SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain severally. MASTER. Boatswain ! BOATS. Here, master: what cheer? a MASTER. Good, speak to the mariners fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit. a Yarely,-] Briskly, nimbly, actively. Hence what care To cabin : GON. Nay, good, be patient. BOATS. When the sea is. these roarers for the name of king? silence! trouble us not. GON. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. BOATS. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor ;-if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say. [Exit. GON. I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him ; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt. Re-enter Boatswain. BOATS. Down with the topmast! yare; lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course!a [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather or our office. Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO. Yet again! what do you here? shall we give o'er and drown? have you a mind to sink? a Bring her to try with main-course !] It has been proposed to read, "Bring her to; try with the main-course;' "but see a passage from Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598, quoted by Malone :and when the barke had way, we cut the hawser and so gate the sea to our friend, and tryed out al that day with our maine corse." - mounting to the welkin's cheek,-] Although we have, in "Richard II." Act III. Sc. 2,-"the cloudy cheeks of heaven," and elsewhere, "welkin's face," and "heaven's face," it may well be questioned whether "cheek," in this place, is not a misprint. Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes heat, a change characterised by Mr. Dyce as "equally tasteless and absurd.' A more appropriate and expressive word, one, too, sanctioned in some measure by its occurrence in Ariel's description of the same elemental conflict, is probably, crack, or cracks, "the fire, and cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune In Miranda's picture of the tempest, the sea is seen to storm and overwhelm the tremendous artillery of heaven; in that of Ariel, It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and The fraughting 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, the sky's ordnance, "the fire and cracks," assault the "mighty Neptune." Crack, in the emphatic sense it formerly bore of crash, discharge, or explosion, is very common in our old writers thus, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great," Part I. Act IV Sc. 2, "As when a fiery exhalation, Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud Fighting for passage, makes the welkin cracke." Again, in some verses prefixed to Coryat's "Crudities,""A skewed engine mathematicall To draw up words that make the welkin cracke." And in Taylor's Superbiæ Flagellum, 1630, "Yet every Reall heav'nly Thundercracke, This Caitife in such feare and terror strake," &c. Theobald, "that there is no foyle;" and Johnson, "that there is no soil." We believe, notwithstanding Steevens' remark that "such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare," that "soul" is a typographical error, and that the author wrote, as Capell reads, — "that there is no loss, No, not so much perdition as an hair Betid to any creature," &c. b You have often, &c.] Query, "You have oft," &c. By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence; But blessedly holp hither. MIRA. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further. PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio, I pray thee, mark me, that a brother should Without a parallel: those being all my study, Like a good parent, did beget of him He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution, Dost thou 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 To give him annual tribute, do him homage; MIRA. O the heavens ! PRO. Mark his condition, and the event; then 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. The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, MIRA. So dear the love my people bore me,-nor set A mark so bloody on the business; but Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd PRO. Alack, what trouble O, a cherubin Alack, for pity! (*) Old text omits, the. like one Who having unto truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, The folios have, "into truth," which Warburton amended; but this we suspect is not the only correction needed, the passage as it stands, though intelligible,, being very hazily expressed. Mr. Coliter's annotator would read,— 11 like one Who having to untruth, by telling of it," &c. (*) Old text, Butt. and this emendation is entitled to more respect than it has received. b In lieu-] In lieu means here, in guerdon, or consideration; not as it usually signifies, instead, or in place. c Fated to the purpose,-] Mr. Collier's annotator reads,"Fated to the practice;" and as "purpose" is repeated two lines below, the substitution is an improvement. d In few, To be brief; in a few words. e Deck'd-1 Decked, if not a corruption for degged, an old provincialism, probably meant the same, that is, sprinkled. |