A prince of power.

MIRA.

that there is no soul-] Rowe prints,

"that there is no soul lost;"

Theobald. "that there is no foyle;" and Johnson, "that there is no soil." We believe, notwithstanding Steevens' remark that "such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare," that "soul" is a typographical error, and that the author wrote, as Capell reads, that there is no loss,

No, not so much perdition as an hair
Betid to any creature," &c.

b You have often, &c.] Query, "You have oft," &c.

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

d

A princess, no worse issued.

MIRA.

O, the heavens !

PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,―

I 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 rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

PRO. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance, and who To trash for over-topping,-new created The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em, Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my verdure out on 't.—Thou attend'st not.

MIRA. O good sir, I do. PRO. I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,

e Out three years old.] That is, past, or more than, three years old. d A princess,-] In the old text, "And Princesse." The correction is due to Pope.

e Teen-] Sorrow, vexation.

f To trash for over-topping,-] To clog or impede, lest they should run too fast. The expression to trash is a hunting technical. In the present day sportsmen check the speed of very fleet hounds by tying a rope, called a dog-trash, round their necks, and letting them trail it after them: formerly they effected the object by attaching to them a weight, sometimes called in jest a clogdogdo.

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,-alas, poor Milan !—
To most ignoble stooping.

MIRA.

O the heavens !

PRO.

Now the condition.
This king of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu 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!

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst

not,

So dear the love my people bore me,-nor set
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd
A rotten carcass of a boat,* not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

MIRA. Was I then to you?

PRO.

Alack, what trouble

O, a cherubin

Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst

smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burthen groan'd; which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

MIRA.

How came we ashore?
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

tleness,
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,
From mine own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

MIRA.

But ever see that man!

Would I might

gen

and this emendation is entitled to more respect than it has received.

b In lieu-] In lieu means here, in guerdon, or consideration; not as it usually signifies, instead, or in place.

Fated to the purpose,-] Mr. Collier's annotator reads,"Fated to the practice;" and as "purpose" is repeated two lines below, the substitution is an improvement.

d In few,-] To be brief; in a few words.

• Deck'd-1 Decked, if not a corruption for degged, an old provincialism, probably meant the same, that is, sprinkled.

a

PRO. [Aside to ARIEL, above.] 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 schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princess' can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. MIRA. Heavens thank you for't! And now, pray you, sir,

For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason For raising this sea-storm?

I

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 ques

tions:

Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 't is a good dulness, And give it way;-I know thou canst not choose.[MIRANDA sleeps. Come away, servant, come! I am ready now: Approach, my Ariel; 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 quality.

PRO.
Hast thou, spirit,
Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARI. To every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,

I flam'd amazement: sometime I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards, and bowsprit,* would I flame distinctly,"
Then meet, and join.(3) Jove's lightnings,† the

a Now I arise:] The purport of these words has never been satisfactorily explained, because they have been always understood as addressed to Miranda. If we suppose them directed not to her, but aside to Ariel, who has entered, in visible except to Prospero, after having

"Perform'd to point the tempest,"

and whose arrival occasions Prospero to operate his sleepy charm

(+) Old text, Lightening.

(*) Old text, Bore-spritt. upon Miranda, they are perfectly intelligible. That they were so intended becomes almost certain from Prospero's language presently, when the charm has taken effect,

"Come away, servant, come! I am ready now:
Approach, my Ariel; come!"

b Distinctly,-] That is, separately.

Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Some tricks of desperation. All, but mariners, Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring, then like reeds, not hair,Was the first man that leap'd; cried, Hell is empty, And all the devils are here. PRO. But was not this nigh shore? ARI.

Why, that's my spirit!

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 bad'st me, In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle. The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs,

And are upon the Mediterranean flote,-] Mr. Collier's annotator suggests, "And all upon," &c.: but what is gained by the alteration we cannot discern. Flote is here used substantively for food or wave, as in the following from Middleton and Rowley's

PRO.

In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot.

Of the king's ship,

Safely in harbour

The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd, And all the rest o' the fleet.

ARI.

Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, (4) there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;
Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

PRO.
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work.
What is the time o' the day?
ARI.

Past the mid season.

play of "The Spanish Gipsie," Act I. Sc. 5,

"it did not More check my rash attempt, than draw to ebb The float of those desires.'

a At least two glasses-the time, 'twixt six and nowMust by us both be spent most preciously.]

By the customary punctuation of this passage, Prospero is made to ask a question and answer it. The pointing we adopt obviates this inconsistency, and renders any change in the distribution of the speeches needless.

b Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd-] The second thee, which overloads the line, was probably repeated by the compositor through inadvertence.

c Argier.] The old English name for Algiers.

To do me business in the veins o' the earth When it is bak'd with frost.

I do not, sir.

ARI. PRO. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot

The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age and envy, Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?

ARI. No, sir.

PRO. Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.

ARI. Sir, in Argier.

PRO.
O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forgett'st. This damn'd witch
Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries 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.

PRO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,d

And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;