Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not.

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present,3 we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts.-Out of our way, I say.

[Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

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 sink?

3 of the present,] i, e. of the present instant. A4 Gonzalo.] It may be observed of Gonzalo, that, being the only good man that appears with the king, he is the only man that preserves his cheerfulness in the wreck, and his hope on the island. JOHNSON.

5- bring her to try with main-course.] This phrase occurs in Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to. under the article How to handle

Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent 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."

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold: set her two courses; off to sea again, lay her off.

8

Enter Mariners wet.

Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

[Exeunt.

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist

them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards

This wide-chapped rascal ;-'Would, thou might'st

lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

Gon.

He'll be hanged yet; Though every drop of water swear against it, And gape at wid'st to glut him."

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 set up, and the helme tied close aboord.” STEEVENS.

an unstanched wench.] Unstanched, perhaps incontinent, 7 Lay her a-kold, a-hold;] i. e. bring her to lie as near the wind as she can, in order to keep clear of the land, and get her out to sea.

- Set her two courses; off to sea again,] The courses are the rain-sail and fore-sail.

merely] In this place, signifies absolutely. STEEvens. 1- to glut him.] Shakspeare probably wrote, t'englut him, to

[A confused noise within] Mercy on us! We split, we split-Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split !Ant. Let's all sink with the king. Seb. Let's take leave of him.

Exit.

Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze,' any thing: The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit.

SCENE II.

The island: before the cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them:

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel
Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,"
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'ers

swallow him. In this signification englut, from engloutir, Fr. occurs frequently. Yet Milton writes glutted offal for swallowed, and therefore perhaps the present text may stand.

2 Mercy on us! &c. -Farewell, brother! &c.] It is probable, that the lines succeeding the confused noise within should be considered as spoken by no determinate characters. Then w

&c.]

3 an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, Sir T. Hanmer reads-ling, heath, broom, furze.-Perhaps right ly, though he has been charged with tautology.

4

creatures in her,] The old copy reads-creature; but the preceding as well as subsequent words of Miranda seem to demand the emendation suggested first by Theobald.

5 or e'er-] i. e. before,

It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The freighting souls within her.

Be collected;

Pro.
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mir.

Pro.

O, woe the day!

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

No harm.

(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 Prospero, master of a full
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

poor cell,s

More to know

"Tis time

Did never meddle with my thoughts."

Pro. I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me.-So; [Lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have

comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compassion' in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, that there is no soul-2

6 Pro. No harm.] Perhaps Shakspeare wrote, O, woe the day! no harm?

To which Prospero properly answers:

7

I have done nothing but in care of thee. JOHNSON. more better-] This ungrammatical expression is very frequent among our oldest writers.

- full poor cell.] i. e. a cell in a great degree of poverty. 9 Did never meddle with my thoughts.] i. e. mix with them. To meddle, means, also, to interfere, to trouble, to busy itself. virtue of compassion.-] Virtue; the most efficacious part, as The virtue of a plant is in the extract.

I

2

no soul -] Such interruptions are not uncommon to Shakspeare. He sometimes begins a sentence, and, before he concludes it, entirely changes its construction, because another,

No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

You have often

Mira.
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.

Pro.

The very minute bids thee

The hour's now come; ope thine ear;

Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not Out three years old.3

Mira.

Certainly, sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person Of any thing the image tell me, that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira.

"Tis far off;

And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda: But how is it,

That this lives in thy mind? What see'st thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time ?4

If thou remember'st ought, ere thou cam'st here, How thou cam'st here, thou may'st.

Mira.

But that I do not.

more forcible, occurs. As this change frequently happens in conversation, it may be suffered to pass uncensured in the language of the stage. STEEVENS.

3 Out three years old.] i. e. Quite three years old.

- abysm of time] i. e. Abyss. This method of spelling the word is common to other antient writers. They took it from the French abysme, now written abime.