Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you, That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA. Pros. If I have too austerely punish'd you, Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven, Do not smile at me that I boast her off, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise, Ferd. Against an oracle. I do believe it Pros. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition Worthily purchased, take my daughter: but, 21 Shakespeare uses ecstasy for any alienation of mind, a fit, or madness. 1 Your compensation is the compensation you receive. Shakespeare has many instances of like construction. 2 “Thread of mine own life" probably means about the same as "my very heart-strings"; strings the breaking of which spills the life. If thou dost break her virgin-knot 3 before With full and holy rite be minister'd, Ferd. As I hope For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest even, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion 7 8 Mine honour into lust; to take away The edge of that day's celebration, When I shall think, or Phœbus' steeds are founder'd, Pros. Fairly spoke. Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own. 8 Alluding, no doubt, to the zone or sacred girdle which the old Romans used as the symbol and safeguard of maiden honour. 4 Sanctimonious, here, is sacred or religious. The marriage ritual was supposed to have something of consecrating virtue in it. 5 Aspersion in its primitive sense of sprinkling, as with genial rain or dew. Here, again, as also just after, shall for will. 6 Not with wholesome flowers, such as the bridal bed was wont to be decked with, but with loathsome weeds. 7 Suggestion, again, for temptation. See page 52, note 54. 8 Genius, spirit, and angel were used indifferently for what we should call a man's worser or better self. The Edinburgh Review, July, 1869, has the following: "In mediæval theology, the rational soul is an angel, the lowest in the hierarchy for being clothed for a time in the perishing vesture of the body. But it is not necessarily an angel of light. It may be a good or evil genius, a guardian angel or a fallen spirit, a demon of light or darkness." See, also, Julius Cæsar, ii. 1. Enter ARIEL. Ari. What would my potent master? here I am. Did worthily perform; and I must use you Go bring the rabble, Ari. Pros. Ay, with a twink. Ari. Presently? Before you can say Come and Go, Ari. - no? Do not approach Pros. Look thou be true: do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To th' fire i' the blood: be more abstemious, Or else good night your vow! Ferd. I warrant you, sir; The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart Abates the ardour of my liver.11 9 Perhaps meaning some magical show or illusion. Display? 10 Mop and mow were very often used thus together. To mow is to make mouths, to grimace. Wedgwood, in his English Etymology, says that mop has exactly the same derivation as mock, and means to gibber. Thus the ape both mops and mows; that is, he gibbers or chatters, and makes faces. 11 The liver was supposed to be the special seat of certain passions, and so was often put for the passions themselves. Now come, my Ariel! bring a corollary,12 Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly! Enter IRIS. Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas; [Soft music. Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep, Thy banks with peonéd and twilled brims,14 Which spongy April 15 at thy hest betrims, To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy brown groves, Whose shadow the dismissèd bachelor loves, 12 Corollary here means a surplus number; more than enough. - Pertly, in the next line, is nimbly, alertly. 13 Stover is fodder and provision of all sorts for cattle. Steevens says that in some counties it "signifies hay made of coarse rank grass, such as even cows will not eat while it is green." 14 A writer in The Edinburgh Review for October, 1872, argues, and, I think, proves, that peonéd here refers to the marsh-marigold, which grew abundantly on the flat marshy banks of such still-running streams as the Warwickshire Avon, and which was provincially called peony or piony. He thus compares it with the garden peony: "The flowers, though differing in colour, have a remarkable similarity in general growth and shape, especially in the early stage, when the fully-formed bud is ripe for blowing."— In explanation of twilled the same writer has the following: "Twills is given by Halliwell as an old provincial word for reeds; and it was applied, like quills, to the serried rustling sedges of river reaches and marshy levels. It was indeed while watching the masses of waving sedge cutting the waterline of the Avon, not far from Stratford church, that we first felt the peculiar force and significance of the epithet." 15 April has the epithet spongy, probably because at that season the earth or the air sponges up so much water. So, in Cymbeline, iv. 2, we have "the spongy south," referring to the south or south-west wind, which, in England, is apt to be densely charged with moisture; that is, foggy; elsewhere called "the foggy south." Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard; 16 Where thou thyself dost air;- the Queen o' the Sky, Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign Grace, To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain : Enter CERES. Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers And some donation freely to estate On the bless'd lovers. Cer. Tell me, heavenly Bow, If Venus or her son, as thou dost know, Do now attend the Queen? Since they did plot 16 Lass-lorn is forsaken by his lass, the sweet-heart that has dismissed him.- Pole-clipt probably means poles embraced or clasped by the vines. Clip was often used for embrace. So in Coriolanus, i. 6: "Let me clip ye in arms as sound as when I woo'd." - Vineyard is here a trisyllable. 17 " Bosky acres rows and copses. " are woody acres, fields intersected by luxuriant hedgeSo in Milton's Comus: I know each lane, and every alley green, Dingle, or bushy dell of this wild wood, And every bosky bourn from side to side. 18 The means whereby Pluto caught and carried of Proserpina. Proser pina was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres: Dis, King of dusky Hades, fell |