FER. Moft fure, the goddess On whom thefe airs attend!-Vouchfafe, my prayer May know, if you remain upon this island; And that you will fome good inftruction give, How I may bear me here: My prime request, Which I do laft pronounce, is, O you wonder! be made, or no? If you But, certainly a maid." No wonder, fir; 9 Moft fure, &c.] It feems, that Shakspeare, in The Tempest, hath been fufpected of tranflating fome expreffions of Virgil; witnefs the O Dea certe. I prefume we are here directed to the paffage, where Ferdinand fays of Miranda, after hearing the songs of Ariel: 66 Moft fure, the goddess On whom thefe airs attend!— And fo very small Latin is fufficient for this formidable translation, that, if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loth to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on fuch a fandy foundation. Let us turn to a real tranflator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader, fuppofing it neceffarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters in our language are almoft forgotten; we will quote therefore this time from Stany hurft: "O to thee, fayre virgin, what terme may rightly be fitted? "Thy tongue, thy vilage no mortal frayltie refembleth. No doubt, a goddeffe!" Edit. 1583. FARMER. 2-certainly a maid.] Nothing could be more prettily imagined, to illuftrate the fingularity of her character, than this pleasant miftake. She had been bred up in the rough and plain-dealing documents of moral philofophy, which teaches us the knowledge of ourfelves; and was an utter ftranger to the flattery invented by vicious and defigning men to corrupt the other fex. So that it could not enter into her imagination, that complaifance, and a defire of appearing amiable, qualities of humanity which the had been inftructed, in her moral leffons, to cultivate, could ever degenerate into fuch excefs, as that any one fhould be willing to have his fellow-creature believe that he thought her a goddess, or an immortal. WARBURTON. Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a created being, a queftion, which if he meant it, he has ill expreffed, but whether the was unmarried; for after the dialogue which FER. My language! heavens! I am the best of them that speak this speech, Profpero's interruption produces, he goes on purfuing his former question: "O, if a virgin, "I'll make you queen of Naples." JOHNSON. A paffage in Lilly's Galathea feems to countenance the prefent text: "The queftion among men is common, are you a maide?" -yet I cannot but think, that Dr. Warburton reads very rightly: "If you be made, or no." When we meet with a harsh expreffion in Shakspeare, we are ufually to look for a play upon words. Fletcher clofely imitates The Tempeft in his Sea Voyage: and he introduces Albert in the fame manner to the ladies of his Defert Inland: "Be not offended, goddeffes, that I fall "Thus proftrate," &c. Shakspeare himself had certainly read, and had probably now in his mind, a paffage in the third book of The Fairy Queen, between Timias and Belphebe: Angel or goddess! do I call thee right? "There-at the blufhing, faid, ah! gentle fquire, "Nor goddess I, nor angel, but the maid "And daughter of a woody nymph," &c. FARMER. So Milton. Comus, 265: Hail foreign wonder! "Whom certain these rough fhades did never breed, Unless the Goddess," &c. Milton's imitation explains Shakspeare. Maid is certainly a created being, a Woman in oppofition to Goddefs. Miranda immediately deftroys this firft fenfe by a quibble. In the mean time, I have no objection to read made, i. e. created. The force of the fentiment is the fame. Comus is univerfally allowed to have taken fome of its tints from The Tempeft. T. WARTON. The firft copy reads-if you be maid, or no. Made was not fuggefted by Dr. Warburton, being an emendation introduced by the editor of the fourth folio. It was, I am perfuaded, the author's word: There being no article prefixed adds ftrength to this fuppofition. Nothing is more common in his plays than a word being used in reply, in a fenfe different from that in which it was employed by the firft fpeaker. Ferdinand had the moment before called Miranda a goddefs; and the words immediately fubjoined, "Vouchfafe, my prayer"-fhow, that he looked up to her as a perfon of a fuperior order, and fought her protection, and in PRO. How! the best? What wert thou, if the king of Naples heard thee? FER. A fingle thing, as I am now, that wonders To hear thee speak of Naples: He does hear me; And, that he does, I weep: myself am Naples ; Who with mine eyes, ne'er fince at ebb, beheld The king my father wreck'd. MIRA. Alack, for mercy! FER. Yes, faith, and all his lords; the duke of Milan, And his brave fon, being twain. 3 3 The duke of Milan, ftruction for his conduct, not her love. At this period, therefore he must have felt too much awe to have flattered himself with the hope of poffeffing a being that appeared to him celestial; though afterwards, emboldened by what Miranda fays, he exclaims, "Ŏ, if a virgin," &c. words that appear inconfiftent with the fuppofition that he had already asked her whether she was one or not. She had indeed told him, she was; but in his aftonishment at hearing her speak his own language, he may well be fuppofed to have forgotten what fhe faid; which, if he had himself made the inquiry, would not be very reasonable to suppose. It appears from the alteration of this play by Dryden and Sir W. D'Avenant, that they confidered the prefent paffage in this light: "Fair excellence, "If, as your form declares, you are divine, "Be pleas'd to inftruct me, how you will be worship'd; "To human kind." In a fubfequent fcene we have again the fame inquiry: "And brought us thus together?" Fer. "Sir, fhe's mortal." Our author might have remembered Lodge's defcription of Fawnia, the Perdita of his Winter's Tale: "Yet he fcarce knew her, for fhe had attired herself in rich apparel, which so increased her beauty, that the resembled rather an angel than a creature." Doraftus and Fawnia, 1592. MALONE. And his brave fon, being twain.] This is a flight forgetfulness. Nobody was loft in the wreck, yet we find no fuch character as the fon of the duke of Milan. THEOBALD. And his more braver daughter, could control thee,* If now 'twere fit to do't:-At the firft fight [Afide. They have chang'd eyes :-Delicate Ariel, I'll fet thee free for this!-A word, good fir; I fear, you have done yourself fome wrong: a word. MIRA. Why fpeaks my father fo ungently? This Is the third man that e'er I faw; the firft That e'er I figh'd for: pity move my father FER. O, if a virgin, And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you The queen of Naples. PRO. Soft, fir; one word more.-They are both in either's powers: but this fwift bufinefs I muft uneafy make, left too light winning [Afide. Make the prize light.-One word more; I charge thee, That thou attend me: thou dost here ufurp The name thou ow'ft not; and haft put thyself Upon this ifland, as a fpy, to win it From me, the lord on't. FER. No, as I am a man. MIRA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill fpirit have fo fair an house, Good things will ftrive to dwell with't. 4-control thee,] Confute thee, unanfwerably contradict thee. JOHNSON. 5 I fear you have done yourself fome wrong:] i. e. I fear that, in afferting yourfelf to be king of Naples, you have uttered a falfhood, which is below your character, and confequently injurious to your honour. So, in The Merry Wives of Windjor This is not well, master Ford, this wrongs you." STEEVENS. ! PRO. Follow me. [To FERD. Speak not you for him; he's a traitor.-Come. Sea-water fhalt thou drink, thy food shall be FER. I will refift fuch entertainment, till Mine enemy has more power. MIRA. No; [He draws. O dear father, What, I fay, Make not too rash a trial of him, for PRO. My foot my tutor! -Put thy fword up, traitor; Is fo poffefs'd with guilt: come from thy ward;* 6 He's gentle, and not fearful.] Fearful fignifies both terrible and timorous. In this place it may mean timorous. She tells her father, that as he is gentle, rough ufage is unneceffary; and as he is brave, it may be dangerous. Fearful, however, may fignify formidable, as in K. Henry IV: "A mighty and a fearful head they are." and then the meaning of the paffage is obvious. STEEVENS. "Do not rafhly determine to treat him with severity, he is mild and harmless, and not in the leaft terrible or dangerous." RITSON. My foot my tutor!] So, in The Mirrour for Magiflrates, 1587. p. 163: "What honeft heart would not conceive difdayne, "To fee the foote furmount above the head." HENDERSON. Again, in K. Lear, A&t IV. fc. ii. one of the quartos reads— My foot ufurps my head." STEEVENS. 66 come from thy ward;] Defift from any hope of awing me by that pofture of defence. JOHNSON. |