that which will give language to you, cat: 16 open your mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly: [Gives him drink.] you cannot tell who's your friend; open your chops again. [Gives him more drink. Trin. I should know that voice: it should be - but he is

drown'd; and these are devils : — O, defend me ! a most delicate mon

Steph. Four legs, and two voices, ster? His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague: [Gives him drink.]- Come, - Amen ! 17 I will pour some in thy other mouth. Trin. Stephano !

Steph. Doth thy other mouth call me?- Mercy, mercy! This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon.

Trin. Stephano! If thou be'st Stephano, touch me, and speak to me; for I am Trinculo, — be not afeard, — thy good friend Trinculo.

Steph. If thou be'st Trinculo, come forth: I'll pull thee by the lesser legs: if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. [Pulls TRINCULO out.] Thou art very Trinculo 18 indeed! How camest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? 19

16 Shakespeare gives his characters appropriate language: "They belch forth proverbs in their drink," "Good liquor will make a cat speak," and "He who eats with the devil had need of a long spoon."

17 Stephano is frightened, and put to his religion; and Amen! is the best he can do towards praying.

18 That is, the real or veritable Trinculo. The Poet often has very so. 19 Moon-calf was an imaginary monster, supposed to be generated or misshapen through lunar influence. So in Holland's Pliny: "A false conception called mola, that is a moone-calfe; that is to say, a lump of flesh without shape, without life."—Siege is an old word for seat. So in Measure for Measure, iv. 2: "Upon the very siege of justice."

But

Trin. I took him to be kill'd with a thunder-stroke. art thou not drown'd, Stephano? I hope, now, thou art not drown'd? Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans 'scaped!

Steph. Pr'ythee, do not turn me about; my stomach is

not constant.

Cal. [Aside.] These be fine things, an if20 they be not sprites.

That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor:

I will kneel to him.

Steph. How didst thou 'scape? How camest thou hither? swear, by this bottle, how thou camest hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard, by this bottle which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.

Cal. I'll swear, upon that bottle, to be thy

True subject; for the liquor is not earthly.

Steph. Here; swear, man, how thou escapedst.

Trin. Swam ashore, man, like a duck: I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn.

Steph. Here, kiss the book. [Gives him drink.] Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose. Trin. O Stephano, hast any more of this?

Steph. The whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by the sea-side, where my wine is hid. — How now, moon-calf!

how does thine ague?

Cal. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?

20 In old English, if, an, and an if are exactly equivalent expressions; the latter being merely a reduplication; though it sometimes has the force of even if. See Hamlet, page 89, note 34.

Steph. Out o' the Moon, I do assure thee: I was the Man-i'-the-moon when time was.

Cal. I've seen thee in her, and I do adore thee: My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush.21 Steph. Come, swear to that; kiss the book: I will furnish it anon with new contents: swear. [Gives CALIBAN drink. Trin. By this good light, this is a very shallow monster! - I afeard of him! a very weak monster! The Man-i'

a most poor credulous monster ! — Well drawn,

monster, in good sooth.22

Cal. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' the island;

And I will kiss thy foot: I pr'ythee, be my god.

Trin. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken monster! when his god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle.23

Cal. I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy subject.
Steph. Come on then; down, and swear.

Trin. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy monster ! I could find in my heart to beat him,

Steph. Come, kiss.

[Gives CALIBAN drink.

Trin.- - but that the poor monster's in drink: an abominable monster !

Cal. I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.

A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!

I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
Thou wondrous man.

་་

21 So in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, v. 1: 'This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn, presenteth moonshine."

22 Well drawn probably means that Caliban has taken a large draught of the liquor; as we should say, a bumper.—“In good sooth," sooth is the same as truth. So soothsayer originally meant a truth-speaker.

28 That is, will steal the liquor out of his bottle.

Trin. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard!

Cal. I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts ; 24
Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how

To snare the nimble marmozet; I'll bring thee
To clustering filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee
Young staniels 25 from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?

Steph. I pr'ythee now, lead the way without any more talking. Trinculo, the King and all our company else being drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle: fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by-and-by again.

Cal. [Sings drunkenly.] Farewell, master; farewell, farewell!

Trin. A howling monster; a drunken monster !

Cal. No more dams I'll make for fish ;

Nor fetch in firing at requiring; Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish: 'Ban, 'Ban, Ca - Caliban

Has a new master; get a new man.

Freedom, hey-day, hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day,

freedom!

Steph. O brave monster! lead the way.

[Exeunt.

24 Pig-nuts are probably much the same as what we call ground-nuts,

a small bulbous root growing wild.

25 The staniel is a species of hawk, also called kestril; a "beautiful species," says Montagu. See Critical Notes.

ACT III.

SCENE I. Before PROSPERO'S Cell.
Enter FERDINAND, bearing a log.

Ferd. There be some sports are painful, and their labour
Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task would be
As heavy to me as 'tis odious, but

The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed,
And he's composed of harshness. I must remove
Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,
Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress

Weeps when she sees me work; and says such baseness
Had never like executor. I forget:

But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour;
Most busy when I do it least.2

1 The delight we take in those painful sports offsets or compensates the exertion they put us to. A similar thought occurs in Macbeth: "The labour we delight in physics pain."

2 That is, "I being most busy when I am least occupied." The sense of the two lines appears to be, "The sweet thoughts attending my labour; and springing from what Miranda is thereby moved to say, make even the labour itself refreshing to me; so that I am happiest when I work hardest, and most weary when working least." And Ferdinand "forgets" his task, or loses all sense of its irksomeness, in the pleasantness of his thoughts. The passage is not so very dark to those who have had their labour sweetened to them by thoughts of the dear ones for whom they were working. “And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." See Critical Notes.