water. Hence the name.. Max Muller asserts that in Ireland priests were formerly accustomed to eat them during Lent, under the impression that they were not birds, but fish.

Ste. Monster, lay-to your fingers: help to bear this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this.

Trin. And this.

Ste. Ay, and this.

A noise of hunters heard.

Enter divers Spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds, and hunt them about, PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on. Pros. Hey. Mountain, hey!

Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver!

Pros. Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark! hark! (Cal., Ste., and Trin. are driven out. Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make

them

Than pard or cat o' mountain.

Ari.

Hark, they roar!

Pros. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies:

Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little
Follow, and do me service.

(Exeunt.

Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL. Pros. Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day? Ari. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease.

Pros.

I did say so,
When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,
How fares the king and 's followers?

Ari.
Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;
They cannot budge till your release. The king,
His brother and yours, abide all three distracted
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly

Him that you term'd, sir, 'The good old lord, Gonzalo;

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works

'em

That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

Pros.

Dost thou think so, spirit?

Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.

Pros.

And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

Passion

as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,

Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance:* they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel:
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.

*Cf. Bacon: "In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.” -Essay of Revenge. I'll fetch them, sir. (Exit.

Ari.
Pros. Ye elves of hills, brooks,* standing lakes

and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,†
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms** that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew** by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

(Solemn music.

*Some words and phrases of this speech are taken from Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, published in 1567.. It is perfectly certain, however, that in other passages derived from Ovid the dramatist went directly to the original. In Macbeth, for instance, he mentions one of Actaeon's dogs, not by the English name into which it is converted by Golding, but by the one that Ovid himself used in Latin. Prof. Baynes gives another illustration to the same effect, thus

"The important point to be noted is, that Shakespeare clearly derived it (name of Titania) from his study of Ovid in the original. It must have struck him in reading the text of the "Metamorphoses," as it is not to be found in the only translation which existed in his day. Golding, instead of transferring the term of Titania, always translates it in the case of Diana, by the phrase "Titan's Daughter," and in the case of Circe by the line, "Of Circe, who by long descent of Titian's stock." Shakespeare could not therefore have been indebted to Golding for the happy selection. On the other hand, in the next translation of The "Metamorphoses" by Sandys, first published ten years after Shakespeare's death, Titania is freely used. It is clear, therefore, I think, that Shakespeare not only studied the "Metamorphoses" in the original, but that he read the different stories (in Latin) with a quick and open eye for any names, incident or allusion that might be available for use in his own dramatic labors."-Shakespeare Studies, p. 212.

Ringlets of grass, supposed to be made by fairies, dancing in circles.

*That is, mushrooms, once regarded as the special product of fairies in their night work.

Cf. Bacon: "Mushrooms have two strange properties: the one, that they yield so delicious a meat; the other, that they come up so hastily, as in a night, without being sown."-Natural History.

**From the French words couvir, to cover, and feu, fire.

The bell rung at night-fall, here mentioned as a signal for the fairies to begin their revels. The custom of ringing a curfew was instituted in the time of William the Conqueror. It is still in practice in many places. Re-enter ARIEL before: then ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, at

tended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks:

A solemn air and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains,*

Now useless, boiled within thy skull! There stand, For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantie
Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces
Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:

Thy brother was a further in the act.

Thou art pinch'd for 't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,

You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,

Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,
Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,
Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding
Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shore

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them
That yet looks on me, or would know me: Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell:

I will discase me, and myself present
As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL sings and helps to attire him.

Where the bee sucks, there such I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.