PERSONS REPRESENTED.

SCENE, THE SEA, WITH A SHIP; AFTERWARDS AN ISLAND.

SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea. A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning.

MASTER. Boatswain,-1

BOATS. Here, master: What cheer?

MASTER. 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

a Yarely, the adverb of yare, quick, ready. Yare is used several times by Shakspere as a seaterm (which it was), but not exclusively so.

the topsail Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy winda, if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others.

ALON. Good boatswain, have care.

Where's the master? Play the men ‘.

BOATS. I pray now, keep below.

ANT. Where is the master, boson©?

BOATS. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: Keep your cabins: You do assist the storm.

GON. Nay, good, be patient.

BOATS. When the sea is. Hence! What care 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 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 [Exit.

say.

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 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. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or ourd 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, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

a Steevens would read, "Blow till thou burst thee, wind."

Behave like men. So in our translation of the Bible, 2 Sam. x. 12, "Let us play the men for our people."

In the first edition (1623) Antonio here uses the sailor's word boson, instead of the more correct "boatswain," which is put in the mouth of the King of Naples. The variation, we think, could scarcely be accidental; although Mr. Dyce says "it arose merely from the unsettled state of our early orthography." Unless a distinction had been meant between the dignified language of the king, and the familiar tone of the usurping duke, the words would surely have been written and printed in one way, occurring so close together.

d Or our.

Steevens changes this into to your. He would make the boatswain say to your office, as if this were nautical language. Our office is here used in the sense of our business, which was essentially noisy

BOATS. Work you, then.

ANT. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid

to be drowned than thou art.

GON. I'll warrant him for a drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, 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.

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

BOATS. What, must our mouths be cold?

GON. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist them,

For our case is as theirs.

SEB. I am out of patience.

ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.—

GON.

This wide-chopp'd rascal;-'Would thou mightst lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!

He'll be hang'd yet;

Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'st to glut d him.

CONFUSED VOICES WITHIN.-Mercy on us!

We split, we split !-Farewell, my wife and children!
Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we splite!-

ANT. Let's all sink with the king.

SEB. Let's take leave of him.

[Exeunt.

[Exit. [Exit.

GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze f, anything: The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.

a For. Steevens reads from. For drowning is on account of drowning.

[Exit.

We follow the punctuation of Lord Mulgrave. Steevens has, set her two courses off. Captain Glascock also objects to this ordinary punctuation; and explains "that the ship's head is to be put leeward, and that the vessel is to be drawn off the land under that canvass nautically denominated the two courses."

Merely-absolutely.

To glut-to swallow.

These various exclamations, which are usually, but most inconsistently, given to Gonzalo, should be considered, according to Johnson, to be spoken by no determinate characters. They form part of the common stage direction, "confused noise within." We assign the words to voices within.

Hanmer reads, "ling, heath, broom, furze." So in Harrison's 'Description of Britain,' prefixed to Holinshed, we find, "Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling,"-all characteristics of "barren ground." But "long heath" and "brown furze" are quite intelligible, and are much more natural than an enumeration of many various wild plants.

SCENE II.-The Island: before the Cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

MIRA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them:
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would

PRO.

a

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er b

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

Be collected;
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

[Lays down his mantle.

I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magic garment from me.-So;

Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
The direful spectacle of the wrack, 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-
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

a Creature. So the original; but Theobald reads creatures, which is invariably followed. Miranda means to say that, in addition to those she saw suffer,-the "poor souls" that perished,the common sailors,-there was no doubt some superior person on board,—some noble creature. Or e'er-before-sooner than. So in Ecclesiastes, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken."

Fraughting-constituting the fraught, or freight. The common reading is freighting.