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TEMPEST.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE Tempest and the Midsummer Night's Dream (says Warburton) are the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense, or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits."

complied, and fortunately the ship was driven and jammed between two rocks, fast lodged and locked for further budging." One hundred and fifty persons got on shore; and by means of their boat and skiff (for this was half a mne from land) they saved such part of theit goods and provisions as the water had not spoiled, all the tackling and much of the iron of their ship, which was of great service to them in fitting out another vessel to carry them to Virginia.

No one has hitherto discovered the novel on which this play is founded; yet Collins the poet told Thomas Warton that the plot was taken from the romance of Aurelio and Isabella,' which was frequently printed during the "But our delivery," says Jourdan, "was not more sixteenth century, sometimes in three or four languages strange in falling so opportunely and happily upon the in the same volume. In the calamitous mental indispo-land, as [than] our feeding and provision was, beyond sition which visited poor Collins his memory failed him; our hopes, and all men's expectations, most admirable; and he most probably substituted the name of one novel for the Islands of the Bermudas, as every man knoweth for another; the fable of Aurelio and Isabella has no that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited relation to the Tempest. Mr. Malone thought that no by any Christian or Heathen people, but ever esteemed such tale or romance ever existed; yet a friend of the and reputed a most prodigious and inchanted place, aflate Mr. James Boswell told him that he had some years fording nothing but gusts, storms, and foul weather: ago actually perused an Italian novel which answered which made every navigator and mariner to avoid them Collins' description; but his memory, unfortunately, did as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they would shunne the not enable him to recover it. Divell himself: and no man was ever heard to make for this place; but as, against their wils, they have, by storms and dangerounesse of the rocks lying seven leagues into the sea, suffered shipwracke. Yet did we finde there the ayre so temperate and the country so

tation and preservation of man's life, that, most in a manner of all our provision of bread, beere, and victuall being quite spoiled in lying long drowned in salt water notwithstanding we were there for the space of nine months, we were not only well refreshed, comforted and with good satiety contented, but out of the aboundance thereof provided us some reasonable quantity and pro portion of provision to carry us for Virginia, and to main tain ourselves and that company we found there :wherefore my opinion sincerely of this island is, that whereas it hath beene, and is still, accounted the most dangerous, unfortunate, and forlorne place of the world, it is in truth the richest, healthfullest, and [most] pleas ing land (the quantity and bignesse thereof considered,) and merely naturall, as ever man set foote upon."

The publication set forth by the Council of Virginia, entitled, "A true Declaration of the Estate of the Colony of Virginia, &c. 1610," relates the same facts and events in better language, and Shakspeare probably derived his first thought of working these adventures up into a dramatic form from an allusion to the drama in this piece.

My friend, Mr. Douce, in his valuable 'Illustrations of Shakspeare,' published in 1807, had suggested that the outline of a considerable part of this play was borrowed from the account of Sir George Somers' voyage and shipwreck on the Bermudas in 1609; and had point-aboundantly fruitfull of all fit necessaries for the susten ed out some passages which confirmed his suggestion. At the same time it appears that Mr. Malone was enga ged in investigating the relations of this voyage: and he subsequently printed the results of his researches in a pamphlet, which he distributed among his friends; wherein he shows, that not only the title but many passages in the play were suggested to Shakspeare by the account of the tremendous Tempest which, in July, 1609, dispersed the fleet carrying supplies from England to the infant colony of Virginia, and wrecked the vessel in which Sir George Some.s and the other principal commanders had sailed, on one of the Bermuda Islands, Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Captain Newport, with nine ships and five hundred people, sailed from England in May, 1609, on board the Sea Venture, which was called the Admiral's Ship; and on the 25th of July she was parted from the rest by a terrible tempest, which lasted forty-eight hours and scattered the whole fleet, wherein some of them lost their masts and others were much distressed. Seven of the vessels, however, reached Virginia; and, after landing about three hundred and fifty persons, again set sail for Eng. "These islands of the Bermudas," says this narrative, land. Two of them were wrecked, in their way home, "have ever been accounted as an inchaunted pile of on the point of Ushant; the others returned safely to rocks, and a desert inhabitation for divells; but all the England, ship after ship, in 1610, bringing the news of fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birdes, and all the the supposed loss of the Admiral's ship and her crew. divels that haunted the woods were but herds of swine." During a great part of the year 1610 the fate of Somers-What is there in all this Tragicall Comedie that and Gates was not known in England; but the latter, should discourage us? having been sent home by Lord Delaware, arrived in August or September. The Council of Virginia published a narrative of the disasters which had befallen the fleet, and of their miraculous escape. Previously however to its appearance, one Jourdan, who probably returned from Virginia in the same ship with Sir Thomas Gates, published a pamphlet entitled "A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called The Isle of Divels; by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, with divers others:" in which he relates the circumstances of the storm. "They were bound for Virginia, and at that time in 30° N. latitude. The whole crew, amounting to one hundred and fifty persons, weary with pumping, had given all for lost, and began to drink their strong waters, and to take leave of each other, intending to commit themselves to the mercy of the sea. Sir George Somers, who had sat three days and nights on the poop, with no food and little rest, at length descried land, and encouraged them (many from weariness having fallen asleep) to continue at the pumps. They

The covert allusions to several circumstances in the various narrations of this Voyage have been illustrated with great ingenuity by Mr. Malone; and many of them will no doubt have already struck the reader, but we must content ourselves with a reference to his more de. tailed account.

The plot of this play is very simple, independent of the magic; and Mr. Malone has pointed out two sources from whence he thinks Shakspeare derived suggestions for it. The one is a play by Robert Green, entitled "The Comical History of Alphonsus King of Arragon :” the other is the Sixth Metrical Tale of George Turber ville, formed on the fourth novel of the fourth day of the Decamerone of Boccaccio, to which he is probably indebted for the hint of the marriage of Claribel. The magic of the piece is unquestionably the creation of the great bard himself, suggested no doubt by the popular

*Tragical Tales, translated by Turberville in time of his troubles, out of sundrie Italians, &c. 8vo 1587.

"The Tempest," says the judicious Schlegel, "has little action and progressive movement; the union of Ferdinand and Miranda is fixed at their first meeting, and Prospero merely throws apparent obstacles in their way; the shipwrecked band go leisurely about the Island; the attempts of Sebastian and Antonio on the life of the King of Naples, and of Caliban and his drunken companions against Prospero, are nothing but a feint, as we foresee that they will be completely frus trated by the magical skill of the latter; nothing remains therefore but the punishment of the guilty, by dreadful sights which harrow up their consciences, the discovery, and final reconciliation. Yet this want is so admirabiy concealed by the most varied display of the fascinations of poetry and the exhilaration of mirth; the details of the execution are so very attractive that it requires no small degree of attention to perceive that the denouement is, in some measure, already contained in the exposition. The history of the love of Ferdinand and Miranda, developed in a few short scenes, is enchantingly beautiful: an affecting union of chivalrous magnanimity on the one part, and, on the other, of the virgin openness of a heart which, brought up far from the world on an uninhabited island, has never learned to disguise its innocent movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Pros pero has a magical and mysterious air; the impression of the black falsehood of the two usurpers is mitigated by the honest gossiping of the old and faithful Gonzalo ; Trinculo and Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of the wonderful fable.

notions respecting the Bermudas. Mr. Malone confesses | merely the metathesis of Cannibal. Of the Cannibals the hints furnished by Green are so slight as not to a long account is given by Eden, ubi supra. detract from the merit of Shakspeare, and I have there. fore not thought it necessary to follow him in his analysis The late Dr. Vincent, the highly respected Dean of Westminster, pointed out a passage in Magellan's Voyage to the South Pole, which is to be found in "Eden's History of Travaile," printed in 1577, that may have furnished the first idea of Caliban, and as it is curious in itself, I shall venture to transcribe it. "Departyng from hence," says Eden, "they sayled to the 49 degre and a halfe under the pole antartike; where being wyntered, they were inforced to remayne there for the space of two monethes, all which tyme they saw no man except that one day by chance they espyed a man of the stature of a gyant, who came to the haven dauncing and singing, and shortly after seemed to cast dust over his head. The captayne sent one of his men to the shore with the shippe boate, who made the lyke signe of peace. The which thyng the giant seeing, was out of feare, and came with the captayne's servant, to his presence, into a little islande. When he sawe the captayne with certayne of his company about him, he was greatly amazed; and made signes, holding up his hande to heaven, signifying thereby that our men came from thence. This giant was so byg that the head of one of our men of a meane stature came but to his waste. He was of good corporation and well made in all partes of his bodie, with a large visage painted with divers colours, but for the most parte yelow. Uppon his cheekes were paynted two hartes, and red circles about his eyes. The heare of his head was coloured whyte, and his apparell was the skynne of a beast sowed to. gether. This beast (as seemed unto us) had a large head, and great eares lyke unto a mule, with the body "Caliban has become a bye-word, as the strange of a cammell and tayle of a horse. The feet of the creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of the gyant were folded in the sayde skynne, after the manner gnome and the savage, half demon, half brute; in his of shooes. He had in his hande a bygge and shorte behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native bowe; the sleyng whereof was made of a sinewe of that disposition, and the influence of Prosprero's education beaste. He had also a bundle of long arrowes made of The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, reedes, feathered after the manner of ours, typte within the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: t sharp stones, in the stead of iron heades. The captayne is as if the use of reason and human speech should be caused him to eate and drinke, and gave him many communicated to a stupid ape. Caliban is malicious, thinges, and among other a great looking glasse, in the cowardly, false, and base in his inclinations; and yet be which as soon as he sawe his owne likeness, was 80- is essentially different from the vulgar knaves of a civi daynly afrayde, and started backe with suche violence, lized world, as they are occasionally portrayed by that he overthrewe two that stood nearest about him. Shakspeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never falls When the captayne had thus gyven him certayne haukes into the prosaical and low familiarity of his drunken as belles, with also a lookyng glasse, a combe, and a sociates, for he is a poetical being in his way; he always payre of beades of glasse, he sent him to lande with speaks too in verse.* He has picked up every thing foure of his owne men well armed. Shortly after, they dissonant and thorny in language, out of which he has sawe another gyant of somewhat greater stature with composed his vocabulary, and of the whole variety of his bowe and arrowes in his hande. As he drew nearer nature, the hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed have unto our men hee laide his hande on his head, and alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical pointed up towards heaven, and our men did the lyke. world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assemThe captayne sent his shippe boate to bring him to a little bled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into Islande, beyng in the haven. This giant was very his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, tractable and pleasant. He soong and daunsed, and incapable of communicating to it either heat or illumina. in his daunsing left the print of his feete on the ground. tion, merely serves to put in motion the poisonous vaAfter other xv. dayes were past, there came foure pours. The whole delineation of this monster is incon. other giauntes without any weapons, but had hid theirceivably consistent and profound, and notwithstanding bowes and arrowes in certaine bushes. The captayne retayned two of these, which were youngest and best made. He tooke them by a deceite, in this manner; that giving them knyves, sheares, looking-glasses, belles, beades of chrystall, and such other trifles, he so fylled their handes, that they could holde no more; then caused two paire of shackels of iron to be putt on their legges, making signes that he would also give them hose chaynes, which they liked very well because they were made of bright and shining metall. And whereas they could not carry them bycause theyr hands were full, the other giants would have carryed them, but the captayne would not suffer them. When they felt the shackels fast about theyr legges, they began to doubt; but the captayne did put them in comfort and bade them stand stille. In fine, when they sawe how they were deceived, they roared lyke bulles, and cryed upon theyr great devill Setebos, to help them. They say that when any of them dye, there appeare x or xi devils euping and daunsing about the bodie of the dead, and seeme to have theyr bodies paynted with divers colours, and that among other there is one scene bigger than the residue, who maketh great mirth with rejoysing. This great devyll they call Setebos, and call the lesse CheTeule. One of these giantes which they tooke, declared by signes that he had seen devylles with two hornes above theyr heades, with long hare downe to theyr feete, and that they caste forth fyre at theyr throates both before and behind. The captayne named these people Patagoni. The moste parte of them weare the skynnes of such beastes whereof I have spoken before. They lyve of raw fleshe, and a certaine sweete roote which they call capar."

Caliban, as was long since observed by Dr. Farmer, is

its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as the honour of human nature is left untouched.

"In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an allusion to it; on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them allegorical personi fications, but beings individually determined. În gene. ral we find, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, in the Tempest, in the magical part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of Nature and her mysterious springs; which, it is true, ought never to be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechani cal physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself."

It seems probable that this play was written in 1611 at all events between the years 1609 and 1614. It appears from the MSS. of Vertue that the Tempest was acted, by John Heminge and the rest of the King's Company, before Prince Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine Elector, in the beginning of the year 1613

Schlegel is not quite correct in asserting that Caliban "always speaks in verse." Mr. Steevens, it is true, endeavoured to give a metrical form to some of his speeches, which were evidently intended for prose, and they are therefore in the present edition so printed. Shakspeare, throughout his plays, frequently introduces short prose speeches in the midst of blank verse.

t Lectures on Dramatic Literature by Aug. Will Schlegel, translated by John Black, 1915. Vol. ii. p 178.

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BOATSWAIN,

Boats. Here, master: what cheer? Mast. Good: speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit. Enter Mariners.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the top-sail; Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDI-
NAND, GONZALO, and others.
Alon. Good Boatswain, have care.

the master? Play the men.3

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Where's

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin:

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 cominand these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your thanks have you authority. If you cannot, give 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.

1 From the Folio Edition of 1623. 2 That is, readily, nimbly.

3 That is, act with spirit, behave like men. Thus Baret in his Alvearie: "To play the man, or to show himself a valiant man in any matter. Sé virum præbere." P. 399.

"Viceroys and peers of Turkey play the men." Tamberlaine, 1590. 4 The present instant.

5 In Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to. under the artiele How to handle a Ship in a Storme:-"Let us lie as Trie with our main course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheet close aft, the boling set up, and the halm tied close aboord."

MIRANDA, Daughter to Prospero. ARIEL, an airy Spirit.

IRIS, CERES,

JUNO,

Spirits.

Nymphs,

Reapers,

Other Spirits attending on Prospero.

SCENE, the Sea, with a Ship; afterwards an uninhabited Island.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the top-mast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main course. [ 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 hear? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than

thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses; off to sea again, lay her off.

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TEMPEST.

brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done! | That my remembrance warrants: Had I not [Exit. Four or five women once, that tended me? but I would fain die a dry death. Pro. Thou had'st, and more, Miranda: But how is it,

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 rod down stinking pitch,
allay them:
The sky, it seems, would pour

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 did knock
cry
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'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.

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
How cam'st thou here, thou may'st.
If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here,
But that I do not.

Mira.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve
years since,

Thy father was the duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.
Mira.
Sir, are not you my father?
Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said-thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess ;-no worse issued.
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 better3
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

More to know

Did never meddie4 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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O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turned you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you further.

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd AntonioI 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 uncleDost thou attend me?

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Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom

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do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate
Out three years old.

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cumber and trash"-" to trash or overslow "-and "foreslowed and trashed."

There was another word of the same kind used in Falconry (from whence Shakspeare very frequently "Trassing is when a hawk draws his similies ;) 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: "Í fled too,

i.

But not so fast; your jewel had been lost then, Young Hengo there, he trasht me, Nennius." e. checked or stopped my flight.

I rather think it will be found that the Editors have been very precipitate in changing trace to trash in See note on that passage. Othello, Act ii. Scene 1. 1) Alluding to the observation that a father above the

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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,-lite 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, (alás, 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 gen. 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,*

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

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 mig at

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 prot Than other princes can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.

Mira. Heavens thank you for't! And now I 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 quality9.

Pro.
Hast thou, spirit,
Perform'd to point 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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