This ancient morsel', this sir Prudence, who For all the rest, They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk; We say befits the hour. SEB. Thy case, dear friend, Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke Shall free thee from the tribute which thou pay'st; And I the king shall love thee. ANT. Draw together: And when I rear my hand, do you the like, SEB. O, but one word. [They converse apart. Musick. Re-enter ARIEL, invisible. ARI. My master through his art foresees the danger That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth, (For else his project dies,) to keep them living 9. [Sings in GONZALO's ear. 7 This ancient MORSEL,] For morsel, Dr. Warburton readsancient moral, very elegantly and judiciously; yet I know not whether the author might not write morsel, as we say a piece of a man. JOHNSON. So, in Measure for Measure: 8 "How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress?" STEEVENS. - take SUGGESTION,] i. e. Receive any hint of villainy. So, in Macbeth, Act I. Sc. III. : "If good, why do I yield to that suggestion JOHNSON. "They'll take suggestion, as a cat laps milk;] That is, will adopt, and bear witness to, any tale you shall invent; you may suborn them as evidences to clear you from all suspicion of having murthered the king. A similar signification occurs in The Two Gentlemen of Verona : 9 "Love bad me swear, and love bids me forswear: "Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it." HENLEY. While you here do snoring lie, His time doth take: If of life you keep a care, Shake off slumber, and beware: Gonsalo and Alonso must be understood. Dr. Johnson objects very justly to this passage. "As it stands," says he, "at present, the sense is this. He sees your danger, and will therefore save them." He therefore would read-"That these his friends are in." The confusion has, I think, arisen from the omission of a single letter, Our author, I believe, wrote 66 and sends me forth, "For else his projects dies, to keep them living." i. e. he has sent me forth, to keep his projects alive, which else would be destroyed by the murder of his friend Gonzalo.-The opposition between the life and death of a project appears to me much in Shakspeare's manner. So, in Much Ado about Nothing: "What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?"-The plural noun joined to a verb in the singular number, is to be met with in almost every page of the first folio. So, to confine myself to the play before us, edit. 1623: 66 Again, ibid. : 66 My old bones akes." At this hour "Lies at my mercy all my enemies." Again, ibid. : Again: "His tears runs down his beard—.” "What cares these roarers for the name of king." It was the common language of the time; and ought to be corrected, as indeed it generally has been in the modern editions of our author, by changing the number of the verb. Thus, in the present instance we should read-" For else his projects die, &c." MALONE. I have received Dr. Johnson's amendment. Ariel, finding that Prospero was equally solicitous for the preservation of Alonso and Gonzalo, very naturally styles them both his friends, without adverting to the guilt of the former. Toward the success of Prospero's design, their lives were alike necessary. Mr. Henley says that "By them are meant Sebastian and Antonio. The project of Prospero, which depended upon Ariel's keeping them alive, may be seen, Act III." The song of Ariel, however, sufficiently points out which were the immediate objects of his protection. He cannot be supposed to have any reference to what happens in the last scene of the next Act. STEEVENS. ANT. Then let us both be sudden. GON. Now, good angels, preserve the king! [They wake. ALON. Why, how now, ho! awake! Why are you drawn '? Wherefore this ghastly looking? GON. What's the matter? SEB. Whiles we stood here securing your repose, Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing Like bulls, or rather lions; did it not wake you? It struck mine ear most terribly. ALON. I heard nothing. ANT. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear; To make an earthquake! sure it was the roar Of a whole herd of lions. ALON. Heard you this, Gonzalo ? GON. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, And that a strange one too, which did awake me: I shak'd you, sir, and cry'd; as mine eyes open'd, I saw their weapons drawn :-there was a noise, That's verity: "Tis best we stand upon our guard2: Or that we quit this place: let's draw our weapons. ALON. Lead off this ground; and let's make further search For my poor son. GON. Heavens keep him from these beasts! For he is, sure, i' the island. drawn?] Having your swords drawn. So, in Romeo and "What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds ?” JOHNSON. 2 That's VERITY: 'Best stand upon our guard ;] The old copy reads "That's verily: 'Tis best we stand upon our guard.” Mr. Pope very properly changed verily to verity: and as the verse would be too long by a foot, if the words 'tis and we were retained, 1 have discarded them in favour of an elliptical phrase which occurs in our ancient comedies, as well as in our author's Cymbeline, Act III. Sc. III. : "Best draw my sword;" i. e. it were best to draw it. STEEVENS. ALON. ARI. Prospero, my lord, shall know what I have done: Lead away. [Aside. [Exeunt. So, king, go safely on to seek thy son. SCENE II. Another part of the Island. Enter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard. up CAL. All the infections that the sun sucks From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me, Sometime like apes, that moe3 and chatter at me, 3 4 that MOE, &c.] i. e. make mouths. So, in the old version of the Psalms: 66 - making moes at me." Again, in the Mystery of Candlemas-Day, 1512: "And make them to lye and mowe like an ape." Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, book iii. : 66 Ape great thing gave, though he did mowing stand, "The instrument of instruments, the hand." STEEVENS. 66 So, in Nashe's Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1593: - found nobody at home but an ape, that sate in the porch and made mops and mows at him." MALOne. 4 Their PRICKS-] i. e. prickles. STEEVENS. All wound with adders, who, with cloven tongues, Do hiss me into madness:-Lo! now! lo! Enter TRINCulo. Here comes a spirit of his; and to torment me, 6 TRIN. Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond' same black cloud, yond' huge one, looks like a foul bumbard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder, as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond' same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very 5 WOUND with adders,] Enwrapped by adders wound or twisted about me. JOHNSON. 6 looks like a foul BUMBARD -] This term again occurs in The First Part of Henry IV.: "that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bumbard of sack-" And again, in Henry VIII.: "And here you lie baiting of bombards, when ye should do service." By these several passages, 'tis plain the word meant a large vessel for holding drink, as well as the piece of ordnance so called. THEOBALD. Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Augurs, confirms the conjecture of Theobald: "The poor cattle yonder are passing away the time with a cheat loaf, and a bumbard of broken beer.' So, again, in The Martyr'd Soldier, by Shirley, 1638 : "His boots as wide as the black-jacks, "Or bumbards, toss'd by the king's guards." And it appears from a passage in Ben Jonson's Masque of Love Restor❜d that a bombardman was one who carried about provisions. "I am to deliver into the buttery so many firkins of aurum potabile as it delivers out bombards of bouge," &c. Again, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631: You are ascended up to what you are, from the black-jack to the bumbard distillation." STEEVENS, Cole renders bombard, cantharus, a tankard. Mr. Upton would read-a full bumbard. See a note on-" I thank the Gods, I am foul;" As You Like It, vol. vi. p. 445, n. 1. MALone. |