The pine, and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master. : Pro. If thou more murmur'ft, I will rend an oak, And

peg thee in his knotty entrails, 'till Thou'st howl'd away twelve winters.

Ari. Pardon, master.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my sp’riting gently.

Pro. Do so: and after two days
I will discharge thee.

Ari. That's my noble master :
What shall I do?' say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go make thy self like to a nymph o'th' fea.
Be subject to no fight but mine : invisible
To every eye-ball else.

Go take this shape, And hither come in it: go hence with diligence.

[Exit Ariel. Awake, dear heart, awake ! thou hast nept 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
Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, Sir,
I do not love to look on

Pro. But, as ’tis,
We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us. What ho! slave ! Caliban !
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [within.] There's wood enough within.
Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business

for thee.
Come, thou Tortoise ! when? -

Enter

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.

S C E N E IV.

Enter Caliban.

3 Cal. “ As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd « With raven's feather from unwholsom fen, ce

Drop on you both! à south-west blow on ye, " And blister you all o'er!

(cramps, Pro. For this, be sure, to night thou shalt have Side-stiches that shall pen thy breath

pen thy breath up ; urchins 3. Cal. As wicked dew, äs e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwbolfom fen,

Drop on you both.] Shakespear hath very artificially given the air of the antique to the language of Caliban, in order to heighten the grotesque of his character. As here he uses wicked for unwbol fome. So Sir John Maundevil, in his travels p. 334. Édit. Lond. 1725.

at alle tymes brennethe a Velelle of Gristalle fulle of Bawme for to zeven gode smalle" and odour to the Emperour, and to voyden awey alle wY KKEDE Eyres and Corrupciouns. It was a tradition, it seems, that Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden concurred in observing, that Shakespear 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 Shakespear 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 fpeaking of a phrase in Milton, which he supposed alcogether absurd and unmeaning, he says, Satan had not the privilege as Caliban in Shakespear, to usé ner phrase and di&ion unknown to all others. and again to practice distances is Aill a Caliban file. Note on Milton's paradise loft, 1. 4. v.945. But I know of no such Caliban file in Shakespear that hath new phrase and diction unknown to all others.

Shall,

C 2

Shall, for that vast of night that they may. work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

Cal.““ I must eat my dinner. " This Ifand's mine by Sycorax my mother, " Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first, “ Thou stroak’dst me, and mad'st much of me; and

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'th' INe, " The fresh springs, brine-pits; barren place, and

fertile. 16 Curs'd be. I, that I did so! all the charms “ Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! “ For I am all the subjects that you have, " Who first was mine own King; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest of th' Illand.

Pro. Thou most lying Nave, Whom Stripes may move, not kindness; I have

us'd thee (Filth as thou art) with humane care, and lodg'd In mine own cell, 'till thou didst seek to violate The honour of my child.

Cal. Oh ho, oh ho! I wou'd, it had been done! Thou didst prevent me, I had peopled else This Ille with Calibans.

Pro. 4 Abhorred flave; Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill! I pity'd thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour

4 Abhorred Nave ; ] In the common Editions this speech ivas given to Miranda. Mr. Dryden in his alteration of this play rightly transferred it to Prospero.

One

One thing or other. 5 When thou couldst not, savage,
Shew thine own meaning, but wouldft gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile race
(Tho' 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 hadít deservd 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,
For learning me your language!

5 When thou DIDS T not, Savage,

K NO W thy own meaning, but woulds gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes

With words to make them known.] The benefit which Prospero here upbraids Caliban with having bestowed, was teaching him language. He shews the greatness of this benefit by marking the inconvenience Caliban lay under for want of it. What was the inconvenience ? This, that he did not know his own meaning. But sure a Brute, to which he is compared, doth know its own meaning, that is, knows what it would be at. This, indeed, it cannot do, it cannot shew its meaning to others. And this certainly is what Prospero would say,

When thou cou LDS T not, Savage,
She w thy own meaning,
The following words makes it evident,

but woulds gabble like A thing most brutib. And when once [new] was corrupted to [know] the transcribers would of course change [couldf] into [didf] to make it agree with the other false reading. There is indeed a Sense in which Know thy own meaning—may be well applied to a brute. For it may fignify the not having any reflex knowledge of the operations of its own mind, which, it would seem, a Brute hath not. Tho' this, I say, may be applied to a brute, and consequently to Caliban, and tho' to remedy this brutality be a nobler benefit than even the teaching languagę; yet such a sense would be impertinent and absurd in this place, where only the benefit of language is talked of by an exact and learned Speaker. Besides, Prospero exprefly says, that Caliban had purposes; which, in other words, is that he did know his own meaning,

C3

Pro,

Pro. Hag-feed, hence!
Fetch us in fewel, and be quick (thou wert' beft)
To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or doft 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 pow'r,
It would controul my dam's god Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.
Pro. So, slave, hence !

[Exit Caliban.

Enter Ferdinand ; and Ariel invisible, playing

and singing

ARIEL's SONG.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take bands :
Curt fed when you have, and kist

(The wild waves wbift ;)
Foot it featly bere and there,
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Burthen, dispersedly. Hark, hark, bough-waugh: the watch-dogs bark,

Baugh-waugh. Ari. Hark, hark, I bear

The strain of strutting chanticlere

Cry, Cock-a-doodle-do.
Fer. Where should this Musick be, i'th' air, or

earth?
It sounds no more: and, fure, it waits upon
Some God o'th' Isand. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping against the King my father's wreck,