Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour When thou DIDST not, favage, • But thy vile KNOW thy own meaning, but wouldst gabble like With words to make them known.] The benefit which Profpero here upbraids Caliban with having beftowed, was teaching him language. He fhews the greatnefs of this benefit by marking the inconvenience Caliban lay under for want of it. What was the inconvenience? This, that he did not know bis own meaning. But fure a brute, to which he is compared, doth know its own meaning, that is, knows what it would be at. This, indeed, it cannot do, it cannot fhew its meaning to others. And this certainly is what Profpero would fay: When thou COULDST not, favage, SHOW thy own meaning, The following words make it evident, -but wouldst gabble like A thing moft brutish, For And when once [show] was corrupted to [know] the transcribers would of courfe change [could] into [didft] to make it agree with the other falfe reading. There is indeed a fenfe, in which Know thy own meaning, may be well applied to a brute. it may fignify the not having any reflex knowledge of the operations of its own mind, which, it would feem, a brute hath not. Though this, I fay, may be applied to a brute, and confequently to Caliban, and though to remedy this brutality be a nobler benefit than even the teaching language; yet such a fenfe would be impertinent and abfurd in this place, where only the benefit of language is talked of by an exact and learned fpeaker. Befides, Profpero exprelly fays, that Caliban had purposes; which, in other words, is, that he did know his own meaning. WARBURTON. -When thou did not, favage, Know thy own meaning, -] By this expreffion, however defective, the poet feems to have meant-When thou didst utter founds, to which thou hadst no determinate meaning. STEEVENS. 6 But thy wild race] Race, in this place, feems to fignify original difpofition, inborn qualities. In this fenfe we ftill fay-The race of wine; and Sir W. Temple has fomewhere applied it to works of literature. STEEVENS. (Though (Though thou didst learn) had that in't which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore waft thou Who hadít deferv'd more than a prifon Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curfe: 7 the red plague rid you, For learning me your language! Pro. Hag-feed, hence! Fetch us in fewel; and be quick (thou we'rt beft) What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps; Cal. No, 'pray thee! I must obey his art is of fuch power, It would controul my dam's god Setebos, And make a vaffal of him. Pro. So, flave; hence! [Afide. [Exit Caliban. Enter Ferdinand at the remoteft part of the stage, and Ariel invifible, playing and finging. Come unto thefe yellow fands, And then take bands: 8 Court'fied when you have, and kiss'd, (The wild waves whift) Foot it featly here and there; And, fweet fprites, the burden bear. [Burden, difperfedly. -the red plague-] I fuppofe from the rednefs of the body univerfally inflamed. JOHNSON. Court fied when you have, and kifs'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of fome dances. The wild waves WHIST; i.e. the wild waves being filent (or whift) as in Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. 7. c. 7. f. 59. So was the Titanefs put down, and WHIST. And Hark, bark! bowgh waugh: the watch-dogs bark, Ari. Hark, bark, I hear The ftrain of ftrutting chanticlere Cry, Cock a-doodle-do. Fer. Where fhould this musick be? i' the air, or the earth? It founds no more: and fure, it waits upon 9 Full fathom five thy father lies, Hark, now I hear them, ding-dong, bell. [Burden, ding-dong. And Milton feems to have had our author in his eye. See ftanza 5. of his Hymn on the Nativity : The winds with wonder wHIST, Smoothly the waters kiss'd. So again, Phaër, in his tranflation of the fecond book of Virgil: -Conticuere omnes. They whifted all." STEEVENS. 9 Full fathom five thy father lies, &c.] Gildon, who has pretended to criticife our author, would give this up as an infufferable and fenfeless piece of trifling. And I believe this is the general opinion concerning it. But a very unjust one. Let us confider the bufinefs Ariel is here upon, and his manner of executing it. The commiffion Profpero had intrufted Fer. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.This is no mortal bufinefs, nor no found 'That the earth owes: I hear it now above me. intrufted to him, in a whifper, was plainly this; to conduct Ferdinand to the fight of Miranda, and to difpofe him to the quick fentiments of love, while he, on the other hand, prepared his daughter for the fame impreffions. Ariel fets about his bufinefs by acquainting Ferdinand, in an extraordinary manner, with the afflictive news of his father's death. A very odd apparatus, one would think, for a love-fit. And yet, as odd as it appears, the poet has fhewn in it the finest conduct for carrying on his plot. Profpero had faid, I find my zenith doth depend upon A moft aufpicious ftar; whose influence In confequence of this his prefcience, he takes advantage of every favourable circumftance that the occafion offers. The principal affair is the marriage of his daughter with young Ferdinand. But to fecure this point, it was neceffary they fhould be contracted before the affair came to Alonzo the father's knowledge. For Profpero was ignorant how this ftorm and fhipwreck, caufed by him, would work upon Alonzo's temper. It might either foften him, or increase his averfion for Profpero as the author. On the other hand, to engage Ferdinand, without the confent of his father, was difficult. For, not to fpeak of his quality, where fuch engagements are not made without the confent of the fovereign, Ferdinand is reprefented (to fhew it a match worth the feeking) of a moft pious temper and difpofition, which would prevent his contracting himself without his father's knowledge. The poet therefore, with the utmost addrefs, has made Ariel perfuade him of his father's death to remove this remora. WARBURTON. I know not whether Dr. Warburton has very fuccefsfully defended thefe fongs from Gildon's accufation. Ariel's lays, however seasonable and efficacious, muft be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance, they exprefs nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery. The reafon for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always afcribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel. JOHNSON. That the earth owes : as many others, fignifies to own. To owe, in this place, as well that So in Othello: Pro. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And fay, what thou feeft yond. Mira. What is't? a fpirit? "Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, Sir, It carries a brave form :-but 'tis a fpirit. Pro. No, wench; it eats, and fleeps, and hath fuch fenfes As we have, fuch. This gallant, which thou feeft, Was in the wreck; and, but he's fomething ftain'd With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'ft call him A goodly perfon. He hath loft his fellows, Mira. I might call him A thing divine; for nothing natural Pro. It goes on, I fee, [Afide. As my foul prompts it.-Spirit, fine fpirit, I'll free thee Within two days for this. Fer. 2 Moft fure, the goddefs On whom thefe airs attend!-Vouchfafe, my prayer that fweet fleep, "Which thou ow'dft yesterday." May To use the word in this fenfe is not peculiar to Shakespeare. I meet with it in B. and Fletcher's Beggar's Bufh: "If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince, 2 Moft fure, &c.] It feems, that Shakespeare, in The Tempest, hath been fufpected of tranflating fome expreffions of Virgil, witnefs the O Dea certe. I prefume we are here directed to the paffage, where Ferdinand fays of Miranda, after hearing the fongs of Ariel: Moft fure, the goddess On whom these airs attend ! And fo very fmall Latin is fufficient for this formidable tranflation, that if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loth to deprive him of it; but his honour is not built on fuch a fandy foundation. Let us turn to a real tranflator, and examine whether the idea might not be fully comprehended by an English reader, fuppofing it neceffarily borrowed from Virgil. Hexameters |