Cym. Nursing of my sons! Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star; This is he; Who hath upon him still that natural stamp: Cym. mother O, what, am I Bel. I am too blunt and saucy: here's my A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er knee : alty Excited me to treason: their dear loss, Here are your sons again; and I must lose To inlay heaven with stars. If these be they, I know not how to wish This gentleman, whom I call Polydore, rius: This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus, Your younger princely son; he, sir, was 360 lapp'd In a most curious mantle, wrought by the hand his queen mother, which for more proha Did you e'er meet? And at first meeting loved; Continued so, until we thought he died. 380 Cor. By the queen's dram she swallow'd. Cym O rare instinct! When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgement Hath to it circumstantial branches, which Distinction should be rich in. Where? how [tive? And when came you to serve our Roman capHow parted with your brothers? how first met. them? lived you? Sooth. Here, my good lord. Luc. 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 fit and apt construction of thy name, Being Leo-natus, doth import so much. eagle, The imperial Cæsar, should again unite His favor with the radiant Cymbeline, Which shines here in the west. THE TEMPEST. INTRODUCTION. 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. 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 Setebos (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 grandeur 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" were 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 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. DRAMATIS PERSONE. ALONSO, King of Naples. SEBASTIAN, his brother. PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan. Boatswain. ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero. Milan. ARIEL, an airy Spirit. IRIS, CERES, JUNO, presented by Spirits. Nymphs, Reapers, Other Spirits attending on Prospero. 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. 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 fain die a dry death. [Exeunt. 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. 10 Had I been any god of power, I would Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done. Pros. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, who Mir. O, good sir, I do. I pray thee, mark me. Awaked an evil nature; and my trust, As my trust was; which had indeed no limit, A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded, Not only with what my revenue yielded, one 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 substitntion, 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 |