abbreviation of princesses according to the custom that words terminating in the sound of s may be regarded by the ear as plural. Cf. As You Like It (F 1), i. 2. 175: The Princesse cals for you," to which Orlando replies: "I attend them with all respect and duty"; cals is probably a misprint for call. Wright compares Macbeth, v. i. 29 (F 1): Their sense are shut," where sense is used for senses.

174. hours, here used of the occupations in which hours are spent.

176. beating, working to and fro excitedly.

179. dear lady, auspicious mistress.

180-184. The idea of there being crises in life on which the whole future depends finds expression under a different metaphor in Julius Cæsar, iv. 3. 218-221:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries."

This theory of crises in our existence is one of the leading elements in the poetry of Robert Browning.

181. zenith is here used in the sense of culminating point of fortune.

185. dulness, sleepiness.

186. And appears to be used to mark the consequence, and is almost equivalent to therefore or and therefore. Wright compares Much Ado About Nothing, iv. 1. 287:

"Beat. I was about to protest I loved you.

Ben. And do it with all thy heart."

188. Enter Ariel. It is probable that Ariel's costume resembled that of Jophiel, an airy spirit in Ben Jonson's Masque, The Fortunate Isles and their Union. He is described as attired in "light silks of various colours, with wings of the same, a bright yellow hair, a chaplet of flowers, blue silk stockings, and pumps and gloves, with a silver fan in his hand."

189-237. In the first part of the dialogue between Prospero and Ariel we learn further details about the origin of the storm in the first scene and the fate of the shipwrecked crew.

193. quality, either (1) professional skill (cf. Hamlet, ii. 2. 451-452: "give us a taste of your quality") or (2) confederates.

196. beak, the pointed prow.

197. waist, the part between the quarter-deck and the forecastle.

198. I flamed amazement, I caused amazement by appearing in the form of flame. Moulton quotes this phrase, and afire with me," in l. 212, to support the theory that Ariel belongs to the element of fire as well as of air. In any case Shakespeare was influenced in his description by travelers' tales. Cf. Introduction, p. xiii, and the following passage, quoted by Capell from Hakluyt's Voyages (1598): “I do remember that in the great and boysterous storme of this foule weather, in the night, there came upon the toppe of our maine yarde and maine maste, a certaine little light, much like unto the light of a little candle, which the Spaniards called the Cuerpo santo, and saide it was S. Elmo, whom they take to bee the advocate of Sailers. This light continued aboord our ship about three houres, flying from maste to maste, and from top to top: and sometimes it would be in two or three places at once." Wright quotes a similar passage from Purchas (1625), where it is stated that some think the light to be a spirit.

200. bowsprit. F 1 reads bore-spritt, of which Murray (New English Dictionary) gives two other examples.

203. cracks, peals.

207. constant, self-possessed.

209. a fever of the mad, a fever such as madmen feel.

213. up-staring, standing on end. Cf. Julius Cæsar, iv. 3. 279-280:

Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,

That makest my blood cold and my hair to stare?”

218. sustaining, that bore them up in the water.

218-219. not a blemish, But fresher than before, there was not a blemish, and they were even fresher than before.

222. cooling of. The verbal noun is naturally followed by of, and Shakespeare treats as verbals many cases which we should consider present participles. Cf. Abbott, § 178.

223. odd angle, an angle of which no account has been taken. 224. in this sad knot, sorrowfully folded thus.

229. still-vex'd Bermoothes, the Bermudas constantly harassed by storms. Wright quotes several kindred spellings of the word "the Bermootha's," from Webster's Duchess of Malfi, iii 2; Barmotho pigs," from the same writer's The

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Devil's Law-case, iii. 2; and "the Barmoothes," from Fletcher's Women Pleased, i. 2.

231. Who. See note on 1. 80.

suffer'd labour, toil they have undergone. 232. for, as regards. Abbott, § 149.

237-304. The latter part of the dialogue between Prospero and Ariel enlightens us as to the spirit's previous history, and the reasons why he puts "all his quality" at Prospero's service —yet with an undercurrent of discontent. We feel that such a state of bondage is almost unnatural to him - yet we see that it is delightful for him to be so employed. It is as if we were to command one of the winds in a different direction to that which nature dictates, or one of the waves, now rising and now sinking, to recede before it bursts upon the shore" (Coleridge).

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239-240. It is somewhat surprising that Prospero, after ask ing Ariel the time of day, and being informed that it is Past the mid-season (i.e. past noon), should add at once, as if he had more precise knowledge than his informant, "At least two glasses." Several critics, to get over the difficulty, have transferred At least two glasses to Ariel. But the reading of the Ff is quite comprehensible, if we imagine Prospero, after Ariel's rather vague answer, raising his head and, by scanning the sun, realizing the exact time of day.

240. two glasses, two hours. speare always the hour-glass. ii. 1. 168-169:

The "

glass" is with ShakeCf. All's Well that Ends Well,

"Or four-and-twenty times the pilot's glass

Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass."

In the nautical phraseology of Shakespeare's day, however, the glass was always the half-hour glass. See further, v. 1. 223, note. 242. pains, tasks.

243. remember, remind.

244. me, for me, the ethical dative. Cf. Abbott, § 220. 252. think'st it much, consider it an important service. 258. Sycorax. Many derivations of this name have been suggested. The most plausible is that of Hales, who regards it as a compound of the Greek σûs (sow) and kópağ (raven), and thus a contracted form of Syokorax. "As both sows and ravens are associated with witchcraft and such superstitions, the compound might serve not ill to denominate that foul witch.' The mere grossness of the one animal and the supposed malig

nity of the other may be referred to; and so the name Sycorax be designed to express a horrid mixture of those two characteristics."

envy, here used in its E. E. sense of "malice."

261. Argier, the older form of Algiers.

266. for one thing she did. What this one thing was which saved the life of Sycorax we do not know. Boswell supposes that there was some novel on which the plot of The Tempest was founded, and that it contained the incident obscurely hinted at here. Charles Lamb suggests that light may be thrown upon the words from a passage in Ogilby's Accurate Description of Africa, 1670, which tells how, when Algiers was being besieged by Charles V in 1541, a witch of the town persuaded the governor not to surrender, by a prophecy that within nine days the siege would be raised and the enemy dispersed; the event took place, as was foretold, and the witch being acknowledged the deliverer of the town was richly remunerated. "Can it be doubted for a moment," asks Lamb, "that the dramatist had come fresh from reading some older narrative of this deliverance of Algiers by a witch, and transferred the merit of the deed to his Sycorax? It has, however, been suggested that Sycorax was spared because she was with child. Cf. 1 Henry VI, v. 4. 60, ff. 269. blue-eyed. This may refer to (1) the pupil of the eye, and denote the pale-blue, fish-like, malignant eye which is often seen in hag-like women (Grant White); or (2) the livid color of the eyelid, which was a sign of pregnancy. Wright, who suggests this view, compares Webster's Duchess of Malfi, ii. 1: The fins of her eyelids look most teeming blue."

272. for, because.

274. grand, great.

276. unmitigable, implacable.

277. Into. For the use of into "after verbs of rest implying motion," cf. Abbott, § 159.

284. Yes, Caliban her son. Ariel's interruption here is not easy to account for. Possibly, with his thoughts still running on his promised liberty, he has been absent-minded during part of Prospero's speech, but has caught the last words about the island not being at that time honored with a human shape. He therefore contradicts Prospero, reminding him that Caliban was then on the island, and Prospero, annoyed, retorts, Dull thing, I say so,' i.e. 'I have already said that Caliban was there." Prospero throughout this part of the dialogue displays an amount of irritability which proves that he has naturally

a fiery temper, mainly under control, though it flashes out from time to time under his present nervous strain of excitement.

297. correspondent, obedient.

298. my spiriting, my offices as a spirit.

301-303. In F 1 these lines are printed:

"Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea:

Be subject to no sight but thine and mine: invisible
To every eye-ball else."

Malone transferred "be subject" to the end of 1. 301, which supplies a fifth foot to that line, and gets rid of the redundant foot in 302. The result, however, is not entirely satisfactory. as 1. 302, even after the change, is harsh in its rhythm, and the words" and thine seem superfluous, as it is ridiculous to order Ariel not to be invisible to himself. It is possible that the reading of 1. 301 in the later Ff, “like to a nymph," may be correct, and that the passage should run:

Go, make thyself like to a nymph o' th' sea:

Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible

307. Heaviness, sleepiness.

311. miss, do without. Notice this confession by Prospero, that Caliban's services cannot be dispensed with. If Caliban represents the physical nature of man, and Ariel his intellectual and imaginative powers, it is clear that the lower service is nevertheless essential and also that Caliban must be held in stern subjection.

314-316. Thou earth. thou tortoise. On the application of these phrases to Caliban, see Introduction, p. xix. They are both used of him before his appearance to prepare the audience for the entrance of an uncouth monster.

316. when, an expression of impatience.

321-374. The dialogue of Prospero with Caliban is in designed contrast to that with Ariel. We have seen how the airy spirit requites his benefactor; we now learn how the halfbrute monster repays his kindness with curses and constrained service. See further as to the significance of the passage, Introduction, p. xxi.

321. wicked, probably “having baneful qualities." Spenser speaks of "wicked weed." The word is perhaps caught up by Caliban from Prospero's application of it in the previous line to Sycorax.