Pro. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,

Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro.

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari.

How now! moody?

My liberty.

I prithee

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.

Ari.

Remember, I have done thee worthy service;

Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv’d

Without or grudge, or grumblings'. Thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.

Pro.

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari.

Dost thou forget

No.

Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much, to tread the ooze . Of the salt deep,

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' th' earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

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.

tell me.

Thou hast. Where was she born? speak;

Ari. Sir, in Argier 3.

Pro.

Oh! was she so? I must,

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did,
They would not take her life. Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

2 Without or grudge, or GRUMBLINGS.] The corr. fo. 1632 puts “grumblings," like "grudge," in the singular, but the change is not necessary. Perhaps for the sake of the measure it strikes out "thee" in the preceding line, but we hesitate to follow the example, merely because the line may be a syllable too long, when counted on the fingers.

Sir, in Argier.] The name for Algiers till about the Restoration.

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,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,
And left thee there, where thou didst 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
A human shape.

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.

What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go, make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject

To no sight but thine and mine; invisible

To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape,

4 Refusing her grand HESTS,] i. e. Behests: see Vol. ii. p. 153, and Vol. iii. p. 351: the word "commands " in the preceding line explains "hests," and instances must here be needless.

And hither come in't: go; hence, with diligence.

Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

Mira. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

[Exit ARIEL.

[Wakings.

Come on:

We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us.-What ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [Within.] There's wood enough within.

Pro. Come forth, I say: there's other business for thee. Come, thou tortoise! when??

Re-enter ARIEL, like a water-nymph.

Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

Ari.

My lord, it shall be done.

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,

8

[Exit.

5 Waking.] Editors, from all time, have sent Miranda to sleep, in their mar. ginal notes, but never waked her this stage-direction is also new in the corr. fo. 1632, and shows (if it could be doubted) the precise moment when the slumber of the heroine was to end. Mr. Singer, as if only to avoid the very word of the old obnoxious annotator, prints it "awaking."

6 We cannot miss him :] i. e. We cannot do without him, we must not miss him; a provincialism (says Malone) of the midland counties. No similar use of it has been pointed out in other writers.

7 Come, thou tortoise! when?] A very common form of expression in our old dramatists, indicative of impatience. See also Vol. iii. p. 224.

s With raven's feather] A most appropriate instrument in the hands of a witch, and we need not look for examples of similar applications of the plumage of that bird of ill omen. In the Rev. Mr. Dyce's edition of Middleton (Vol. v. p. 55) there is as remarkable an error, in reference to the word "raven," as, perhaps,

Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o'er!

Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work',

All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-comb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

Cal.

I must eat my dinner.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first,

Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; wouldst give me

Water with berries in't; and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,

And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,

The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fertile.
Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,

Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me,
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me

The rest o' th' island.

Pro.

Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness, I have us'd thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee

In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate

The honour of my child.

Cal. Oh ho! oh ho!—would it had been done!

was ever pointed out, and it remains uncorrected, the learned, but somewhat hasty editor having allowed ram to stand in his text instead of "raven." The passage is met with in "No Wit, no Help like a Woman's," A. ii. sc. 2:

"Would that Flemish ram

Had neer come near our house!"

It is marvellous that the occurrence of the words "nest" and " egg," in the very next line, did not prove to Mr. Dyce that ram could not be right, and that raven (written of old with u instead of v) had been mistaken for it: he is certainly the first English author who has supposed that Flemish rams laid eggs and made nests. The oversight is, as Mr. Dyce elsewhere expresses it, "a degree beyond the ridiculous," ("Remarks," p. 248,) because the whole context shows that the "Flemish raven" had been a bird of ill omen to Sir Oliver Twilight, and had just conveyed most dismal news to him. This ram's nest (he must pardon us, for saying) may rival any "mare's nest" yet discovered.

9

for that VAST OF NIGHT that they may work,] So in "Hamlet,” Vol. vii. p. 209, "In the dead vast and middle of the night." The "vast of night" is the empty space of night. "Urchins "here means fairies, not hedge-hogs.

Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.

Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes

With words that made them known; but thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could not abide to be with: therefore wast thou
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse.

The red plague rid you,

For learning me your language!

Pro.

Hag-seed, hence!

Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best,

To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches'; make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

Cal.

No, pray thee!

[Aside.

I must obey his art is of such power,
It would control my dam's god, Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.

Pro.

So, slave; hence!

[Exit CALIBAN.

1 Abhorred slave,] In Dryden and Davenant's alteration of "The Tempest," printed in 1670, this speech is assigned to Prospero, and no doubt rightly: in the first and later folios it is given to Miranda, to whom it could not belong; but the prefix is altered from Mir. to Pro. in the corr. fo. 1632. Mr. Singer also transfers the speech to Prospero, but without any hint that he thus varied from every old copy. This is only a wrong way of doing a right thing; but if he had alluded to the change at all, even he could hardly have avoided stating that it had been first made in the corr. fo. 1632: hence, perhaps, his silence.

3

2 Fill all thy bones with ACHES ;] This word, of old, was used either as a monosyllable or as a dissyllable, as the case might require: authorities may be quoted each way; and sometimes when "ache was required to be pronounced as one syllable, it was spelt ake.

my dam's god, Setebos,] Setebos, according to various authorities, both before and since the time of Shakespeare, was worshipped by the Patagonians; but Sycorax, as we learn from Ariel in a former part of this scene, was from Argier. Neither Shakespeare, nor his audiences, cared for the discrepancy.