Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging,
Than bees that made them.

Cal.

I must eat my dinner. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first,3 Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st

give me

Water, with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: And then I lov'd thee,
And shew'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,

The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fertile;
Cursed be I that did so.!—All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,

Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest of the island.

Pro.

Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have us'd thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee,
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate

The honour of my child.

Cal. O ho, O ho!4-'would it had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.

Pro.

Abhorred slave ;5

Which any print of goodness will not take,

subjected to their dominion. To this limitation of time Shakspeare alludes again, in K. Lear: "He begins at curfew, and walks till the second cock." Steevens.

3 Which thou takʼst from me. When thou camest first,] We might read

"Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st here first." Ritson.

4 O ho, O ho!] This savage exclamation was originally and constantly appropriated, by the writers of our ancient Mysteries and Moralities, to the Devil; and has, in this instance, been transferred to his descendant Caliban. Steevens.

5 Abhorred slave;] This speech, which the old copy gives to Miranda, is very judiciously bestowed, by Theobald, on Prospero.

Johnson.

Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee, each hour One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,

6

Know thine own meaning, but would'st gabble, like

A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes,

With words, that made them known: But thy vile race,7 Though thou didst learn, had that in't, which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadst deserv'd more, than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse: The red plague rid you,3 For learning me your language!

Mr. Theobald found, or might have found, this speech transferred to Prospero, in the alteration of this play, by Dryden and Davenant. Malone.

6 when thou didst not, savage,

[ocr errors]

Know thine own meaning,] By this expression, however defective, the poet seems to have meant-When thou didst utter sounds, to which thou hadst no determinate meaning: but the following expression of Mr. Addison, in his 389th Spectator, concerning the Hottentots, may prove the best comment on this passage: having no language among them, but a confused gabble, which is neither well understood by themselves, or others." Steevens. But thy vile race,] The old copy has vild, but it is only the ancient mode of spelling vile. Race, in this place, seems to signify original disposition, inborn qualities. In this sense, we still say-The race of wine: Thus, in Massinger's New Way to pay old Debts:

7

"There came, not six days since, from Hull, a pipe

"Of rich canary.

"Is it of the right race ?"

and Sir W. Temple has somewhere applied it to works of literature. Steevens.

Race and raciness in wine, signifies a kind of tartness.

8

Blackstone.

the red plague rid you,] I suppose, from the redness of the body, universally inflamed. Johnson.

The erysipelas was anciently called the red plague. Steevens. So again, in Coriolanus:

"Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome!"

The word rid, which has not been explained, means to destroy. So, in K. Henry VI. P. II :

[ocr errors]

-If you ever chance to have a child,

"Look, in his youth, to have him so cut off,

"As, deathsmen! you have rid this sweet young prince."

Malone.

Pro.

Hag-seed, hence!

Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best,

To answer other business. Shrugs't thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar,

That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

Cal.

No, 'pray thee!

I must obey his art is of such power,
It would control my dam's god, Setebos,9
And make a vassal of him.

9

Pro.

[Aside.

So, slave; hence! [Ex. CAL.

Re-enter ARIEL, invisible,1 playing and singing;
FERDINAND following him.

ARIEL'S Song.

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,
(The wild waves whist,)2

my dam's god, Setebos,] A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has observed, on the authority of John Barbot, that "the Patagons are reported to dread a great horned devil, called Setebos."-It may be asked, however, how Shakspeare knew any thing of this, as Barbot was a voyager of the present century?— Perhaps he had read Eden's History of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, p. 434, that "the giantes, when they found themselves fettered, roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them."The metathesis in Caliban from Canibal is evident. Farmer.

We learn, from Magellan's voyage, that Setebos was the supreme god of the Patagons, and Cheleule was an inferior one.

Tollet.

Setebos is also mentioned in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598. Malone. 1 Re-enter Ariel invisible,] In the wardrobe of the Lord Admiral's men, (i. e. company of comedians,) 1598, was-" a robe for to goo invisebell." See the MS. from Dulwich college, quoted by Mr. Malone, Vol. III. Steevens.

2 Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of some dances. So, in K. Henry VIII. that prince says to Anna Bullen

"I were unmannerly to take you out,

"And not to kiss you.”

The wild waves whist ;] i. e. the wild waves being silent. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VII. c. 7. s. 59:

"So was the Titaness put down, and whist,"

[blocks in formation]

Fer. Where should this musick be? i' the air, or the earth?

It sounds no more:-and sure, it waits upon
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,*

And Milton seems to have had our author in his eye. See stanza 5, of his hymn on the Nativity :

"The winds, with wonder whist,

"Smoothly the waters kiss'd."

So again, both Lord Surry and Phaer, in their translations of the second book of Virgil:

66

Conticuere omnes.

"They whisted all."

and Lyly, in his Maid's Metamorphosis, 1600:

"But every thing is quiet, whist, and still." Steevens. -the burden bear.] Old copy-bear the burden. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. Malone.

3

copy;

Weeping again the king my father's wreck,] Thus the old but in the books of Shakspeare's age again is sometimes printed, instead of against, [i. e. opposite to,] which I am persuaded was our author's word. The placing Ferdinand in such a situation, that he could still gaze upon the wrecked vessel, is one of Shakspeare's touches of nature. Again is inadmissible; for this would import that Ferdinand's tears had ceased for a time; whereas, he himself tells us, afterwards, that from the hour of his father's wreck they had never ceased to flow:

[ocr errors][merged small]

"Who with mine eyes, ne'er since at ebb, beheld
"The king my father wreck'd."

However, as our author sometimes forgot to compare the different parts of his play, I have made no change. Malone.

By the word-again, I suppose the Prince means only to describe the repetition of his sorrows. Besides, it appears from Miranda's description of the storm, that the ship had been swallowed by the waves, and, consequently, could no longer be an object of sight. Steevens.

This musick crept by me upon the waters; 5
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With its sweet air: Thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather:-But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

ARIEL sings.

Full fathom five thy father lies;6
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls, that were his eyes:
Nothing of him, that doth fade,"
But doth suffer a sea-change,8
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Hark! now I hear them,-ding-dong, bell,"

[Burden, ding-dong.

5 This musick crept by me upon the waters;] So, in Milton's Masque:

66

a soft and solemn breathing sound

"Rose like a steam of rich distill'd perfumes,

"And stole upon the air." Steevens.

6 Full fathom five thy father lies; &c.] Ariel's lays, (which have been condemned by Gildon as trifling, and defended not very successfully by Dr. Warburton,) however seasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no supernatural dignity or elegance; they express nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery.

The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings, to which tradition has always ascribed a sort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expressed by the songs of Ariel. Johnson.

The songs in this play, Dr. Wilson, who reset and published two of them, tells us, in his Court Ayres, or Ballads, published at Oxford, 1660, that "Full fathom five," and "Where the bee sucks,” had been first set by Robert Johnson, a composer, contemporary with Shakspeare. Burney.

7 Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change-] The meaning is—Every thing about him, that is liable to alteration, is changed. Steevens. 8 But doth suffer a sea-change-] So, in Milton's Masque: "And underwent a quick immortal change." Steevens. 9 So, in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edition, 1690:

"Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding, dong."
"I must go seek a new love,

"Yet will I ring her knell,-Ding, dong."

« ПредишнаНапред »