You holp us, sir, Arv. As you did mean indeed to be our brother; Joy'd are we that you are. Post. Your servant, princes. Good my lord of Rome, Call forth your soothsayer: as I slept, methought Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd, Luc. Sooth. Here, my good lord. Luc. 431 Philarmonus! Read, and declare the meaning. Sooth. [Reads] When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown, without seeking find, and be embraced by a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall be lopped branches, which, being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow; then shail Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.' Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp; THE TEMPEST. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1610.) INTRODUCTION. were The Tempest was probably written late in the year 1610. A few months previously had appeared ar account of the wreck of Sir George Somers' ship in a tempest off the Bermudas, entitled A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called the Ile of Divels, etc., written by Silvester Jourdan. Shakespeare (Act I., Sc. II., L. 229) makes mention of "the still-vexed Bermoothes;" and several points of resemblance render it probable that in writing the play he had Jourdan's tract before him. Beyond the suggestions obtained from this tract no source of the story of the play can be pointed out. Mention was made by the poet Collins of a tale called Aurelis and Isabella containing the same incidents, but in this point he was mistaken, though he may have seen some other Italian story which resembled The Tempest. The name Setébos (Sycorax's god) and perhaps other names of persons Shakespeare found in Eden's History of Travaile, published in 1577. The Tempest, although far from lacking dramatic or human interest, has something in its spirit of the nature of a clear and solemn vision. It expresses Shakespeare's highest and serenest view of life. Prospero, the great enchanter, is altogether the opposite of the vulgar magician. With command over the elemental powers, which study has brought to him, he possesses moral grande and a command over himself, in spite of occasional fits of involuntary abstraction and of intellectual impatience; he looks down on life, and sees through it, yet will not refuse to take his part in it. In Shakespeare's early play of supernatural agencies-A Midsummer Night's Dream-the "human mortals made the sport of the frolic-loving elves; here the supernatural powers attend on and obey their ruler, man. It has been suggested that Prospero, the great enchanter, is Shakespeare himself, and that when he breaks his staff, drowns his book, and dismisses his airy spirits, going back to the duties of his dukedom, Shakespeare was thinking of his own resigning of his powers of imaginative enchantment, his parting from the theatre, where his attendant spirits had played their parts, and his return to Stratford. The persons in this play, while remaining real and living, are conceived in a more abstract way, more as types than those in any other work of Shakespeare. Prospero is the highest wisdom and moral attainment; Gonzalo is humorous common-sense incarnated; all that is meanest and most despicable appears in the wretched conspirators; Miranda, whose name seems to suggest wonder, is almost an elemental being, framed in the purest and simplest type of womanhood, yet made substantial by contrast with Ariel, who is an unbodied joy, too much a creature of light and air to know human affection or human sorrow; Caliban (the name formed from cannibal) stands at the other extreme, with all the elements in him-appetites, intellect, even imaginationout of which man emerges into early civilization, but with a moral nature that is still gross and malignant. Over all presides Prospero like a providence; and the spirit of reconciliation, of forgiveness, harmonizing the contentions of men, appears in The Tempest in the same noble manner as in The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and Henry VIII. The action of the play is comprised within three hours. SCENE-A ship at Sea: an island. 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. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: 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 topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with maincourse. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling they are louder than the weather or our office. 40 Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GON ZALO, Yet again! what do you here? 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, SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell. Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA. Mir. If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd. Or blessed was't we did ? Pros. Both, both, my girl: 61 By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence, But blessedly holp hither. Mir. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance ! Please you, farther. [tonio Pros. My brother and thy uncle, call'd An- In dignity, and for the liberal arts And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle- How to deny them, who to advance and who changed 'em, Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state To what tune pleased his ear; that now he Mark his condition and the event; Then tell me If this might be a brother. Mir. Pros. Now I arise [Resumes his mantle. Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow. 120 Here in this island we arrived; and here 171 Have I, thy schoolmaster, made the more profit [time Than other princesses can that have more For vainer hours and tutors not so careful. I should sin To think but nobly of my grandmother: Good wombs have borne bad sons. Pros. Now the condition. The King of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises Of homage and I know not how much tribute, Should presently extirpate me and mine Out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan With all the honors on my brother: whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight Fated to the purpose did Antonio open The gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness, 130 The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me and thy crying self. Mir. Alack, for pity! Well demanded, wench: My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not, So dear the love my people bore me, nor set 140 Mir. Heaven's thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir, For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason For raising this sea-storm? Pros. Know thus far forth. By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon 181 A most auspicious star, whose influence Thou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness, choose. Enter ARIEL. Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, 190 Bore us some leagues to sea; Where they pre- To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst And burn in many places; on the topmast, smile, Infused with a fortitude from heaven, When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt, Under my burthen groan'd; which raised in me The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, 200 Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary |