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АСТ IV.

SCENE I.-Before Prospero's Cell. Enter PROS-
PERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA.
Pro. If I have too austerely punish'd you,
Your compensation makes amends; for I
Have given you here a thread of mine own life,
Or that for which I live; whom once again
I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations
Were but my trials of thy love, and thou
Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven,
I ratify this iny rich gift. O Ferdinand,
Do not smile at me, that I boast her off,
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
And make it halt behind her.

Fer.

Against an oracle.

I do believe it,
Pro. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
Worthily purchas'd, take my daughter: But
If thou dost break her virgin knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister'd,

No sweet aspersion" shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly,
That you shall hate it both: therefore, take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.
Fer.

As I hope

For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now; the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser Genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust; to take away
The edge of that day's celebration,
When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd,
Or night kept chain'd below.

Pro.

Fairly spoke;

Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own.-
What, Ariel; my industrious servant Ariel!
Enter ARIEL.

Ari. What would my potent master? here I am. Pro. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service

Did worthily perform; and I must use you
In such another trick: go, bring the rabble,
O'er whom I give thee power, here, to this place:
Incite them to quick motion; for I must
Bestow upon the eyes of these young couple
Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,
And they expect it from me.

Ar.

Pro. Ay, with a twink.

Presently?

Ari. Before you can say, Come, and go, And breathe twice; and cry, 80, 80;

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Ari. Pro. Look, thou be true; do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, Or else, good night, your vow! Fer. I warrant you, sir The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart Abates the ardour of my liver.

Pro.

Well.Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary," Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.No tongue; all eyes; be silent. [Soft music. A Masque. Enter IRIS.

Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas; Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep; Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims, Which spongy April at thy hest betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,

7

Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
And thy sea-marge, steril, and rocky-hard,
Where thou thyself dost air: The queen o' the sky,
Whose watery arch, and messenger, am I,
Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign
grace,

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain;
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.
Enter CERES.

Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers:
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky10 acres, and my unshrubb'd down.
Rich scarf to my proud earth: Why hast thy queer
Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green?
Iris. A contract of true love to celebrate;
And some donation freely to estate
On the bless'd lovers.

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1 The same expression occurs in Pericles. Mr. Hen-he derives from the French verb touiller, which Cotley says that it is a manifest allusion to the zones of the ancients, which were worn as guardians of chastity before marriage.

2 Aspersion is here used in its primitive sense of sprinkling, at present it is used in its figurative sense of throwing out hints of calumny and detraction..

grave interprets, "filthily to mix, to mingle, confound, or shuffle together." He objects to peonied and lillied because these flowers never blow in April. But Mr Boaden has pointed out a passage in Lord Bacon's Essay on Gardens which supports the reading in the text. In April follow the double white violet, the wall-flow

3 Suggestion here means temptation or wickeder, the stock-gilly-flower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces. prompting.

4 Some vanity of mine art" is some illusion. Thus m a passage, quoted by Warton, in his Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum, from Emure, a metrical Romance.

"The emperor said on high
Sertes thys is a fayry
Or ellys a vanite."

and lillies of all natures; rose-mary flowers, the tulippe, the double piony, &c." Lyte, in his Herbal, says one kind of peonie is called by some, maiden or virgin peonie. And Pliny mentions the water-lilly as a preserver of chastity, B. xxvi. C. 10. Edward Fenton, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," 1569, 4to. B. VI. asserts that "the water-lilly mortifieth altogether the appetite of sensuality and defends from unchaste thoughts and dreams of venery." The passage cerhave, for these reasons, retained.

5 That is, bring more than are sufficient. “Corollary, the addition or vantage above measure, an overplus,tainly gains by the reading of Mr. Steevens, which I or surplusage."-Blount.

6 Stover is fodder for cattle, as hay, straw, and the like: estovers is the old law term, it is from estouvier, old French.

7 The old editions read Pioned and Twilled brime. In Ovid's Banquet of Sense, by Geo. Chapman, 1595, we meet with

"Cuphike twill-pants strew'd in Bacchus bowers" If twill be the name of any flower, the old reading may stand. Mr. Henley strongly contends for the old reading, and explains pioned to mean faced up with mire in the manner that ditchers trim the banks of ditches: twilled

8 That is, forsaken by his lass.

9 Mr. Douce remarks that this is an elegant expan sion of the following lines in Phaer's Vigil Eneid, Lib. iv.

"Dame rainbow down therefore with sa ton wings of drooping showres,

Whose face a thousand sundry hues against the sun devoures,

From heaven descending came."

10 Bosky acres are woody acres, fields intersected by luxuriant hedge-rows and copses.

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Be not afraid. I met a deity
Cutting the clouds towards Paphos; and her son
Dove-drawn with her: here thought they to have
done

Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
Whose vows are, that no bed-rite shall be paid
Till Hymen's torch be lighted: but in vain;
Mars' hot minion is returned again;

Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,

Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
Make holy-day: your rye-straw hats put on,
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country footing.

Enter certain Reapers, properly habited: they join
with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the
end of which PROSPERO starts suddenly, and
speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and con
fused noise, they heavily vanish.

Pro. [Aside.] I had forgot that foul conspiracy

Swears he will shoot no more, but play with spar-Of the beast Caliban, and his confederates,

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Jun. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Cer. Earth's increase, and foison' plenty;
Barns and garners never empty;
Vines, with clust'ring bunches growing;
Plants, with goodly burden bowing;
Spring come to you, at the farthest,
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.

Fer. This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmonious charmingly : May I be bold
To think these spirits?

Pro.

Spirits, which by mine art I have from their confines call'd to enact

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Pro.

[JUNO and CERES whisper, and send IRIS on
employment.

silence :

Sweet now,
Juno and Ceres whisper seriously;
There's something else to do: hush, and be mute,
Or else our spell is marr'd.

Iris. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wand'ring
brooks,

With your sedg'd crowns, and ever harmless looks,
Leave your crisp channels, and on this green
land

Answer your summons; Juno does command:
Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
A contract of true love; be not too late.
Enter certain Nymphs.

You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary,

1 Foison is abundance, particularly of harvest

corn.

2 For charmingly harmonious. 3" So rare a wonder'd father," is a father able to produce such wonders.

4 Crisp channels; i. e. curled, from the curl raised by a breeze on the surface of the water. So in 1 K. Hen. IV. Act i. Sc. 3.

"Hid his crisp head in the hollow bank."

5 In the tragedy of Darius, by Lord Sterline, printed in 1603, is the following passage:

Against my life; the minute of their plot
Is almost come.- -[To the Spirits.] Well done ;-
avoid-no more.

Fer. This is strange: your father's in some
passion

That works him strongly.

Mira.

Never till this day,

Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.
Pro. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir:
Our revels now are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.-Sir, I am vex'd;

Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:

If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell,
And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.
Fer. Mira.

We wish your peace.
[Exeunt.
Pro. Come with a thought:-I thank you:-

Ariel, come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. Thy thoughts I cleave to: What's thy pleasure?

Pro.

Spirit,

We must prepare to meet with Caliban.
Ari. Ay, my commander: when I presented
Ceres,

I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd,
Lest I might anger thee.

Pro. Say again, where didst thou leave these
varlets?

Ari. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;

So full of valour, that they smote the air

For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet: yet always bending
Towards their project: then I beat my tabor,
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their

ears,

It is evident that one poet imitated the other, and it seems probable that Shakspeare was the imitator. The exact period at which the Tempest was produced is not known, but it is thought not earlier than 1611. It was first printed in the folio of 1623. Lord Sterline also wrote a tragedy entitled Julius Caesar, in which there are par. allel passages to some in Shakspeare's play on the same subject, and Malone thinks the coincidence more than accidental.

6 Faded, i. e. vanished, from the Latin rado. The ancient English pageants were shows, on the reception Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruised soon of princes or other festive occasions; they were exhibit

"Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt

broken;

And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,

All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.
Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls,
With furniture superfluously fair,

Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls,
Evanish all like vapours in the air."

The preceding stanza also contains evidence of the same
rain of thought with Shakspeare.

"And when the eclipse comes of our glory's light, Then what avails the adoring of a name?

A meer illusion made to mock the sight,

Whose best was but the shadow of a dream.”

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SCENE I.

TEMPEST.

Advanc'd their eye-lids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt music; so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd, through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and
thorns,

Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake
O'er-stunk their feet.

Trin. Do, do: We steal by line and level, and't like your grace.

Ste. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for't.

Trin. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest.

Cal. I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,
And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villanous low.

Ste. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. Trin. And this.

Ste. Ay, and this.

A noise of Hunters heard."

Pro. This was well done, my bird:
Thy shape invisible retain thou still:
The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither,
For stale to catch these thieves.
! An
I go, I go. [Exit.
Pro. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture2 can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
his body uglier grows,
And as, with age,
So his mind cankers: I will plague them all,
Re-enter ARIEL loaden with glistering apparel, &c.
Even to roaring:-Come, hang them on this line.
PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter CA-hark!
LIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO; all wet.
Cal. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole

may not

Hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell.

Ste. Monster, your fairy, which, you say, is a harmless fairy, has done little better than play'd the

Jack3 with us.

Trin. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation.

Ste. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If should take a displeasure against you; look you,

Trin. Thou wert but a lost monster.

I

Cal. Good my lord, give me thy favour still: Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to Shall hood-wink this mischance; therefore, speak softly,

All's hush'd as midnight yet.

Trin. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool,Ste. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss.

Trin. That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster.

Ste. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for my labour.

Cal. Pr'ythee, my king, be quiet: Seest thou here, This is the mouth of the cell: no noise, and enter: Do that good mischief, which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban, For aye thy foot-licker.

Ste. Give me thy hand: for I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

Trin. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee! Cal. Let it alone, thou fool: it is but trash. Trin. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a frippery:-O king Stephano!

Ste. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll have that gown.

Trin. Thy grace shall have it.

Cal. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you

mean,

To doat thus on such luggage? Let it alone,
And do the murder first: if he awake,
From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;
Make us strange stuff.

Ste. Be you quiet, monster.-Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line: now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald jerkin.

1 Stale, in the art of fowling, signified a bait or lure to decoy birds.

2 Nurture is Education, in our ok language.
3 To play the Jack, was to play the Knave.

4 This is a humorous allusion to the old ballad "King Stephen was a worthy peer," of which Iago sings a verse in Othello.

5 A shop for the sale of old clothes.-Fripperie, Fr.
6 The old copy reads "Let's alone."

7 Bird-lime.

8 The barnacle is a kind of shell-fish, lepas anati

Enter divers Spirits

in shape of hounds, and hunt them about; PROS-
PERO and ARIEL setting them on.
Pro. Hey, Mountain, hey!

Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver!
Pro. Fury! Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark,

[CAL. STE. and TRIN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,

Than pard,10 or cat o' mountain.

Ari.
Hark, they roar
Pro. Let them be hunted soundly: At this hour
Lie at my mercy all mine enemies:
Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom: for a little,
Follow, and do me service.

ACT V.

SCENE I-Before the Cell of Prospero.

[Exeunt.

Enter

PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL.
Pro. Now does my project gather to a head:
My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time
Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?

Ari. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease.

Pro.

I did say so,
When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit,
How fares the king and his followers?
Ari. Confin'd together

In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners

In the lime grove which weather-fends11 your cell:
They cannot budge, till you release.12 The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow, and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, The good old lord, Gonzalo;
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly
works them,
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
Dost thou think so, spirit?
Art. Mine would, sir, were I human.
Pro.
And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch,13 a feeling
Of their afflictions? and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
fera, which ancient credulity believed to produce the
barnacle-goose. Bishop Hall refers to it in the second
Satire of his fourth Book-

Pro.

"That Scottish barnacle, if I might choose, That of a worm doth wax a winged goose." Gerrard, in his Herbal, 1597, p. 1391, gives a full de scription of it; and the worthy Dr. Bullein treats those as ignorant and incredulous, who do not believe in the transformation.-Bulwarke of Defence, 1562. ban's Barnacle is the clakis, or tree-goose.

9 See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, Note on v. 6441 10 Pard, i. e. Leopard.

11 Defends it from the weather. 12 i. e. Until you release them 13 A sensation.

Cali

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the | Will shortly fill the reasonable shores,

quick,

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That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them,
That yet looks on me, or would know me :-Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;

[Exit ARIEL.

I will dis-case me, and myself present,
As I was sometime Milan:-quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire
PROSPERO.

Ari. Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie:

There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily:

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. Pro. Why, that's my dainty Ariel; I shall miss

thee;

But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so—
To the king's ship, invisible as thou art:
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches; the master, and the boatswain,
Being awake, enforce them to this place;
And presently, I pr'ythee.

Ari. I drink the air before me and return
Or e'er your pulse twice beat. [Erit ARIEL.
Gon. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amaze

ment

Inhabits here: Some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country!

Is to make midnight-mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though you be?) I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine, and cedar: graves, at my cominand,
Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd and let them forth,
By my so potent art: But this rough magic
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,)
Pro.
Behold, sir king
To work mine end upon their senses, that
The wronged duke of Milan, Prospero:
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, For more assurance that a living prince
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound, And to thee and thy company, I bid
I'll drown my book.
[Solemn music. A hearty welcome."
Alon.
Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a fran- Or some enchanted trifle to abuse
Whe'r thou beest he, or no
tic gesture, attended by GONZALO SEBASTIAN As late I have been, I not know thy pulse
me,
and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,
and FRANCISCO: They all enter the circle which The affliction of my mind amends, with which,
PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; I fear, a madness held me: this must crave
which PROSPERO observing, speaks.
(An if this be at all) a most strange story.
Thy dukedom I resign; and do entreat
Thou pardon me my wrongs:-But how should
Prospero
Be living, and be here?

A solemn air, and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull3! There
stand,

For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the shew of thine,
Fall fellowly drops.-The charm dissolves apace;
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason.-O my good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed.-Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act;-
Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and
blood,

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
Expell'd remorse and nature; who with Sebas-

tian

(Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,)
Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive
thee,

Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding
Begins to swell; and the approaching tide

1 This speech is in some measure borrowed from Medea's, in Ovid; the expressions are, many of them in the old translation by Golding. But the exquisite fairy imagery is Shakspeare's own.

2 That is; ye are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves. Your employments are of the trivial nature before mentioned.

3 So in Mids. Night's Dream

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains." 4 Remorse is pity, tenderness of heart; nature is natural affection.

5 This was the received opinion so in Fairfax's 1 aseo, B iv St. 18.

Pro.

First, noble friend,

Let me embrace thine age; whose honour cannot
Be measur'd, or confin'd.

Gon.

Or be not, I'll not swear.
Pro.

Whether this be,

You do yet taste
Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you
Believe things certain :-Welcome, my friends all
But you, my
brace of lords, were I so minded,
[Aside to SEB. and ANT.
I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you,
And justify you traitors: at this time
I'll tell no tales.

Seb.
Pro.

The devil speaks in him. [Aside
No:--

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require
My dukedom of thee, which, perforce, I know,
Thou must restore.
If thou beest Prospero,
Give us particulars of thy preservation:
How thou hast met us here, who three hours since'

Alon.

"The goblins, fairies, fiends, and furies mad, Ranged in flowrie dales, and mountaines hore, And under every trembling leaf they sit." 6 Whether.

7 Subtilties are quaint deceptive inventions; the word is common to ancient cookery, in which a dis guised or ornamented dish is so termed,

8 The unity of time is most rigidly observed in this piece. The fable scarcely takes up a greater number of hours than are employed in the representation. Mr Steevens thinks that Shakspeare purposely designed to show the cavillers of the time, that he too could write play within all the strictest laws of regularity.

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I rather think,

Sir, she's mortal;

Fer.
But, by immortal Providence, she's mine;
I chose her, when I could not ask my father
For his advice; nor thought I had one: she
Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have

You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace, Received a second life, and second father
For the like loss, I have her sovereign aid,

And rest myself content.

Alon.

You the like loss?

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A daughter?

O heavens! that they were living both in Naples,
The king and queen there! that they were, I wish
Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your
daughter?

Pro. In this last tempest. I perceive, these lords
At this encounter do so much admire,
That they devour their reason; and scarce think
Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have
Been justled from your senses, know for certain,
That I am Prospero, and that very duke
Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely
Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was
landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;

This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom, since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;

At least, bring forth a wonder, to content ye,
As much as me my dukedom.

This lady makes him to me.
Alon.
I am her's:
But O, how oddly will it sound, that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!

Pro.

There, sir, stop:

Let us not burden our remembrances
With heaviness that's gone.

Gon.

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you
gods,

And on this couple drop a blessed crown;
For it is you, that have chalk'd forth the way
Which brought us hither!

Alon.
I say, Amen, Gonzalo
Gon. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his
issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy: and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom,
In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own.4
Alon.

Give me your hands: [To FER. and MIRA.

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart,
That doth not wish you joy!
Gon.

Be't so! Amen!
Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain
amazedly following.

O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us!

The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers FER-prophesied, if a gallows were on land,

DINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess.
Mira. Sweet lord, you play me false.
Fer.
No, my dearest love,

I would not for the world.
Mira. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should
3
wrangle,

And I would call it fair play.
Alon.

If this prove
A vision of the island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.

Seb.

A most high miracle!

Fer. Though the seas threaten, they are merci

ful:

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3 Mr. Pye says, I conceive Shakspeare, who was no nice weigher of words, meant wrangling to be equivalent with playing false, or with unfair advantage. So in Henry V. the king, in allusion to the tennis balls, directs the ambassadors to tell the dauphin

"He hath made a match with such a wrangler, That all the courts of France shall be disturb'd' With chases."

Mr. Pye's explanation is correct; but his deduction that Shakspeare was "no nice weigher of words" is otally false. Shakspeare's words are always the most

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Pro.
Alon. These are not natural events; they
strengthen,

From strange to stranger :-Say, how came you

hither?

Boats. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,
And (how, we know not,) all clapp'd under hatches,
Where, but even now, with strange and several
noises

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, gingling chains,
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awak'd; straightway at liberty:
Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
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.

expressive and most appropriate. To wrangle, in the
language of his time, was to haft or overthwurt; to run
back and yet not cease to contend.

4 When no man was in his senses or had self-possession.

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