, In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot.

Pro.

Of the king's ship,

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Pro.

Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee? Ari.

No.

Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much, to tread

the ooze

Of the salt deep ;

To run upon the sharp wind of the north;
To do me business in the veins o' the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.
Ari.
I do not, sir.
Pro. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou
forgot

The foul witch, Sycorax, who, with age and envy,
Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
Ari. No, sir.
Pro.

Thou hast where was she born? speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Árgier.

6

Pro. O, was she so? I must, Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did, They would not take her life: Is not this true? Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,

And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant :
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthly and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests," she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,
And left thee there; where thou didst vent tay

groans,

As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island, (Save for the son that she did litter here,

A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honoured with
A human shape.

Ari.
Yes; Caliban her son.
Pro. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears: it was a torment

To lay upon the damn'd,which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,
When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape
The pine, and let thee out.

Ari.
I thank thee, master.
Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
Ari.

Pardon, master:

I will be correspondent to command,
And do my sprighting gently.
Pro.

Do so; and after two days

I will discharge thee.
Ari.
That's my noble master!
What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?
Pro. Go, make thyself like a nymph o' the sea;
be subject

To no sight but thine and mine; invisible
To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in't: go hence, with diligence.
[Exit ARIEL,
Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which renders access to them so difficult. It was then the current opinion that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters and devils. Setebos, the god of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia.

5 i. e. waves, or the sea. Flot, Fr. 6 The old English name of Algiers 7 Bchests, commands

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Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins4
Shall, for that vasts of night that they may work
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made them.

Cal.
I must eat my dinner.
This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest
first,

Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me;
would'st give me

Water with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And shew'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,

The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fer

tile;

Cursed be I that did so-All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,

Which first was mine own king: and here you sty

me

In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest of the island.

Pro.
Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have us'd
thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.

1 i. e. we cannot do without him. The phrase is still common in the midland counties.

2 This is a common expression of impatience. Vide note on King Richard II. Act i. Scene 1.

3 Quaint here means brisk, spruce, dexterous, from the French cointe.

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Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thon
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,
Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse: The red plague ride you,
For learning me your language!

Pro.
Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best,
To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches: make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din!

Cal. No, 'pray thee!

I must obey his art is of such power,
And make a vassal of him.
It would control my dam's god, Setebos,

Pro.

[Aside,

So, slave; hence!
[Exit CALIBAN.

Re-enter ARIFL invisible, playing and singing;
FERDINAND following him.
ARIEL'S SONG.

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:

Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,

(The wild waves whist")

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!

Bur. Bowgh, wowgh.

The watch-dogs bark:
Bur. Bowgh, wowgh.
Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticlere
Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo.

[dispersedly.

[dispersedly.

Fer. Where should this musick be? i' the air,

the earth?

It sounds no more ;--and sure, it waits upon
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather :--But 'tis gone."
No, it begins again.

had different allotments of time suitable to the variety and nature of their agency.

6 Destroy.

7 The word aches is evidently a dissyllable here and in two passages of Timon of Athens. The reader will remember the senseless clamour that was raised against Kemble for his adherence to the text of Shakspeare in 4 Urchins were fairies of a particular class. Hedge- thus pronouncing it as the measure requires. "Ake," hogs were also called urchins; and it is probable that says Baret in his Alvearie, “is the verb of this substan the sprites were so named, because they were of a mis-tive Ache, ch being turned into k." And that ache was chievous kind, the urchin being anciently deemed a very noxious animal. Shakspeare again mentions these fairy beings in the Merry Wives of Windsor. "Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies green and white." In the phrase still current, "a little urchin," the idea of the fairy still remains.

5 That cast of night is that space of night. So, in

Hamlet:

pronounced in the same way as the letter h is placed beyond doubt by the passage in Much Ado about Nothing, in which Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries Heigh ho, and she answers for an h. i. e. ache. See the Epigram of Heywood adduced in illustration of that passage. This orthography and pronunciation continued even to the times of Butler and Swift. It would be easy to produce numerous instances.

"In the dead waste and middle of the night," nor 9" The giants when they found themselves fettered vasta, midnight, when all things are quiet and still, roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them " making the world appear one great uninhabited waste.-Eden's Hist. of Travayle, 1577. p. 434. In the pneumatology of ancient times visionary beings 9 Still, silent

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Mira. Why speaks my father so ungently? This Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first That e'er I sighed for: pity move my father To be inclin'd my way!

1 i. e. owns. To owe was to possess or appertain to, in ancient language.

2 The folio of 1685 reads made, and many of the mo dern editors have laboured to persuade themselves that it was the true reading. It has been justly observed by M. Mason that the question is "whether our readers will adopt a natural and simple expression, which requires no comment, or one which the ingenuity of many cominentators has but imperfectly supported."

3 To control here signifies to confute, to contradict unanswerably. The ancient meaning of control was to check or exhibit a contrary account, from the old French contre-roller.

"you have done yourself some wrong?"

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From me, Fer.

the lord on't.

No, as I am a man. Mira. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a If the ill spirit have so fair an house, temple: Good things will strive to dwell with 't. Pro. Follow me.-[TO FERD. Speak not you for him; he's a traitor.-Come. I'll manacle thy neck and feet together; Sea-water shalt thou drink, thy food shall be The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks Wherein the acorn cradled: Follow. will resist such entertainment, till No; Mine enemy has more power.

I

Fer.

Mira.

[He draws.

O dear father,

Make not too rash a trial of him, for
He's gentle, and not fearful."
Pro.
My foot

my

What, I say,

tutor!--Put thy sword up, traitor; Who mak'st a show, but dar'st not strike, thy con

science

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Silence: one word more

Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!
An advocate for an impostor? hush!

Thou think'st there are no more such shapes as he,
Having seen but him and Caliban: Foolish wench!
To the most of men this is a Caliban,
And they to him are angels.

Mira.
My affections
Are then most humble; I have no ambition
To see a goodlier man.

Pro.
Come on; obey: [To FERD.
Thy nerves are in their infancy again,
And have no vigour in them.

Fer.

So they are:

My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,
The wreck of all my friends, or this man's threats,
Might I but through my prison once a day
To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
Behold this maid: all corners else o' the earth
Let liberty make use of; space enough

Have I in such a prison.

Pro.

Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!-Follow me.-
It works:-Come on.-
[To FERD. and MIRA.
Hark, what thou else shalt do me. [To ARIEL.
Mira.
Be of comfort;

that is, spoken a falsehood. Thus in The Merry Wives of Windsor:

"This is not well, master Ford, this wrongs you." 5 Fearful was sometimes used in the sense of formidable, terrible, dreadful, like the French epouvantubie; as may be seen by consulting Cotgrave or any of our old dictionaries. Shakspeare almost always uses it in this sense. In K. Henry VI. Act iii. Scene 2, "A mighty and a fearful head they are." He has also fearful wars; fearful bravery; &c. &c. The verb to fear is most commonly used for to fright, to terrify, to make afraid. Mr. Gifford remarks, "as a proof how little our old dramatists were understood at the Restoration, that Dryden censures Jonson for an improper use of this word, the sense of which he altogether mistakes."

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