And ye, that on the sands with printless foot Auræque, et venti, montesque, amnesque, lacusque, Diique omnes nemorum, diique omnes noctis, adeste. The translation of which, by Golding, is by no means literal, and Shakspeare hath closely followed it. FARMER. Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole passage with Medea's speech, as translated by Golding, will see evidently that Shakspeare copied the translation, and not the original. The particular expressions that seem to have made an impression on his mind, are printed in Italicks : "Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woodes alone, 66 "Of standing lakes, and of the night, approche ye everych one. Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the thing) "I have compelled streames to run clear backward to their spring. "By charms I make the calm sea rough, and make the rough seas playne, 66 "And cover all the skie with clouds, and chase them thence again. By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the viper's jaw, "And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw. "Whole woodes and forrests I remove, I make the mountains shake, "And even the earth itself to groan and fearfully to quake. "I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O lightsome moone, "I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy peril soone. "Our sorcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darks the sun at 66 noone, "The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my sake, "And caused their unwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take. Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did set, "And brought asleep the dragon fell, whose eyes were never shet." MALONE. "Ye elves of hills," &c. Fairies and elves are frequently, in the poets, mentioned together without any distinction of character that I can recollect. Keysler ways, that alp and alf, which is elf with the Suedes and English, equally signified a mountain, or a dæmon of the mountains. This seems to have been its original meaning; but Somner's Dict. mentions elves or fairies of the mountains, of the woods, of the sea and fountains, without any distinction between elves and fairies. ToLlet. It would be an injustice to our great poet, if the reader were not to take notice that Ovid has not supplied him with any thing When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice By my so potent art: But this rough magick3 resembling the exquisite fairy imagery with which he has enriched this speech. BOSWELL. Do chase the ebbing Neptune,] So Milton, in his Masque : "Whilst from off the waters fleet, "Thus I set my printless feet.' STEEVENS. 2 (Weak MASTERS though ye be,)] The meaning of this passage may be, "Though you are but inferior masters of these supernatural powers-though you possess them but in a low degree.' Spenser uses the same kind of expression in The Fairy Queen, b. iii. cant. 8, st. 4: 66 66 "Where she (the witch) was wont her sprights to entertain, "The masters of her art: there was she fain "To call them all in order to her aid." STEEVENS. by whose aid, (Weak masters though ye be,) " That is; ye are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves;-your employment is then to make green ringlets, and midnight mushrooms, and to play the idle pranks mentioned by Ariel in his next song ;-yet by your aid I have been enabled to invert the course of nature. We say proverbially, Fire is a good servant, but a bad master.” BLACKSTONE. 3 BUT this rough magick, &c.] This speech of Prospero VOL. XV. M I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd [Solemn musick. Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a frantick gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks. A solemn air, and the best comforter Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand, Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the shew of thine, sets out with a long and distinct invocation to the various ministers of his art; yet to what purpose they were invoked does not very distinctly appear. Had our author written-" All this," &c. instead of "But this," &c. the conclusion of the address would have been more pertinent to its beginning. STEEvens. 4 BOIL'D within thy skull!] So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream: "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains," &c. STEEVENS. Again, in The Winter's Tale: "Would any but these boil'd brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty, hunt this weather?" MALONE. 5-fellowly drops.] I would read, fellow drops. The additional syllable only injures the metre, without enforcing the sense. Fellowly, however, is an adjective used by Tusser. STEEVENS. 6 Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle To him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition 8, 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 That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them, Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell; [Exit ARIEL. I will dis-case me, and myself present, 6 the ignorant fumes-] i. e. the fumes of ignorance. - HEATH. 7 Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and blood,] Thus the old copy: Theobald points the passage in a different manner, and perhaps rightly: "Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian, flesh and blood." STEEVENS. 8 that ENTERTAIN'D ambition,] Old copy-entertain. Corrected by the editor of the second folio. MALONE. 9 REMORSE and NATURE ;] Remorse is by our author and the contemporary writers generally used for pity, or tenderness of heart. Nature is natural affection. MALONE. ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire PROSPERO. ARI. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; 3 There I couch. When owls do cry 3, 2 In a cowSLIP's bell I lie :] So, in Drayton's Nymphidia: "At midnight, the appointed hour; "And for the queen a fitting bower, "Quoth he, is that fair cowslip flower 66 On Hipcut hill that bloweth." The date of this poem not being ascertained, we know not whether our author was indebted to it, or was himself copied by Drayton. I believe, the latter was the imitator. Nymphidia was not written, I imagine, till after the English Don Quixote had appeared in 1612. It was not printed till 1627. MALONE. 3 When owls do cry,] i. e. at night. As this passage is now printed, Ariel says that he reposes in a cowslip's bell during the night. Perhaps, however, [as Mr. Capell has suggested], a full point ought to be placed after the word couch, and a comma at the end of the line. If the passage should be thus regulated, Ariel will then take his departure by night, the proper season for the bat to set out upon the expedition. MALONE. So, in Drayton's Owle, 4to. 1604 : 66 such thieves as hate the light, "The black-ey'd bat, the watchman of the night." That the crying of owls was introduced as descriptive of night, and not to mark the season of the year, is proved by Shakspeare's frequent mention of the same bird in various places, in all of which the owl is introduced as an attendant upon night. So, in Macbeth: "It was the owl that cry'd, the fatal bellman, "That giv'st the stern'st good-night." Again, in King Henry VI. Part II.: "Deep night, dread night, the silent of the night, Again, in his Venus and Adonis : "The owl, night's herald, shrieks; 'tis very late," &c. Again, in Cymbeline: "The night to the owl, and morn to the lark, less welcome." MALONE. The pointing of Ariel's song, its third line in particular, is in the last degree bad, and that in every edition; couch has no stop at all in any of them, and cry a full one: what results from this |