Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others. Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men.1 Boats. I pray now, keep below. Ant. Where is the master, boatswain? Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour; keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient. Boats. When the sea is. roarers for the name of king? us not. Hence ! What care these To cabin: silence! trouble Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say. [Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow : methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows,2 Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! • Let 1 Play the men.] Play the part of men: behave like men. 'I will not use us play the men for our people.' 2 Sam. x. 12. many words to persuade you to continue in your fidelity and loyalty, neither long circumstance to encourage you to play the men.' Knolles's Hist. of the Turks (1603), p. 576. 2 Perfect gallows.] Quite that of a fellow destined to be hanged: alluding to the proverb, 'He never will be drowned who is born to. be hanged.' Compare Two Gent. of Verona, i. 1:— 'Go, go, begone to save your ship from wrack, Which cannot perish having thee aboard, Being destined to a drier death on shore.' make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt. Re-enter Boatswain. Boats. Down with the top-mast! yare; lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course! 1 [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.2 Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and Gonzalo. Yet again? what do you hear? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink? Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog! Boats. Work you, then. Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell. Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold! 3 set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off. Re-enter Mariners, wet. 4 Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost! [Exeunt. Boats. What, must our mouths be cold? 5 Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist them, For our case is as theirs. 'To try with main-course.] To try whether she will clear the land by taking in all the tacking, hauling the mainsail close aft, &c. 2 Our office.] Our calls of direction to the seamen. * Lay her a-hold.] To lay a ship a-hold is to bring her to lie as near the wind as she can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to sea.' Steevens. ↑ Her two courses.] Mainsail and foresail. Be cold.] Be fruitless or of no force, speak in vain. Seb. I'm out of patience. Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.This wide-chapped rascal,-would thou might'st lie drowning The washing of ten tides! 2 [Exit Boatswain.] He'll be hanged yet, Gon. เ [A confused noise within.] Mercy on us!' we split!'-'Farewell, my wife and children!' brother!' "We split, we split, we split!'Ant. Let's all sink with the king. Seb. Let's take leave of him. 'We split, 'Farewell, [Exit. [Exit. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit. SCENE II.-The Island: before the Cell of PROSPERO. Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA. Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel- Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished! Had I been any god of power, I would Merely.] Absolutely. 2 The washing of ten tides.] While ten tides ebb and flow. Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er It should the good ship so have swallowed, and Pro. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done. Mira. Pro. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee,— Mira. More to know 'T is time Did never meddle with my thoughts. Pro. I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, [Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.2-Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched 3 The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered, that there is no soul 4 No, not so much perdition as an hair 1 Full.] An abbreviation of to the full=very. 2 Lie there my art.] Fuller, in his Holy State, iv. 6, says of Lord Burleigh, 'At night, when he put off his gown, he used to say, Lie there, Lord Treasurer,' and bidding adieu to all State affairs, disposed himself to his quiet rest.' The very virtue.] The very soul, the inmost source. • There is no soul.] This uncompleted assertion is in natural keeping with Prospero's ardency. Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down; For thou must now know further. Mira. You have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopped Pro. The hour's now come; ope thine ear; Canst thou remember The very minute bids thee A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not Out three years old. Mira. Certainly, sir, I can. Pro. By what? by any other house or person ? Of anything the image tell me that Hath kept with thy remembrance. Mira. "T is far off, And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants:-Had I not Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it If thou rememberest aught ere thou cam'st here, Mira. But that I do not. Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since, Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and A prince of power. Mira. Sir, are not you my father? Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father 1 Abysm.] Abyss. Old Fr. abisme. |