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Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good: Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Enter Mariners.

[Exit.

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, FERNAND, GONZALO, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have care.

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1 That is, readily, nimbly.

Where's the

2 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.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain? Boats. Do you not hear him? You rar our labour! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Hence!

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

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

3

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 4. [A cry thin.] 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 The present instant.

4 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 sheat close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboord."

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 5 wench.

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

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 mightst 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 glut8 him.

[A confused Noise within.] Mercy on us! We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!- Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!

5 Mr. Steevens says incontinent, but the meaning is evident. In H. Beaumont and Fletcher's Mad Lover, Chilas says to the frightened priestess:

Down, you dog, then;

Be quiet and be staunch too, no inundations.

6 The courses are the main sail and fore sail. To lay a ship a-hold, is to 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.

1 Merely, absolutely, entirely; Merè, Lat.

To englut, to swallow him.

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

4

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Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er 1
It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The freighting 2 souls within her.

Pro.

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

Mira.

Pro.

O, woe the day!

No harm. I have done nothing but in care of thee, (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 3

9 Instead of long heath, brown furze, &c. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-ling, heath, broom, furze, &c. and I have no doubt rightly. 1 i. e. or ever, ere ever; signifying, in modern English, sooner than at any time.

Instead of freighting the first folio reads fraughting.

The double comparative is in frequent use among our elder

writers.

Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

More to know

"Tis time

Did never meddle 4 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 5.- 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-
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 hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;

Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not
Out three years old.

6

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

4 To meddle, is to mix, or 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."

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