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Anto. [Aside to SEBAS.] I am right glad that he's so out

of hope.

Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose

That you resolved t' effect.

Sebas. [Aside to ANTO.] The next advantage
Will we take throughly 4

Anto. [Aside to SEBAS.] Let it be to-night •
For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they
Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
As when they're fresh.

Sebas. [Aside to ANTO.] I say, to-night: no more.

[Solemn and strange musie Alon. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark! Gonza. Marvellous sweet music!

Enter PROSPERO above, invisible.

Enter, below, severa strange Shapes, bringing in a Banquet: they dance abour it with gentle actions of salutation; and, inviting the KING, &c., to eat, they depart.

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Alon. Give us kind keepers, Heavens! What were

these?

Sebas. Aiving drollery. Now I will believe

That there are unicorns; that in Arabia

There is one tree, the phoenix' throne;6 one phoenix

At this hour reigning there.

4 Through and thorough, throughly and thoroughly, are but different forms of the same word, as to be thorough in a thing is to go through it. The old writers use the two forms indifferently. So in St. Matthew, iii. 12: "He will throughly purge his floor."

5 Shows, called Drolleries, were in Shakespeare's time performed by puppets only. "A living drollery" is therefore a drollery performed not by puppets but by living personages; a live puppet-show.

This imaginary bird is often referred to by the old poets; by Shakespeare repeatedly. The ancient belief is expressed by Lyly in his Euphues,

Anto.

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.

Gonza.

If in Naples

I should report this now, would they believe me?
If I should say I saw such islanders,

For, certes,7 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.

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Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
Are worse than devils.

Alon.

I cannot too much muse 8

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a kind

Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing

Although they want the use of tongue

Of excellent dumb discourse.

Pros. [Aside.]

Praise in departing.9

Fran. They vanish'd strangely.

Sebas.

No matter, since

They've left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.— Will't please you taste of what is here?

thus: "For as there is but one Phoenix in the world, so there is but one tree in Arabia, wherein she buildeth." Also in Holland's Pliny: "I myself have heard strange things of this kind of tree; namely, in regard of the bird Phonix; for it was assured unto me, that the said bird died with that tree, and revived of itself as the tree sprung again."

7 Certes for certainly; used several times by Shakespeare.

8 To muse is to wonder; to wonder at, in this instance.

9" Praise in departing" is said to have been a proverbial phrase meaning, praise not your entertainment too soon; wait till the end.

Alon.

Not I.

Gonza. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were

boys,

Who would believe that there were mountaineers

Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
Wallets of flesh ?10 or that there were such men

Whose heads stood in their breasts ?11 which now we find,
Each putter-out of one for five 12 will bring us

Good warrant of.

Alon.

I will stand to, and feed,

Although my last no matter, since I feel

The best is past. — Brother, my lord the Duke,
Stand to, and do as we.

Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy claps his wings upon the table; and, by a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.

Ari. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny

That hath to 13 instrument this lower world

10 In the Alpine and other mountainous regions are many well-known cases of goitre that answer to this description. Probably, in the Poet's time, some such had been seen by travellers, but not understood.

11 These were probably the same that Othello speaks of: "The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Also in Holland's Pliny: "The Blemmyi, by report, have no heads, but mouth and eyes both in their breast."

12 A sort of inverted life-insurance was practised by travellers in Shakespeare's time. Before going abroad they put out a sum of money, for which they were to receive two, three, four, or even five times the amount upon their return; the rate being according to the supposed danger of the expedition. Of course the sum put out fell to the depositary, in case the putterout did not return. So in Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, ii. 1 : "I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of myself and wife, and my dog, from the Turk's Court in Constantinople."

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18 To, again, with the force of for or as. See page 78, note 9.

And what is in't- the never-surfeited sea

Hath caused to belch up; yea, and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I've made you mad ;
And even with such like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.

[Seeing ALON., SEBAS., &c., draw their swords
You fools! I and my fellows

Are ministers of Fate: the elements,

Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters,14 as diminish

One dowle 15 that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,

Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,

And will not be uplifted. But remember, —

For that's my business to you,

that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero;

Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit 16 it,
Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed

The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have

Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,

Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce, by me,

Lingering perdition

worse than any death

Can be at once- - shall step by step attend

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You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from, –
Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls

14 Waters that continually close over cuts made in them, and leave no trace thereof. See page 61, note 62.

15 Dowle and down are said to have been equivalent. Here dowle seems rather to mean a single particle or thread of downe.

16 Requit for requited, like others noted before. See page 56, note 43.

Upon your heads, is nothing, but heart-sorrow
And a clear life ensuing.17

He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mocks and mowes, and carry out the table.

Pros. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring:

Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated

In what thou hadst to say so, with good life,

And observation strange,18 my meaner ministers

Their several kinds have done.19 My high charms work,
And these mine enemies are all knit up

In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit

Young Ferdinand,-who they suppose is drown'd, —
And his and my loved darling.

[Exit from above. Gonza. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you. In this strange stare?

Alon.

O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and

17" From whose wrath nothing can shield or deliver you but heart-felt repentance and an amended life, or doing works meet for repentance." Whose refers to powers, in the sixth line before.

18 The sense appears to be, "with all the truth of life itself, and with rare observance of the proprieties of action."

19 To do one's kind is to act out one's nature, or act according to one's nature; though in this case the nature is an assumed one, that is, a part. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, the rustic, speaking of the asp, says, " the worm will do his kind." Also in the phrase, “The cat will after kind."

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