Ant.
P'll believe both;
And what does else want credit, come to me,
And I'll be sworn 'tis true: Travellers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn them.
Gon.

I should report this now, would they believe me?
If I should say I saw such islanders,

One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow min

Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet note, Him, and his innocent child: for which foul deed

isters

If in Naples

(For, certes, these are people of the island,)

Are like invulnerable: if you could hurt,
Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
And will not be uplifted; But, remember,
(For that's my business to you,) that you three
From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,

The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have
Incens'd the seas and shores, yea all the creatures,
Against your peace: Thee, of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce by me,
Lingering perdition (worse than any death
Can be at once,) shall step by step attend
You, and your ways; whose wraths to guard you

Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of

Our human generation you shall find

Many, nay, almost any.

Pro.

Honest lord,

Thou hast said well; for some of you there present,
Are worse than devils.

Alon.

[Aside. I cannot too much muse, Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing (Although they want the use of tongue) a kind Of excellent dumb discourse. Pro.

Seb.

3

Praise in departing.
[Aside.

Fran. They vanish'd strangely.
No matter, since
They have left their viands behind; for we have
Will't please you taste of what is here?
Alon.

stomachs.

Not I.

Gon. Faith, sir, you need not fear: When we were boys,

Who would believe that there were mountaineers, Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at them

Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men,
Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now
we find,

Each putter-out on five for one, will bring us
Good warrant of.

Alon.

I will stand too, and feed, Although my last: no matter, since I feel The best is past: -Brother, my lord the duke, Stand too, and do as we.

Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL like a Harpy; claps his wings upon the table, and, by quaint device, the Banquet vanishes.

Ari. You are three men of sin, whom destiny,

(That hath to instrument this lower world,
And what is in't,) the never-surfeited sea
Hath caused to belch up; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit; you'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad:

[Seeing ALON. SEB. &c. draw their swords. And even with such like valour, men hang and drown

Their proper selves. You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of fate; the elements
Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

(called in Greek φοινιξ;) for it was assured unto me, that the said bird died with that tree, and revived of itselfe as the tree sprung againe."-Holland's Translation of Pliny, B. xiii. C. 4.

from

(Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls Upon your heads,) is nothing, but heart's sorrow, And a clear life ensuing.

He vanishes in Thunder: then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes, and carry out the table.

Pro. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy
hast thou

Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring:
Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated,
In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,"
And observation strange, my meaner ministers
Their several kinds have done: my high charms

work,

And these, mine enemies, are all knit up
In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, whilst I visit
Young Ferdinand, (whom they suppose is drown'd)
And his and my lov'd darling.

[Exit PROSPERO from above.

Gon. I' the name of something holy, sir, why
stand you
In this strange stare?
Alon.
O, it is monstrous! monstrous
Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronoune'd
The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and
I'll seck him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
And with him there lie mudded.
[Exil
But one fiend at a time,
I'll be thy second.
[Exeunt SEB. and ANT.

Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mowe:

49

Pro. If I have too austerely punish'd you,

Your compensation makes amends; for I

Have given you here a thread of mine own life,

Or that for which I live; whom once again

SCENE I-Before Prospero's Cell. Enter PROS- Do you love me, master? no.

PERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA.

Pro. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not ap

Pro. Look, thou be true; do not give dalliance
[Exit.

proach,
Till thou dost hear me call.
Ari.

Well I conceive.

I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou

Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious,

55

Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven, Or else, good night, your vow!

I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand,

Fer.

I warrant you, sir;

Do not smile at me, that I boast her off,

For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.

The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardour of my liver.

I do believe it,

Fer.

Against an oracle.

Pro. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchas'd, take my daughter: But
If thou dost break her virgin knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister'd,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both therefore, take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.

Fer.

As I hope

For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now; the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion3
Our worser Genius can, shall never melt

Mime honour into lust; to take away

The edge of that day's celebration,

When I shall think, or Phœbus' steeds are founder'd,
Or night kept chain'd below.

Pro.

Fairly spoke;

Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own.-
What, Ariel; my industrious servant Ariel!

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. What would my potent master? here I
Pro. Thou and thy meaner fellows your

service

am. last

Did worthily perform; and I must use you
In such another trick: go, bring the rabble,
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place :
Incite them to quick motion; for I must

Bestow upon the eyes of these young couple
Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,
And they expect it from me.

An.

Pro. Ay, with a twink.

Presently?

Ari. Before you can say, Come, and go,

And breathe twice; and cry, 80, 80;

1 The same expression occurs in Pericles. Mr. Henley says that it is a manifest allusion to the zones of the ancients, which were worn as guardians of chastity before marriage.

2 Aspersion is here used in its primitive sense of sprinkling, at present it is used in its figurative sense of throwing out hints of calumny and detraction.

3 Suggestion here means temptation or wicked prompting.

4 "Some ranity of mine art " is some illusion. Thus na passage, quoted by Warton, in his Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum, from Emare, a metrical

Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary,
No tongue; all eyes; be silent.
Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.-
[Soft music.

A Masque. Enter IRIS.
Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims,"
Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy

broom groves,

Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
And thy sea-marge, steril, and rocky-hard,
Whose watery arch, and messenger, am I,
Where thou thyself dost air: The queen o' the sky,
Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign

grace,

To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain;
Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

Enter CERES.

Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers:
My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd down.
Rich scarf to my proud earth: Why hast thy queen
Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green?
Iris. A contract of true love to celebrate;

And some donation freely to estate

On the bless'd lovers.

Cer.

If Venus, or her son, as thou dost know,
Do now attend the queen? since they did plot
The means, that dusky Dis my daughter got,
Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company
I have forsworn.

Tell me, heavenly bow,

he derives from the French verb touiller, which Cotgrave interprets, "filthily to mix, to mingle, confound, or shuffle together." He objects to peonied and lillied Boaden has pointed out a passage in Lord Bacon's Esbecause these flowers never blow in April. But Mr. say on Gardens which supports the reading in the text. er, the stock-gilly-flower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, "In April follow the double white violet, the wall-flowtulippe, the double piony, &c." Lyte, in his Herbal, and lillies of all nutures; rose-mary flowers, the says one kind of peonie is called by some, maiden or virgin peonie. And Pliny mentions the water-lilly as a preserver of chastity, B. xxvi. C. 10. Edward Fenton, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," 1569, 4to. B. vi. thoughts and dreams of venery." The passage cerasserts that "the water-lilly mortifieth altogether the appetite of sensuality and defends from unchaste tainly gains by the reading of Mr. Steevens, which I have, for these reasons, retained.

8 That is, forsaken by his lass.

9 Mr. Douce remarks that this is an elegant expan-
Lib. iv.
sion of the following lines in Phaer's Virgil Æneid,

"Dame rainbow down therefore with safron wings of

drooping showres,

Whose face a thousand sundry hues against the sun
devoures,

From heaven descending came."

luxuriant hedge-rows and copses.
10 Bosky acres are woody acres, fields intersected by

Jun. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Cer. Earth's increase, and foison1 plenty;
Barns and garners never empty;
Vines, with clust'ring bunches growing;
Plants, with goodly burden bowing;
Spring come to you, at the farthest,
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.

Fer. This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmonious charmingly:2 May I be bold

To think these spirits?

Рто.

Spirits, which by mine art

I have from their confines call'd to enact

Sweet now, silence:

Juno and Ceres whisper seriously;
There's something else to do: hush, and be mute,
Or else our spell is marr'd.

Iris. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wand'ring
brooks,

With your sedg'd crowns, and ever harmless looks,
Leave your crisp channels, and on this green
land
Answer your summons; Juno does command:
Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
A contract of true love; be not too late.
Enter certain Nymphs.

You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary,

1 Foison is abundance, particularly of harvest

corn.

2 For charmingly harmonious.

3 "So rare a wonder'd father," is a father able to produce such wonders.

4 Crisp channels; i. e. curled, from the curl raised by a breeze on the surface of the water. So in 1 K. Hen. IV. Act i. Sc. 3.

Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
Make holy-day: your rye-straw hats put on,
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country footing.

Enter certain Reapers, properly habited: they join
with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the
end of which PROSPERO starts suddenly, and
speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and com
fused noise, they heavily vanish.

"Hid his crisp head in the hollow bank.” 5 In the tragedy of Darius, by Lord Sterline, printed in 1603, is the following passage:

"Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt

Pro. [Aside.] I had forgot that foul conspiracy
Of the beast Caliban, and his confederates,
Against my life; the minute of their plot
Is almost come.- [To the Spirits.) Well done ;-

avoid;-no more.

Fer. This is strange: your father's in some passion That works him strongly.

Mira.

Never till this day,

Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.
Pro. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir:
Our revels now are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:

6

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:

If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell,
And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk,

To still my beating mind.
Fer. Mira.

We wish your peace.

Exeunt.

Pro. Come with a thought:-I thank you:-
Ariel, come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. Thy thoughts I cleave to: What's thy pleasure?

Pro.

Spirit,
We must prepare to meet with Caliban.
Ari. Ay, my commander: when I presented

Ceres,
I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd,
Lest I might anger thee.

Pro. Say again, where didst thou leave these

varlets?

It is evident that one poet imitated the other, and it seems probable that Shakspeare was the imitator. The exact period at which the Tempest was produced is not known, but it is thought not earlier than 1611. It was first printed in the folio of 1623. Lord Sterline also wrote a tragedy entitled Julius Cæsar, in which there are parallel passages to some in Shakspeare's play on the same subject, and Malone thinks the coincidence more than accidental.

6 Faded, i. e. vanished, from the Latin vado. The ancient English pageants were shows, on the reception

Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruised soon of princes or other festive occasions; they were exhibit broken;

And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,

All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.
Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls,
With furniture superfluously fair,

Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls,
Evanish all like vapours in the air."

The preceding stanza also contains evidence of the same
train of thought with Shakspeare.

"And when the eclipse comes of our glory's light,
Then what avails the adoring of a name?
A meer illusion made to mock the sight,

Whose best was but the shadow of a dream."

I go, I go. [Exit.

Trin. Do, do: We steal by line and level, and't like your grace.

Ste. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for't.

Trin. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest.

Cal. I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,
And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villanous low.

Ste. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. Trin. And this.

Ste. Ay, and this.

Pro. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as, with age, his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers: I will plague them all,
Re-enter ARIEL loaden with glistering apparel, &c.
Even to roaring: -Come, hang them on this line.
PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter CA-hark!

LIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO; all wet.
Cal. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole

softly,

All's hush'd as midnight yet.

Trin. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool,Ste. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss.

Trin. That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster.

Ste. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for my labour.

Cal. Pr'ythee, my king, be quiet: Seest thou here,

This is the mouth of the cell: no noise, and enter:

Do that good mischief, which may make this island
Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,

For aye thy foot-licker.

Ste. Give me thy hand: for I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

Trin. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy

Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee!
Cal. Let it alone, thou fool: it is but trash.

Trin. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a frippery:-O king Stephano!

A noise of Hunters heard.
Enter divers Spirits
in shape of hounds, and hunt them about; PROS-
PERO and ARIEL setting them on.
Pro. Hey, Mountain, hey!
Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver!
Pro. Fury! Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark,

[CAL. STE. and TRIN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,

Than pard, 10 or cat o' mountain.

Ari.

Hark, they roar

Pro. Let them be hunted soundly: At this hour
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies:
Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little,
Follow, and do me service.

ACT V.

[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-Before the Cell of Prospero. Enter

PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL. Pro. Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day? Ari. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease.

Pro.

I did say so, When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit, How fares the king and his followers?

Ari. Confin'd together

In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the lime grove which weather-fends11 your cell:

They cannot budge, till you release. 12 The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow, and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, The good old lord, Gonzalo;
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly

works them,

Ste. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, That if you now beheld them, your affections

I'll have that gown.

Trin. Thy grace shall have it.

Cal. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you
mean,

To doat thus on such luggage? Let it alone,
And do the murder first: if he awake,

From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;

Make us strange stuff.

Ste. Be you quiet, monster.-Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin.

1 Stale, in the art of fowling, signified a bait or lure to decoy birds.

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the Will shortly fill the reasonable shores,

9 The unity of time is most rigidly observed in this hours than are employed in the representation. Mr. piece. The fable scarcely takes up a greater number of show the cavillers of the time, that he too could write a Steevens thinks that Shakspeare purposely designed to play within all the strictest laws of regularity.