ANNOTATIONS UPON The TEM PEST. TEMPEST.] MR. THEOBALD tells us, that The Tempest must have been written after 1609, because the Bermuda Islands, which are mentioned in it, were unknown to the English until that year; but this is a mistake. He might have seen in Hackluyt, 1600, folio, a description of Bermuda, by Henry May, who was shipwrecked there in 1593. It was, however, one of our author's last works. In 1598 he played a part in the original Every Man in his Humour. Two of the characters are Prospero and Stephano. Here Ben Jonson taught him the pronunciation of the latter word, which is always right in The Tempest. "Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler ?" And always wrong in his earlier play, The Merchant of Venice, which had been on the stage at least two or three years before its publication in 1600. "My friend Stephano, signify I pray you," &c, A ij -So little did a late editor know of his author, when he idly supposed his school literature might, perhaps, have been lost by the dissipation of youth, or the busy scene of publick life! FARMER. ACT I. Line 1. IN this naval dialogue, perhaps the first example of sailor's language exhibited on the stage, there are, as I have been told by a skilful navigator, some inaccuracies and contradictory orders. JOHNSON. 3. fall to tyarely,] i. e. Readily, nimbly. Our-author is frequent in his use of this word. So in Decker's Satiromastix : 66 They'll make his muse as yare as a tumbler.” STEEVENS. Here it is applied as a sea-term, and in other parts of the scene. So he uses the adjective, act v. " Our ship is tight and yare." yare are our ships." "sit yare to the helm." And in one of the Henries, patra : "The tackles yarely frame the office." WARTON. 7. Perhaps it might be read-blow till thou burst thee, wind! if room enough. Beaumont and Fletcher have copied this passage in The Pilgrim. Blow, blow west wind, "Blow till thou rive!" Again, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609. "1st. Saylor. Blow and split thyself! "2d. Saylor. But sea-room, and the brine and cloudy billow "Kiss the moon, I care not." And yet, desiring the winds to blow till they burst their winds, is not unlike many other conceits of Shakspere. STEEVENS. 10. Play the men.] i. e. act with spirit, behave like men. So, in King Henry VI. Part I. "When they shall hear how we have play'd the men." STEEVENS. Again, in Scripture, 2 Sam. x. 12: "Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people." MALONE. 23. of the present- -] It may mean of the present instant. STEEVENS. 29. Gonzalo.] It may be observed of Gonzalo, that, being the only good man that appears with the king, he is the only man that preserves his cheerfulness in the wreck, and his hope on the island. JOHNSON. 49. —an unstanch'd wench.] Unstanch'd, I believe, means incontinent. STEEVENS. 50. Lay her a-hold, a-hold;- -] To lay a ship ahold, is, to bring her to lie as near the wind as she can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to STEEVENS. sea. 57. merely-] In this place signifies absolutely. In which sense it is used in Hamlet, act i. sc. 3. "Things 66 -Things rank and gross in nature So in Ben Jonson's Poetaster: -at request "Of some mere friends, some honourable RoSTEEVENS. mans." 62. to glut him,] Shakspere probably wrote, t'englut him, to swallow him; for which I know not that glut is ever used by him. In this signification englut, from engloutir, French, occurs frequently; as in Henry VI. Thou art so near the gulf "Thou needs must be englutted." And again in Timon and Othello. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for swallowed, and therefore perhaps the present text may stand. JOHNSON. Thus in Sir. A. Gorges's translation of Lucan. B. VI. ❝oylie fragments scarcely burn'd, STEEVENS. 65. —Farewel, brother!] All those lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the ship. It is probable that the lines succeeding the confused noise within should be considered as spoken by no determinate characters, but should be printed thus: 1 Sailor. Mercy on us! We split, we split ! 2.Sailor. Farewel, my, &c. 3 Sailor. |