TRIN. Servant-monster? the folly of this island! They say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if the other two be brained like us, the state totters. STE. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy eyes are almost set in thy head. TRIN. Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. STE. My man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack for my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-andthirty leagues, off and on. By this light thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard. TRIN. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard. STE. We'll not run, monsieur Monster. TRIN. Nor go neither but you'll lie, like dogs; and yet say nothing neither. STE. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calf. CAL. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe. I'll not serve him, he is not valiant. TRIN. Thou liest, most ignorant monster; I am in case to justle a constable. Why, thou deboshed fish, thou, was there ever a man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish, and half a monster? a a pied ninny's this!] An allusion to the pied, or partycoloured dress which Trinculo, as a jester, wore. CAL. Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord? TRIN. Lord, quoth he !-that a monster should be such a natural! CAL. Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I pr'ythee. STE. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if you prove a mutineer, the next treethe poor monster's my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity. CAL. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee? STE. Marry will I kneel and repeat it; I will stand, and so shall Trinculo. I' the afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him, Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log As great'st does least. Is it so brave a lass? STE. CAL. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant, And bring thee forth brave brood. STE. Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen,-save our graces!-and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys.-Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo? TRIN. Excellent. STE. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee; but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head. CAL. Within this half-hour will he be asleep; Wilt thou destroy him then? STE. Ay, on mine honour. ARI. This will I tell my master. CAL. Thou mak'st me merry; I am full of Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments STE. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing. CAL. When Prospero is destroyed. STE. That shall be by and by: I remember the story. TRIN. The sound is going away: let's follow it, and after do our work. STE. Lead, monster; we'll follow.-I would I could see this taborer! (2) he lays it on. TRIN. Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano. [Exeunt. ALON. Old lord, I cannot blame thee, Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose SEB. [Aside to ANT.] The next advantage Will we take throughly. (*) Old text, coul. a By and by:] By and by, as well as presently, now implies some brief delay; but in old language they usually meant immediately. b By'r lakin,-] A contraction of By our ladykin, or, little lady. It occurs in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." See note (b), p. 357, Vol. I. c Ache;] This word is now invariably spelt thus; but formerly, when used as a verb, it took the form of “ake," and, as a substantive, of "ache." See note (e), p. 14. d Through forth-rights and meanders!] "Mazes were of two kinds, rectangular and curvilinear; Mr. Knight gives a figure of one of the former."-SINGER. ANT. [Aside to SEB.J Let it be to-night; SEB. [Aside to ANT.] I say, to-night: no more. Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; they dance about it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the KING, &c., to eat, they depart. ALON. What harmony is this? my good friends, GON. Marvellous sweet music! SEB. A living drollery." Now I will believe ANT. I'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 'em. GON. If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me? If I should say, I saw such islanders,-* For, certes, these are people of the island,Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note, Their manners are more gentle-kind, than of Our human generation you shall find Many, nay, almost any. PRO. [Aside.] Honest lord, Thou hast said well; for some of you there present Are worse than devils. a A living drollery.] A puppet-show in Shakespeare's time was called a drollery. This, Sebastian says, is one played by living characters. b Praise in departing.] A proverbial saying, equivalent to "Await the end before you commend your entertainment." So in "The Paradise of Dainty Devises," 1596, "A good beginning oft we see, but seldome standing at one stay, For few do like the meane degree, then praise at parting some men say." e Each putter-out of five for one-] It was the custom of travellers, when about to make a long voyage, to put out, or invest, a sum of money, upon a guarantee that they should receive at the rate of five for one if they returned. This species of gambling becane so much in vogue at one period that advenfurers were in the practice of undertaking dangerous journeys solely upon the speculation of what their puitings out would VOL. III. 33 Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find, Each putter-out of five for one will bring us ALON. Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow ministers yield if they got back safe. Of course when the journey ended fatally, the money they had invested went to the party who had engaged to pay the enormous interest on it. So, in Barnaby Riche's "Faults and Nothing but Faults," 1607: "Those whipsters, that, having spent the greatest part of their patrimony in prodigality, will give out the rest of their stocke to be paid two or three for one upon their return from Rome." See also Fynes Moryson's "Itinerary," Part I., p. 198, and Taylor, the water poet's pamphlet, called "The Scourge of Basenesse: or The Old Lerry, with a new Kicksey, and a new-cum twang, with the old Winsey." The ancient reading is usually altered in modern editions to "Each putter-out of one for five," or "Each putterout on five for one," but no change is called for; Shakespeare and his contemporaries commonly used of for on, "I'd put out moneys of being Mayor." "The Ordinary," Act I. Sc. 1. d Dowle-] Feathe.; or particle of down. D Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from, Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls Upon your heads,-is nothing but heart's sorrow, And a clear life ensuing. Ile vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mocks and mows, and carry out the table. PRO. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: work, And these, mine enemies, are all knit up & So, with good life,-] The expression "good life" occurs with equal ambiguity in "Twelfth Night," Act II. Sc. 3, "Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?" |