as assumed this age ; indeed a banislı'd man; I can with ease produce. Cym. Guiderius had Сут. Take him hence : 320 Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star ; It was a mark of wonder. This is he ; It was wise nature's end in the donation, To be his evidence now. 0, what, am I Bel. I am too blunt and saucy : here's my A mother to the birth of three ? Ne'er knee : mother Ere I arise, I will prefer my sons ; Rejoiced deliverance more. Blest pray you Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir, be, 370 These two young gentlemen, that call me That, after this strange starting from your father orbs, And think they are my sons, are none of You may reign in them now! O Imogen, mine; Thou hast lost by this a kingdom. They are the issue of your loins, my liege, Imo. No, my lord; And blood of your begetting. 331 I have got two worlds by 't. O my gentle Cym. How ! my issue ! brotliers, Bel. So sure as you your father's. I, old Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter Morgan, [ish'd : But ? am truest speaker : you cail'd me broAm that Belarius whom you sometime ban ther, Your pleasure was my mere offence, my pun- Wen I was but your sister ; I you brothers, ishment When ye were so indeed. Itself, and all my treason ; that I suffer'd Сут. Did you e'er meet ? Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes Arv. Ay, my good lord. For such and so they are—these twenty years Gui. And at first meeting loved; Have I train'd up : those arts they have as I Continued so, until we thought he died. 380 Could put into them ; my breeding was, sir, Cor. By the queen's dram she swallow'd. Cym. O rare instinct ! Your highness knows. Their nurse, Euri. When shall I hear all through? This fierce phile, 340 abridgement Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these Hath to it circumstantial branches, which children Distinction should be rich in. Where? how Upon my banishment: I moved her to't, lived you? (tive ? Having received the punishment before, And when came you to serve our Roman capFor that which I did then: beaten for loy- How parted with your brothers? how first met alty them? Excited me to treason: their dear loss, Why fled you from the court ? and whither? The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shaped These, Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious And your three motives to the battle, with sir, I know not how much more, should be deHere are your sons again; and I must lose manded; Two of the sweet'st companions in the world. And all the other by-dependencies, 390 The benediction of these covering heavens 350 From chance to chance: but nor the time nor Fall on their heads like dew! for they are place worthy. Will serve our long inter'gatories. See, To inlay heaven with stars. Posthumus anchors upon Imogen, Cym. Thou weep'st, and speak’st. And she, like harmless lightning, throws her The service that you three have done is more eye Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my chil- On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting dren : Each object with a joy : the counterchange If these be they, I know not how to wish Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground, A pair of worthier sons. And smoke the temple with our sacrifices. Bel. Be pleased awhile. [To Belarius) Thou art my brother ; so we'll This gentleman, whom I call Polydore, hold thee ever. Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guide- Imo. You are my father too, and did rerius : 400 This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus, To see this gracious season. Your younger princely son ; he, sir, was Cym. All o'erjoy'd, fapp'd 360 Save these in bonds : let them be joyful too, for a most curious mantle, wrought by the For they shall taste our comfort. hand Imo. My good master, his queen mother, which for more proha. I will yet do you service. luci Happy be you lieve me, Cym. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly (To Cymbeline] The piece of tender air, thy fought, virtuous daughter, He would have well becomed this place, and Which we call 'mollis aer;' and ' mollis aer' graced We term it.mulier ;' which 'mulier' I diThe thankings of a king. vine Post. I am, sir, Is this most constant wife ; who, even now, The soldier that did company these three Answering the letter of the oracle, In poor beseeming ; 'twas a fitment for 409 Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he, about Speak, lachimo : I had you down and might With this most tender air. Have inade you finish. Cym. This hath some seeming. Iach. (Kneeling] I am down again : 1 Sooth. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline, But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee, Personates thee : and thy lopp' branches As then your force did. Take that life, be- point seech you, Thy two sons forth ; who, by Belarius stol'n, Which I so often owe: but your ring first; For many years thought dead, are now reAnd here the bracelet of the truest princess vived, That ever swore her faith. To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue Post. Kneel not to me : Promises Britain peace and plenty. The power that I have on you is to spare you; Сут. Well; The malice towards you to forgive you : live, My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius, And deal with others better. Although the victor, we submit to Cæsar, 460 Сут. Nobly doom'd! 420 And to the Roman empire ; promising We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law ; To pay our wonted tribute, from the which Pardon's the word to all. We were dissuaded by our wicked queen ; Arv. You holp us, sir, Whom heavens, in justice, both on her and As you did mean indeed to be our brother ; hers, Joy'd are we that you are. Have laid most heavy hand. Post. Your servant, princes. Good my lord Sooth. The fingers of the powers above do of Rome, tune Call forth your soothsayer : as I slept, me- The harmony of this peace. The vision thought Which I made known to Lucius, ere the stroke Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd, Of this yet scarce-cold battle, at this instant Appear'd to me, with other sprite!y shows Is full accoinplish'd ; for the Roman eagle, 470 Of mine own kindred : when I waked, I found From south to west on wing soaring aloft, This label on my bosom ; whose containing Lessen'd herself, and in the beams o' the sun Is so from sense in hardness, that I can 431 So vanish'd: which foreshow'd our princely Make no collection of it: let him show eagle, His skill in the construction. The imperial Cæsar, should again unite Luc. Philarmonus ! His favor with the radiant Cymbeline, Sooth. Here, my good lord. Which shines here in the west. Luc. Read, and declare the meaning. Сут. Laud we the gods; Sooth. , [ Reads] When as a lion's whelp | And let our crooked smokes climb to their shall, to himself ur:known, without seeking nostrils find, and be embraced by a piece of tender From our blest altars. Publish we this peace air ; and when from a stately cedar shall be To all our subjects. Set we forward : let lopped branches, which, being dead many A Roman and a British ensign wave 480 years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old Friendly together : so through Lud's-towu stock, and freshly grow; then shail Posthu march: mus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate and And in the temple of great Jupiter flourish in peace and plenty.' Our peace we'll ratify ; seal it with feasts. Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp; Set on there ! Never was a war did cease, The fit and apt construction of thy name, Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a Being Leo-natus, doth import so much. peace. (Ezeun.. THE TEMPEST. (WRITTEN ABOUT 1610.) INTRODUCTION. were The Tempest was probably written late in the year 1610. A few months previously had appeared an 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, 11., L. 229) makes inention 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 lialian story which resembled The Tempest. The name Setebos (Šycorax'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 grandeu 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 statt, drowns his book, and dismisses his airy spirits, going back to the duties of hiç 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 imagination out 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 reconciliaten, 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. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. ALONSO, King of Naples. Boatswain. Mariners. ARIEL, an airy Spirit. CERES, Nymphs, Reapers, TRINCOLÓ, a Jester. Other Spirits attending on Prospero STEPHANO, a drunken Butler. Master of a Ship SCENE-A ship at Sea : an island. FRANCISCO, Lords. ACT I. noise of thunder and lightning heard. Mast. Good, speak to the mariners : fall to't, yarely, or we run ourselves aground : bestir, bestir. [Exit. Enter Mariners. Boats. Heigh, my hearts ! cheerly, cheeriy, my hearts ! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough! Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FER DINAND, GONZALO, and others. Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master ? Play the men. 11 Boats. I pray now, keep below. Ant. Where is the master, boatswain ? Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labor: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient. Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king ? To cabin : silence ! trouble is not. Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard. 21 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.] 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. Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench. Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold I set her two courses off to sea again ; lay her off. Enter Mariners wet. Mariners. All lost ! to prayers, to prayers ! all lost! Boats. What, must our mouths be cold? assist them, I'm out of patience. Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards : This wide-chapp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning 10 The washing of ten tides ! Gon. He'll be hang d yet, Though every drop of water swear against it And gape at widest to glut him. [A confused noise within: Mercy on us ! We split, we split !'— Farewell, my wife and children!' Farewell, brother!'—'We split, we split, we split!'] Ant. "Let's all sink with the king. Seb. Let's take leave of him. [Ereunt Ant. and Seb. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done ! but I would sain die a dry death, [Ereunt SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell. Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA. Mir. If by your art, my dearest father, 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 With those that I saw suffer : a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls, they per ish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would 10 Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallow'd and The fraughting souls within her. Pros. Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done. Mir, O, woe the day! Pros. No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who you have : Art ignorant of what thou art, nought know ing Of whence I am, nor that I am more better Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell, 20 And thy no greater father. Mir. More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts. Pros. 'Tis time I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, And pluck niy magic garment from me. So : (Lays down his mantle. Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes ; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touchi'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely ordered that there is no soulNo, not so much perdition as an hair 30 Betid to any creature in the vessel Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down ; For thou must now know farther. Mir. You have often Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd And left me to a bootless inquisition, Concluding 'Stay : not yet. Pros. The hour's now come ; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear ; Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell ? I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not 40 Out three years old. Mir. Certainly, sir, I can. Pros. By what? by any other house or Of any thing the image tell me that Hath kept with thy remembrance. Mir. 'Tis far off And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants. Had I not Four or five women once that tended me ? Pros. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? 50 If thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here, How thou camest here thou mayst. Mir. But that I do not. year since, Sir, are not you my father? and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father O the heavens ! What foul play had we, that we came from thence 1 Or blessed was't we did ? 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 tura'd you to, Which is from my remembrance ! Please you, farther, (tonioPros. My brother and thy uncle, callid AnI pray thee, mark me-that a brother should Be so perfidious She whom next thyself Of all the world I loved and to him put The manage of my state ; as at that time 70 Through all the signories it was the first And Prospero the prime duke, being so re puted In dignity, and for the liberal arts Without a parallel ; those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother And to my state grew stranger, being trans ported And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle Dost thou attend me? Mir. Sir, most heedfully. Pros. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance and who To trash for over-topping, new created 81 The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em, Or else new form'd 'em ; having both the key Of officer and office, set all liearts i’ the state To what tune pleased his ear ; that now he The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou at tend'st not. Mir. O, good sir, I do. Pros. I pray thee, mark me. I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind 90 With that which, but by being so retired, O'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother Awaked an evil nature ; and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him A falsehood in its contrary as great As my trust was ; which had indeed no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lordeu, Not only with what my revenue yielded, But what my power might else exact, like Who having into truth, by telling of it, 100 Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie, he did believe He was indeed the duke ; out o' the substita tion, And executing the outward face of royalty, With all prerogative: hence his ambition growingDost thou hear ? Mir. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Pros. To have no screen between this part he play'd was person ? one |