Alon. Give me your hands: Let grief and forrow ftill embrace his heart, Gon. Be't fo, Amen! Re-enter Ariel, with the Mafter and Boatfwain amazedly following. O look, fir, look, fir, here are more of us! This fellow could not drown :-Now, blafphemy, Boats. The best news is, that we have fafely found Our king, and company: the next, our fhip,-Which but three glaffes fince, we gave out fplit,Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when We first put out to sea. Ari. Sir, all this fervice Have I done fince I went. Pro. My trickfy spirit!" } [Afide. Alon. These are not natural events; they ftrengthen, From strange to ftranger:-Say, how came you hither? When is certainly right; i. e. at a time when no one was in his fenfes. Shakespeare could not have written where, (i. e. in the ifland) because the mind of Profpero, who lived in it, had not been difordered. It is ftill faid, in colloquial language, that a madman is not his own man, i. e. is not mafter of himself. STEEVENS. My trickfy Spirit!] is, I believe, my clever, adroit spirit. Shakespeare ufes the fame word elsewhere: 66 -that for a tricky word "Defy the matter." So in the interlude of the Difobedient Child, bl. 1. no date: invent and feek out "To make them go trickfie, gallaunt and cleane.” Again, in the interlude of Jacob and Efau, 1568: "Mary, fir, now is Maifter Jacob trimme indeede, Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, b. VI. ch. 31: STEEVENS. Boatf Boatf. If I did think, fir, I were well awake, I'd ftrive to tell you. We were dead afleep', And (how, we know not) all clapp'd under hatches, Where, but even now, with ftrange and feveral noifes Of roaring, fhrieking, howling, gingling chains, And more diverfity of founds, all horrible, We were awak'd; ftraightway, at liberty: Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld Our royal, good, and gallant fhip; our mafter Cap'ring to eye her: On a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them, And were brought moping hither. Ari. Was't well done? Pro. Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. } [ [Afide. Alon. This is as ftrange a maze as e'er men trod; And there is in this bufinefs more than nature 4 Was ever conduct of: fome oracle Muft rectify our knowledge. Do not infest your mind with beating on These 3 dead afleep,] The old copy reads of fleep. STEEVENS. 4-conduct for conductor. So in Ben Jonfon's Every Man out f bis Humour: the 5 "Come, gentlemen, I will be your conduct." STEEVENS. with beating on The ftrangenefs, &c.] A fimilar expreflion occurs in one of parts of Hen. VI: 66 -your thoughts "Beat on a crown." Beating may mean hammering, working in the mind, dwelling long upon. So in the preface to Stanyhurst's Tranflation of Virgil, 1582: "For my part, I purpofe not to beat on everye childish tittle that concerneth profodie." Again, Miranda, in the fecond scene of this play, tells her father that the ftorm is still beating in her mind. STEEVENS. (Which to you fall feem probable)] Thefe words feet, at the first view, to have no ufe; fome lines are perhaps loft with which they Thefe happen'd accidents: till when, be cheerful, And think of each thing well. Come hither, fpirit; Set Caliban and his companions free : [To Ariel. [Afide Re-enter Ariel, driving in Caliban, Stephano, and Ste. Every man fhift for all the reft, and let no man take care for himfelf; for all is but fortune :Coragio, bully-monster, Coragio' ! Trin. If thefe be true fpies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly fight. Cal. O Setebos, thefe be brave spirits, indeed! How fine my mafter is! I am afraid He will chaftife me. Seb. Ha, ha; What things are thefe, my lord Anthonio! Ant. Very like; one of them Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. Pro. Mark but the badges of thefe men, my lords, Then fay, if they be true :-This mif-fhapen knave, ୪ they were connected. Or we may explain them thus: I will re folve you, by yourself, which method, when you hear the story [of Anthonio's and Sebaftian's plot] fhall feem probable; that is, Jhall deferve your approbation. JOHNSON. Surely Profpero's meaning is: "I will relate to you the means by which I have been enabled to accomplish thefe ends; which means, though they now appear ftrange and improbable, will then appear otherwife." ANONYMOUS. 7 Coragio!] This exclamation of encouragement I find in J. Florio's Tranflation of Montaigne, 1603: You often cried Coragio, and called ça, ça." Again, in the Blind Beggar of Alexandria, 1598. STEEVENS. -true:-] That is, honeft. A true man is, in the language of that time, opposed to a thief. The fenfe is, Mark what thefe men wear, and fay if they are honeft. JOHNSON. - His mother was a witch; and one fo ftrong That could controul the moon, make flows and ebbs, Cal. I fhall be pinch'd to death. Alon. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler? • And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where Should they Find this grand LIQUOR that hath gilded them?-] Shakespeare, to be fure, wrote-grand 'LIXIR, alluding to the grand Elixir of the alchymifts, which they pretend would reftore youth, and confer immortality. This, as they faid, being a preparation of gold they called Aurum potabile; which Shakespeare alluded to in the word gilded; as he does again in Anthony and Cleopatra: "How much art thou unlike Mark Anthony? "Yet coming from him, that great medicine hath, But the joke here is to infinuate that, notwithstanding all the boafts of the chymifts, fack was the only restorer of youth, and bestower of immortality. So Ben Jonfon, in his Every Man out of his Humour :-" Canarie the very Elixar and spirit of wine." This feems to have been the cant name for fack, of which the English were, at that time, immoderately fond. Randolph, in his Jealous Lovers, fpeaking of it, fays,-"A pottle of Elixar at the "Pegafus bravely caroufed." So again in Fletcher's Monfieur Thomas, act III: "Old reverend fack, which, for ought that I can read "Was that philofopher's stone the wife king Ptolemeus The phrafe too of being gilded was a trite one on this occafion. Fletcher, in his Chances:-" Duke. Is he not drunk too? Whore. A little gilded o'er, fir; old fack, old fack, boys!" WARB. As the alchymift's Elixir was fuppofed to be a liquor, the old reading may ftand, and the allufion holds good without any alte ration. STEEVENS. VOL. I. I Find 114 TEMPEST. Find this grand liquor that hath gilded them?→→ Trin. I have been in fuch a pickle, fince I faw you laft, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I fhall not fear fly-blowing'. Seb. Why, how now, Stephano? Ste. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp 2. Pro. You'd be king of the ifle, firrah? Ste. I fhould have been a fore one then. Alon. This is a ftrange thing as e'er I look'd on. [Pointing to Caliban. Pro. He is as difproportion'd in his manners, As in his fhape-Go, firrah, to my cell; Take with you your companions; as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. Cal. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wife hereafter, And feek for grace: What a thrice-double afs Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, And worship this dull fool? Pro. Go to; away! Alon. Hence, and beftow your luggage where you found it. Seb. Or ftole it, rather. Pro. Sir, I invite your highnefs, and your train, To my poor cell: where you fhall take your reft For this one night; which (part of it) I'll wafte With fuch difcourfe, as, I not doubt, fhall make it Go quick away: the ftory of my life, And the particular accidents, gone by, Ay-blowing.] This pickle alludes to their plunge into the ftinking pool; and pickling preferves meat from fly-blowing. STEEVENS. 2-but a cramp.] i. e. I am all over a cramp. Profpero had ordered Ariel to Jhorten up their finews with aged cramps. Touch me not alludes to the forenes occafioned by them. In the next line the speaker confirms this meaning by a quibble on the word fore. STEEVENS. |