Stand too, and do as we. Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL like a harpy;1 claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.2 Ari. You are three men of sin, whom destiny [Seeing ALON. SEB. &c. draw their swords. And even with such like valour, men hang and drown Their proper selves. You fools! I and my fellows 1 Enter Ariel like a harpy; &c.] This circumstance is taken from the third book of the Æneid, as translated by Phaer, bl. 1. 4to. 1558: "But sodenly from down the hills with grisly fall to syght, "The harpies come, and beating wings with great noys out thei shright, "And at our meate they snach; and with their clawes," &c. Milton, Parad. Reg. B. II. has adopted the same imagery: 2 with that "Both table and provisions vanish'd quite, "With sound of harpies' wings, and talons heard." Steevens. and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.] Though I will not undertake to prove that all the culinary pantomimes exhibited in France and Italy, were known and imitated in this kingdom, I may observe, that flying, rising, and descending services were to be found, at entertainments given by the Duke of Burgundy, &c. in 1453, and by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1600, &c. See M. Le Grand D'Aussi's "Histoire de la vie privée des François," Vol. III. p. 294, &c. Examples, therefore, of machinery similar to that of Shakspeare, in the present instance, were to be met with, and perhaps had been adopted on the stage, as well as at public festivals, here in England. See my note on The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act V. sc. v. from whence it appears, that a striking conceit in an entertainment given by the Vidame of Chartres, had been transferred to another feast, prepared in England, as a compliment to Prince Alasco, 1583. Steevens. 3 That hath to instrument this lower world, &c.] i. e. that makes use of this world, and every thing in it, as its instruments to bring about its ends. Steevens. Are ministers of fate; the elements Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well One dowle that's in my plume;4 my fellow-ministers Your swords are now too massy for your strengths, (For that's my business to you,) that you three, 1 4 One dowle that's in my plume;] The old copy exhibits the passage thus: "One dowle that's in my plumbe." Corrected by Mr. Rowe. Bailey, in his Dictionary, says, that dowle is a feather, or rather the single particles of the down. Since the first appearance of this edition, my very industrious and learned correspondent, Mr. Tollet, of Betley in Staffordshire, has enabled me to retract a too hasty censure on Bailey, to whom we were long indebted for our only English Dictionary. In a small book, entitled Humane Industry: or, A History of most Manual Arts, printed in 1661, page 93, is the following passage: "The wool-bearing trees in Ethiopia, which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori Arbores in Theophrastus, are not such trees as have a certain wool or DOWL upon the outside of them, as the small cotton; but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, pregnant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Græcians Gossypium, the Italians Bombagio, and we Bombase."-" There is a certain shell-fish in the sea, called Pinna, that bears a mossy DOWL, or wool, whereof cloth was spun and made."-Again, p. 95: "Trichitis, or the hayrie stone, by some Greek authors, and Alumen plumaceum, or downy alum, by the Latinists: this hair or DOWL is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth." I have since discovered the same word in The Ploughman's Tale, erroneously attributed to Chaucer, v. 3202: "And swore by cock 'is herte and blode, "He would tere him every doule." Steevens. Cole, in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, interprets "young dowle," by lanugo. Malone. Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow ministers "And on the filthy birds they beat "But fethers none do from them fal, nor wound for strok doth bleed, "Nor force of weapons hurt them can." Ritson. From Milan, did supplant good Prospero; You, and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from 8 He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft musick, enter the Shapes again, and dance with mops and mowes, and carry out the table. Pro. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: Of my instruction hast thou nothing 'bated, In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life,9 6 clear life-] Pure, blameless, innocent. Johnson. So, in Timon: 66 roots you clear heavens." 7 is nothing, but heart's sorrow, Steevens. And a clear life ensuing.] The meaning, which is somewhat obscured by the expression, is-a miserable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. Malone. with mops and mowes -] So, in K. Lear: and Flibbertigibbet of mopping and mowing." Steevens. The old copy, by a manifest error of the press, reads-with mocks. So afterwards: "will be here with mop and mowe." Malone. To mock and to mowe, seem to have had a meaning somewhat similar; i. e. to insult, by making mouths, or wry faces. Steevens. 9 with good life,] With good life may mean, with exact presentation of their several characters, with observation strange of their particular and distinct parts. So we say, he acted to the life. Johnson. Thus in the 6th Canto of the Barons' Wars, by Drayton: "Done for the last with such exceeding life, "As art therein with nature seem'd at strife." Again, in our author's King Henry VIII. Act I. sc. i: the tract of every thing "Would by a good discourser lose some life, And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done;1 my high charms work, In their distractions: they now are in my power; suppose is drown'd,) [Exit PRO. from above. Gon. I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you In this strange stare? Alon. O, it is monstrous! monstrous! Methought, the billows spoke, and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.2 Good life, however, in Twelfth Night, seems to be used for innocent jollity, as we now say a bon vivant: "Would you (says the Clown) have a love song, or a song of good life?" Sir Toby answers, "A love song, a love song;"-" Ay, ay, (replies Sir Andrew,) I care not for good life." It is plain, from the character of the last speaker, that he was meant to mistake the sense in which good life is used by the Clown. It may, therefore, in the present instance, mean, honest alacrity, or cheerfulness. Life seems to be used in the chorus to the fifth act of K. Henry V. with some meaning like that wanted to explain the approbation of Prospero: "Which cannot in their huge and proper life "Be here presented." The same phrase occurs yet more appositely in Chapman's translation of Homer's Hymn to Apollo: "And these are acted with such exquisite life, "That one would say, Now the Ionian strains To do any thing with good life, is still a provincial expression in the west of England, and signifies, to do it with the full bent and energy of mind:-" And observation strange," is with such minute attention to the orders given, as to excite admiration. Henley. 1 Their several kinds have done :] i. e. have discharged the several functions, allotted to their different natures. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. sc. ii. the Clown says-" You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his kind." Steevens. 2 · bass my trespass.] The deep pipe told it me in a rough bass sound. Johnson. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. II. c. 12: 66 the rolling sea resounding soft, "In his big base them fitly answered." Steevens. Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded; and Seb. I'll fight their legions o'er. Ant. [Exit. But one fiend at a time, I'll be thy second. [Exeunt SEB. and ANT. Gon. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now 'gins to bite the spirits:-I do beseech you That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, And hinder them from what this ecstacy5 May now provoke them to. Adr. Follow, I pray you. Again, in Davis's Microcosmos, 1605, p. 32: [Exeunt. "He seemed as ravisht with an heavenly noise." Reed. 3 And with him there lie mudded. But one fiend-] As these hemistichs, taken together, exceed the proportion of a verse, I cannot help regarding the words with him, and but, as playhouse interpolations. The Tempest was evidently one of the last works of Shakspeare; and it is therefore natural to suppose, the metre of it must have been exact and regular. Dr. Farmer concurs with me in this supposition. Steevens. 4 Like poison given, &c.] The natives of Africa have been supposed to be possessed of the secret, how to temper poisons with such art as not to operate till several years after they were administered. Their drugs were then as certain in their effect, as subtle in their preparation. So, in the celebrated libel called Leicester's Commonwealth: "I heard him once myselfe in publique act at Oxford, and that in presence of my lord of Leicester, maintain that poyson might be so tempered and given, as it should not appear presently, and yet should kill the party afterwards at what time should be appointed." Steevens. 5 this ecstacy-] Ecstacy meant not anciently, as at present, rapturous pleasure, but alienation of mind. So, in Hamlet, Act III. sc. iv: "Nor sense to ecstacy was e'er so thrall'd-." Mr. Locke has not inelegantly styled it dreaming with our eyes open. Steevens. |