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I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
And with him there lie mudded.

Sebas.

I'll fight their legions o'er.

Anto.

[Exit.

But one fiend at a time,

I'll be thy second.

[Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO.

:

Gonza. All three of them are desperate their great guilt, Like poison given to work a long time after,20 Now 'gins to bite the spirits.

I do beseech you,

That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,
And hinder them from what this ecstasy 21
May now provoke them to.

Adri.

Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt.

ACT IV.

SCENE I. - Before PROSPERO'S Cell.

Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA.

Pros. If I have too austerely punish'd you,
Your compensation1 makes amends; for I
Have given you here a thread of mine own life,2
Or that for which I live; who once again

I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations

20 The natives of Africa have been supposed to possess the secret how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered.

21 Shakespeare uses ecstasy for any alienation of mind, a fit, or madness. 1 Your compensation is the compensation you receive. Shakespeare has many instances of like construction.

2 "Thread of mine own life" probably means about the same as "my very heart-strings"; strings the breaking of which spills the life.

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou
Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven,
I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand,

Do not smile at me that I boast her off,

For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise

And make it halt behind her.

Ferd.

Against an oracle.

I do believe it

Pros. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchased, take my daughter: but,
If thou dost break her virgin-knot 3 before
All sanctimonious 4 ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister'd,
No sweet aspersion 5 shall the Heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.

Ferd.

As I hope For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,

With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest even,

The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion 7
Our worser genius 8 can, shall never melt

3 Alluding, no doubt, to the zone or sacred girdle which the old Romans used as the symbol and safeguard of maiden honour.

4 Sanctimonious, here, is sacred or religious. The marriage ritual was supposed to have something of consecrating virtue in it.

5 Aspersion in its primitive sense of sprinkling, as with genial rain or dew. Here, again, as also just after, shall for will.

6 Not with wholesome flowers, such as the bridal bed was wont to be decked with, but with loathsome weeds.

7 Suggestion, again, for temptation. See page 89, note 53.

8 Genius, spirit, and angel were used indifferently for what we should

Mine honour into lust; to take away

The edge of that day's celebration,

When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd,
Or Night kept chain'd below.

Pros.

Fairly spoke.

Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.
What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. What. would my potent master? here I am.
Pros. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
Did worthily perform; and I must use you

In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place:
Incite them to quick motion; for I must

Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple

9

Some vanity of mine art: it is my promise,
And they expect it from me.

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call a man's worser or better self. The Edinburgh Review, July, 1869, has the following: "In mediæval theology, the rational soul is an angel, the lowest in the hierarchy for being clothed for a time in the perishing vesture of the body. But it is not necessarily an angel of light. It may be a good or evil genius, a guardian angel or a fallen spirit, a demon of light or darkSee, also, Julius Cæsar, page 76, note 16.

ness.

Display?

9 Perhaps meaning some magical show or illusion. 10 Mop and mow were very often used thus together. To mow is to make mouths, to grimace. Wedgwood, in his English Etymology, says that mop

Pros. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach Till thou dost hear me call.

Ari.

Well, I conceive.

Pros. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw To th' fire i' the blood.

Ferd.

I warrant you, sir:

The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardour of my liver.11

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Now come, my Ariel! bring a corollary,12
Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly!
No tongue; all eyes; be silent.

Enter IRIS.

[Exit.

[Soft music.

Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,

And flat meads thatch'd with stover,13 them to keep;
Thy banks with peonéd and twilled brims,14

has exactly the same derivation as mock, and means to gibber. Thus the ape both mops and mows; that is, he gibbers or chatters, and makes faces.

11 The liver was supposed to be the special seat of certain passions, and so was often put for the passions themselves.

12 Corollary here means a surplus number; more than enough.- Pertly, in the next line, is nimbly, alertly.

18 Stover is fodder and provision of all sorts for cattle. Steevens says that in some counties it "signifies hay made of coarse rank grass, such as even cows will not eat while it is green."

14 A writer in The Edinburgh Review for October, 1872, argues, and, I think, proves, that peonéd here refers to the marsh-marigold, which grew abundantly on the flat marshy banks of such still-running streams as the Warwickshire Avon, and which was provincially called peony or piony. He thus compares with the garden peony: "The flowers, though differing in colour, have a remarkable similarity in general growth and shape, especially

Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,

To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy brown groves,
Whose shadow the dismissèd bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard; 15
And thy sea-marge, steril, and rocky-hard,
Where thou thyself dost air ; -

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- the Queen o' the Sky,

Whose watery arch and messenger am I,

Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign Grace,
Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,

To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain :
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

Enter CERES.

Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;

Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers;
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres 16 and my unshrubb'd down,

in the early stage, when the fully-formed bud is ripe for blowing." — In ex、 planation of twilled the same writer has the following: "Twills is given by Halliwell as an older provincial word for reeds; and it was applied, like quills, to the serried rustling sedges of river reaches and marshy levels. It was indeed while watching the masses of waving sedge cutting the water-line of the Avon, not far from Stratford church, that we first felt the peculiar force and significance of the epithet." - In the next line, April has the epithet spongy, probably because at that season the earth or the air sponges up so much water. So, in Cymbeline, iv. 2, we have "the spongy south," referring to the south or south-west wind, which, in England, is apt to be densely charged with moisture; that is, foggy; elsewhere called "the foggy south."

15 Lass-lorn is forsaken by his lass, the sweet-heart that has dismissed him.-Pole-clipt probably means poles embraced or clasped by the vines. Clip was often used for embrace. So in Coriolanus, i. 6: "Let me clip ye in arms as sound as when I woo'd." — Vineyard is here a trisyllable.

16 "Bosky acres" are woody acres, fields intersected by luxuriant hedge rows and copses. So in Milton's Comus: —

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