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Monor, LENOX AND HLDIN FOUNDATION

Now my

(For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason
For raising this sea-storm?
Pro.

Know thus far forth. By, accident most strange, bountiful fortune,

dear lady,' hath mine enemies Brought to this shore: and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star; whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.—Here cease more questions ; Thou art inclin'd to sleep ; 'tis a good dulness, And give it way ;-I know thou can'st not choose.

[MIRANDA sleeps. Come away, servant, come: I am ready now; Approach, my Ariel; come.

6

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I

come

To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curld clouds ;' to thy strong bidding, task
Ariel, and all his quality.S
Pro.

Hast thou, spirit, Perform’d to pointo the tempest that I bade thee?.

Ari. To every article.

6

3 Now my dear lady,] i. e. now my auspicious mistress.

'tis a good dulness,] Dr. Warburton rightly observes, that this sleepiness, which Prospero by his art had brought upon Miranda, and of which he knew not how soon the effect would begin, makes him question her so often whether she is attentive to his story. Johnson.

7 On the curld clouds ;] So, in Timon-Crisp heaven. 8 — and all his quality.] i. e. all his confederates.

9 Perform'd to point - 1 i. e. to the minutest article; a literal translation of the French phrase--a point. VOL. I.

C

I boarded the king's ship, now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places ; : on the top-mast
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join : Jove's lightnings, the pre-

cursors

O’ the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-out-running were not: The fire, and

cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold

waves tremble, Yca, his dread trident shake.* Pro.

My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Ari.

Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
Some tricks of desperation : All, but mariners,
Plung’d in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-starting (then like reeds, not hair,)
Was the first man that leap'd ; cried, Hell is empty;
And all the devils are here.

3

- now on the beak,] The beak was a strong pointed body at the head of the ancient gallies; it is used here for the forecastle, or the boltsprit. Johnson.

* Now in the waist,] The part between the quarter-deck and the forecastle. Johnson.

Sometimes I'd divide,

And burn in many places ;] Burton says, that the Spirits of fire, in form of fire-drakes and blazing stars, “ oftentimes sit on ship-masts,” &c. Melanch. P. I. § 2. p.30. edit. 1632. WARTON.

Yea, his dread trident shake.] Lest the metre should appear defective, it is necessary to apprize the reader, that in Warwickshire, and other midland counties, shake is still pronounced by the common people as if it was written shaake, a dissyllable.

FARMER. - and quit the vessel,] Quit for quitted.

Pro.

Why, that's my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
Ari.

Close by, my master.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari.

Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustainingo garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers’d them 'bout the isle:
The king's son have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs,
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Pro.

Of the king's ship,
The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos’d,
And all the rest o' the fleet?
Ari.

Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stowed ;
Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep: and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers’d, they all have met again ;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote, 8
Bound sadly home for Naples ;
Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

6-sustaining-] i.e. their garments that bore them up and supported them; or their garments which bore, without being injured, the drenching of the sea.

; The epithet here applied to the Bermudas, will be best understood by those who have seen the chafing of the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which render access to them so dangerous. It was in our poet's time the cur. rent opinion, that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters, and devils.-Setebos, the god of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia. HENLEY. the Mediterranean flote,] Flote is ware.