Steph. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. Steal by line and level is an excellent pass of pate; 50 there's another garment for't. 51 Trin. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest. Cal. I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles,52 or to apes With foreheads villainous low.53 Steph. Monster, lay-to your fingers : help to bear this away, played in his address to the jerkin. 'Steal by line and level" is a further punning on the same word; the plumb-line and the level being instruments used by architects and builders. So that to steal by line and level was to show wit in stealing, or to steal artistically. 50 Pass of pate is a spurt or sally of wit; pass being, in the language of fencing, a thrust. 51 Lime, or bird-lime, was a sticky substance used for catching birds. So in 2 Henry the Sixth, i. 3: "Myself have limed a bush for her, and placed a quire of such enticing birds, that she will light to listen to their lays." See, also, Hamlet, page 154, note 8. 52 Caliban's barnacle is the clakis or tree-goose, as it was called, which was thought to be produced from the shell-fish, lepas antifera, also called barnacle. Gerard's Herbal has the following account of the matter: "There are in the north parts of Scotland certain trees whereon do grow shell-fishes, which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnakles, in the north of England brant-geese, and in Lancashire tree-geese." Perhaps the old notion of the barnacle-goose being produced by the barnacle-fish grew from the identity of name. As Caliban prides himself on his intellectuality, he naturally has a horror of being turned into any thing so stupid as a goose. 53 A low forehead was held a deformity. On the other hand, a forehead high and broad was deemed a handsome feature in man or woman. The Poet has several allusions to this old idea. So in The Two Gentlemen, iv. 4: 'Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high." And in Spenser's de scription of Belphoebe, Faerie Queene, ii. 3, 24: Her ivorie forehead, full of bountie brave, Like a broad table did itselfe dispred. where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to,54 carry this. Trin. And this. Steph. Ay, and this. A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers Spirits in shape of 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., STEPH., and TRIN. are driven out. Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; 55 shorten up their sinews With aged cramps;56 and more pinch-spotted make them Than pard or cat-o'-mountain.57 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. 54 Go to is a phrase occurring very often, and of varying import, sometimes of impatience, sometimes of reproof, sometimes of encouragement. Hush up, come on, be off, are among its meanings. 55 In certain fevers, the mucilage sometimes gets dried out of the joints, especially the knee-joints, so as to cause a creaking or grating sound when the patient walks. Of course the effect is very painful. 56 Agèd seems to be used here with the sense of the intensive old, as before explained. See page 68, note 86. 57 Pard was in common use for leopard, as also for panther.— Cat-o'mountain is probably the wild-cat. So in Minsheu's Spanish Dictionary: "Gato montes: A cat of mountaine, a wilde cat." This animal, however, can hardly be called spotted; it is rather striped. Perhaps the term was not confined to one species of animal. ACT V. SCENE I. Before the Cell of PROSPERO. 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. I did say so, Pros. Ari. Confined together In the same fashion as you gave in. charge; He that you term'd The good old lord, Gonzalo : From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em, 1 Time does not break down or bend under its load, or what it carries; that is, "we have time enough for what we have undertaken to do." 2" Which defends your cell against the weather, or the storm." 8 "Till you release them," of course. The objective genitive, as it is called, where present usage admits only of the subjective genitive. The Poet has many such constructions. See page 116, note 1. That, if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. Pros. Dost thou think so, spirit? And mine shall. Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human. Pros. 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,1 be kindlier moved than thou art? Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit. Ari. Pros. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves ;5 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, 4 All is here used adverbially, in the sense of quite; and passion is the object of relish, and has the sense of suffering. The sense of the passage is sometimes defeated by setting a comma after sharply. 5 This speech is in some measure borrowed from Medea's, in Ovid; the expressions are, many of them, in the old translation by Golding. But the exquisite fairy imagery is Shakespeare's own. 6 These ringlets were circles of bright-green grass, supposed to be produced by the footsteps of fairies dancing in a ring. The origin of them is still, I believe, a mystery. Alluded to in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, ii. I. — Mushrooms were also thought to be the work of fairies; probably from their growing in rings, and springing up with such magical quickness. Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime To work mine end upon their senses that [Solemn music. Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks. 7 They rejoice, because "the curfew tolls the knell of parting day," and so signals the time for the fairies to begin their nocturnal frolics. 8 Weak, if left to themselves, because they waste their force in sports and in frivolous or discordant aims; but powerful when guided by wisdom, and trained to worthy ends. This passage has often seemed to me a strange prognostic of what human intelligence has since done in taming and mar shalling the great forces of Nature into the service of man. 9 The spurs are the largest and longest roots of trees. |