As I was sometime Milan:-quickly, spirit; ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire PROSPERO. Ari. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie :8 There I couch, when owls do cry,9 After summer, merrily:1 8 In a cowslip's bell I lie:] So, in Drayton's Nymphidia; The date of this poem not being ascertained, we know not whether our author was indebted to it, or was himself copied by Drayton. I believe, the latter was the imitator. Nymphidia was not written, I imagine, till after the English Don Quixote had appeared, in 1612. Malone. 9 —when owls do cry.] i. e. at night. As this passage is now printed, Ariel says that he reposes in a cowslip's bell, during the night. Perhaps, however, a full point ought to be placed, after the word couch, and a comma at the end of the line. If the passage should be thus regulated, Ariel will then take his departure by night, the proper season for the bat to set out upon the expedition. Malone. 1 After summer, merrily:] This is the reading of all the editions. Yet Mr. Theobald has substituted sun-set, because Ariel talks of riding on the bat in this expedition. An idle fancy. That circumstance is given only to design the time of night, in which fairies travel. One would think the consideration of the circumstances should have set him right. Ariel was a spirit of great delicacy, bound by the charms of Prospero to a constant attendance on his occasions. So that he was confined to the island, winter and summer. But the roughness of winter is represented by Shakspeare, as disagreeable to fairies, and such like delicate spirits, who, on this account, constantly follow summer. Was not this, then, the most agreeable circumstance of Ariel's new-recovered liberty, that he could now avoid winter, and follow summer quite round the globe? But to put the matter quite out of question, let us consider the meaning of this line: "There I couch when owls do cry." Where? in the cowslip's bell, and where the bee sucks, he tells us: this must needs be in summer. When? when owls cry, and this is in winter: "When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, "Then nightly sings the staring owl." The Song of Winter, in Love's Labour Lost. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.2 The consequence is, that Ariel flies after summer. Yet the Oxford editor has adopted this judicious emendation of Mr. Theobald. Warburton. Ariel does not appear to have been confined to the island summer and winter, as he was sometimes sent, on so long an errand as to the Bermoothes. When he says, On the bat's back I do fly, &c. he speaks of his present situation only; nor triumphs in the idea of his future liberty, till the last couplet: "Merrily, merrily," &c. The bat is no bird of passage, and the expression is therefore probably used to signify, not that he pursues summer, but that, after summer is past, he rides upon the warm down of a bat's back, which suits not improperly with the delicacy of his airy being. After summer is a phrase in K. Henry VI. P. II. Act II. sc. iv. Shakspeare, who, in his Midsummer Night's Dream, has placed the light of a glow-worm in its eyes, might, through the same ignorance of natural history, have supposed the bat to be a bird of passage. Owls cry not only in winter. It is well known that they are to the full as clamorous in summer; and as a proof of it, Titania, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the time of which is supposed to be May, commands her fairies to 66 keep back "The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots." Steevens. Our author is seldom solicitous that every part of his imagery should correspond. I therefore think, that though the bat is "no bird of passage," Shakspeare probably meant to express what Dr. Warburton supposes. A short account, however, of this winged animal may perhaps prove the best illustration of the passage before us: "The bat (says Dr. Goldsmith, in his entertaining and instructive Natural History,) makes its appearance in summer, and begins its flight, in the dusk of the evening. It appears only in the most pleasant evenings; at other times it continues in its retreat; the chink of a ruined building, or the hollow of a tree. Thus the little animal, even in summer, sleeps the greatest part of his time, never venturing out by day-light, nor in rainy weather. But its short life is still more abridged, by continuing in a torpid state, during the winter. At the approach of the cold season, the bat prepares for its state of lifeless inactivity, and seems rather to choose a place, where it may continue safe from interruption, than where it may be warmly and commodiously lodged." When Shakspeare had determined to send Ariel in pursuit of summer, wherever it could be found, as most congenial to such an airy being, is it then surprising that he should have made the bat, rather than "the wind, his post-horse;" an animal thus delighting in that season, and reduced by winter to a state of lifeless inactivity? Malone. Pro. Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I shall miss thee; But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so.To the king's ship, invisible as thou art: There shalt thou find the mariners asleep Under the hatches: the master, and the boatswain, Being awake, enforce them to this place; And presently, I pr'ythee. Ari. I drink the air3 before me, and return, Or e'er your pulse twice beat. [Exit ARI. Gon. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement Inhabits here: Some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country! Pro. Behold, sir king, For more assurance that a living prince A hearty welcome. Alon. Whe'r thou beest he, or no,4 Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me, As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee, 2 shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.] This thought is not thrown out at random. It composed a part of the magical system of these days. In Tasso's Godfrey of Bulloigne, by Fairfax, B. IV. st. 18: "The goblins, fairies, feends, and furies mad, The idea was probably first suggested, by the description of the venerable elm, which Virgil planted at the entrance of the infernal shades. Æn. VI. v. 282: "Ulmus opaca, ingens; quam sedem somnio vulgo Holt White. 3 I drink the air -] To drink the air-is an expression of swiftness of the same kind as to devour the way, in K. Henry IV. Johnson. So, in 4 Whe'r thou beest he, or no,] Whe'r for whether, is an abbreviation frequently used both by Shakspeare and Jonson. Julius Cæsar: "See, whe'r their basest metal be not mov'd," Again, in the Comedy of Errors: "Good sir, whe'r you'll answer me, or not." M. Mason. M The affliction of my mind amends, with which, Thou pardon me my wrongs:-But how should Prospero Pro. First, noble friend, Let me embrace thine age; whose honour cannot Be measur'd, or confin'd. Gon. Or be not, I'll not swear. Pro. Whether this be, You do yet taste Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you Believe things certain:-Welcome, my friends, all:But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, [Aside to SEB. and ANT. I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you, And justify you traitors: at this time I'll tell no tales. Seb. The devil speaks in him. Pro. No: For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require [Aside. 5 Thy dukedom I resign;] The dutchy of Milan being through the treachery of Antonio made feudatory to the crown of Naples, Alonso promises to resign his claim of sovereignty for the future. Steevens. 6 You do yet taste Some subtilties o' the isle,] This is a phrase adopted from ancient cookery and confectionary. When a dish was so contriv ed as to appear unlike what it really was, they called it a subtilty. Dragons, castles, trees, &c. made out of sugar, had the like denomination. See Mr. Pegge's glossary to the Form of Cury, &c. Article Sotiltees. Froissard complains much of this practice, which often led him into mistakes at dinner. Describing one of the feasts of his time, he says there was " grant plunté de mestz si etranges & si desguisez qu'on ne les pouvait deviser," and L'Etoile, speaking of a similar entertainment in 1597, adds “ Tous les poissons estoient fort dextrement desguisez en viande de chair, qui estoient monstres marins pour la pluspart, qu'on avait fait venir exprès de tous les costez." Steevens. Alon. If thou beest Prospero, Give us particulars of thy preservation: How thou hast met us here, who three hours since* My dear son Ferdinand. I am woe for't, sir.8 Pro. Pro. I rather think, You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace, And rest myself content. Alon. You the like loss? Pro. As great to me, as late; and, portable1 Have lost my daughter. 71 who three hours since ] The unity of time is most rigidly observed in this piece. The fable scarcely takes up a greater number of hours, than are employed in the representation; and from the very particular care, which our author takes to point out this circumstance, in so many other passages, as well as here, it should seem, as if it were not accidental, but purposely designed to shew the admirers of Ben Jonson's art, and the cavillers of the time, that he too could write a play within all the strictest laws of regularity, when he chose to load himself with the critick's fetters. The Boatswain marks the progress of the day again-which but three glasses since, &c. and at the beginning of this act the duration of the time, employed on the stage is particularly ascertained; and it refers to a passage in the first act, of the same tendency. The storm was raised at least two glasses, after midday, and Ariel was promised that the work should cease, at the sixth hour. Steevens. 8 I am woe for't, sir.] i. e. I am sorry for it. To be 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 "That you should chance to begyle me so." woe, is Steevens. 9 As great to me, as late;] My loss is as great as yours, and has as lately happened to me. Johnson. 1 66 portable-] So, in Macbeth: these are portable "With other graces weigh'd." The old copy unmetrically reads "supportable." Steevens. |