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It would control my dam's god, Setebos, 3
And make a vassal of him.

PRO.

So, flave; hence!

[Exit CALIBAN.

Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing and finging; FERDINAND following him.

3

ARIEL'S Song.

Come unto these yellow fands,
And then take hands:

Court fied when you have, and kiss'd,
(The wild waves whift,)5

-my dam's god, Setebos,] A gentleman of great merit, Mr. Warner, has obferved on the authority of John Barbot, that "the Patagons are reported to dread a great horned devil, called Setebos." It may be asked, however, how Shakspeare knew any thing of this, as Barbot was a voyager of the present century?Perhaps he had read Eden's History of Travayle, 1577, who tells us, p. 434, that "the giantes, when they found themselves fettered, roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them."The metathesis in Caliban from Canibal is evident. FARMER.

We learn from Magellan's voyage, that Setebos was the fupreme god of the Patagons, and Cheleule was an inferior one. TOLLET. Setebos is alfo mentioned in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598.

MALONE.

4 Re-enter Ariel invisible,] In the wardrobe of the Lord Admiral's men, (i. e. company of comedians,) 1598, was" a robe for to goo invifebell." See the MS. from Dulwich college, quoted by Mr. Malone, Vol. III. STEEVENS.

5 Court fied when you have, and kiss'd,] As was anciently done at the beginning of fome dances. So, in K. Henry VIII. that prince fays to Anna Bullen

" I were unmannerly to take you out,
"And not to kiss you."

The wild waves whist;] i. e. the wild waves being filent.

So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VII. c. 7. f. 59:

"So was the Titaness put down, and whist."

Foot it featly here and there;
And, Sweet Jprites, the burden bear.6

Hark, hark!

BUR. Bowgh, wowgh.

The watch-dogs bark:

[dispersedly.

BUR. Bowgh, wowgh.

[dispersedly.

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting chanticlere

Cry, Cock-a-doodle-doo.

FER. Where should this musick be? i' the air, or the earth?

It founds no more :-and sure, it waits upon
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,"

And Milton seems to have had our author in his eye. See

Ranza 5, of his Hymn on the Nativity :

"The winds with wonder whist,

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1

So again, both Lord Surrey and Phaer, in their translations of

the second book of Virgil :

Conticuere omnes.

They whisted all."

and Lyly, in his Maid's Metamorphosis, 1600:

"But every thing is quiet, whist, and still." STEEVENS. 6-the burden bear.] Old copy-bear the burden. Corrected by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

Weeping again the king my father's wreck,] Thus the old copy; but in the books of Shakspeare's age again is fometimes printed instead of against, [i. e. opposite to,] which I am perfuaded was our author's word. The placing Ferdinand in fuch a situation that he could still gaze upon the wrecked vessel, is one of Shakspeare's touches of nature. Again is inadmissible; for this would import that Ferdinand's tears had ceased for a time; whereas he himself tells us, afterwards, that from the hour of his father's wreck they had never ceased to flow :

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Myself am Naples,

"Who with mine eyes, ne'er fince at ebb, beheld
"The king my father wreck'd."

This musick crept by me upon the waters;8
Allaying both their fury, and my paffion,
With its fweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather :-But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

ARIEL sings.

Full fathom five thy father lies;9
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes :
Nothing of him that doth fade,

I

However, as our author sometimes forgot to compare the different parts of his play, I have made no change. MALONE.

By the word-again, I suppose the Prince means only to describe the repetition of his forrows. Besides, it appears from Miranda's description of the storm, that the ship had been swallowed by the waves, and, confequently, could no longer be an object of fight. STEEVENS.

This musick crept by me upon the waters;] So, in Milton's Masque :

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a soft and folemn breathing found
"Rose like a steam of rich diftill'd perfumes,
"And stole upon the air." STEEVENS.

9 Full fathom five thy father lies; &c.] Ariel'slays, [which have been condemned by Gildon as trifling, and defended not very fuccefsfully by Dr. Warburton,] however seasonable and efficacious, must be allowed to be of no fupernatural dignity or elegance; they express nothing great, nor reveal any thing above mortal discovery. The reason for which Ariel is introduced thus trifling is, that he and his companions are evidently of the fairy kind, an order of beings to which tradition has always ascribed a fort of diminutive agency, powerful but ludicrous, a humorous and frolick controlment of nature, well expreffed by the fongs of Ariel. JOHNSON.

The fongs in this play, Dr. Wilson, who refet and published two of them, tells us, in his Court Ayres, or Ballads, published at Oxford, 1660, that "Full fathom five," and "Where the bee fucks," had been first set by Robert Johnfon, a compofer contemporary with Shakspeare. BURNEY.

I

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth fuffer a fea-change-) The meaning is Every thing about him, that is liable to alteration, is changed. STEEVENS.

But doth fuffer a fea-change-
Into Something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell :

Hark! now I hear them, -ding-dong, bell.3

[Burden, ding-dong.4

FER. The ditty does remember my drown'd fa

ther :

This is no mortal business, nor no found

That the earth owes : 5-I hear it now above me.

3

PRO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance

But doth fuffer a fea-change-] So, in Milton's Masque:
"And underwent a quick immortal change."

3 Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell :
Hark! now I hear them, -Ding-dong, bell.

STEEVENS.

Burden, ding-dong.]

So, in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edition, 1690:

"Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding, dong."

"I must go feek a new love,

" Yet will I ring her knell,

Ding, dong."

The fame burthen to a fong occurs in The Merchant of Venice, Act III. fc. ii. STEEVENS.

4 Burden, ding-dong.] It should be

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong bell. FARMER.

5. That the earth owes :] To owe, in this place, as well as many

others, fignifies to own. So, in Othello :

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that sweet fleер

“Which thou ow'dft yesterday."

Again, in the Tempest:

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thou doft here ufurp

"The name thou ow'st not."

To use the word in this sense, is not peculiar to Shakspeare.

I meet with it in Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush:

"If now the beard be fuch, what is the prince

"That owes the beard?" STEEVENS.

6 The fringed curtains, &c.] The fame expression occurs in

Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609:

66

her eyelids

"Begin to part their fringes of bright gold."

And say, what thou seeft yond'.

What is't? a spirit?

MIRA.
Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, fir,
It carries a brave form:-But 'tis a spirit.

PRO. No, wench; it eats and fleeps, and hath fuch fenfes

As we have, fuch: This gallant, which thou feeft, Was in the wreck; and but he's fomething stain'd With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st

call him

A goodly perfon: he hath loft his fellows,

And ftrays about to find them.

MIRA.

A thing divine; for nothing natural
I ever faw so noble.

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I might call him

[Afide.

As my foul prompts it:-Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free

thee

Within two days for this.
FER.

Moft fure, the goddess On whom these airs attend !8-Vouchsafe, my prayer

Again, in Sidney's Arcadia Lib. I: "Sometimes my eyes would lay themselves open-or caft my lids, as curtains, over the image of beauty her prefence had painted in them." STEEVENS.

It goes on,] The old copy reads-" It goes on, I fee," &c. But as the words I fee, are useless, and an incumbrance to the metre, I have omitted them. STEEVENS.

* Moft fure, &c.] It seems, that Shakspeare, in The Tempest, hath been suspected of tranflating some expreffions of Virgil; witness the O Dea certe. I prefume we are here directed to the passage, where Ferdinand says of Miranda, after hearing the fongs of Ariel :

Most fure, the goddess

On whom these airs attend!

And fo very small Latin is fufficient for this formidable tranflation, that, if it be thought any honour to our poet, I am loth to deprive

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