ARI. No, sir. PRO, Thou hast: Where was she born? speak; tell me. ARI. Sir, in Argier.* PRO. O, was she so? I must, Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did, They would not take her life: Is not this true? ARI. Ay, sir. PRO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, Into a cloven pine; within which rift A dozen years; within which space she died, groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island, ARI. Yes; Caliban her son. in Argier.] Argier is the ancient English name for Algiers. See a pamphlet entitled, A true Relation of the Travailes, &c. of William Davies, Barber-surgeon, &c. 1614. In this is a chapter" on the description, &c. of Argier." STEEVENS. PRO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban, Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st What torment I did find thee in: thy groans Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Could not again undo; it was mine art, When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape The pine, and let thee out. ARI. I thank thee, master. PRO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. ARI. I will be correspondent to command, PRO. I will discharge thee. Pardon, master: ARI. That's my noble master! What shall I do? say what? what shall I do? PRO. Go make thyself like to a nymph o'the sea;" Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible Το every eye-ball else." Go, take this shape, to a nymph o' the sea;] There does not appear to be sufficient cause why Ariel should assume this new shape, as he was to be invisible to all eyes but those of Prospero. STEEVENS. Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible To every eye-ball else.] The old copy reads "Be subject to no sight but thine and mine; invisible," &c. But redundancy in the first line, and the ridiculous precaution that Ariel should not be invisible to himself, plainly prove that the words-and thine- were the interpolations of ignorance. STEEVENS. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject To no sight but thine and mine; invisible, &c.] The words -"be subject"-having been transferred in the first copy of this And hither come in't: hence, with diligence." [Exit ARIEL. Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake! MIRA. The strangeness" of your story put Heaviness in me. PRO. Shake it off: Come on; We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never MIRA. I do not love to look on. PRO. 'Tis a villain, sir, But, as 'tis, play to the latter of these lines, by the carelessness of the transcriber or printer, the editor of the second folio, to supply the metre of the former, introduced the word to;-reading, "like to a nymph o' the sea." The regulation that I have made, shews that the addition, like many others made by that editor, was unnecessary. MALONE. My arrangement of this passage admits the word to, which, I think, was judiciously restored by the editor of the second folio. STEEVENS. " And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.] The old copy reads "And hither come in't: go, hence with diligence." The transcriber or compositor had caught the word go from the preceding line. RITSON. • The strangeness-] Why should a wonderful story produce sleep? I believe experience will prove, that any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in slumber, especially when, as in Prospero's relation, the last images are pleasing. JOHNSON. The poet seems to have been apprehensive that the audience, as well as Miranda, would sleep over this long but necessary tale, and therefore strives to break it. First, by making Prospero divest himself of his magic robe and wand: then by waking her attention no less than six times by verbal interruption: then by varying the action when he rises and bids her continue sitting: and lastly, by carrying on the business of the fable while Miranda sleeps, by which she is continued on the stage till the poet has occasion for her again. WARNER. We cannot miss him: he does make our fire, CAL. [Within] There's wood enough within. PRO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee: Come forth, thou tortoise! when?' Re-enter ARIEL, like a water-nymph. Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel, Hark in thine ear. ARI. My lord, it shall be done. [Exit. PRO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! Enter CALIBAN. CAL. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both!2 a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er! • We cannot miss him:] That is, we cannot do without him. M. MASON. This provincial expression is still used in the midland counties. MALONE. Come forth, thou tortoise! when?] This interrogation, indicative of impatience in the highest degree, occurs also in King Richard II. Act I. sc. i.: "When, Harry?" See note on this passage, Act I. sc. i. In Prospero's summons to Caliban, however, as it stands in the old copy, the word forth (which I have repeated for the sake of metre) is wanting. STEEVENS. Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both!] It was a tradition, it seems, that PRO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins3 Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden concurred in observing, that Shakspeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had also devised and adapted a new manner of language for that character. What they meant by it, without doubt, was, that Shakspeare gave his language a certain grotesque air of the savage and antique; which it certainly has. But Dr. Bentley took this, of a new language, literally; for, speaking of a phrase in Milton, which he supposed altogether absurd and unmeaning, he says, Satan had not the privilege, as Caliban in Shakspeare, to use new phrase and diction unknown to all others- -and again-to practise distances is still a Caliban style. Note on Milton's Paradise Lost, 1. iv. v. 945. But I know of no such Caliban style in Shakspeare, that hath new phrase and diction unknown to all others. WARBURTON. Whence these critics derived the notion of a new language appropriated to Caliban, I cannot find: they certainly mistook brutality of sentiment for uncouthness of words. Caliban had learned to speak of Prospero and his daughter; he had no names for the sun and moon before their arrival, and could not have invented a language of his own, without more understanding than Shakspeare has thought it proper to bestow upon him. His diction is indeed somewhat clouded by the gloominess of his temper, and the malignity of his purposes; but let any other being entertain the same thoughts, and he will find them easily issue in the same expressions. JOHNSON. As wicked dew-] Wicked; having baneful qualities. So Spenser says, wicked weed; so, in opposition, we' say herbs or medicines have virtues. Bacon mentions virtuous bezoar, and Dryden virtuous herbs. JOHNSON. So, in the Book of Haukyng, &c. bl. 1. no date: "If a wycked fellon be swollen in such a manner that a man may hele it, the hauke shall not dye." Under King Henry VI. the parliament petitioned against hops, as a wicked weed. See Fuller's Worthies: Essex. STEEVENS. Urchins are enumerated by Reginald Scott among other terrific beings. So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611: to fold thyself up like an urchin." Again, in Selimus Emperor of the Turks, 1584: |