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!

Enter ARIEL.(2)

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 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, invisible except to Prospero, after having

"Perform'd to point the tempest,"

and whose arrival occasions Prospero to operate his sleepy charm

(*) Old text, Bore-spritt.

(†) Old text, Lightening.

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.

PRO.

My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason?

ARI. 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. Why, that's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore? 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 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,

a 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

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;

PRO. Dull thing, I say so; 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 The pine, and let thee out.

ARI. I thank thee, master. PRO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. ARI.

Pardon, master :

a MIRA. (Waking.)] Mr. Collier claims for his annotator the merit of having first added this not very important stage direction.

b We cannot miss him:] We cannot do without him.

e When?] See note (f), p. 449, Vol. I.

d As wicked dew-] Wicked here implies baneful, pernicious; as in opposition we hear of the virtuous properties of "herbs, plants, stones," &c.

e Urchins-] Hedgehogs were formerly so called, it is doubtful, however, whether urchins in this place does not signify some fairy

[Aside to ARIEL.] Fine apparition! My quaint

Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

[Exit.

ARI. My lord, it shall be done. PRO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Enter CALIBAN.(5)

CAL. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er! (6)

PRO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

CAL.
I must eat my dinner.
This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest
first,

Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; wouldst give me

Water with berries in 't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and
fertile :-

Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,

beings; as in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," Act IV. Sc. 4,"we'll dress

Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies," &c.

f Vast of night-] By "vast of night" the poet may have meant the chasm or vacuity of night, as in "Hamlet," Act I. Sc. 2,"In the dead rast and middle of the night." But some critics have conjectured we should read,

Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me

In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' the island.

PRO.

Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee

In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.

CAL. O ho, O ho!-would it had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.

PRO. Abhorred slave, Which any print of goodness will not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each

hour

One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,

a PRO.] This speech, in the folios, has the prefix "Mira," but it plainly belongs to Prospero, to whom Theobald assigned it, and who has retained it ever since.

b

Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill!]

Here, as in many other places, capable signifies impressible, susceptible.

e Race,-] That is, Nature, essence.

d The red plague rid you,-] See note (a), p. 447, Vol. II. e Fill all thy bones with aches,-] Mr. Collier remarks that "this word, of old, was used either as a monosyllable or as a dissyllable, as the case might require." This may be questioned.

Ake," says Baret in his "Alvearie," "is the Verbe of the substantive Ach, ch being turned into k." As a substantive, then,

the word was written aches; and pronounced as a dissyllable: when a verb, it was written akes, and its pronunciation was monosyllabic. This distinction is invariably marked in the old text; thus, in "Romeo and Juliet," Act II. Sc. 5, where it is a verb,"Lord, how my head akes, what a head have I."

In "Coriolanus," Act III. Sc. 1,

" and my soule akes To know," &c. And in "Othello," Act IV. Sc. 2,

"That the sense akes at thee." While in every instance where it occurs as a substantive, it is spelt as in the passage above, aches, and should be so pronounced.