Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not. Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boats. None that I love more than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out of our way, I say. (Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging*; make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. (Exeunt. *This word is here used in its old philosophical sense of temperament as determined, according to the ancients, by the combination (complexio) in every man of the four elementary humors choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood. An allusion to the old proverb, "He that's born to be hanged needs fear no drowning." Cf. Bacon: "He may go by water, for he is sure to be well landed."-Promus, 1594. Re-enter BOATSWAIN. Boats. Down with the topmast!* yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course.* (A cry within.) A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather or our office. Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GON ZALO. Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink? *The ship is on a lee shore and in great danger; but the above instructions have been universally recognized by experienced mariners as those best adapted to save her. The courses are the large lower sails. Cf. Bacon's "In very heavy storms they first lower the yards, and then take in the topsails and, if necessary, all the others, even cutting down the masts themselves. A ship can make headway against the wind (lay her off) with six points of the compass only in her favor. The upper tiers of sails are chiefly used when the wind is light."-Historia Ventorum. The Historia Ventorum is an elaborate treatise (88 pp.) on winds, and the effect of winds on the sail of a ship, including occasions when a ship must lie close up, "with topmast struck and main course set," in order to escape "running aground." "A very striking instance of the great accuracy of Shakespeare's knowledge, in a professional science the most difficult to attain without the help of experience.”— Lord Mulgrave. Take up your Shakespeare and read the opening scene of "The Tempest." A ship is off an unknown lee-shore, laboring heavily; a storm is raging; lightning is flashing; thunder is bellowing; waves are madly roaring; 'men's' hearts are failing them for fear; confusion and terror are holding a carnival on board. We appeal to all intelligent readers, and especially to seamen, to answer whether they think probable that Shakespeare could have intuitively penned that scene if he had spent his life entirely on shore? The thing is incredible. Every epithet in the scene is exactly proper and in admirable keeping; every sea-phrase is correct; every order of the boatswain's is seamanlike and precisely adapted to the end in view." "Of all negative facts in regard to his (William Shakspere of Stratford's) life, none perhaps is surer than that he never was at sea."—Richard Grant White. A strictly nautical phrase, in use in Shakespeare's time, meaning to bring the ship's head as close to the wind as possible. Her position was then said to be "at try." The special sails, provided for this purpose, are stilled called try-sails (try-sls). Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!* * From Lat. in, not, caritas, kind; severe, harsh. The modern English prefix un is a regrettable deviation from the Latin root. Boats. Work you then. Ant. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench. Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold!* set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off. set. *That is, keep her close to the wind, hold her to it. Both courses, foresail as well as mainsail, are now Enter MARINERS wet. Mariners. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! Boats. What, must our mouths be cold? Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them, For our case is as theirs. Seb. I'm out of patience. Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunk ards: This wide-chapp'd rascal-would thou mightest lie drowning The washing of ten tides! Gon. He'll be hang'd yet, Though every drop of water swear against it And gape at widest to glut him. (A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!' 'We split, we split!'-'Farewell my wife and children!' 'Farewell, brother!'-'We split, we split, we split!') Ant. Let's all sink with the king. Seb. Let's take leave of him. (Exeunt Ant. and Seb. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. (Exeunt. The island. Before Prospero's cell. Enter PROSPERO* and MIRANDA.† Mir. If by your art,** my dearest father, you have With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel, Poor souls, they perish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallow'd and *From Lat. prosperare, make happy, to bless (mankind). From Lat. mirari, to admire; one to be admired, or, as the dramatist himself defines the name, the "top of admiration." Cf. Bacon: "The truth is that in some of these fables, as well in the texture of the story as in the propriety of the very names by which the persons that figure in it are distinguished, I find a significancy that must be clear to everybody. Metis, Jupiter's wife, plainly means counsel; Typhon, tumult; Nemesis, revenge, and so on." Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609. **That is, by magic art, which had its chief seat in Babylon, where it was the recognised religion of the country, with its priests and ceremonial, its purifications, sacrifices and chants, and whence it spread throughout the civilized world. Plato speaks of it with respect, and Philo with warm praise. Cf. Bacon: "I must here stipulate that the word magic, which has long been used in a bad sense, be restored to its ancient and honorable meaning. For among the Persians magic was taken for a sublime wisdom, and knowledge of the universal consents of things; and so the a three kings who came from the east to worship Christ were called by the name of Magi. I understand it, however, as the science which applies the knowledge of hidden forms to the operation of nature." That is, the powers over nature attributed to Prospero by his daughter and by the dramatist himself in the play are those that once belonged to the Eastern magicians and were said by Bacon to have been "ancient and honorable." Notable instances of their exercise, considered in Shake-speare's time as historical, are narrated in Genesis, in connection with the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. Pros. Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart Mir. Pros. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, *Cf. Bacon: "Your beadsman therefore addresseth himself to your Majesty for a cell to retire unto."-Letter to the King, 25 March, 1623. The cell that Bacon derived was the Provostship of Eton. "Full poor" means, poor to the utmost. Mir. More to know 'Tis time Did never meddle with my thoughts. Pros. I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, (Lays down his mantle. Lie there, my art.* Wipe thou thine eyes; comfort. have The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd |