TEMPEST. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. "THE Tempest and the Midsummer Night's Dream (says Warburton) are the noblest efforts of that sublime and amazing imagination, peculiar to Shakspeare, which soars above the bounds of nature, without forsaking sense, or, more properly, carries nature along with him beyond her established limits." No one has hitherto discovered the novel on which this play is founded; yet Collins the poet told Thomas Warton that the plot was taken from the romance of Aurelio and Isabella,' which was frequently printed during the sixteenth century, sometimes in three or four languages in the same volume. In the calamitous mental indisposition which visited poor Collins his memory failed him; and he most probably substituted the name of one novel for another; the fable of Aurelio and Isabella has no relation to the Tempest. Mr. Malone thought that no such tale or romance ever existed; yet a friend of the late Mr. James Boswell told him that he had some years ago actually perused an Italian novel which answered Collins' description; but his memory, unfortunately, did not enable him to recover it. complied, and fortunately the ship was driven and jammed between two rocks, fast lodged and locked for further budging." One hundred and fifty persons got on shore; and by means of their boat and skiff (for this was half a mne from land) they saved such part of their goods and provisions as the water had not spoiled, all the tackling and much of the iron of their ship, which was of great service to them in fitting out another vessel to carry them to Virginia. tation and preservation of man's life, that, most in a manner of all our provision of bread, beere, and victuall being quite spoiled in lying long drowned in salt water notwithstanding we were there for the space of nine months, we were not only well refreshed, comforted. and with good satiety contented, but out of the aboundance thereof provided us some reasonable quantity and pro portion of provision to carry us for Virginia, and to main. tain ourselves and that company we found there:wherefore my opinion sincerely of this island is, that whereas it hath beene, and is still, accounted the most dangerous, unfortunate, and forlorne place of the world, it is in truth the richest, healthfullest, and [most] pleas ing land (the quantity and bignesse thereof considered,) and merely naturall, as ever man set foote upon." "But our delivery," says Jourdan, "was not more strange in falling so opportunely and happily upon the land, as [than] our feeding and provision was, beyond our hopes, and all men's expectations, most admirable;. for the Islands of the Bermudas, as every man knoweth that hath heard or read of them, were never inhabited by any Christian or Heathen people, but ever esteemed and reputed a most prodigious and inchanted place, affording nothing but gusts, storms, and foul weather; which made every navigator and mariner to avoid them as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they would shunne the Divell himself: and no man was ever heard to make for My friend, Mr. Douce, in his valuable 'Illustrations this place; but as, against their wils, they have, by of Shakspeare,' published in 1807, had suggested that storms and dangerounesse of the rocks lying seven the outline of a considerable part of this play was bor-leagues into the sea, suffered shipwracke. Yet did we rowed from the account of Sir George Somers' voyage finde there the ayre so temperate and the country so and shipwreck on the Bermudas in 1609; and had point-aboundantly fruitfull of all fit necessaries for the susten ed out some passages which confirmed his suggestion. At the same time it appears that Mr. Malone was engaged in investigating the relations of this voyage: and he subsequently printed the results of his researches in a pamphlet, which he distributed among his friends; wherein he shows, that not only the title but many passages in the play were suggested to Shakspeare by the account of the tremendous Tempest which, in July, 1609, dispersed the fleet carrying supplies from England to the infant colony of Virginia, and wrecked the vessel in which Sir George Some.s and the other principal commanders had sailed, on one of the Bermuda Islands. Sir George Somers, Sir Thomas Gates, and Captain Newport, with nine ships and five hundred people, sailed from England in May, 1609, on board the Sea Venture, which was called the Admiral's Ship; and on the 25th The publication set forth by the Council of Virginia, of July she was parted from the rest by a terrible tem- entitled, "A true Declaration of the Estate of the Colony pest, which lasted forty-eight hours and scattered the of Virginia, &c. 1610," relates the same facts and events whole fleet, wherein some of them lost their masts and in better language, and Shakspeare probably derived his others were much distressed. Seven of the vessels, first thought of working these adventures up into a dra. however, reached Virginia; and, after landing about matic forin from an allusion to the drama in this piece. three hundred and fifty persons, again set sail for Eng- "These islands of the Bermudas," says this narrative, Jand. Two of them were wrecked, in their way home," have ever been accounted as an inchaunted pile of on the point of Ushant; the others returned safely to rocks, and a desert inhabitation for divells; but all the England, ship after ship, in 1610, bringing the news of fairies of the rocks were but flocks of birdes, and all the the supposed loss of the Admiral's ship and her crew. divels that haunted the woods were but herds of swine." During a great part of the year 1610 the fate of Somers-What is there in all this Tragicall Comadie that and Gates was not known in England; but the latter, having been sent home by Lord Delaware, arrived in August or September. The Council of Virginia published a narrative of the disasters which had befallen the fleet, and of their miraculous escape. Previously however to its appearance, one Jourdan, who probably returned from Virginia in the same ship with Sir Thomas Gates, published a pamphlet entitled "A Discovery of the Bermudas, otherwise called The Isle of Divels; by Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, and Captain Newport, with divers others:" in which he relates the circumstances of the storm. "They were bound for Virginia, and at that time in 30° N. latitude. The whole crew, amounting to one hundred and fifty persons, weary with pumping, had given all for lost, and began to drink their strong waters, and to take leave of each other, intending to commit themselves to the mercy of the sea. Sir George Somers, who had sat three days and nights on the poop, with no food and little rest, at length descried land, and encouraged them (many from weariness * Tragical Tales, translated by Turberville in time of having fallen asleep) to continue at the pumps. They his troubles, out of sundrie Italians, &c. 8vo 1557. should discourage us? The covert allusions to several circumstances in the various narrations of this Voyage have been illustrated with great ingenuity by Mr. Malone; and many of them will no doubt have already struck the reader, but we must content ourselves with a reference to his more detailed account. The plot of this play is very simple, independent of the magic; and Mr. Malone has pointed out two sources from whence he thinks Shakspeare derived suggestions for it. The one is a play by Robert Green, entitled "The Comical History of Alphonsus King of Arragon :" the other is the Sixth Metrical Tale of George Turberville,* formed on the fourth novel of the fourth day of the Decamerone of Boccaccio, to which he is probably indebted for the hint of the marriage of Claribel. The magic of the piece is unquestionably the creation of the great bard himself, suggested no doubt by the popular merely the metathesis of Cannibal. Of the Cannibals a long account is given by Eden, ubi supra. "The Tempest," says the judicious Schlegel, "has little action and progressive movement; the union of Ferdinand and Miranda is fixed at their first meeting, and Prospero merely throws apparent obstacles in their way; the shipwrecked band go leisurely about the Island; the attempts of Sebastian and Antonio on the life of the King of Naples, and of Caliban and his drunken companions against Prospero, are nothing but a feint, as we foresee that they will be completely frus trated by the magical skill of the latter; nothing remains therefore but the punishment of the guilty, by dreadful sights which harrow up their consciences, the discovery, and final reconciliation. Yet this want is so admirably concealed by the most varied display of the fascinations of poetry and the exhilaration of mirth; the details of the execution are so very attractive that it requires no small degree of attention to perceive that the denouement is, in some measure, already contained in the exposition. The history of the love of Ferdinand and Miranda, developed in a few short scenes, is enchantingly beautiful: an affecting union of chivalrous magnanimity on the one part, and, on the other, of the virgin openness of a heart which, brought up far from the world on an uninhabited island, has never learned to disguise its innocent movements. The wisdom of the princely hermit Prospero has a magical and mysterious air; the impression of the black falsehood of the two usurpers is mitigated by the honest gossiping of the old and faithful Gonzalo; Trinculo and Stephano, two good-for-nothing drunkards, find a worthy associate in Caliban; and Ariel hovers sweetly over the whole as the personified genius of the wonderful fable. notions respecting the Bermudas. Mr. Malone confesses ta the hints furnished by Green are so slight as not to detract from the merit of Shakspeare, and I have therefore not thought it necessary to follow him in his analysis The late Dr. Vincent, the highly respected Dean of Westminster, pointed out a passage in Magellan's Voyage to the South Pole, which is to be found in "Eden's History of Travaile," printed in 1577, that may have furnished the first idea of Caliban, and as it is curious in itself, I shall venture to transcribe it. "Departyng from hence," says Eden, "they sayled to the 49 degre and a halfe under the pole antartike; where being wyntered, they were inforced to remayne there for the space of two monethes, all which tyme they saw no man except that one day by chance they espyed a man of the stature of a gyant, who came to the haven duuncing and singing, and shortly after seemed to cast dust over his head. The captayne sent one of his men to the shore with the shippe boate, wno made the lyke signe of peace. The which thyng the giant seeing, was out of feare, and came with the captayne's servant, to his presence, into a little islande. When he sawe the captayne with certayne of his company about him, he was greatly amazed; and made signes, holding up his hande to heaven, signifying thereby that our men came from thence. This giant was so byg that the head of one of our men of a meane stature came but to his waste. He was of good corporation and well made in all partes of his bodie, with a large visage painted with divers colours, but for the most parte yelow. Uppon his cheekes were paynted two hartes, and red circles about his eyes. The heare of his head was coloured whyte, and his apparell was the skynne of a beast sowed to gether. This beast (as seemed unto us) had a large head, and great eares lyke unto a mule, with the body "Caliban has become a bye-word, as the strange of a cammell and tayle of a horse. The feet of the creation of a poetical imagination. A mixture of the gyant were folded in the sayde skynne, after the manner gnome and the savage, half demon, half brute; in his of shooes. He had in his hande a bygge and shorte behaviour we perceive at once the traces of his native bowe; the sleyng whereof was inade of a sinewe of that disposition, and the influence of Prosprero's education beaste. He had also a bundle of long arrowes made of The latter could only unfold his understanding, without, reedes, feathered after the manner of ours, typte within the slightest degree, taming his rooted malignity: it sharp stones, in the stead of iron heades. The captayne is as if the use of reason and human speech should be caused him to eate and drinke, and gave him many communicated to a stupid ape. Caliban is malicious, thinges, and among other a great looking glasse, in the cowardly, false, and base in his inclinations; and yet he which as soon as he sawe his owne likeness, was so- is essentially different from the vulgar knaves of a civi daynly afrayde, and started backe with suche violence, lized world, as they are occasionally portrayed by that he overthrewe two that stood nearest about him. Shakspeare. He is rude, but not vulgar; he never fall When the captayne had thus gyven him certayne haukes into the prosaical and low familiarity of his drunken as belles, with also a lookyng glasse, a combe, and a sociates, for he is a poetical being in his way; he always payre of beades of glasse, he sent him to lande with speaks too in verse. He has picked up every thing foure of his owne men well armed. Shortly after, they dissonant and thorny in language, out of which he has sawe another gyant of somewhat greater stature with composed his vocabulary, and of the whole variety of his bowe and arrowes in his hande. As he drew nearer nature, the hateful, repulsive, and pettily deformed have unto our men hee laide his hande on his head, and alone been impressed on his imagination. The magical pointed up towards heaven, and our men did the lyke. world of spirits, which the staff of Prospero has assem The captayne sent his shippe boate to bring him to a little bled on the island, casts merely a faint reflection into islande, beyng in the haven. This giant was very his mind, as a ray of light which falls into a dark cave, tractable and pleasaunt. He soong and daunsed, and incapable of communicating to it either heat or illuminain his daunsing left the print of his feete on the ground. tion, merely serves to put in motion the poisonous va After other xv. dayes were past, there came foure pours. The whole delineation of this monster is inconother giauntes without any weapons, but had hid their ceivably consistent and profound, and notwithstanding bowes and arrowes in certaine bushes. The captayne its hatefulness, by no means hurtful to our feelings, as retayned two of these, which were youngest and best the honour of human nature is left untouched. made. He tooke them by a deceite, in this manner; that giving them knyves, sheares, looking-glasses, belles, beades of chrystall, and such other trifles, he so fylled their handes, that they could holde no more; then caused two paire of shackels of iron to be putt on their legges, making signes that he would also give them hose chaynes, which they liked very well because they were made of bright and shining metall. And whereas they could not carry them bycause theyr hands were full, the other giants would have carryed them, but the captayne would not suffer them. When they felt the shackels fast about theyr legges, they began to doubt; but the captayne did put them in comfort and bade them stand stille. In fine, when they sawe how they were deceived, they roared lyke bulles, and cryed upon theyr great devill Setebos, to help them. They say that when any of them dye, there appeare x or xi devils caping and daunsing about the bodie of the dead, and seeme to have theyr bodies paynted with divers colours, and that among other there is one seene bigger than the residue, who maketh great mirth with rejoysing. This great devyll they call Setebos, and call the lesse Cheleule. One of these giantes which they tooke, declared * Schlegel is not quite correct in asserting that Caliban by signes that he had seen devylles with two hornes" always speaks in verse." Mr. Steevens, it is true, above theyr heades, with long heare downe to theyr endeavoured to give a metrical form to some of his feete, and that they caste forth fyre at theyr throates speeches, which were evidently intended for prose, and both before and behind. The captayne named these they are therefore in the present edition so printed. people Patagoni. The moste parte of them weare the Shakspeare, throughout his plays, frequently introduces kynnes of such beastes whereof I have spoken before. short prose speeches in the midst of blank verse. They lyve of raw fleshe, and a certaine sweete roote which they call capar." Caliban, as was long since observed by Dr. Farmer, is "In the zephyr-like Ariel the image of air is not to be mistaken, his name even bears an allusion to it; on the other hand, Caliban signifies the heavy element of earth. Yet they are neither of them allegorical personifications, but beings individually determined. In gene ral we find, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, in the Tempest, in the magical part of Macbeth, and wherever Shakspeare avails himself of the popular belief in the invisible presence of spirits, and the possibility of coming in contact with them, a profound view of the inward life of Nature and her mysterious springs; which, it is true, ought never to be altogether unknown to the genuine poet, as poetry is altogether incompatible with mechani cal physics, but which few have possessed in an equal degree with Dante and himself." It seems probable that this play was written in 1611 at all events between the years 1609 and 1614. It appears from the MSS. of Vertue that the Tempest was acted, by John Heminge and the rest of the King's Company, before Prince Charles, the Lady Elizabeth, and the Prince Palatine Elector, in the beginning of the year 1613 + Lectures on Dramatic Literature by Aug. Will Schlegel, translated by John Black, 1815. Vol. ii. p 178. BOATSWAIN, Boats. Here, master: what cheer? Mast. Good: speak to the mariners: fall to't varely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit. Enter Mariners. Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the top-sail; Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough! Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDI- Alon. Good Boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men.3 Boats. I pray now, keep below. Ant. Where is the master, boatswain? 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, 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. 1 From the Folio Edition of 1623. 2 That is, readily, nimbly. 3 That is, act with spirit, behave like men. Thus Baret in his Alvearie: "To play the man, or to show himself a valiant man in any matter. Se virum præbere." P. 399. "Viceroys and peers of Turkey play the men." Tamberlaine, 1590. 4 The present instant. 5 In Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to. under the article How to handle a Ship in a Storme:-"Let us lie as Trie with our main course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheet close aft, the boling set up, and the helan tied close aboord." MIRANDA, Daughter to Prospero. ARIEL, an airy Spirit. IRIS, CERES, JUNO, Spirits. Nymphs, Reapers, Other Spirits attending on Prospero. SCENE, the Sea, with a Ship; afterwards an uninhabited Island. 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 hear? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink? Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable 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. brown furze, any thing: The wills above be done! | That my remembrance warrants: Had I not but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit. Four or five women once, that tended me? Pro. Thou had'st, and more, Miranda: But how is it, SCENE II. The Island: before the Cell of Pros- Pro. Mira. Pro. O, woe the day! No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, Mira. More to know The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else Mira. By foul play, as thou say'st, where we heav'd thence; Mira. O, my heart bleeds Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio- And to my state grew stranger, being transported, Mira. Sir, most heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom Sit down; For thou must now know further. You have often Mira. Pro. The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee 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 I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate cumber and trash"-" to trash or overslow "-and 1 i. e. or ever, ere ever; signifying, in modern Eng-foreslowed and trashed." lish, sooner than at any time. 2 Instead of freighting the first folio reads fraughting. 3 The double superlative is in frequent use among our elder writers. 4 To meddle, is to mix, or to interfere with. 5 Lord Burleigh, when he put off his gown at night, used to say "Lie there, Lord Treasurer."-Fuller's Holy State, p. 257. 6 Out is used for entirely, quite. Thus in Act iv: "And be a boy right out." 7 Abysm was the old mode of spelling abyss; from its French original abisme. There was another word of the same kind used in Falconry (from whence Shakspeare very frequently draws his similies ;) "Trassing is when a hawk raises aloft any fowl, and soaring with it, at length descends therewith to the ground."-Dictionarium Rusticum, 1704. Probably this term is used by Chapman in his ad dress to the reader prefixed to his translation of Homer "That whosesoever muse dares use her wing, When his muse flies she will be trass't by his, And show as if a Bernacle should spring Beneath an Eagle." There is also a passage in the Bonduca of Beaumon and Fletcher, wherein Caratach says: As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution, Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. And him he play'd it for, he needs will be How came we ashore? Pro. By Providence divine. Out of his charity, (who being then appointed Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me, tell me, If this might be a brother. Pro. Now the condition. The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, Mira Alack, for pity! I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then, Pro. Hear a little further, And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us; without the which, this story Were most impertinent. Mira. That hour destroy us? Wherefore did they not Well demanded, wench; My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not; (So dear the love my people bore me) nor set Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd common rate of men has generally a son below it. HeToum filii nore. 1 "Who having made his memory such a sinner to truth as to credit his own lie by telling of it." 2 Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, has clearly wn that we use one word, But, in modern English, .or two words Bot and But, originally (in the Anglo Saxon) very different in signification, though (by repeated abbreviation and corruption) approaching in sound. Bot is the imperative of the A. S. Botan, to boot. But is the imperative of the A. S. Be-utan, to be out. By this means all the seemingly anomalous uses of But may be explained; I must however content myself with referring the reader to the Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 190. Merely remarking that but (as distinguished from Bot) and be-out have exactly the same meaning, viz. in modern English, without. 3 In lieu of the premises; that is, "in consideration of the premises,-&c." This seems to us a strange use of this French word, yet it was not then unusual. But takes their oaths in lieu of her assistance." Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess. Pro. 'Would I mig at Now I arise:- Mira. Heavens thank you for't! And now I (For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason What new service now is meetest And bring thee coral, making way 9 Ariel's quality is not his confederates, but the "are you all fit? |