For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother ALON. PRO. I am woe for 't, sir. ALON. Irreparable is the loss; and Patience Says it is past her cure. a Or some enchanted trifle-] Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes devil for "trifle;" a change as wanton as it is foolish. Trifle I rather think, You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace, ALON. You the like loss? A daughter? O heavens! that they were living both in Naples, strangely ALON. What is this maid, with whom thou wast at play? Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours: FER. ALON. I am hers: And on this couple drop a blessed crown! For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way Which brought us hither. ALON. I say, Amen, Gonzalo! GON. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice ALON. [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA.] Give me your hands: Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart GON. Be't so! Amen! Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following. O look, sir, look, sir! here are more of us! found Our king and company: the next, our ship,— Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split, Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when We first put out to sea. ARI. [Aside to PRO.] Sir, all this service Have I done since I went. PRO. [Aside to ARIEL.] My tricksy spirit! ALON. These are not natural events; they strengthen, [hither? From strange to stranger.-Say, how came you BOATS. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, And-how, we know not-all clapp'd under hatches, [noises Where, but even now, with strange and several Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains, And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, We were awak'd; straightway, at liberty: Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them, And were brought moping hither. ARI. [Aside to PRO.] Was't well done? PRO. [Aside to ARIEL.] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. [trod; ALON. This is as strange a maze as e'er men And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of: some oracle Must rectify our knowledge. PRO. Set Caliban and his companions free: gracious sir? There are yet missing of your company Some few odd lads that you remember not. Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel. STE. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune!-Coragio, bully-monster, Coragio! a (*) Old text, our. His mother was a witch, and one so strong So in Act II. Sc. 1, Gonzalo says, "You would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing." Thus, too, in Beaumont and Fletcher's piay of "The Prophetess," Act II. Sc. 3, "the pale moon What things are these, my lord Antonio ? Will money buy them? ANT. Very like; one of them Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. PRO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, CAL. Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em ?- TRIN. I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones I shall not fear fly-blowing. SEB. Why, how now, Stephano? STE. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp. on. PRO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah? STE. I should have been a sore one, then. ALON. This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd [Pointing to CALIBAN. PRO. He is as disproportion'd in his manners As in his shape.-Go, sirrah, to my cell; Take with you your companions; as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. CAL. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, And worship this dull fool! PRO. Go to; away! ALON. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it. SEB. Or stole it, rather. [Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO. Douce quotes a marginal note in Adlington's translation of Apuleius, 1596, 4to. which says, "Witches in old time were supposed to be of such power that they could pul downe the moone by their inchantement." The classical reader will remember,"Cantus et è curru lunam deducere tentat; Et faceret, si non ære repulsa sonent." Of Tibullus; and Virgil's "Carmina vel cœlo possunt deducere lunam:" &c. b And deal in her command, without her power.] That is, beyond her power. See note (b), p. 371, Vol. I. PRO. Sir, I invite your highness and your train To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest For this one night; which (part of it) I'll waste With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it Go quick away, the story of my life, And the particular accidents gone by, Since I came to this isle: and in the morn I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples, Where I have hope to see the nuptial Of these our dear-belov'd solemnizèd; And thence retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave. ALON. I long PRO. Your royal fleet far off.-[Aside to ARIEL.] My EPILOGUE. Spoken by PROSPERO. Now my charms are all o'erthrown, I must be here confin'd by you, As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free. [Exit. ILLUSTRATIVE COMMENTS. ACT I. (1) SCENE I. We split, we split!]. The following observations on the maritime technicalities in this scene, are extracted from an article by Lord Mulgrave, which will be found at length in Boswell's Variorum edition of Shakespeare, 1821 : "The first scene of The Tempest is a very striking instance of the great accuracy of Shakspeare's knowledge in a professional science, the most difficult to attain without the help of experience. He must have acquired it by conversation with some of the most skilful seamen of that time. No books had then been published on the subject. The succession of events is strictly observed in the natural progress of the distress described; the expedients adopted are the most proper that could have been devised for a chance of safety: and it is neither to the want of skill of the seamen, or the bad qualities of the ship, but solely to the power of Prospero, that the shipwreck is to be attributed. "The words of command are not only strictly proper, but are only such as point the object to be attained, and no superfluous ones of detail. Shakspeare's ship was too well manned to make it necessary to tell the seamen how they were to do it, as well as what they were to do. "He has shown a knowledge of the new improvements, as well as the doubtful points of seamanship; one of the latter he has introduced, under the only circumstance in which it was indisputable. "The events certainly follow too near one another for the strict time of representation: but perhaps, if the whole length of the play was divided by the time allowed by the critics, the portion allotted to this scene might not be too little for the whole. But he has taken care to mark intervals between the different operations by exits. (2) SCENE II.-ARIEL.] According to the system of witchcraft or magic, which formed an article of popular creed in Shakespeare's day, the elementary spirits were divided into six classes by some demonologists, and into four, those of the Air, of the Water, of the Fire, and of the Earth,-by others. In the list of characters appended to "The Tempest" in the first folio, Ariel is called "an ayrie spirit." The particular functions of this order of beings, Burton tells us, are to cause "many tempests, thunder, and lightnings, tear oaks, fire steeples, houses, strike men and beasts, make it rain stones, &c., cause whirlwinds on a sudden, and tempestuous storms." But at the behest of the all-powerful magician Prospero, or by his own influence and potency, the airy spirit in a twink becomes not only a spirit of fire-one of those, according to the same authority, which "commonly work by blazing stars, fire drakes, or ignes fatui; counterfeit suns and moons, stars oftentimes, and sit upon ship-masts"but a naiad, or spirit of the water also: in fact, assumes any shape, and is visible or unseen at will. For full particulars, de operatione Demonum, the reader may consult, besides the ancient writers on the subject, * The striking the top masts was a new invention in Shakspeare's time, which he here very properly introduces. Sir Henry Manwaring says, "It is not yet agreed amongst all seamen whether it is better for a ship to hull with her topmast up or down." In the Postscript to the Seaman's Dictionary, he afterwards gives his own opinion: "If you have sea-room, it is never good to strike the topmast." Shakspeare has placed his ship in the situation in which it was indisputably right to strike the topmast, when he had not sea-room. |