PRO.

I am woe for't, sir 2. ALON. Irreparable is the loss; and patience

Says, it is past her cure.

PRO.

I rather think,

You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace, For the like loss, I have her sovereign aid,

And rest myself content.

ALON.

You the like loss?

PRO. As great to me, as late3; and, portable

To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker Than you may call to comfort you; for I

Have lost my daughter.

ALON.

A daughter?

O heavens! that they were living both in Naples, The king and queen there! that they were, I wish Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

PRO. In this last tempest. I perceive, these lords At this encounter do so much admire,

That they devour their reason; and scarce think
Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have

2 I am woE for't, sir.] i. e. I am sorry for it.

often used by old writers to signify, to be sorry. So, in the play of The Four P's, 1569:

"But be ye sure I would be woe

To be woe, is

"That you should chance to begyle me so." MALONE. 3 As great to me, as late ;] My loss is as great as yours, and has as lately happened to me. JOHNSON.

4

-portable-] So, in Macbeth:

66

these are portable

“With other graces weigh'd."

The old copy unmetrically reads-supportable. STEEVENS.

5

THEIR words

Are natural breath :] An anonymous correspondent thinks that their is a corruption, and that we should read-these words. His conjecture appears not improbable.

The lords had no doubt

Been justled from your senses, know for certain,
That I am Prospero, and that very duke

Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely

Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast, nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At least, bring forth a wonder, to content ye,
As much as me my dukedom.

The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers FER-
DINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess.

MIRA. Sweet lord, you play me false.

FER.

I would not for the world.

No, my dearest love,

MIRA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms, you should wrangle,

And I would call it fair play.

concerning themselves. Their doubts related only to Prospero, whom they at first apprehended to be some "inchanted trifle to abuse them." They doubt, says he, whether what they see and hear is a mere illusion; whether the person they behold is a living mortal, whether the words they hear are spoken by a human creature. MALone.

6-playing at CHESS.] Shakspeare might not have ventured to engage his hero and heroine at this game, had he not found Huon de Bordeaux and his Princess employed in the same manner. See the romance of Huon, &c. chapter 53, edit. 1601: "How King Ivoryn caused his daughter to play at the chesse with Huon," &c. STEEVENS.

I cannot see why Shakspeare should have gone to Huon de Bordeaux for a practice which was probably common in his day, and certainly is so in ours. BOSWELL.

7 Yes, for a score of KINGDOMS, &c.] I take the sense to be

ALON.

If this prove

A most high miracle!

A vision of the island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.

SEB.

FER. Though the seas threaten they are merci

ful:

I have curs'd them without cause.

ALON.

[FERD. kneels to ALON. Now all the blessings

Of a glad father compass thee about!
Arise, and say how thou cam'st here.

MIRA.
O! wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

PRO.

'Tis new to thee.

ALON. What is this maid, with whom thou wast

at play?

Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours: Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

FER.

Sir, she's mortal;

But, by immortal providence, she's mine;
I chose her, when I could not ask my father

only this: Ferdinand would not, he says, play her false for the world: yes, answers she, I would allow you to do it for something less than the world, for twenty kingdoms, and I wish you well enough to allow you, after a little wrangle, that your play was fair. So, likewise, Dr. Grey. JOHNSON.

I would recommend another punctuation, and then the sense would be as follows:

"Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play;"

66

because such a contest would be worthy of you.

""Tis honour with most lands to be at odds,"

says Alcibiades, in Timon of Athens.

Again, in Fletcher's Two Noble Kinsmen :

"Fighting about the titles of two kingdoms." STEEVens.

For his advice; nor thought I had one: she
Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Received a second life, and second father
This lady makes him to me.

ALON.

I am hers: But O, how oddly will it sound, that I Must ask my child forgiveness!

PRO.

There, sir, stop;

8

Let us not burden our remembrances "
With a heaviness that's gone.

GON.

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you

gods,

And on this couple drop a blessed crown;

For it is you, that have chalk'd forth the way
Which brought us hither!

ALON.

I say, Amen, Gonzalo !

GON. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his

issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy; and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife,
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom,

8

Our REMEMBRANCES] By the mistake of the transcriber the word with being placed at the end of this line, Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors, for the sake of the metre, read-remembrance. The regulation now made renders change unnecessary. We have the same phraseology in Coriolanus:

"One thus descended,

"To be set high in place, we did commend,

"To your remembrances.'

MALONE.

It should be recollected that a redundant syllable at the commencement of a line was common in the poetry of our author's time. BOSWELL.

In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own 9.

ALON.

Give me your hands:

[To FER. and MIR.

Be't so! Amen!

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart,
That doth not wish you joy!

GON.

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us!
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,

This fellow could not drown :-Now, blasphemy, That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore ?

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? BOATS. The best news is, that we have safely

found

Our king, and company: the next our ship,-
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split,-
Is tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when
We first put out to sea.

ARI.

Sir, all this service

Have I done since I went.

PRO.

Aside.

My tricksy spirit1!

9 WHEN no man was his own.] For when, perhaps should be read-where. JOHNSON..

When is certainly right; i. e. at a time when no one was in his senses. Shakspeare could not have written where, [i. e. in the island,] because the mind of Prospero, who lived in it, had not been disordered. It is still said, in colloquial language that a madman is not his own man, i. e. is not master of himself.

I

STEEVENS.

My TRICKSY Spirit!] Is, I believe, my clever, adroit spirit. Shakspeare uses the same word in The Merchant of Venice:

that for a tricksy word

Defy the matter."

So, in the interlude of The Disobedient Child, bl. 1. no date :