Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human. Pros. And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, 6 By my so potent art. But this rough magic Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, art ? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury In virtue, than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown farther. Go, release them, Ariel. Ari. And ye that on the sands with printless foot Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault up 9 The pine and cedar: graves, at my command, Have waked their sleepers; oped, and let them forth apace; To him thou follow'st, I will pay thy graces You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, tian, Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong, 5. A touch. A perceptive sense, a susceptibility of being touched by. 6. That relish all as sharply, passion as they. Stopped thus, "passion" is a verb; and is often so used by Shakespeare, to mean feel acutely, emotionally, intensely. But some editors omit the comma after "sharply," by which stopping, "passion" | would become a noun, and the very involved sense of the passage would be this:-'That relish passion all as sharply as they do.' 7. Green-sour ringlets. The greener circles on the grass that are supposed to mark where the fairies have danced round hand-in-hand; and which are believed to be thereby so soured that the sheep will not eat them. 8. By whose aid—weak masters though ye be. Prospero means that these inferior spirits (whose qualities he so poeti cally describes) are sufficiently powerful to "aid" him as ministers, but would be weak as rulers. According to the proverbial saying, "Fire is a good servant, but a bad master.” 9. Spurs. The longest and largest roots of trees. 10. Holy Gonzalo. Shakespeare sometimes uses "holy" for righteous, virtuous, of good character and blameless life. 11. Fellowly. Sympathetic; full of fellow-feeling. 12. Remorse and nature; that is, pity and natural feeling, or affection. Shakespeare often uses "remorse" in this sense. We still employ the word thus, when we say "without remorse," 44 or "remorseless," meaning without pity, or pitiless. But besides the older meaning of tenderness, pity, compassion, in the word remorse," Shakespeare has here also blended with it the more modern acceptation of a sense of guilt, or regret for guilt. Would here have killed your king; I do forgive thee, Unnatural though thou art.-Their understanding Begins to swell; and the approaching tide That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them That yet looks on me, or would know me.— Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell :— [Exit Ariel.] I will discase me, and myself present, ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire PROSPERO. Ari. Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. On the bat's back I do fly After summer, merrily, 13 Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. 14 Pros. Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee; But yet thou shalt have freedom :-so, so, so,— Under the hatches; the master and the boat- [Aside to Seb. and Ant.] But you, my brace of swain 13. On the bat's back I do fly after summer, merrily. There has been much commentatorial disquisition as to whether Ariel could "fly after summer on a bat's back," when it is well known that the bat is torpid in the winter! But to us it seems that "summer" here is an embodiment of that luxurious twilight heat after which the bat himself seems to be eagerly flitting, as he swiftly circles round and round of a warm evening. 14 Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. That this is not mere poetic imagery on Shakespeare's part, there is confirmation pointed out by Holt White in " Virgil," and by Singer in Fairfax's "Tasso," book iv., stanza 18 : "The goblins, fairies, fiends, and furies mad, 15 I drink the air before me. It would be difficult to parallel this little speech with one conveying an equal impression of swift motion. Shakespeare himself has matched it in his Puck's "I'll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes;" and, "I go, go, look how I go; swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow," where the words seem to dart out with the speed and light leaps of Robin Goodfellow himself. Even in such minute points as this, how eminently characteristic Shakespeare is. Examine severally Ariel's, Puck's, and an ordinary mortal's mode of describing a rapid rider; where Travers, in the opening of " 2 Henry IV." says, "He seem'd in running to devour the way. 16. Whe'r. An old abbreviated form of "whether." 17. Some enchanted trifle. "Trifle" was sometimes used by writers of Shakespeare's time for phantasm, or illusion. 18. Taste some subtilties. "Subtilties" was a name formerly given to certain dishes of quaint device, when our ancestors took delight in dragons, castles, and trees formed of sugar. Curious confectionery, and whimsical shapes in cookery, were a feature at great feasts; and we hear of "the red herring o' horseback," where the likeness of a rider galloping through a green field was My dukedom of thee,19 which, perforce, I know. Thou must restore. Alon. If thou be'st Prospero, Give us particulars of thy preservation; Been justled from your senses, know for certain, How thou hast met us here, who three hours Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was since represented in salad. Prospero figuratively uses the word "subtilties" for the strange magical devices of which he has given them a "taste," or specimen. 19 Require my dukedom of thee. Prospero here demands from Antonio the usurped Duchy of Milan, which his treachery had made feudatory to the crown of Naples; and which Alonso promises to release from all claim of sovereignty on his part, in the previous words, "Thy dukedom I resign.” 20. I am woe for't. An old form of our present phrase, “I am sorry for it." 21. The dear loss. Shakespeare here uses "dear" in its combined senses of dearly prized and direly felt. See Note 13, Act ii. 22. So much admire. "Admire was formerly used to express simply wonder, without its additional modern sense of wondering with approval. A pertinent example of this is cited by Dean Trench in his valuable little book, A Select Glossary of English Words," &c., from Jeremy Taylor: "In man there is nothing admirable but his ignorance and weakness." 23. That very duke which was thrust forth. "Which" used for "who." landed, To be the Lord on't. No more yet of this; Not a relation for a breakfast, nor Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir; The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers Mir. Sweet lord, you play me false. I would not for the world. No, my dear'st love, |