ARI. I do not, sir. PRO. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age, and envy, Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her? ARI. No, sir. PRO. Thou hast: Where was she born? speak; tell me. ARI. Sir, in Argier *. PRO. O, was she so? I must, Once in a month, recount what thou hast been, Thou know'st, was banish'd; for one thing she did, PRO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant : And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, 3 The foul WITCH Sycorax,] This idea might have been caught from Dionyse Settle's Reporte of the Last Voyage of Capteine Frobisher, 12mo. bl. 1. 1577. He is speaking of a woman found on one of the islands described. "The old wretch, whome diuers of ovr Saylers supposed to be a Diuell, or a Witche, plucked off her buskins, to see if she were clouen footed, and for her ougly hewe and deformitie we let her goe." STEEVENS. in ARGIER.] Argier is the ancient English name for Algiers. See a pamphlet entitled, A true Relation of the Travailes, &c. of William Davies, Barber-surgeon, &c. 1614. In this is a chapter" on the description, &c. of Argier." STEEVENS. 5 for one thing she did, They would not take her life:] What that one thing was which saved the life of Sycorax, the poet has nowhere informed us. I cannot but think that this adds support to the opinion that there was some novel upon which the fable of The Tempest was founded, in which this circumstance was mentioned, to which Shakspeare thought it sufficient to refer. BosWELL. Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, Into a cloven pine; within which rift A dozen years; within which space she died, And left thee there; where thou did'st vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island, (Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honour'd with ARI. Yes; Caliban her son. PRO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban, Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st What torment I did find thee in: thy groans Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Could not again undo; it was mine art, When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape The pine, and let thee out. ARI. I thank thee, master. PRO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters. ARI. Pardon, master: I will be correspondent to command, PRO. I will discharge thee. ARI. Do so; and after two days That's my noble master! What shall I do? say what? what shall I do? be subject to a nymph o' the sea;] There does not appear to be To no sight but thine and mine; invisible To every eye-ball else". Go, take this shape, 8 MIRA. The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me. sufficient cause why Ariel should assume this new shape, as he was to be invisible to all eyes but those of Prospero. STEEVENS. Be subject to no sight but MINE; invisible To every eye-ball else.] The old copy reads 66 Be subject to no sight but thine and mine; invisible," &c. But redundancy in the first line, and the ridiculous precaution that Ariel should not be invisible to himself, plainly prove that the words-and thine, were the interpolations of ignorance. STEEVENS. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject "To no sight but thine and mine; invisible, &c." The words -" be subject "-having been transferred in the first copy of this play to the latter of these lines, by the carelessness of the transcriber or printer, the editor of the second folio, to supply the metre of the former line, introduced the word to;-reading, "like to a nymph o' the sea." The regulation that I have made, shows that the addition, like many others made by that editor, was unnecessary. If Ariel looked in that glass which made Narcissus enamoured of himself, his own image would be reflected, unless we were to read with Steevens and the second folio; for theu he would be visible only to Prospero, and invisible to himself. MALONE. My arrangement of this passage admits the word to, which, I think, was judiciously restored by the editor of the second folio. STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens's arrangement is as follows: Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea; BOSWELL. 7 And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.] The old copy reads "And hither come in't: go, hence, with diligence." The transcriber or compositor had caught the word go from the preceding line. RITSON. 8 The strangeness] Why should a wonderful story produce sleep? I believe experience will prove, that any violent agitation Shake it off: Come on; We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Yields us kind answer. MIRA. I do not love to look on. PRO. 'Tis a villain, sir, But, as 'tis, We cannot miss him : he does make our fire, CAL. [Within.] There's wood enough within. PRO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee: Come, thou tortoise! when 1? of the mind easily subsides in slumber, especially when, as in Prospero's relation, the last images are pleasing. JOHNSON. The poet seems to have been apprehensive that the audience, as well as Miranda, would sleep over this long but necessary tale, and therefore strives to break it. First, by making Prospero divest himself of his magic robe and wand: then by waking her attention no less than six times by verbal interruption: then by varying the action when he rises and bids her continue sitting and lastly, by carring on the business of the fable while Miranda sleeps, by which she is continued on the stage till the poet has occasion for her again. Warner. 9 We cannot miss him :] That is, we cannot do without him. M. MASON. This provincial expression is still used in the midland counties. MALONE. Come, thou tortoise! WHEN?] This expression of impatience occurs often in our old dramas. So, in Julius Cæsar, vol. xii. p. 34: When, Lucius, when?" MALONE. It is found also in the extracts from Middleton's Witch, vol. xi. p. 293: "Give me marmaratin; some beare-breech: when?" BOSWELL. This interrogation, indicative of impatience in the highest degree, occurs also in King Richard II. Act I. Sc. I.: “ When, Harry? See note on this passage. In Prospero's summons to Caliban, however, as it stands in the old copy, the word forth (which I have repeated for the sake of metre) [come forth] is wanting. STEEVENS. Re-enter ARIEL, like a water-nymph. Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel, Hark in thine ear. ARI. My lord, it shall be done. [Erit. PRO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth! Enter CALIBAN. CAL. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both 2! a south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er! 2 Cal. As wicked dew as c'er my mother brush'd With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, Drop on you both!] It was a tradition, it seems, that Lord Falkland, Lord C. J. Vaughan, and Mr. Selden, concurred in observing, that Shakspeare had not only found out a new character in his Caliban, but had also devised and adapted a new manner of language for that character. What they meant by it, without doubt, was, that Shakspeare gave his language a certain grotesque air of the savage and antique; which it certainly has. But Dr. Bentley took this, of a new language, literally; for, speaking of a phrase in Milton, which he supposed altogether absurd and unmeaning, he says, "Satan had not the privilege, as Caliban in Shakspeare, to use new phrase and diction unknown to all others and again-" to practise distances is still a Caliban style." Note on Milton's Paradise Lost, 1. iv. v. 945. But I know of no such Caliban style in Shakspeare, that hath new phrase and diction unknown to all others. WARBURTON. Whence these critics derived the notion of a new language appropriated to Caliban, I cannot find: they certainly mistook brutality of sentiment for uncouthness of words. Caliban had learned to speak of Prospero and his daughter; he had no names for the sun and moon before their arrival ; and could not have invented a language of his own, without more understanding than Shakspeare has thought it proper to bestow upon him. His diction is indeed somewhat clouded by the gloominess of his temper, and the malignity of his purposes; but let any other being entertain the same thoughts, and he will find them easily issue in the same expressions. JOHNSON. |