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Digor

A dozen years; within which space she died,
And left thee there ; where thou didst vent thy groans,
As fast as mill-wheels strike : Then was this island,
(Save for the son that she did litter here,
À freckled whelp, hag-born) not honour'd with
A human shape.

Ari. Yes; Caliban her son,

Pro. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in : thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears ; it was a torment
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,
When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made

gape
The pine, and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master.

Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howld away twelve winters.

Ari. Pardon, master:
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.

Pro. Do so; and after two days
I will discharge thee.

Ari. That's my noble master!
What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea 8 :
Be subject to no light but thine and mine; invisible
To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in it: go, hence, with diligence,

[Exit Ariel
Awake, dear heart, awakę! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

a nymph o' the sea.] There does not appear to be sufficient cause why Ariel should assume this new shape, as he was to be invisible to all eyes but those of Prospero, STEEVENS.

Mira.

Mira. 'The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

Pro. Shake it off: Come on;
We'll visit Caliban, my Nave, who never
Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, fir,
I do not love to look on.

Pro. But, as ’tis,
We cannot miss him : he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood; and serves in offices
That profit us. What ho ! slave! Caliban!
Thou carth, thou ! speak,

Cal. [1Vithin.] There's wood enough within.
Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business for

thee :
Come, thou tortoise ! when?

Enter Ariel like a water-nymph.
Fine apparition ! My quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
Ari. My lord, it shall be done.

ŞExit,
Pro. Thou poisonous llave, got by the devil hini.

self Upon thy wicked dam, come forth !

. The strangeness] Why should a wonderful story produce sleep? I believe experience will prove, that any violent agitation of the mind easily subsides in ilumber, especially when, as in Profpero's relation, the last images are pleasing. JOHNSON. The poet seems to have been apprehensive that the audience

, as well as Miranda, would sleep over this long but necessary tale

, and therefore strives to break it. First, by making Profpero divert himself of his magic robe and wand; then by waking her attention no less than six times by verbal interruption ; then by varying the action when he rises and bids her continue fitting : and lastly, by carrying on the business of the fable while Miranda Neeps, by which she is continued on the stage till the poet occafion for her again. WARNER.

has

Enter

Enter Caliban.
"Cal. As wicked dew, as e’er iny mother brulh'd
With raven's feather from unwholsome fen,
• Cal. As wicked dew, as reler

my

mother brub'd With raven's feather from unwholsome fen,

Drop on you both!] Shakespeare hath very artificially given the air of the antique to the language of Caliban, in order to heighten the grotesque of his character. As here he uses svicked for uncboljome. So fir John Maundevil, in his travels, p. 334. edit. Lond. 1725.--at alle tymes brennethe a vesselle of crisialle fulle of bawme for to zeven gode smelle and odour to the ema perour, and to voyden arvey alle WYKKEDE eyres and corrupciouns. It was a tradition, it seems, that lord Falkland, lord c. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden concurred in observing, that Shakespeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had also devised and adapted a new manner of language for that character. What they meant by it, without doubt, was, that Shakespeare gave his langage a certain grotesque air of the favage and antique ; which it certainly has. But Dr. Bentley took this, of a new language, literally; for speaking of a phrase in Milton, which he suppofed altogether absurd and unmeaning, he says, Satan had not the privilege as Caliban in Shakespeare, to use netu phrase and diction unknown to all others

and again

to practise distances is still a Caliban stile. Note on Milton's Paradise Loft, 1. iv. v.945. But I know of no such Caliban stile in Shakespeare, that hath new phrase and diction unknown to all others.

WARBURTON.
Whence these critics derived the notion of a new language
appropriated to Caliban, I cannot find : they certainly mistook
brutality of sentiment for uncouthness of words. Caliban had
learned to speak of Prospero and his daughter, he had no names
for the sun and moon before their arrival, and could not have in-
vented a language of his own without more understanding than
Shakespeare has thought it proper to bestow upon him. His
di&tion is indeed somewhat clouded by the gloominess of his tem-
per, and the malignity of his purposes; but let any other being
entertain the same thoughts, and he will find them easily issue in
the same expressions. JOHNSON.

As wicked derv, -] Wicked; having baneful qualities. So
Spenser says, wicked weed; fo, in opposition, we say herbs or
medicines have virtues. Bacon mentions virtuous bezoar, and
Dry den virtuous berbs. JOHNSON.

So in the Booke of Haukyng, &c. bl. 1. no date. “ If a wycked
6. fellon be fwollen in such maner thaç a man may hele it, the
s« hauke shall not dye,” STEEVENS.

Drop

Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o'er !
Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have

cramps,
Side-stitches that thall pen thy breath up; urchins ·
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

3 urchins, ] i.e. hedgehogs.

Urchins are enumerated by Reginald Scott among other terrise beings. -to fold thyself up like an archin."

Chapman's May Day, 1611. Again in Selimus Emperor of the Turks, 1638.

" What are the urchins crept out of their dens

• Under the conduct of this porcupine !" Urchins are perhaps here put for fairies. Milton in his Masque speaks of “urchin blasts,” and we still call any little dwarfish child, an urchin. The word occurs again in the next act. The schinus, or fea hedge-bog, is still called the archin. Sreevens.

3 for that vaft of night that they may work,] The vast of night means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action; or when all things lying in ileep and filence, makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste. So in Hamlet ;

" In the dead waste and middle of the night." It has a meaning like that of nox vasta.

Perhaps, however, it may be used in a signification somewhat different, in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609.

“ Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges.". Vaffum is likewise the ancient law term for waste uncultivated land, and, with this meaning, vast is used by Chapman in his Shadorı of Night, 1594.

«i - When unlightfome, vast and indigest

“ The formeless inatter of this world did lye." It should be rernembered, that, in the pneumatólogy of former ages, these particulars were settled with the most minute exactness, and the different kinds of visionary beings had different allotments of time suitable to the variety or consequence of their employments. During these spaces, they were at liberty to act, but were always obliged to leave off at a certain hour, that they might not interfere in that portion of night which belong'd to others. Among these we may suppose urchins to have had a part subjected to their dominion. "To this limitation of time Shakespeare alludes again in K. Lear. He begins at curfew, and walks till the second cock. ST2EVENS,

As

M P

P
As thick as honey.combs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

Cal. I must eat my dinner.
This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak ft from me. When thou camest first,
Thou stroak’dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'it

give me
Water with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night : and then I lov'd thee,
And shew'd thee all the qualities o'the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile;
Curs'd be I, that I did lo!-All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you !
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Who first was mine own king : and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest of the island.

Pro. Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness : I have us'd

thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee
In mine own cell, till thou didft feck to violate
The honour of my child.

Cal. Oh ho, oh ho!-wou'd it had been done!
Thou didit prevent me; I had peopled else
This ifle with Calibans.

Pro. 4 Abhorred flave;

4 Abhorred Nave;] This speech, which the old copy gives to Miranda, is very judiciously bestowed by Mr. Theobald on ProIpero. JOHNSON.

The modern editions take this speech from Miranda, and give it to Prospero ; though there is nothing in it but what the may speak with the greatest propriety; especially as it accounts for her being enough in the way and power of Caliban, to enable him to make the attempt complained of. The

poet himself shews he intended Miranda should be his tutoress, when he makes Caliban say, " I've seen thee in her, my mistress shewed me thee “ and thy dog, and thy bush ;" to Stephano, who had just assured the moniter he was the man in the moon. Holt.

Which