441. changed eyes, exchanged loving glances. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, iii. 13. 156-157:

"To flatter Cæsar, would you mingle eyes

With one that ties his points?'

443. you have done yourself some wrong, you have injured your honor by asserting what is not the case, i.e. that you are King of Naples.

450. both in either's powers. Both seems to be used for each," or either used for "each other." There may, however, be an ellipsis of each after both -“They are both (each) in either's powers." Cf. Sonnet cxxxi:

457-459. "Miranda's creed seems to be a simple faith in beauty (Moulton). Her speech, however, is not quite logical. She declares (1) that nothing evil can dwell in such a temple as Ferdinand's body; (2) that if the evil spirit have so fair a mansion, good things will strive to dwell within it. According to her second statement the "mansion" will be shared by " the ill spirit and Good things," and this contradicts her first statement. To get over the difficulty it has been suggested (1) that with’t is a misprint for in't; or (2) that with is used in the sense of chez, though no other instance of this is forthcoming. 465. entertainment, treatment.

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468. gentle and not fearful. The most natural interpretation of these words is harmless and not terrible," in which case "Make not too rash a trial of him in l. 466 must mean, "Do not rashly determine to put him to severe tests." This interpretation best suits Miranda's attitude throughout this episode, in which her anxieties are on behalf of Ferdinand, not of her father. It is possible, however, that gentle and not fearful means of gentle birth and not a coward," and that therefore Prospero is warned not to "make too rash a trial of him " by engaging unadvisedly in a duel with him. 469. My foot my tutor This pregnant phrase may be paraphrased: You, Miranda, to instruct me! The foot to lecture the head!" Cf. Lyly's Euphues, p. 261: "Then how vaine is it, Euphues (too mylde a worde for so madde a mind), that the foot should neglect his office to correct the face."

!

473. Beseech, used, like pray, without the personal pronoun. 478. there is. Cf. note on i. 1. 17-18.

480. To the most of men, as compared with the majority. 488. nor. Used inaccurately where and or or would be in place. The origin of the error is probably a confusion of two constructions, Shakespeare intending at first, perhaps, to employ some such word as heavy," and then substituting “but light."

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This scene enlightens us further as to the character of Prospero's enemies; it shows that Antonio, the arch-traitor, has merely been hardened in villainy by the lapse of years, and that he has found a fit associate in Alonso's brother, Sebastian. The remarks of the pair, throughout the earlier half of the scene, are an unconscious self-revelation. "The prolonged and dull joking of Sebastian in this scene cannot be meant by Shakespeare to be really bright and witty. It is meant to show that the intellectual poverty of the conspirators is as great as their jovial obliquity" (Dowden). We are "shown the tendency

in bad men to indulge in scorn and contemptuous expressions, as a mode of getting rid of their own uneasy feelings of inferiority to the good, and also, by making the good ridiculous, of rendering the transition of others to wickedness easy (Coleridge). We are thus prepared for the iniquitous attempt of Antonio against the life of his former ally, Alonso, whose suzerainty he finds burdensome, and of the upright (though somewhat prosy) Gonzalo, whose prating he detests. To make such an attempt at the moment when he has been miraculously saved from death, and to enlist Alonso's brother as an accomplice, is a refinement of villainy. The foiling of the plot is the first move in Prospero's policy of “countercheck” against his foes. 1. Beseech. See note on i. 2. 473.

2-3. Our escape much more than balances our loss."

3. hint. See note on i. 2. 134-135.

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5-6. The owners of some merchantman, and the merchant who has shipped cargo in her." The double use of merchant in the same line, first for "the vessel " and then for "the trader," is awkward.

11. The visitor, applied derisively by Antonio to Gonzalo, who is trying to console Alonso after the manner of a visitor to the sick.

12-13. According to Halliwell, watches that struck the hours were known by the beginning of the sixteenth century. 15. tell, count; O. E. tellan. Cf. Milton, L'Allegro, where the shepherds are counting their sheep:

"Every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorne in the dale."

Sebastian, carrying on his jest about the watch, implies that each word of Gonzalo's represents a stroke.

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16-20. Gonzalo begins to moralize upon the result of entertaining or giving welcome to every grief that approaches us. Sebastian, punning upon entertainer in its general application and in its specialized sense of an innkeeper," flippantly suggests that the entertainer gets a dollar for his pains. Gonzalo retorts with a play upon dollar and dolour (grief).

20. truer, more truly; the adjective for the adverb. 22. wiselier, comparative form of adverb.

...

28-29. Which, of he or Adrian, . . . begins to crow? seem to have here a mixture of two constructions

We

" which of the two, viz. he and Adrian?" and which, he or Adrian? Of belongs to the first construction, and or to the second. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, iii. 2. 336-337:

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"Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right

Of thine or mine - is most in Helena."

33. a laughter. Antonio proposes this as the wager. It is just possible, as Ingleby has suggested, that a laughter may be the cant name for some small coin commonly laid in betting." There is indeed no evidence in support of such an interpretation, but the pun involved would harmonize with the verbal quibbling in the rest of the passage, and would give point to what seems otherwise an almost meaningless jest. Sebastian accepts the conditions with the usual formula of assent, a match. He loses through Adrian being the first to speak, and then bursting out into Ha, ha, ha, adds, So, you're paid. On Ingleby's hypothesis the jest consists in Sebastian paying Antonio with a ha, ha, ha, instead of a coin. The Ff give So, you're paid to Antonio, but Theobald's conjecture that the words belong to Sebastian renders the passage more intelligible.

35-55. From Adrian and Gonzalo's description, in spite of Antonio and Sebastian's unmannerly interruptions, we learn what the climate and the scenery of the island are like.

40. He could not miss 't. Either (1) he could not avoid introducing yet, or (2) he could not do without the island just now, uninhabitable as it is. Cf. Prospero's statement about Caliban, i. 2. 311: "We cannot miss him." This interpretation is more in keeping with Antonio's character than the former. He is more likely to make a fresh move in the game of repartee than merely to record the success of Sebastian's last stroke.

42. temperance, temperature. In the next line the word is used as a proper name, like Charity.

45. delivered, declared.

52. lush and lusty, luxuriant and fresh.

55. an eye of green, a slight shade of green. Eye was used for a small portion of anything and especially for a tinge of color, as when Boyle states: "Red with an eye of blue makes a purple." Malone quotes from A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colonie in Virginia, 1600: "Not an eye of sturgeon as yet appeared in the river." Sebastian insinuates that the credulous Gonzalo is the green spot in the grass.

56. He is not far wrong."

63. glosses. We should more naturally use the singular. 65-66. It is not very clear why one of Gonzalo's pockets should give the lie to his previous statement. The remark seems chiefly introduced to lead up to the pun in the next line. 75. to their queen. To is here used in the sense of as or in the capacity of. Cf. St. Luke, iii. 8: “We have Abraham to our father."

76. widow Dido. The reference is to the famous Queen of Carthage, who was one of the favorite heroines of Renaissance poetry. Marlowe and Nash wrote a play about her. The jesting allusion to her as widow is possibly founded on some ballad of the day. She was, in point of fact, a widow when Æneas enjoyed her hospitality.

82. of that, concerning that. Cf. Abbott, § 174.

86-87. The miraculous harp is that of Amphion, which raised the walls of Thebes, or that of Apollo, which raised the walls of Troy. So Gonzalo's word has raised anew the walls, and the houses also, of ancient Carthage. See Tennyson's lyric Amphion.

94. Ay. The Ff assign this to Gonzalo, but it is preferable to adopt Staunton's conjecture that it is an exclamation uttered by Alonso on awaking from his trance of grief. This would explain Antonio's "Why, in good time," which refers ironically to Alonso's return to consciousness. It explains further why

Gonzalo in l. 96 begins to recapitulate to the king the substance of the preceding conversation.

104. Deighton gives the most plausible explanation of the obscure pun in this line: "You fished a long time before you succeeded in catching that word sort. You have repeatedly tried to make out that our garments are as fresh as if they had never been immersed in the sea, and now at last you qualify your assertion by the word sort." In fished there is possibly an allusion also to their difficulty in fishing themselves out of the water." (Furness.)

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66

106-107. You force these words into my ears, which are as loath to receive them as the stomach is to take food that it does not want."

118-119. oar'd Himself, impelled himself with arms as oars. 120. shore, the cliffs on the shore.

124. that has for its antecedent yourself in the previous line. 127. Who hath cause to wet the grief on 't. Who may have as its antecedent either she or eye. If the former, paraphrase: "Who lost to sight by banishment, though not by death, hath yet cause to fill your eyes with tears (Wright). If eye be the antecedent, interpret: "which has cause to give tearful expression to the sorrow for your folly" (Abbott). For other instances of the use of who with a neuter antecedent, cf. Abbott, § 264. 130. Weigh'd, hung evenly.

loathness, reluctance.

130-131. at Which end o' the beam should bow. If we preserve this, the Ff reading, the best explanation is Wright's, that it, whose antecedent is the indecision of Claribel described in 1. 130, has been omitted; cf. Abbott, § 404. But it is the beam of the balance itself that one naturally thinks of as bowing, and Spence's emendation “at which end o 't th' beam should bow" gives excellent sense, with a trifling change in the reading.

135. the dear'st, the most acutely felt part. Dear is used in E. E. to denote the excess or superlative of that to which it may be applied. Cf. Hamlet, i. 2. 182: "Would I had met my

dearest foe in heaven."

138. time, seasonable time.

142. cloudy, gloomy.

143. plantation. Gonzalo uses the word in the sense of colonization. Cf. Bacon's Essay of Plantations. Antonio jestingly interprets it in its ordinary sense.

147-164. Gonzalo's sketch of his imaginary commonwealth is closely modeled on a passage in Montaigne, Book i. c. 30,"of