our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our cafe is miferable. Re-enter Boatswain. 8 [Exeunt. BOATS. Down with the top-mast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main-course. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office. Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO. Yet again? what do you here? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to fink? SEB. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blafphemous, incharitable dog! BOATS. Work you, then. ANT. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, infolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. GON. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.9 8 bring her to try with main-course.] Probably from Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598: "And when the barke had way, we cut the haufer, and so gate the fea to our friend, and tried out all that day with our maine course." MALONE. This phrafe occurs also in Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to. under the article How to handle a ship in a Storme: "Let us lie at Trie with our maine course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheat close aft, the boling fet up, and the helme tied close aboord." P. 40. STEEVENS. 9 an unftanched wench.] Unstanched, I am willing to believe, means incontinent. STEEVENS. BOATS. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; fet her two 2 courses; off to sea again, lay her off. Enter Mariners wet. MAR. All loft! to prayers, to prayers! all loft! [Exeunt. BOATS. What, must our mouths be cold? GON. The king and prince at prayers! let us affift them, For our cafe is as theirs. SEB. I am out. of patience. ANT. We are merely 3 cheated of our lives by drunkards. This wide-chapped rascal;-'Would, thou might'ft lie drowning, The washing of ten tides ! GON. He'll be hanged yet; I Lay her a-hold, a-hold;] To lay a ship a-hold, is to bring her to lie as near the wind as the can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to sea. STEEVENS. 2 -fet her two courses; off to fea again,] The courses are the main fail and fore fail. This term is ufed by Raleigh, in his Difcourse on Shipping. JOHNSON. The paffage, as Mr. Holt has observed, should be pointed, Set her two courses, off, &c. Such another expreffion occurs in Decker's If this be not a good -off with your Drablers Play, the Devil is in it, 1612: and your Banners; out with your courses." STEEVENS. 3 -merely-] In this place, fignifies abfolutely; in which sense it is used in Hamlet, Act I. fc. iii: Things rank and gross in nature "Poffefs it merely." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Poetafter: at request "Of fome mere friends, some honourable Romans." Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut him.3 [A confused noise within] Mercy on us! We split, we split!-Farewell, my wife and children!-Fare well, brother!4— We split, we split, we split ! ANT. Let's all fink with the king. [Exit. SEB. Let's take leave of him. [Exit. GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze,5 any thing: The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. 3 [Exit. -to glut him.] Shakspeare probably wrote, t'englut him, to swallow him; for which I know not that glut is ever used by him. In this fignification englut, from engloutir, Fr. occurs frequently, as in Henry VI: Thou art so near the gulf "Thou needs must be englutted." And again, in Timon and Othello. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for swallowed, and therefore perhaps the present text may stand. JOHNSON. Thus, in Sir A. Gorges's tranflation of Lucan, B. VI: oylie fragments scarcely burn'd, Together the doth scrape and glut." i. e. fwallow. STEEVENS. 4 Mercy on us! &c. Farewell, brother ! &c.] All these lines have been hitherto given to Gonzalo, who has no brother in the fhip. It is probable that the lines fucceeding the confused noise within should be confidered as spoken by no determinate characters. JOHNSON. The hint for this stage direction, &c. might have been received from a paffage in the second book of Sidney's Arcadia, where the shipwreck of Pyrocles is defcribed, with this concluding circumftance: "But a monftrous cry, begotten of many roaring voyces, was able to infect with feare," &c. STEEVENS. 5 an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, &c.] Sir T. Hanmer reads-ling, heath, broom, furze.-Perhaps rightly, though he has been charged with tautology. I find in Harrifon's defcription of Britain, prefixed to our author's good SCENE II. The island: before the cell of Prospero. MIRA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them: The sky, it feems, would pour down ftinking pitch, But that the fea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have fuffer'd With those that I faw fuffer! a brave vessel, Who had no doubt fome noble creatures in her," Dafh'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Againft my very heart! Poor fouls! they perish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would Have funk the fea within the earth, or e'er & friend Holinshed, p. 91: "Brome, heth, firze, brakes, whinnes, ling," &c. FARMER. Mr. Tollet has fufficiently vindicated Sir Thomas Hanmer from the charge of tautology, by favouring me with specimens of three different kinds of heath which grow in his own neighbourhood. I would gladly have inferted his observations at length; but, to fay the truth, our author, like one of Cato's foldiers who was bit by a ferpent, Ipfe latet penitus congefto corpore merfus. STEEVENS. But that the sea, &c.] So, in King Lear: "The fea in such a storm as his bare head " In hell-black night endur'd, would have buoy'd up, " And quench'd the stelled fires." MALONE. Thus, in Chapman's version of the 21st Iliad: 7 66 as if his waves would drowne the skie, "And put out all the sphere of fire." STEEVENS. - creatures in her,) The old copy reads-creature; but the preceding as well as fubsequent words of Miranda seem to demand the emendation which I have received from Theobald. 8 or e'er-] i. e. before. So, in Ecclefiaftes, xii. 6: It should the good ship fo have fwallowed, and PRO. Be collected; No more amazement: tell your piteous heart, There's no harm done. MIRA. PRO. O, woe the day! No harm.9 I have done nothing but in care of thee, (Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing Of whence I am; nor that I am more better Than Profpero, mafter of a full poor cell,2 And thy no greater father. "Or ever the filver cord be loofed, or the golden bowl be broken." Again, in our author's Cymbeline: or e'er I could "Give him that parting kiss-." STEEVENS. 9 Pro. No harm.] I know not whether Shakspeare did not make Miranda speak thus : O, woe the day! no harm? To which Profpero properly answers : I have done nothing but in care of thee. Miranda, when the speaks the words. O, woe the day! supposes, not that the crew had escaped, but that her father thought differently from her, and counted their deftruction no harm. I JOHNSON. - more better-] This ungrammatical expreffion is very frequent among our oldeft writers. So, in The History of Helyas Knight of the Swan, bl. 1. no date, imprinted by Wm. Copland: "And also the more fooner to come, without prolixity, to the true Chronicles," &c. Again, in the True Tragedies of Marius and Scilla, 1594: Again, ibid: "To wait a message of more better worth." STEEVENS. 2-full poor cell,] i. e. a cell in a great degree of poverty. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: "I am full forry." STEEVENS. |