And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes 2 Ste. Monster, lay to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. Trin. And this. Ste. Ay, and this. A noife of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits, in shape of bounds, and bunt them about; Profpero and Ariel fetting them on. Pro. Hey, Mountain, hey! Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver! Pro. Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark, hark! [CAL. STE. and TRIN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulfions; fhorten up their finews With aged cramps; and more pinch-fpotted make them, Than pard, or cat o' mountain. Ari. Hark, they roar. Pro. Let them be hunted foundly: At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies: Shortly fhall all my labours end, and thou [Exeunt. 2to barnacles, or to apes] Skinner fays barnacle is Anfer Scoticus: The barnacle is a kind of fhell-fish growing on the bottoms of ships, and which was anciently supposed, when broken off, to become one of these geefe. COLLINS. 3 With foreheads villainous low.] Low foreheads were anciently reckoned among deformities. STEEVENS. This opinion was perhaps peculiar to the age of Queen Elizabeth, and to England, whofe cuftoms and fashions Shakspeare gave to every country, and to all times. In his Antony and Cleopatra he makes a meffenger affure the Egyptian Queen, that the forehead of her rival Octavia was as low as the could with it." MALONE. 4 A noife of bunters beard.] Shak fpeare might have had in view "Arthur's Chace, which many believe to be in France, faying that it is a kennel of black dogs, followed by unknown huntsmen, with an exceeding great found of horns, as if it were a very hunting of fome wild beast." See a Treatife of Spectres tranflated from the French of Peter de Loier, and published in quarto, 1605; p.11. GREY. "HECATE, (fays the fame writer, ibid.) as the Greeks affirmed, did ufe to fend dogges unto men, to feare and terrifie them." MALONE. G 3 ACT Enter PROSPERO in his magick robes, and ARIEL. Pro. Now does my project gather to a head: Pro. I did fay fo, When first I rais'd the tempeft. Say, my fpirit, Ari. Confin'd together In the fame fashion as you gave in charge; In the lime-grove which weather-fends your cell; Brim-full of forrow and difmay; but chiefly him, Pro. Doft thou think fo, fpirit? Ari. Mine would, fir, were I human. Pro. And mine fhall. Haft thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling 5 and time Goes upright with bis carriage.] Alluding to one carrying a burthen. This critical period of my life proceeds as I could with. Time brings forward all the expected events, without faultering under his burthen. STEEVENS. till your releafe.] i. e. till you releafe them. MALONE. 7 touch,] A touch is a fenfation. So, in Cymbeline: a touch more rare "Subdues all pangs, all fears." STEEVENS. Of Of their afflictions? and shall not myself, Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, Not a frown farther: Go, release them, Ariel; My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, Ari. I'll fetch them, fir. [Exit. Pro. Yeelves of hills, brooks, ftanding lakes, and groves"; that relifh all as fharply, And Paffion as they, Paljon is a verb in Shakspeare. I feel every thing with the fame quick fenfibility, and am moved by the fame paffions as they are. So, in his Venus and Adonis: "Dumbly the paffions, frantickly the doateth." STEEVENS. 9 Ye elves of bills, brooks, ftanding lakes, and groves ;] This fpeech Dr. Warburton rightly obferves to be borrowed from Medea's in Ovid: and "it proves, fays Mr. Holt, beyond contradiction, that Shakspeare was perfectly acquainted with the fentiments of the ancients on the fubject of inchantments." The original lines are these : "Auræque, & venti, montefque, amnefque, lacufque, "Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis adeite.' the tranflation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath clofely followed it. FARMER. Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole paffage with Medea's fpeech, as tranflated by Golding, quarto, 1576, will fee evidently that Shakspeare copied the tranflation, and not the original. The particular expreffions that feem to have made an impreffion on his mind are printed in Italicks : "Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of bills, of brookes, of woodes alone, "Of ftanding lakes, and of the night, approche ye everych one. "Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the thing) "I have compelled ftreames to run clean backward to their spring. "By charms I make the calm fea rough, and make the rough feas playne, "And cover all the sky with clouds, and chafe them thence again. G 4 "I call And ye, that on the fands with printless foot "I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, o lightsome moone, Ye elves of bills, &c.] Fairies and elves are frequently in the poets mentioned together, without any diftinction of character that I can recollect. Keyfler fays that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally fignified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This feems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the fea and fountains, without any diftinction between elves and fairies. ToL. with printless foot Do chale the ebbing Neptune,] So Milton, in his Mafque: "Thus I fet my printless feet." STEEVENS. 2 (Weak mafters though ye be)] The meaning of this paffage may be ; Though you are but inferior mafters of these fupernatural powers, though you poffefs them but in a low degree. STEEVENS. by whofe aid (Weak mafters though ye be) That is; ye are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves;— your employment is then to make green ringlets, and midnight mushrooms, and to play the idle pranks mentioned by Ariel in his next fong; -yet by your aid I have been enabled to invert the course of nature. We fay proverbially, "Fire is a good fervant, but a bad mafter." BLACKSTONE. The The pine, and cedar: graves, at my command, And, deeper than did ever plummet found, I'll drown my book. [Solemn mufick. Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantick gefture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTHONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: They all enter the circle which Profpero had made, and there ftand charmed; which Profpero obServing, Speaks. A folemn air, and the best comforter, To an unfettled fancy's cure! 3-Thy brains, Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even fociable to the fhew of thine, Fall fellowly drops.-The charm diffolves a pace; Melting the darkness, fo their rifing fenfes 3 To an unfettled fancy's cure!] The old copy reads-fancy. For this emendation the prefent editor is anfwerable. So, in King John: My widow's comfort, and my forrow's cure. Again, in Romeo and Juliet: Confufion's cure Lives not in thefe confufions. Profpero begins by obferving, that the air which had been played was admirably adapted to compofe unfettled minds. He then addrefles Gonzalo and the reft, who had juft before gone into the circle: "Thy brains, now ufelefs, boil within thy fkull &c." [the foothing ftrain not having yet begun to operate]. Afterwards, perceiving that the mufick begins to have the effect intended, he adds, "The charm diffolves a pace." Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-boil'd. MALONE. 4-boil within thy fkull:] So, in the Midfummer Night's Dream: "Lovers and madmen have fuch feething brains, &c." STEEVENS. Again, in the Winter's Tale: "Would any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather ?" MALONE. |