"The hearts discandy, melt their sweets On blossoming Cæsar." 283. Whom, referring to brother in 1. 280. 285. perpetual wink, the everlasting sleep, or closing of eyes. Cf. 1. 216. 286. morsel, here applied contemptuously by Antonio to Gonzalo. For a somewhat similar use of the word Wright compares Measure for Measure, iii. 2. 56-57: "How doth my 287. Should not, would not in that case. Cf. Troilus and Cressida, i. 3. 115-116: "the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right." Cf. Abbott, § 322. 288. suggestion, prompting, temptation. Cf. Sonnet cxliv : "Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still." 289. tell the clock, count the strokes of the clock. Cf. l. 15. 296. fall it, let it fall. Cf. Abbott, § 291. 298. you, his friend. 299. them. The abrupt change from the second person singular to the third plural has led some critics to adopt thee instead of them. But this is unnecessary. "Ariel soliloquizes, and is reviewing what he has to do. Gonzalo, the especial friend, is in imminent danger, and must be at once protected; and all of them must be kept alive, just as he had saved them in the tempest when not a hair perished (Furness). 306. sudden, speedy. 308-309. Why, how now? . ghastly looking? Staunton, from a comparison of these lines with 317-322, assigned them to Gonzalo, and transferred "What's the matter?” to Alonso. Dyce adopts this emendation, and adds the following stage directions: Preserve the king. [To Seb. and Ant.] Why, how now! [To Alon.] Ho! awake! [To Seb. and Ant.] Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking? Alon. [waking.] What's the matter?” 310. securing, guarding. 319. shaked. For this weak form of the past tense instead of the strong shook, cf. 1 Henry IV, iii. 1. 16–17: "The frame and huge foundation of the earth 321. That's verily. For this use of an adverb instead of an adjective, cf. Abbott, § 78. SCENE 2 This scene opens the comic underplot of the play. Caliban, who has hitherto been seen in contrast with humanity in its highest development, is now brought into contact with the dregs of civilized society in the persons of Stephano and Trinculo. Stephano's "bottle" wins from the savage the ready allegiance which Prospero's nobler gifts had failed to obtain. Yet the 'very shallow monster," with his perverted instinct of adoration and his rude poetic sense, is felt to be superior to the drunken butler and jester with whom he forms a league against the tyrant" Prospero. The conspiracy, hallowed by Caliban's impassioned Ode to Liberty, is the burlesque counterpart of the conspiracy in the previous scene. 5. urchin-shows, apparitions of goblins. By derivation urchin means hedgehog. Cf. note on i. 2. 326, and for the use of urchin as an adjective cf. Milton's Comus, 845, "urchin blasts." 9. Sometime, sometimes. 10. after, afterwards. 11. my barefoot way, the path in which I walk barefoot. mount, raise. 13. wound, twisted around by. 15. and, and that too. For this emphatic use of and, cf. Abbott, § 96. 18-19. bear off, a pregnant phrase, equivalent to so keep off me.' "bear and 21. bombard, a large vessel for holding liquor. HalliwellPhillips quotes the following notice of them from Heywood's Philocothonista, 1635: "Other Bottles wee have of Leather, but they most used amongst the Shepheards and harvest people of the Countrey; small Jacks wee have in many Ale-houses of the Citie, and Suburbs, tipt with silver, besides the great black Jacks and bombards at the Court, which when the French-men first saw, they reported at their returne into their Countrey, that the English-men used to drink out of their Bootes." In 1 Henry IV, ii. 4. 496-497, Falstaff is called " that huge bombard of sack." The word is derived from O. F. bombarde, and is used by Lydgate, Caxton, and others for a cannon throwing a stone-ball or large shot. Thence applied to a vessel for liquor on account of some resemblance to an early cannon. 66 29. this fish painted, a painting made of this fish. Trinculo's ideal of art is evidently a daub on a board hung out before a booth at a fair. Miss Porter quotes from Jasper Waynes' Citie Match (1639): Enter Bright hanging out the picture of a strange fish." She cites also an item from the office book of Sir Henry Herbert: A license to James Seale to shew a strange fish for half a yeare, the 3d of September 1632." 31. make a man, make a man's fortune. 33. doit, the smallest coin. Coryat, in his Crudities, says that " eight doits go to a stiver, and ten stivers do make one English shilling.' 34. a dead Indian. Various commentators have attempted the hopeless task of identifying the savage whose body was thus exhibited. Doubtless many of the Elizabethan seamen brought home natives on board their ships. Thus Frobisher, on his first voyage, 1586, took captive an Indian who "for very choler and disdain, bit his tong in twaine within his mouth; notwithstanding he died not thereof, but lived till he came in Englande and then he died of colde which he had taken at sea.' 38. suffered, suffered death. Pilate" in the Apostles' Creed. 42. shroud, hide. Cf. "suffered under Pontius 43. the dregs of the storm. Trinculo is still keeping up the image of the bombard full of liquor. He will hide until the very last drops of the storm are past. 44-55. Stephano sings a certain jolly sea-song. Hearken to the shrewd and diverting knave as he trolls away, bottle in hand, and monarch of all he surveys. There's good stuff in that song; the writer must have smelt salt water; snuffed the seabreeze with a hearty relish, and often had his jacket wetted with the spray ("Shakespeare a Seaman," St. James's Magazine, July, 1862). The song, in itself, scarcely warrants so confident an inference, but it is a link in the chain of evidences which go far to prove that Shakespeare was, at some period, a traveler by sea. 52. tang, twang. 61. Ind, India. 62. your, used colloquially, as in Hamlet, iv. 3. 22–23: worm is your only emperor for diet." 64. give ground, give way. "Your 69. should he learn, should he have learned, so as to be able to speak it. 71. recover, restore. 73. neat's-leather, cow leather used in shoes. Cf. Julius Cæsar, i. 1. 28-29: As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather." 80. I will not take too much for him, whatever I get for him will not be too much. 83. trembling, a sign of being possessed by a devil. Miss Porter quotes from Harsnet's Popish Impostures (1603): “The spirits being commaunded to goe downe into her left foote they did it with vehement trembling.' 85. Come on your ways. Ways" is probably the old genitive used adverbially. Wright compares the German er zoy seines Weges, he went his ways. 86. cat, alluding to the proverb, “ good liquor will make a cat speak." 98. Amen! Stop! that is enough for this mouth. Cf. 103. I have no long spoon. This alludes to a reputed custom in the Morality Plays of the Vice, furnished with a long wooden spoon, eating out of the same dish as the Devil. Comedy of Errors, iv. 3. 64 : Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil." 109. very Trinculo, the real Trinculo. 119. is not constant, is unsettled. 120. an if. See note on ii. 1. 181. 131. Stephano does not take any notice of Caliban's interruption, but again presses Trinculo to swear upon the bottle how he escaped. 142. when time was, once upon a time. 150. Well drawn, a good draught. 160. I could find it in my heart, I feel inclined. 165. Another reference to the cedar berries which the shipwrecked crew of The Sea-Venture found gave a pleasant flavor to water. Cf. i. 2. 334. 172. pig-nuts: the tuber or root-stock of the plant known as the Bunium flexuosum. It is round and brown, white inside, and pleasant to the taste. It cannot be pulled up by force, but needs to be "dug" for. 176. scamels. The word may mean either (1) "limpets," a diminutive of scam, shellfish, derived from the Norse skama or shell; or (2) some kind of rock-breeding bird. Stevenson, in his Birds of Norfolk, says that the female bar-tailed Godwit is called a scamell by the gunners of Blakeney. But this bird is not a rock-breeder, and therefore either Caliban's description is not accurate, or the word in Shakespeare's time must have had a wider application. Of the numerous conjectural readings the most plausible is sea-mells or sea-malls (Theobald, Steevens, Malone, Harting), i.e. sea-gulls. Young sea-gulls were formerly considered great delicacies, and were captured before they could fly. Both Jourdan and Strachey tell of " a kind of web-footed fowle of the bigness of a sea-mew" that the men learned to catch" by standing on the rocks or sands by the sea-side and hollowing, laughing, and making the strangest outcry that possibly they could with the noise thereof the Birds would come and settle upon the very arms and head of him who cried." 179. inherit, take possession. 187. trencher. The Ff read trenchering. has usually been accepted, though Grant Pope's emendation White thinks that Caliban, being drunk, would naturally sing trenchering" after firing” and “ requiring.” 66 ACT III - SCENE 1 This scene strikes more clearly than any other the chief keynote of the play that true freedom consists in service. Ferdinand and Miranda are both eager to undertake the lowest drudgery for the other's sake, and thus prove that their love, though so sudden, is of the type that will endure · (see Introduction, pp. xxii-xxiv). Moulton holds that in the introduction of this episode of “love at first sight " Shakespeare intends " to give increased reality to the story" by including one of the "elements of common life that have kinship with enchantment (p. 239). But this, though he works it out very ingeniously, is extremely doubtful. Instances of Love at first sight are far too common in the Shakespearean drama for special significance to be attached to the episode in The Tempest. Shakespeare even quotes with approval, in As You Like It (iii. 5. 82), Marlowe's line: 66 Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?" |