Of these our dear-beloved solemnized;
And thence retire me to my Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.

Alon.

I long

To hear the story of your life, which must
Take the ear strangely.

And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales

And sail so expeditious that shall catch

310

Your royal fleet far off. [Aside to Ariel] My Ariel, chick, That is thy charge: then to the elements

Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near.

[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

SPOKEN BY PROSPERO.

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

IC

20

NOTES.

THE Dramatis Personæ are given in the folios at the end of the play.

ACT I.

Scene I.

3. Good refers probably to the preceding Here, master,' not to 'what cheer?' Such phrases as 'good my lord,' 'good my friends,' are very common; whence 'good' comes to be used without an accompanying noun, as a kind of interjection, as in Hamlet, i. 1. 70, 'Good now, sit down,' and line 16 of the present scene, Nay, good, be patient.' See also Winter's Tale, v. 1. 19, ‘Now, good now, say so but seldom.' In line 20 'good' expresses acquiescence in the Boatswain's request.

Ib. yarely, nimbly, handily, deftly. Compare Antony and Cleopatra, ii. 2. 216, 'hands That yarely frame the office.'

5. cheerly, adverb formed from the noun, like 'angerly,' 'hungerly,' 'masterly,' &c. Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, § 447.

6. yare, from A. S. geáro, ready, prepared. It occurs again in line 37 of this scene, and in Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 286, ‘yare, yare, good Iras; quick.' Also in v. 1. 214 of the present play, where it applies to the ship, not the seamen. Ray gives it as a Suffolk word, and in the speech of the Lowestoft boatman at this day 'hear, hear,' is probably only a disguised form of 'yare, yare.'

Ib. Tend, attend. We have the same form in i. 2. 47 of this play, and in Hamlet, iv. 3. 44, ‘The associates tend.' For whistle compare Pericles, iv. 1. 64, and iii. 1. 8,

7. Blow...

This is of course an apostrophe to the storm or the spirit of the storm. There is no need to adopt Steevens' conjecture, Blow till thou burst thee, wind!' See Pericles, iii. 1. 44, 'Blow and split thyself.'

Ib. if room enough. Observe the ellipsis. See Abbott, § 403. The meaning is if there be sea-room enough.' Compare Pericles, iii. 1. 45. 'But sea-room, an the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not.'

8. have care. Elsewhere Shakespeare seems always to have used the ordinary phrase 'have a care,' and with something to follow.

9. Play the men. See 2 Samuel x. 12, 'Let us play the men for our people;' and Shakespeare, I Henry VI, i. 6. 16,

'When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.'

11. boatswain. The word is spelt in the folio in this place 'boson,' in accordance with the sailors' pronunciation.

13. you do assist the storm. Compare Pericles, iii. 1. 19, 'Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm.' The coincidences between the two plays are remarkable.

15. What cares these roarers. When the verb precedes the plural noun which governs it, it is frequently in the singular, as in iv. I. 264,

'At this hour

Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.'

And Cymbeline, v. 5. 233, in the folios,

'How comes these staggers on me?'

This construction, though so commonly used, was no more grammati cally correct in Shakespeare's time than it is in ours. In many instances it may be due to transcriber or printer. For example, in Richard II, iii. 4. 24, the first folio reads 'Here comes the gardeners,' but the first quarto, by far the best authority for the text, has 'Here come the gardeners.' The second and following quartos have by mistake' cometh,' which the printer of the folio, copying the fourth quarto, changed to comes.' Doubtless Shakespeare himself often used this license inadvertently, and did not hesitate to avail himself of it when the rhyme required it, as e. g. Richard II, iii. 3. 168,

6

'There lies

Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.'

16. roarers. In the language of Shakespeare's time a blustering bully was called 'a roarer.' See Massinger, The Renegado, i. 3, ‘A lady to turn roarer, and break glasses.' Compare 2 Henry IV, iii. 1. 22, 'Who take the ruffian billows by the top.'

21. present, present time. So Macbeth, i. 5. 58,

6

Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present.'

And I Cor. xv. 6, 'Of whom the greater part remain unto this present.' Ib. hand, handle. Cotgrave translates manier, 'to handle, hand, manage, wield, use, touch.'

24. hap. Compare Hamlet, i. 2. 249,

'Whatsoever else shall hap to-night.'

We find 'hap' a substantive in Richard II, i. 1. 23, 'Envying earth's good hap.'

27. complexion, constitution, or temperament, as shown by the outward appearance; hence in recent times the meaning of the word has been narrowed. See notes on Merchant of Venice, iii. 1. 26, and Hamlet, i. 4. 27.

28. perfect gallows. The allusion is of course to the proverb, 'He that is born to be hanged will never be drowned.' See line 53 of this scene and v. I. 217; also, Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 1. 157,

Go, go, begone, to save your ship from wreck,
Which cannot perish having thee aboard,

Being destined to a drier death on shore.'

30. advantage. This verb is always used elsewhere by Shakespeare with an objective case following, as Two Gentlemen of Verona, iii. 2. 42,

'Where your good word cannot advantage him,

Your slander never can endamage him.'

32. Down with the topmast! One of the directions given by Captain John Smith, a contemporary of Shakespeare, for the handling of a ship in a storm is, 'Strike your topmasts to the cap.' (The Seaman's Grammar, p. 40.) The second Lord Mulgrave furnished Malone with a long and interesting criticism on the manner in which Shakespeare makes his sailors handle their ship in the storm, which he thinks perfectly suitable to the circumstances where a ship is drifting on to, a lee shore. He quotes from Sir Henry Mainwaring's Seaman's Dictionary: 'It is not yet agreed amongst all seamen whether it is better for a ship to hull with her topmast up or down;' and 'If you have searoom it is never good to strike the topmast.' The whole may be read at length in the Variorum Shakespeare, 1821. For an explanation of the scene the reader is referred to the Preface.

33. Bring her to try with main-course. Ralegh (Works, viii. 339), describing a ship, says, ‘To make her a good sea ship, that is, to hull and try well, there are two things specially to be observed; the one, that she have a good draught of water; the other, that she be not overcharged, which commonly the king's ships are; and therefore in them we are obliged to lie at trye with our main course and mizen, which with a deep keel and standing streak, she will perform.' 'To lie at try' is to keep as close to the wind as possible; and the storm-sails, which are adapted for the purpose, and are always set on such occasions, are called try-sails. The 'main-course' is the main-sail. The following account of the disasters which befell Ralegh's ships at the outset of the Island voyage in 1597 will illustrate the present passage: 'On Twesday morninge, my sealf, the Bonaventer, the Mathew, and Andrew, were together, and steered for the North Cape, not doubtinge butt to have crost the fleet within six howres, butt att the instant the winde changed to the south, and