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 before. And as thou badit me,
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the ille :
The King's fon have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with fighs,
In an odd angle of the ille, and fitting,
His arms in this sad knot.

Pro. Of the King's ship
The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o'th' feet?

Ari. Safely in harbour
Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call dst me up at midnight, to fetch dew
From the still vext Bermoothes, there she's hid :
The mariners all under hatches stow'd,
Who, with a charm join'd to their fuffered labour,
I've left asleep ; and for the rest o'th' feet
(Which I dispers’d) they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound fadly home for Naples ;
Supposing, that they saw the King's ship wreckt,
And his great person perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge i From the Aill-vext Bermoothes,] Theobald says Bermoothes is printed by mistake for Bermudas. No. That was the name by which the Islands then went, as we may fee by the Voyagers of that time ; and by our Author's contemporary Poets. Fletcher, in his Woman pleased, says, The Devil should

think of purchasing that Eggshell to viftual out a Witch for the Bermoothes. Smith, in his account of these Islands p. 172. says, that the Bermudas were so fearful to the world, that many call'd them the Isle of Devils. P: 174.--to all. Seamen no less terrible than an inchanted den of Furies. And no wonder, for the clime was extremely subject to Storms and Hurricanes ; and the Isands were surrounded with scattered Rocks lying Shallowly hid under the Surface of the Water,

Exactly

Exactly is perform’d ; but there's more work: - What is the time o’th' day?

Ari. Past the mid season, at least two glasses,

Pro. The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously. Ari. Is there more toil ; fince thou dost give me

pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform’d me.

Pro. How now? moody?
What is't thou canst demand ?

Ari, My liberty.
Pro. Before the time be out? no more,

Ari. I prythee,
Remember, I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, ferv'd
Without or grudge, or grumblings; thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.

Pro. Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
Ari. No.

[ooze
Pro. Thou dost; and think it it much to tread the
Of the salt deep;
To run upon the sharp Wind of the North ;
To do me business in the veins o'th' earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

Ari. I do not, Sir. · Pro. Thou ly’st, malignant thing ! haft thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy 2 Pro.

What is the time o'th' day?
Ari. Paft the mid season.

Pro. At least two glasses. In this reading, both the Question and the Answer are made impertinently. Prospero asks what time of day it was, when he knew it was two glasses past the mid seafon : And Ariel replies indefinitely, that it was past the mid season. The Question and Reply should be divided thus,

Pro. What is the time o'th' day?
Ari. Paft she mid seafon, at least, two glasses.

Was

Was grown into a hoop ? haft thou forgot her?
Ari. No, Sir.

(tell me. Pro. Thou haft: where was she born? speak ; Ari. Sir, in Argier.

Pro. Oh, was she fo? I must Once in a month recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget’st. This damn’d witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold and forceries 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.

[child, Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with And here was left by th' failors ; thou my slave As thou report'st thy self, wast then her servant. And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy 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 did'st painfully remain A dozen years, within which space she dy'd, And left thee there : where thou didst vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this Inand (Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honour'd with A human shape.

Ari. Yes; Caliban her son.

Pro. Dull thing, I say fo: 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 VOL. I.

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The

The pine, and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master.

Pro. If thou more murmur'ft, I will rend an oak, And

peg thee in his knotty entrails, 'till Thou'st howld away twelve winters.

Ari. Pardon, master.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my sp’riting gently.

Pro. Do fo: 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 thy self like to a nymph o'th' sea.
Be subject to no fight but mine : invisible
To every eye-ball else. Go take this shape,
And hither come in it: go hence with diligence.

(Exit Ariel. Awake, dear heart, awake ! thou hast nept well ; Awake

Mira. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

Pro. Shake it off : come on ;
We'll visit Caliban my Nave, who never
Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, Sir,
I do not love to look on

Pro. But, as ’tis,
We cannot miss him : he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us. What ho! slave ! Caliban !
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [within.] There's wood enough within.
Pro. Come forth, I fay; there's other business

for thee.
Come, thou Tortoise ! when ?

Enter

Enter Ariel like a Water-Nymph.
Fine apparition! my quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
Ari. My lord, it shall be doné.

[Exit. Pro. Thou poisonous Nave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth.

S с Е N E IV.

Enter Caliban. 3 Cal. “ As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd “ With raven's feather from unwholfom fen,

Drop on you both! a fouth-west blow on ye, “ And blister you all o'er!

cramps, Pro. For this, be sure, to night thou fhalt have Side-stiches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins

3. Cat. As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholfom fen,

Drop on you both.] Shakespear hath very artificially given the air of the antique to the language of Caliban, in order to heighten the grotesque of his character. As here he uses wicked før entboljome. So Sir John Maundevil, in his travels p. 334. Edit. Lond. 1725.

at alle tymès brennethe a Velelle of Cristalle fulle of Bawme for to zeven gode smalle" and odour to the Emperour, and to voyden awey alle W Y K K E D E Eyres and Corrupciouns. It was a tradition, it seems, that Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden concurred in observing, that Shakespear had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had also devised and adapted a. new manner of language for that character. What they meant by it, without doubt, was, that Shakespear gave his language a certain grotesque air of the Savage and Antique ; which it certainly has. But Dr. Bentley took this, of a new language, literally ; for speaking of a phrafe in Milton, which he supposed altogether absurd and unmeaning, he says, Satan had not the privilege as Caliban in Shakespear, to use new phrase and di&tion unknown to all others

and again

to practice distances is Aill a Caliban file. Note on Milton's paradise loft, 1. 4. V.945: But I know of no such Caliban file in Shakespear that hath new phrase and diction unknown to all others,

Shall,

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