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SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

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GON. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

BOATS. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor ;—if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority if you cannot, give thanks you have 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 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.

him;

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MAR. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! [Exeunt. BOATS. What, must our mouths be cold? GON. The king and prince at prayers! let 's assist them, For our case is as theirs.

SEB. I'm out of patience. ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards ::

This wide-chapp'd rascal,-would thou mightst lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

GON. He'll be hang'd yet, Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut him.

[A confused noise within.]-Mercy on us!We split, we split !—Farewell, my wife and children!

Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split !—(1) [Exit Boatswain.

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Re-enter Boatswain.

BOATS. Down with the topmast! yare; lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course! [A 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 here? shall we give o'er and drown? have you a mind to sink?

a Bring her to try with main-course!] It has been proposed to read, "Bring her to; try with the main-course;" but see a passage from Hakluyt's Voyages, 1598, quoted by Malone :and when the barke had way, we cut the hawser and so gate the sea to our friend, and tryed out al that day with our maine corse."

[Exit.

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a mounting to the welkin's cheek,-] Although we have, in "Richard II." Act III. Sc. 2,-" the cloudy cheeks of heaven," and elsewhere, "welkin's face," and "heaven's face," it may well be questioned whether "cheek," in this place, is not a misprint. Mr. Collier's annotator substitutes heat, a change characterised by Mr. Dyce as "equally tasteless and absurd." A more appropriate and expressive word, one, too, sanctioned in some measure by its occurrence in Ariel's description of the same elemental conflict, is probably, crack, or cracks,

"the fire, and cracks

Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune

Seem to besiege," &c.

In Miranda's picture of the tempest, the sea is seen to storm and overwhelm the tremendous artillery of heaven; in that of Ariel,

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and The fraughting souls within her.

PRO. 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,

the sky's ordnance, "the fire and cracks," assault the "mighty Neptune." Crack, in the emphatic sense it formerly bore of crash, discharge, or explosion, is very common in our old writers; thus, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great," Part I. Act IV. Sc. 2,

"As when a fiery exhalation,

Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud Fighting for passage, makes the welkin cracke." Again, in some verses prefixed to Coryat's "Crudities,""A skewed engine mathematicall

To draw up words that make the welkin cracke."

And in Taylor's Superbia Flagellum, 1630,

"Yet every Reall heav'nly Thundercracke, This Caitife in such feare and terror strake." &c.

A prince of power.

MIRA.

Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter,-who | Thy father was the duke of Milan, and
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full-poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

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I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me.-So; [Lays down his robe. 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—a
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

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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.

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.

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I

further.

PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd An

tonio,

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 uncleDost thou attend me?

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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,

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ACT 1.]

Like a good parent, did beget of him

THE TEMPEST.

A falsehood, in its contrary as great
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,-like 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 o' the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-hence his ambition grow-
ing,-

Dost thou 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,-alas,
To most ignoble stooping.

MIRA.

poor

Milan!

O the heavens !

PRO. Mark his condition, and the event; then 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 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.

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will

cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings my eyes to't.

PRO.

Hear a little further,

And then I'll bring thee to the present business
Which now's upon us; without the which, this

story

Were most impertinent.

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Wherefore did they not

Well demanded, wench:

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.

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Alack, for pity!

(*) Old text omits, the.

-like one

Who having unto truth, by telling of it,

Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie,-]

The folios have, "into truth," which Warburton amended; but
this we suspect is not the only correction needed, the passage as
it stands, though intelligible, being very hazily expressed.
Mr. Collier's annotator would read,-

"like one

Who having to untruth, by telling of it," &c.

(*) Old text, Butt.

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 signifles, instead, or in place.

e Fated to the purpose,-] Mr. Collier's annctator 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.

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

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