That wrings mine eyes to 't. PROS. Hear a little further. And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon 's; without the which this story My tale provokes that question. Dear, they [140 durst not, So dear the love my people bore me, nor set A mark so bloody on the business, but With colours fairer painted their foul ends. In few, they hurried us aboard a bark, Bore us some leagues to sea: where they prepared Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats MIR. Was I then to you! 1 Impertinent, irrelevant. 2 Wench, a female person, a woman; not always in a bad sense, as at present, but used as a general familiar expression, in any variation of tone between tenderness and contempt.-SCHMIDT. 3 A rotten carcass of a butt, as we should say, an old rotten tub. Rowe, following Dryden's version Alack, what trouble 150 of The Tempest, substituted boat for butt, and so most editors. 4 Hoist. Is this the past tense of hoise or the present of hoist? Both verbs occur in Shakspere, but the original form is hoise, and the t is due to the past pt. of hoise,hoist used for hoised. 5 Note the pathetic effect of the slow movement of these lines. Thou didst smile Thou wast that did preserve me. Infused with a fortitude from heaven, When I have deck'd' the sea with drops full salt, Against what should ensue. MIR. PROS. By Providence divine. How came we ashore? Some food we had and some fresh water that 160 Out of his charity, who being then appointed Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries, From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. 170 Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit3 1 Deck'd, covered-so many were the tears he shed. Quite unnecessary to connect it with a dialectic word deg, to sprinkle. Schmidt says, To speak of floods being increased by tears is a hyperbole fre quent with Shakspere." 2 An undergoing stomach, a courage capable of enduring. 3 Profit, a verb = benefit, inprove. Than other princess' can, that have more time For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason For raising this sea-storm? PROS. Know thus far forth. By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Brought to this shore; and by my prescience A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not but omit, my fortunes 180 Will ever after droop.2 Here cease more questions: Come away, servant, come. = 1 Princess (spelt in the Folio Princesse) princesses; "The plural and possessive cases of nouns in which the singular ends in s, se, ce, and ge, are frequently written, and still more frequently pronounced, without the additional syllable."-Gr. § 471. Rowe's conjecture "princes" is therefore unnecessary, though Schmidt quotes two passages to show that prince was sometimes feminine, viz., Greene, Pandosto (1588), ed. Collier, p. 15, Alas, Bellaria, better thou hadst been born a beggar than a prince," and p. 20, Seeing she was a prince she ought to be tried by her peers." 44 2 Cp. Julius Cæsar, iv, 3, 218 221, [Miranda sleeps. I am ready now. "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." 3 Ariel. The name occurs in the Old Testament,-in Ezra. viii. 16, as that of a man; in Isaiah xxix., as a designation given to the City of Jerusalem; and in Ezekiel xliii. 15, 16, as a synonym for the altar of burnt offering. Here Shakspere may have found it, and, as Thoms suggests (Three Notelets on Shakespeare, p. 21), selected it from the resemblance its sound bore to the character of his quaint spirit. Enter ARIEL. ARI. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be 't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task PROS. Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee? 2 190 I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, PROS. My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil5 Would not infect his reason? ARI. 1 Quality, Professional skill. Wright compares Hamlet ii, 2, 452, "Come give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech;' and adds that the word was most commonly applied to the profession of players. Not a soul 2 The Waist, the middle part of the ship. 3 Distinctly, separately. In ii, I, 217, it means intelligibly. 4 Cracks, loud reports. C 210 But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Was the first man that leap'd; cried, 'Hell is On their sustaining3 garments not a blemish, In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, PROS. Of the king's ship The mariners say how thou hast dispos'd And all the rest o' th' fleet. 1 Quit, here and in 1. 148 = quitted. "In verbs in which the infinitive ends in 1, ed is often omitted in the past indicative for euphony." Gr. § 341. 2 Up-staring, standing on end. Cf. Julius Cæsar, iv, 3, 280, where 220 |