Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the master's whistle.- Blow, till thou burft thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others.

ALON. Good boatswain, have care.

the master? Play the men."

BOATS. I pray now, keep below.

ANT. Where is the master, boatswain?

Where's

BOATS. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour; Keep your cabins: you do affift the storm."

GON. Nay, good, be patient.

BOATS. When the fea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: filence: trouble us not.

4 Blow, till thou burft thy wind, &c.] Perhaps it might be read Blow till thou burft, wind, if room enough. JOHNSON.

Perhaps rather -blow till thou burft thee, wind! if room enough. Beaumont and Fletcher have copied this paffage in The Pilgrim:

66

Blow, blow weft wind,

"Blow till thou rive!"

Again, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:
"Ift Sailor. Blow, and split thyself!"

Again, in K. Lear:

"Blow winds, and burft your cheeks!"

The allufion in thefe paffages, as Mr. M. Mafon obferves, is to the manner in which the winds were represented in ancient prints and pictures. STEEVENS.

Play the men.] i. e. act with spirit, behave like men.

So in K. Henry VI. P. I. fc. vi:

"When they fhall hear how we have play'd the men.”

Again, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590, p. 2:

"Viceroys and peers of Turkey, play the men." " pixos, árépsçisi,

Iliad. V. v. 529. STEEVENS.

Again, in Scripture, 2 Sam. x. 12:

and let us play the men for our people."

6

-affift the ftorm.] So in Pericles:

"Be of good courage, MALONE.

"Patience, good Sir; do not affift the form." STEEVENS.

GON. Good; yet remember whom thou haft aboard.

BOATS. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to filence, and work the peace of the prefent, we will not hand a rope more; ufe your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have liv'd fo long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mifchance of the hour, if it fo hap.Cheerly, good hearts-Out of our way, I fay.

[Exit.

GON. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand faft, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hang'd, our cafe is miferable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

BOATS. Down with the top-maft; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main-courfe." [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.

7 of the prefent,] i. e. of the prefent inftant.

So in the 15th Chapter of the 1ft Epiftle to the Corinthians: of whom the greater part remain unto this prefent.”

[ocr errors]

STEEVENS.

Gonzalo.] It may be obferved of Gonzalo, that, being the only good man that appears with the king, he is the only man that preferves his cheerfulness in the wreck, and his hope on the inland. JOHNSON.

9-bring her to try with main-courfe.] Probably from Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598: "And when the barke had way, we cut the haufer, and fo gate the fea to our friend, and tried out all that day with our maine courfe." MALONE.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO.

Yet again? what do you here? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to fink?

SEB. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blafphemous, incharitable dog!

BOATS. Work you, then.

ANT. Hang, cur, hang! you whorefon, infolent noife-maker, we are lefs afraid to be drown'd than thou art.

GON. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-fhell, and as leaky as an unftanch'd wench."

3

BOATS. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; fet her twa courfes; off to fea again, lay her off.

4

Enter Mariners wet.

MAR. All loft! to prayers, to prayers! all loft!

[Exeunt

BOATS. What, muft our mouths be cold?

GON. The king and prince at prayers! let us affift them,

For our cafe is as theirs.

2

an unftanch'd wench.] Unftanch'd, I am willing to believe, means incontinent. STEEVENS.

3 Lay her a-hold, a-bold;] To lay a ship a-hold, is to bring her to lie as near the wind as the can, in order to keep clear of the land, her out to fea. STEEVENS.

and get

4

fet her two courfes; off to fea again,] The courfes are the main fail and fore fail. This term is ufed by Raleigh, in his Difcourfe on Shipping. JOHNSON.

The paffage, as Mr Holt has obferved, fhould be pointed, Set her two courfes; off, &c.

Such another expreffion occurs in Decker's If this be not a good Play, the Devil is in it, 1612:

66

-off with your Drablers and your Banners; out with your courfes." STEEVENS.

SEB. I am out of patience.

ANT. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.

This wide-chopp'd rafcal;-'Would, thou might'st lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

GON.

He'll be hang'd yet; Though every drop of water fwear against it, And gape at wid'ft to glut him."

[A confufed noife within.] Mercy on us!-We fplit, we fplit! Farewell, my wife and children!— Farewell, brother!7-We fplit, we fplit, we fplit!ANT. Let's all fink with the king.

smerely

[Exit.

merely In this place fignifies abfolutely. In which fense it is used in Hamlet, A&t I. fc. iii:

-Things rank and grofs in nature

"Poffefs it merely."

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Poetafter:

6

[ocr errors][merged small]

"Of fome mere friends, fome honourable Romans."

STEEVENS.

to glut him.] Shakspeare probably wrote, t'englut him, to fwallow him; for which I know not that glut is ever ufed by him. In this fignification englut, from engloutir, French, occurs frequently, as in Henry VI:

66

Thou art fo near the gulf "Thou needs must be englutted."

And again, in Timon and Othello. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for fwallowed, and therefore perhaps the prefent text may ftand.

JOHNSON.

Thus in Sir A. Gorges's tranflation of Lucan, B. VI:

[blocks in formation]

7

STEEVENS.

Mercy on us, &c.— Farewell, brother! &c.] All these lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the ship. It is probable that the lines fucceeding the confused noise within should be confidered as fpoken by no determinate characters. JOHNSON. The hint for this ftage direction, &c. might have been received from a paffage in the fecond book of Sidney's Arcadia, where

SEB. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.

SCENE II.

The island: before the cell of Profpero.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

[Exit.

MIRA. If by your art, my deareft father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them: The sky, it seems, would pour down ftinking pitch, But that the fea,' mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd With those that I faw fuffer! a brave veffel, Who had no doubt fome noble creatures in her,

the fhipwreck of Pyrocles is described, with this concluding circumstance: "But a monstrous cry, begotten of many roaring voyces, was able to infect with feare," &c. STEEVENS.

8 An acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, &c.] Sir T. Hanmer reads ling, heath, broom, furze.-Perhaps rightly, though he has been charged with tautology. I find in Harrifon's defcription of Britain, prefixed to our author's good friend Holinfhed, p. 91: " Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling," &c. FARMER.

Mr. Tollet has fufficiently vindicated Sir Thomas Hanmer from the charge of tautology, by favouring me with fpecimens of three different kinds of heath which grow in his own neighbourhood. I would gladly have inferted his obfervations at length; but, to fay the truth, our author, like one of Cato's foldiers who was bit by a ferpent,

Ipfe latet penitus congefto corpore merfus. STEEVENS.

9 But that the fea, &c.] So, in King Lear:

2

"The fea in fuch a ftorm as his bare head

"In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up,
"And quench'd the ftelled fires." MALONE.

-creatures in her,] The old copy reads-creature; but

« AnteriorContinuar »