and shut up "In measureless content." Again, in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. IV. c. 9. STEEVENS. THE END. Surely Prospero's meaning is: "I will relate to you the means by which I have been enabled to ac complish these ends; which means, though they now appear strange and improbable, will then appear ANONYMOUS. otherwise." 292. -Coragio!] This exclamation of encou ragement I find in J. Florio's Translation of Montaigne, 1603: -You often cried Coragio, and called ça, ça." Again, in the Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598. 304. -true:- STEEVENS, -] That is, honest. A true man is, in the language of that time, opposed to a thief. The sense is, Mark what these men wear, and say if they Medea's speech in Ovid (as translated by Golding) our author might have learned that this was one of the pretended powers of witchcraft: "——and thee, O lightsome moon, "I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soon." MALONE. 316. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where should they Find this grand LIQUOR that hath gilded them?} Shakspere, to be sure, wrote-grand 'LIXIR, alluding to the grand Elixir of the alcaymists, which they preż tend would restore youth, and confer immortality. This, as they said, being a preparation of gold, they called Aurum potabile; which Shakspere alluded to in the the word gilded, as he does again in Antony and Cleopatra: "How much art thou unlike Mark Antony: "Yet coming from him, that great medicine hath "With his tinct gilded thee." But the joke here is to insinuate that, notwithstanding all the boasts of the chemists, sack was the only restorer of youth and bestower of immortality. So, Ben Jonson, in his Every Man out of his Humour :"Canarie the very Elixar and spirit of wine." This seems to have been the cant name for sack, of which the English were, at that time, immoderately fond. Randolph, in his Jealous Lovers, speaking of it, says, "A pottle of Elixar at the Pegasus bravely caroused." So again in Fletcher's Monsieur Thomas, act iii. -Old reverend sack, which, for ought that I can read yet, "Was that philosopher's stone the wise king Ptolemeus "Did all his wonders by." The phrase too of being gilded was a trite one on this occasion. Fletcher, in his Chances:-" Duke. Is she not drunk too?-Whore. A little gilded o'er, sir; old sack, old sack, boys!" WARBURTON. As the alchymist's Elixir was supposed to be a liquor, the old reading may stand, and the allusion holds good without any alteration. STEEVENS. 321. fly-blowing.] This pickle alludes to their plunge plunge into the stinking pool; and pickling preserves meat from fly-blowing. STEEVENS. 323. -but a cramp.] i. e. I am all over a cramp. Prospero had ordered Ariel to shorten up their sinews with aged cramps. Touch me not alludes to the soreness occasioned by them. In the next line the speaker confirms this meaning by a quibble on the word sore. STEEVENS. Line 10. EPILOGU E. WITH the help, &c.] By your applause, by clapping hands. JOHNSON. Noise was supposed to dissolve a spell. So twice before in this play: No tongue; all eyes; be silent. Again: -hush! be mute, Or else our spell is marr'd. 15. And my ending is despair, STEEVENS. Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,] This alludes ɔ the old stories told of the despair of necromancers in their last moments, and of the efficacy of the prayers of their friends for them. WARBURTON. THE END. |