THE TEMPEST

ACT FIRST

SCENE J

On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Ship-Master and a Boatswain.

Mast. Boatswain!

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good, speak to the mariners: fall to 't, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Enter Mariners.

[Exit.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

1. Upon this scene Coleridge finely remarks: "The romance opens with a busy scene admirably appropriate to the kind of drama, and giving, as it were, the key-note to the whole harmony. It is the bustle of a tempest, from which the real horrors are abstracted;therefore it is poetical, though not in strictness natural-(the distinction to which I have so often alluded)-and is purposely restrained from concentering the interest on itself, but is used merely as an induction or tuning for what is to follow."-H. N. H.

3. "Good"; "my good fellow," a persuasive preface to a command. So in vv. 16, 20, etc.-C. H. H.

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand,

Gonzalo, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have care.

Where's 10

the master? Play the men.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labor: keep your cabins: you do assist the

storm.

Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What cares

20

these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not. Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counselor; 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, 30 good hearts! Out of our way, I say. [Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; 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

19. "roarers"; blusterers.-C. H. H.

born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

Re-enter Boatswain.

[Exeunt.

Boats. Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course. 40 [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?

Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blas-
phemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent 50 noisemaker. We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses; off to sea again; lay her off.

Enter Mariners wet.

39. "down with the topmast"; of this order Lord Mulgrave, a sailor critic, says: "The striking the topmast was a new invention in Shakespeare's time, which he here very properly introduces. Sir Henry Manwaring says: 'If you have sea-room it is never good to strike the topmast.' Shakespeare has placed his ship in the situation in which it was indisputably right to strike the topmast,-where he had not sea-room."-H. N. H.

42. "our office"; my orders.-C. H. H.

Mariners. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let 's assist them,

Seb.

For our case is as theirs.

I'm out of patience.

60

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 widest 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!']

Ant. Let's all sink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

70

[Exeunt Ant. and Seb. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long

67. "[confused noise within:]"; this passage is usually printed as a part of Gonzalo's speech; which is clearly wrong. Dr. Johnson suggested that the words here enclosed in brackets should be given as a part, or rather as the particulars of the confused noise within. Which is so obviously right that we should hardly hesitate to adopt it, even if we had not the great authority of Dyce and Halliwell for doing so.-H. N. H.

74. "long heath, brown furze"; so the folios; Hanmer's emendation has been generally accepted:-"ling, heath, broom, furze."-I. G.