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Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; 7 fet her two courfes; off to fea again, lay her off.

Enter Mariners wet.

Mar. All loft! to prayers, to prayers! all loft!

[Exeunt. Boats. What, muft our mouths be cold? Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us affift them,

For our cafe is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

8

Ant. We're merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.

This wide-chopp'd rafcal :-'would, thou might'ft lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

Gon. He'll be hang'd yet;

Though every drop of water fwear against it,
And gape at wid'ft 9 to glut him.

[A con

• Lay her a-bold, a-bold;—] To lay a fhip a-bold, is to bring her to lie as near the wind as he can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to fea. STEEVENS.

7 -fet her two courses off to fea again,-] The courses are the main-fail and fore-fail. This term is ufed by Raleigh, in his Difcourfe on Shipping. JOHNSON.

The pallage, as Mr. Holt has obferved, fhould be pointed, Set her two courses; off, &c. STEEVENS.

8 merel In this place fignifies abfolutely. In which fenfe it is ufed in Hamlet, A&t 1. Sc. 3.

66

-Things rank and grofs in nature

"Poffefs it merely."

So in Ben Jonson's Peetafter:

66

-at requeft

"Of fome mere friends, fome honourable Romans."

STEEVENS.

to glut bim.] Shakefpeare probably wrote, t'englut him,

40 fwallow him; for which I know not that glut is ever ufed by him. In this fignification englut, from engloutir, French, occurs frequently, as in Henry VI.

-Thou art fo near the gulf "Thou needs must be englutted."

And

[A confused noife within.] Mercy on us!

We fplit, we split! Farewell, my wife and children! 'Farewell, brother! We fplit, we fplit, we split! Ant. Let's all fink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

2

[Exit. [Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea, 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!

[blocks in formation]

[Exit.

The inchanted island before the cell of Profpero.

Enter Profpero and Miranda.

Mira. 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 ftinking pitch,
But that the fea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have fuffer'd

With thofe that I faw fuffer! a brave veffel,
Who had, no doubt, fome noble creatures in her,
Dah'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor fouls! they perifh'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have funk the fea within the earth, or ere

And again in Timon and Othello. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for fwallowed, and therefore perhaps the prefent text may ftand. JOHNSON.

Brother, farewell!] All thefe lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the fhip. It is probable that the lines fucceeding the confufed nofe within should be confidered as spoken by no determinate characters, but should be printed thus.

1 Sailor. Mercy on us!

We fplit, we fplit!

2 Sailor. Farewell, my, &c.

Sailor. Brother, farewell, &c. JOHNSON.

2 long heath,-] This is the common name for the erica baccifera. WARBURTON.

A 4

It

It fhould the good fhip fo have fwallow'd, and
The freighting fouls within her.

Pro. Be collected;

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira. 3 O, woe the day!

Pro. No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee my dear one, thee my daughter) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Profpero, mafter of a full-poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira. More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.
Pro. 'Tis time,

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magick garment from me.-So!
[Lays down his mantle.
Lye there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have com-

fort.

The direful fpectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compaffion in thee,
I have with fuch provifion in mine art
So fafely order'd, 5 that there is no foul-

No,

3 Pro. No harm.] I know not whether Shakespeare did not make Miranda speak thus:

O, woe the day! no harm?

To which Profpero properly anfwers:

I have done nothing but in care of thee.

Miranda, when the fpeaks the words, O, woe the day! fuppofes, not that the crew had efcaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their deftruction no harm.

JOHNSON.

virtue of compaffion] Virtue: the most efficacious part, the energetic quality; in a like fenfe we fay, The virtue of a plant is in the extract. JOHNSON.

that there is no foul-] Thus the old editions read, but this is apparently defective. Mr. Rowe, and after him Dr. Warburton, read that there is no foul loft, without any notice of

the

No, not fo much perdition as an hair,

Betid to any creature in the veffel

Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. Sit down;

For thou muft now know further.

Mira. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
And left me to a bootlefs inquifition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.——

Pro. The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear:
Obey, and be attentive. Canft thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canft; for then thou waft not
6 Out three years old.

Mira. Certainly, Sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other houfe or perfon? Of any thing the image tell me, that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira. 'Tis far off;

And rather like a dream, than an affurance

the variation. Mr. Theobald fubftitutes no foil, and Mr. Pope follows him. To come fo near the right, and yet to mifs it, is unlucky the author probably wrote no feil, no ftain, no fpot: for fo Ariel tells,

Not a hair perish'd;

On their fuftaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before.

And Gonzalo, The rarity of it is, that our garments being drench'd in the fea, keep notwithstanding their freshness and gloffes. Of this emendation I find that the author of notes on The Tempest had a glimpfe, but could not keep it. JOHNSON.

-no foul-] Such interrupted fentences are not uncommon to Shakespeare: he fometimes begins a fentence, and before he concludes it, entirely changes the conftruction, because another, more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in converfation, it may be fuffered to pass uncenfured in the language of the stage. STEEVENS.

6 Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old, three years old full-out, complete. Mr. Pope, without any reafon, reads, FULL three years old. STEEVENS.

That

Had I not

That my remembrance warrants.

Four or five women once that tended me?

Pro. Thou hadft, and more, Miranda: but how
is it

That this lives in thy mind? What feeft thou else
In the dark back-ward and abysm of time?

If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'ft here;
How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st.

Mira. But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years fince, Miranda-twelve years fince,

Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of

power.

Mira. Sir, are not you my father?

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She faid, thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was duke of Milan, 7 thou his only heir

And princefs, no worse iffu'd.

Mira. O the heavens!

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did?

Pro. Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou fay'ft, were we heav'd thence; But bleffedly holp hither.

Mira. O my heart bleeds

To think o' the 8 teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.
Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, called Anthonio-
I pray thee, mark me;-that a brother should
Be fo perfidious!he whom next thyfelf
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time,

7 Perhaps and thou his only heir. JOHNSON.
Perhaps we fhould read,

A princess:

:—no worse iffu'd. STEEVENS. 8 -teen-] Is forrow, grief, trouble. So in Romeo and

Juliet:

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