They have bereft; and do pronounce by me, You, and your ways; whofe wraths to guard you from (Which here, in this moft defolate ifle, elfe falls Upon your heads,) is nothing, but heart's forrow, And a clear life enfuing.3 He vanishes in thunder: then, to foft mufick, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes and carry out the table. PRO. [Afide.] Bravely the figure of this harpy Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: - clear life-] Pure, blamelefs, innocent. JOHNSON. So, in Timon: "-roots you clear heavens." STEEVENS. is nothing, but heart's forrow, And a clear life enfuing.] The meaning, which is fomewhat obfcured by the expreffion, is,-a miferable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. MALONE. with mops and mowes -] So, in K. Lear: "-and Flibbertigibbet of mopping and mowing.' STEEVENS. The old copy, by a manifeft error of the prefs, reads—with mocks. So afterwards: Will be here with mop and mowe." MALONE. To mock and to mowe, feem to have had a meaning fomewhat fimilar; i. e. to infult, by making mouths, or wry faces. STEEVENS. 5-with good life,] With good life may mean, with exact prefentation of their feveral characters, with obfervation strange of their particular and diftinct parts. So we fay, he acted to the life. JOHNSON, Thus in the 6th Canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "Done for the laft with fuch exceeding life, "As art therein with nature feem'd at ftrife." Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, feems to be used for innocent jallity, as we now fay a bon vivant: " Would you (fays And obfervation ftrange, my meaner minifters Their feveral kinds have done: my high charms work, 6 And thefe, mine enemies, are all knit up In their distractions: they now are in my power; And in these fits I leave them, whilft I vifit Young Ferdinand (whom they suppose is drown'd,) And his and my lov'd darling. [Exit PROSPERO from above. GON. I' the name of fomething holy, fir, why ftand you In this strange stare? ALON. O, it is monftrous! monftrous! Methought, the billows fpoke, and told me of it; The winds did fing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Profper; it did bass my trespass." the Clown) have a love fong, or a fong of good life?" Sir Toby anfwers, "A love fong, a love fong;"-" Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the laft fpeaker, that he was meant to mistake the fenfe in which good life is ufed by the Clown. It may therefore, in the present inftance, mean, honeft alacrity, or cheerfulness. Life feems to be used in the chorus to the fifth act of K. Henry V. with fome meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Profpero: Which cannot in their huge and proper life "Be here prefented." STEEVENS. To do any thing with good life, is ftill a provincial expreffion in the Weft of England, and fignifies, to do it with the full bent and energy of mind:" And obfervation ftrange," is with fuch minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. HENLEY. 6 Their feveral kinds have done:] i. e. have discharged the feveral functions allotted to their different natures. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. fc. ii. the Clown fays- You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind." STEEVENS. 7bafs my trefpafs.] The deep pipe told it me in a rough bafs found. JOHNSON, Therefore my fon i'the ooze is bedded; and SEB. I'll fight their legions o'er. ANT. [Exit. GON. All three of them are defperate; their great guilt, Like poifon given to work a great time after, ADRI. Follow, I pray you. Exeunt. So, in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. 12: "the rolling fea refounding foft, "In his big bafe them fitly answered." STEEVENS. And with him there lie mudded. But one fiend] As thefe hemiftichs, taken together, exceed the proportion of a verfe, I cannot help regarding the words-with him, and but, as playhouse interpolations. The Tempest was evidently one of the laft works of Shakspeare ; and it is therefore natural to suppose the metre of it must have been exact and regular. Dr. Farmer concurs with me in this fuppofition. STEEVENS. Like poifon given, &c.] The natives of Africa have been fuppofed to be poffeffed of the fecret how to temper poisons with fuch art as not to operate till feveral years after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in their effect, as fubtle in their preparation. So, in the celebrated libel called "Leicefter's Commonwealth" "I heard him once myfelfe in publique act at Oxford, and that in prefence of my lord of Leicester, maintain that poyfon might be fo tempered and given, as it should not appear prefently, and yet fhould kill the party afterwards at what time fhould be appointed." STEEVENS. 9-this ecftacy] Ecftacy meant not anciently, as at prefent, rapturous pleasure, but alienation of mind. Mr. Locke has not inelegantly ftyled it dreaming with our eyes open, STEEVENS, ACT IV. SCENE I. Before Profpero's cell. Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA. PRO. If I have too aufterely punish'd you, Your compenfation makes amends; for I Have given you here a thread of mine own life, 2 a thread of mine own life,] The old copy reads-third. The word thread was formerly fo fpelt, as appears from the following paffage: Long maift thou live, and when the fifters fhall decree "To cut in twaine the twifted third of life, "Then let him die," &c. See comedy of Macedorus, 1619, fignat. C. 3. HAWKINS. "A thrid of mine own life" is a fibre or a part of my own life, Profpero confiders himself as the flock or parent-tree, and his daughter as a fibre or portion of himself, and for whofe benefit he himself lives. In this fenfe the word is ufed in Markham's English Hufbandman, edit. 1635, p. 146: “Cut off all the maine rootes, within half a foot of the tree, only the finall thriddes or twist rootes you fhall not cut at all." Again, ibid. "Every branch and thrid of the root." This is evidently the fame word as thread, which is likewife fpelt thrid by lord Bacon. TOLLET. So, in Lingua, &c. 1607; and I could furnish many more inЯances: "For as a fubtle fpider clofely fitting "In center of her web that spreadeth round, The following quotation, however, fhould feem to place the meaning beyond all difpute. In Acolaftus, a comedy, 1540, is this paffage : "one of worldly shame's children, of his countenaunce, and THREDE of his body." STEEVENS. Again, in Tancred and Gifmund, a tragedy, 1592, Tancred, fpeaking of his intention to kill his daughter, fays, Against all law of kinde, to fhred in twaine MALONE. Or that for which I live; whom once again For thou fhalt find the will outftrip all praise, FER. Against an oracle. I do believe it, PRO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acqui- Worthily purchas'd, take my daughter: But 3-ftrangely flood the teft:] Strangely is ufed by way of commendation, merveilleufement, to a wonder; the fame is the sense in the foregoing scene. JOHNSON. i. e. in the last scene of the preceding act : 66 with good life "And obfervation ftrange." STEEVENS. 4 Then, as my gift, and thine own acquifition-] My gueft, firft folio. Rowe first read-gift. JOHNSON. A fimilar thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra: -66 I fend him "The greatness he has got." STEEVENS. 5- her virgin knot-] The fame expreffion occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: "Untide I still my virgin knot will keepe." STEEVENS, 6 If thou doft break her virgin knot before All fanctimonious ceremonies, &c.] This, and the paffage in Pericles Prince of Tyre, are manifeft allufions to the zones of the ancients, which were worn as guardians of chastity by marriageable young women. "Puellæ, contra, nondum viripotentes, hujufmodi zonis non utebantur: quod videlicet immaturis virgunculis nullum, aut certè minimum, a corruptoribus periculum immineret: quas propterea vocabant άirgus, nempe discinétas.” |