would be put so as to keep her as close to the wind as possible. Some commentators suggest, "Bring her to; try with the maincourse. Cp. Hackluyt's Voyages (1598): "And when the barke had way, we cut the hawser, and so gate the sea to our friend, and tried out all that day with our maine course." And also John Smith's Sea Grammar (1627), which embodied the nautical knowledge of those times: "It overcasts; we shall have wind, foul weather. Settle your topsails, take in the spretsail, in with your topsails, lower the foresail, tallow under the panels, brade up close all them sails, lash sure the ordnance, strike your topmasts to the cap, make it sure with your sheep's-feet ;" and again: "Let us lie as trie with our main course; that is, to hale the tack aboord, the sheat close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboord.".

Main-course; i.e. main-sail. Cp. "two courses," below. "The main sail and the fore sail is called the fore-course and the maincourse, or a pair of courses."-SMITH'S Seaman's Grammar, p. 31, ed. 1692.

40 Louder than our office; i.e. than the noise we make about our work.

49 For drowning. In respect of; i.e. against it. Cp. i. 2, 272 n.

52 Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Fourth position. We must imagine the ship in a bay between two points. She sees she cannot make the one point, so she tries to weather the other. To do this they lay her a-hold;' i.e. probably put her about,' putting her head up to the wind till the sails shake, then letting the foresail fill or hold the wind so as to bring the ship round with her head the other way, to bring her on the other tack; then 'set the two courses' (i.e. foresail and mainsail) on the other side; and finally turn her head off to sea again,' so as to try and weather the other point. The punctuation is important here; it should be,Set her two courses; off to sea again; lay her off. The folio has, "Set her two courses off to sea again." 'A-hold;' i.e. 'on hold.' So 'fell on sleep ;' i.e. 'a-sleep,' 'a-wake,' 'a-hunting.'

56 Must our mouths be cold? You go to prayers; we'll stave some of the puncheons of liquor to warm our mouths.' Hence Antonio calls them 'drunkards,' line 59.

57 To prayers! The stage direction gives this speech to the mariners. Would it not be better assigned to king Alonzo, who does go to prayers with his son, prince Ferdinand; whereas the mariners, after crying, "All lost! all lost!" (while he cries, "To prayers, to prayers!") follow the boatswain to the wine and spirit room?

59 Merely; 'simply,' 'absolutely.' Latin 'merus,' 'unmixed,' of itself,' Cp. 'meram tunicam habere,' 'to have nothing but

a shirt.' ('Mere'-A.S. 'mere,' 'sea '-' a pool,' with 'marsh' and 'moor,' is akin to Lat. 'mare.')

60 Wide-chapped. As he opens his jaws wide to drink now, so may he have to drink the sea-water, while ten tides ebb and flow.

64 We split! Fifth position. The ship cannot weather the point, and strikes on a reef.

70 The folio reads, "Long heath, brown furze." The uselessness of these epithets is manifest, and justifies Hanmer's excellent emendation, “ling, heath, broom, furze, anything.” The difference between the spikes of ling and the bell-like flowers of the heath must have been easily seen on the Warwickshire heaths.

Observe in this scene the clearness and definiteness of the images which the poet presents to us. There are no blunders in seamanship, such as novelists often make in law or other technical subjects. We get an idea of a good ship well manned, and the energy of the crew, in trying every possible expedient, makes us interested at once in their fate.

The most important point in a play is to see how the poet developes his characters. Notice that Antonio and Sebastian first abuse and curse the boatswain, and then despair; whereas Gonzalo, though he talks too much, keeps up his cheerfulness to the end. Observe also the irony of the boatswain's speechhow little man's artificial rank counts for in danger, as compared with the natural nobility of courage and resource.

The scene is in prose, as being fittest for a dialogue with sailors; when all is lost, the scene becomes tragic, and the blank verse begins.

ACT I. SCENE 2.

The metre is blank verse; that is, five measures of two syllables each generally, though occasionally any measure may be of three syllables, and some of one. The stress is generally on the second syllable of each measure, as in an iambic (u -)

"The sky' it see'ms | would pou'r | down sti'n | king pitch." A series of such regular lines would be very monotonous. Variety and rapidity are obtained by making some of the measures like trochees (- u), or anapæsts (uu -); the first measure of the line especially being often trochaic

"Bu't that the sea' mou'nting to the we'l | kin's chee'k." Here the first and third mesures are like trochees, the fourth like an anapæst, but with a quasi-contraction which makes it nearly an iambus.

Often the line is hyper-metric; i.e. has one or two extra syllables, ὑπὲρ μέτρον

"If' by your art, | my dea'r | est fa' | ther, you' | have Pu't the wild wa' | ters in | this roa'r, | alla'y | them."

This is especially common in dramatic blank verse.

In the second line there is no stress in the third measure; this varies the rhythm, and gives a stronger stress to the words "this roar" which follow. So again

"Da'shes the fi' | re out. O, I | have su'f | fer'd."

In this line 'fire' is scanned, as it is pronounced, like a dissyllable (fi'er). In line 110

“Was du’ke [dom laʼrge | enough | ofte'mp|(0)ral ro'y | (a)lties,” the unaccented syllable of the two trisyllables is softened or slurred, which gives variety to the line without affecting the number of stresses.

4 Welkin. 'Sky.' A.S. 'wolcen,' (1) 'a cloud,' (2) ‘sky.' Ger. 'wolken,' 'clouds.'

Welkin's cheek. Mr. Jephson says there is a confusion of metaphors here; but (1) in an excited speech allowance must be made for the rapidity of thought, which does not stay to complete a metaphor, but passes to another; (2) if the sky is personified at all, it might breathe forth the fiery pitch from its mouth and nostrils, in which case there would not even be a change of metaphor. Compare Pericles, iii. I, I—10— "Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges, Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast Upon the winds command, bind them in brass, Having called them from the deep! O still

Thy deaf'ning, dreadful thunders; gently quench

Thynimble, sulphurous flashes!... Thou stormest venomously, Wilt thou spit all thyself?—The seaman's whistle

Is as a whisper in the ears of death,

Unheard."

7 Vessel, who. Who and she. Cp. Addison, "Plenty, who was his first counsellor." "Who' was originally an interrogative only.

II Or ere. 'Or,' for 'before,' is a corruption of A. S. 'ær,' Eng. 'ere.' So in Rob Roy: "Ther will be broken heads amang us or it's long." So 'or' and 'ere' both mean 'before,' and are combined for emphasis, just as in "but an(d) if that evil servant say,' "an' or and is combined with 'if.' (Cp. ii. I, 180 n.) Probably the 'or' belongs to the first sentence, 'ere' to the second, as poo0ev is often put in Greek to prepare for a πpiv, which is coming. So in Robert of Gloster

"Five hundred year and twenty it was eke before,

Ere than our Lord Jesu Christ on earth was ybore." And again in Maundeville: "Before or they receive them they kneelen down," where 'before' belongs to 'kneel.' Others think the later use of or ever,' as in Psalm lviii. 9, gives the key to the original expression.

13 Fraughting, making the freight;' the active participle of 'to fraught,' an old form of 'freight,' passive fraught' (with woe, &c.). So, "If thou fraught the court with thy unworthiness, thou diest."-Cymbeline, i. 1, 126. "Thise marchants han doon fraught hir shippes newe."-CHAUCER, Man of Law's Tale, cant. i. b. 171. Have caused their ships to freight or load (to be loaded) anew.' E.E. 'frahten,' O. Dutch "vrachten.' "Vrachten, or bevrachten. To fraught, or to lade." -HEXHAM. According to Mätzner, it is the same as the Ger. 'frêhte,' which meant desert,' thence apparently earnings,' and what a ship earns. For the way in which a new verb is formed out of this, cp., the note on 'tender-hefted,' in King Lear, ii. 4, 174 (Rugby edition).

66

19 Nought knowing of [the answer to the question] whence I am. More better. Shakespeare often uses a double comparative or superlative, so more braver daughter,' line 439. The inflection er had perhaps lost some of its force, so that 'more,' 'most,' were added for emphasis, as in 'Most Highest.' But see the note to King Lear, i. 1, 214, where the growth of the double comparative is accounted for.

66

27 The very virtue. Very' comes from Lat. 'verus,' 'true.' Cp. my very friends" (Merchant of Venice, iii. 2, 226. A.), and "the very minute," line 37, below.

29 No soul; 'lost' being supplied from "perdition [of] an hair." This is called an anacoluthon, or breaking off, from a, 'not,' and ȧkoλovéw, 'to follow.'

36 Bootless. 'Boot' means (1) help, or profit, as here; (2) satisfaction; so 'kin-bote' is compensation for slaughter of a kinsman; and so 'man-bote,' 'thief-bote,' &c. Mr. Jephson aptly quotes what Robin Hood says to his bow when it breaks in his hand: "My bane thou art, my boot when thou shouldest A.S. 'bôt, remedy,' 'help,' 'cure.'

be."

Cp.

"When the bale is hest [highest],

Thenne is the bote nest [nighest]." -HENDYNG, H.'s Proverbs, 1. 147-9. (About A.D. 1300.) 41 Out; i.e. 'out and out,' 'completely.'

50 The backward. Observe how flexible the language was in Shakespeare's time. An adverb is made into a substantive simply by prefixing an article to it, as in Greek Tò πрív. Compare Measure for Measure, iii. 2, 108: "I was an inward of his." So the forward' in Cotgrave (1611): "Avant-garde. The forward, or vaunt-guard of an armie." This is only one of the many instances of the interchange of parts of speech. Compare "to barn a harvest" (Rape of Lucrece); “to false one's faith." (SPENSER'S Faerie Queen.)

Abysm, from Fr. 'abysme;' now spelt 'abîme.' Our spelling represents Gr. äßvoσos more nearly.

53 Twelve years since. The strong emphasis on the first word gives it the time of two syllables. So the word 'pause' is lengthened in Hamlet, iii. 1, 68; and 'long' in Hamlet, ii. 1, 91; the object in each case being to give the idea of prolonged time.

58 A princess. Folio 'and princess;' i.c. thou his heir, and so a princess of no meaner origin than this.'

63 Holp. Compare "Hath holpen the children of Lot." (Ps. lxxxiii. 8.) The -n is often omitted, as in

"He hath holpe a thousand out
Of the devil's punfolde."

--Piers Plowman's Vision. 64 Teen. (1) Irritation,' 'anger,' 'injury;' (2) 'trouble.' A.S. 'teona,' 'injury,' 'wrong, vexation; so Scotch 'teynful,' 'wrathful;' 'tene-waryit,' worn out with woe.' Compare 'tinder' and 'to teen' or 'teend;' i.e. 'light a candle;' and Ger. 'zünden.'

65 From; 'out of.'

70 Through all the signiories. The Visconti of Milan were perpetual vicars of the Emperor in Italy. (ROBERTSON, Charles V. i. 108.)

81 Trash. (1) 'To lop off.' 'Trash' properly means the clipping of trees; so here the metaphor is from cutting a hedge level. (2) To humble or crush.' Compare "Such as was fit for hard-hearted Jews to encumber and trash them."---HAMMOND. On the moors they make a wild pointer work even with a steady one by putting a trash-cord on him; i.e. a long cord with a bit of heather at the end.

83 The key. For tuning; the 'tuning-fork.'

Em, for hem,' the accusative of an old form; nom. 'hei,' "they;' gen. hire,' 'their;' dat. and acc. 'hem,' 'them.'

87 Suck'd my verdure out on't. 'On' was used for 'in,' 'at,' or as here, 'of.' Compare Coriolanus, iv. 5, 174: "Worth six on him."

Thou attend'st not. This harshness to Miranda, who is attending with all her soul, may perhaps spring from the peculiarly sharp sense of personal injury which characterises Prospero. Or it may merely be to bring before the audience the importance to Miranda of this revelation, since the success of Prospero's purpose depends on her understanding who she is. In any case the interruptions relieve the monotony of what would otherwise be a monologue.

89 Dedicated. Steevens suggests the shortened form 'dedicate.'

91 Which, but by being so retired. The sense of the passage is, I was engaged with studies which, by the very fact that they were carried on in retirement, were beyond popular estima

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