For learning me your language! PRO. Hag-feed, hence! Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, th' wert beft, To answer other business. Shrug'ft thou, malice? If thou neglect'ft, or doft unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps; Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar. That beafts fhall tremble at thy din. CAL. (Afide. No, 'pray thee! I must obey: his art is of fuch power, It would control my dam's god Setebos,* And make a vaffal of him. PRO. So, flave; hence! (Exit CALIBAN, Re-enter ARIEL invifible, playing and finging; Come unto thefe yellow fands, And then take hands: (The wild waves whift) The word vid, which has not been explained, means to deftroy. So, in K. Henry VI. P. II: "If you ever chance to have a child, "Look, in his youth, to have him fo cut off, "As, deathsmen! you have rid this sweet young prince." MALONE. my dam's god, Setebos,) A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has obferved on the authority of John Barbot, that the Patagons are reported to dread a great horned devil, called Setebos." It may be afked however, how Shakspeare knew any thing of this, as Barbot was a voyager of the prefent century?— Perhaps he had read Eden's Hiftory of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, p. 434, that the giantes, when they found themfelves fettered, roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them."The metathefis in Caliban from Canibal is evident. FARMER. We learn from Magellan's voyage, that Setebos was the fupreme god of the Patagons, and Cheleule was an inferior one. TOLLET. Foot it featly here and there; And, fweet Sprites, the burden bear." Hark, hark! BUR. Bowgh, wowgh. The watch-dogs bark: BUR. Bowgh, wowgh. Hark, hark! I hear The ftrain of frutting chanticlere Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo. (difperfedly. (difperfedly. FER. Where fhould this mufick be? i' the air, or the earth? It founds no more:-and fure, it waits upon Setebos is alfo mentioned in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1589. MALONE. 5 Re-enter Ariel invifible,) In the wardrobe of the Lord Admiral's men (i. e. company of comedians) 1598, was a robe for to goo invifebell." See the Mf. from Dulwich college, quoted by Mr. Malone. STEEVENS. Court'fied when you have, and kifs'd,) As was anciently done at the beginning of fome dances. So, in K. Henry VIII, that prince fays to Anna Bullen "I were unmannerly to take you out, "And not to kiss you." The wild waves whift; ) i. e. the wild waves being filent. So, in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. VII. c. 7. f. 59: So was the Titanefs put down, and whift." And Milton feems to have had our author in his eye. See flanza 5. of his Hymn on the Nativity: "The winds with wonder whift, "Smoothly the waters kifs'd." So again, both Lord Surrey and Phaer, in their tranflations of the fecond book of Virgil: and Lylly, in his Maid's Metamorphofis, 1600: "But every thing is quiet, whift, and ftill." ▾ —the burden bear.) Old copy-bear the burden. by Mr. Theobald. MALONE. STEEVENS, Corre&ed 8 9 Weeping again the king my father's wreck, * Weeping again the king my father's wreck,) Thus the old copy; but in the books of Shakspeare's age again is fometimes printed inftead of againft (i. e. oppolite to), which I am perfuaded was our author's word. The placing Ferdinand in fuch a fituation that he could fill gaze upon the wrecked veffel, is one of Shakspeare's touches of nature. Again is inadmiffible; for this would import that Ferdinand's tears had ceafed for a time; whereas he himself tells us, afterwards, that from the hour of his father's wreck they had never ceafed to flow: "Who with mine eyes, ne'er fince at ebb, beheld However, as our author fometimes forgot to compare the different parts of his play, I have made no change. MALONE. By the word-again, I fuppofe the Prince means only to defcribe the repetition of his forrows. Befides, it appears from Miranda's defcription of the ftorm, that the ship had been Swallowed by the waves, and confequently could no longer be an object of fight. STEEVENS. This mufick crept by me upon the waters ;) So, in Milton's Mafque: foft and folemn breathing found 66 --a Rofe like a feam of rich diftill'd perfumes, « And ftole upon the air." STEEVENS. Full fathom five thy father lies, &c.) Ariel's lays, (which have been condemned by Gildon as trifling, and defended not very fuccessfully by Dr. Warburton) however feasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance: they exprefs nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal difcovery. FER. Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.' The ditty does remember my drown'd This is no mortal business, nor no found The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel. JOHNSON. The fougs in this play, Dr. Wilfon, who refet and published two of them, tells us, in his Court Ayres, or Ballads, published at Oxford, 1660, that «Full fathom five," and "Where the bee fucks," had been first set by Robert Johnson, a compofer contemporary with Shakspeare. BURNEY. Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth fuffer a fea-change-) The meaning is-Every thing about him, that is liable to alteration, is changed. STEEVENS. 4 But doth fuffer a fea-change--) So, in Milton's Mafque: And underwent a quick immortal change." 3 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: STEEVENS. Burden, ding-dong.) So, in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edition, 1690: Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding, dong." I must go feek a new love, The fame burthen to a fong occurs in The Merchant of Venice, A& III. fc. ii. STEEVENS. 6 That the earth owes :) To owe, in this place, as well as in many others, fignifies to own. So, in Othello: -that fweet fleep "Which thou ow'dft yesterday." PRO. The fringed curtains' of thine eye ad vance, And fay, what thou feeft yond'. MIKA. What is't? a fpirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, fir, It carries a brave form :-But'tis a spirit. PRO. No, wench; it eats and fleeps, and hath fuch fenfes As we have, fuch: This gallant, which thou feest, Was in the wreck; and but he's fomething ftain'd With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'ft call him A goodly perfon: he hath loft his fellows, MIRA. A thing divine; for nothing natural PRO. I might call him (Afide. It goes on, 8 As my foul prompts it:-Spirit, fine fpirit, I'll free thee Within two days for this. Again, in the Tempeft: "thou doft here ufurp "The name thou ow't not." To use the word in this fenfe, is not peculiar to Shakspeare, I meet with it in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush: "If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince That owes the beard?" STEEVENS. The fringed curtains, &c.) The fame expreffion occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: " her eyelids Begin to part their fringes of bright gold." Again, in Sidney's Arcadia Lib. I: Sometimes my eyes would lay themselves open-or caft my lids, as curtains, over the image of beauty her prefence had painted in them." STEEVENS. 8 It goes on,) The old copy reads " It goes on, I fee, &c. But as the words I fee, are ufelefs, and an incumbrance to the metre, I have omitted them. STEEVENS. |