Line 79.-Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having JOHNSON. made many widows in Naples. Line 80. miraculous harp.] Alluding to Amphion's lyre. -101. The stomach of my sense:-) The expression sense, here used, implies feeling. Line 129. Weigh'd, &c.] i. e. Paused, or deliberated on. - 134. Than we bring men to comfort them:] It does not clearly appear whether the king and these lords thought the ship lost. This passage seems to imply, that they were themselves confident of returning, but imagined part of the fleet destroyed. Why, indeed, should Sebastian plot against his brother in the following scene, unless he knew how to find the kingdom which he was to inherit? JOHNSON. Line 157. bound of land,-] i. e. Land-mark. 163. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.] All this dialogue is a fine satire on the Utopian treatises of government, and the impracticable inconsistent schemes therein recommended. WARBURTON. Line 170. -all foizon,-] Foison or foyzon signifies plenty, ubertas, not moisture, or juice of grass or other herbs, as Mr. Pope says. EDWARDS. Line 239. I am more serious than my custom: You my proposal. Line 257. Although this lord of weak remembrance,-] This lord, who being now in his dotage, has outlived his faculty of remembering; and who, once laid in the ground, shall be as little remembered himself, as he can now remember other things. JOHNSON. Line 260. For he's a spirit of persuasion,-] Of this entangled sentence I can draw no sense from the present reading, and therefore imagine that the author gave it thus: For he, a spirit of persuasion, only Of which the meaning may be either, that he alone, who is a spirit of persuasion, professes to persuade the king; or that, He only professes to persuade, that is, without being so persuaded himself, he makes a show of persuading the king. JOHNSON. Line 268. -a wink beyond,] That this is the utmost extent of the prospect of ambition, the point where the eye can pass no further, and where objects lose their distinctness, so that what is there discovered is faint, obscure, and doubtful. Line. 276. she that from Naples JOHNSON. Can have no note, &c.] Shakespeare's great ignorance of geography is not more conspicuous in any instance than in this, where he supposes Tunis and Naples to have been at such an immeasurable distance from each other. STEEVENS. Line 280. though some cast again;] Vide Macbeth, Act II. Sc. 3. where the word retains the same meaning. Line 283. In yours and my discharge.] i. e. Depends on what STEEVENS. you and I are to perform. Line 290. keep in Tunis.] There is in this passage a pro priety lost, which a slight alteration will restore : Line 297. -Sleep in Tunis, And let Sebastian wake! A chough] i. e. A jack-daw. JOHNSON. 314. And melt e'er they molest.-) I had rather read, Would melt e'er they molest. i.e. Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes, though they were congealed, would melt before they could molest one, or prevent the execution of my purposes. Line 319. for aye] i. e. For ever. Line 320. This ancient morsel, JOHNSON. For morsel Dr. Warbur ton reads ancient moral, very elegantly and judiciously; yet I know not whether the author might not write morsel, as we say a piece of a man. JOHNSON. Line 322. take suggestion,] i. e. Receive any hint of villainy. JOHNSON. Line 337. to keep them living.] i. e. Alonzo and Antonio; for it was on their lives that his project depended. Yet the Ox ford Editor alters them to you, because in the verse before, it is said, you are his friend; as if, because Ariel was sent forth to save his friend, he could not have another purpose in sending him viz. to save his project too. WARBURTON. I think Dr. Warburton and the Oxford Editor both mistaken. The sense of the passage, as it now stands, is this: He sees your danger, and will therefore save them. Dr. Warburton has mistaken Antonio for Gonzalo. Ariel would certainly not tell Gonzalo, that his master saved him only for his project. He speaks to himself as he approaches, My master through his art foresees the danger These written with a y, according to the old practice, did not much differ from you. JOHNSON, Line 347. Romeo and Juliet: drawn?] Having your swords drawn. So in "What art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?" JOHNS. ACT II. SCENE II. Line 382. that moe, &c.] i. e. Make mouths. So in the Line 385. Their pricks at my foot fall;-] i. e. Their prickles. Line 386. All wound with adders, Enwrapped by adders, wound or twisted about me. JOHNSON. Line 394. --looks like a foul bumbard-] This term again occurs in The First Part of Henry IV.-" that swoln parcel of dropsies, " that huge bumbard of sack" and again in Henry VIII. "And here you lie baiting of bumbards when ye should do ser"vice." By these several passages, 'tis plain, the word meant a large vessel for holding drink, as well as the piece of ordinance so called. THEOBALD. Ben Jonson, in his Masque of Augurs, confirms the conjecture of Theobald.-" The poor cattle yonder are passing away the time "with a cheat loaf, and a bumbard of broken beer." " So in Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, 1619, - they "would have beat out his brains with bombards." So again in The Martyr'd Soldier, by Shirley, 1638. "His boots as wide as the black-jacks, "Or bumbards toss'd by the king's guards." And it appears from a passage in Ben Jonson's Masque of Love Restor'd, that a bombard-man was one who carried about provisions. "I am to deliver into the buttery so many firkins of " aurum potabile, as it delivers out bombards of bouge," &c. STEEVENS. Line 402. -and had but this fish painted,-] It was very common in the time of our author to hang out and exhibit real and artificial fishes. Line 404. -make a man;-] That is, make a man's fortune. So in Midsummer Night's Dream" we are all made men." JOHNS. Line 407. to see a dead Indian. And afterwardsMen of Inde. Probably some allusion to a particular occurrence, now obscured by time. In Henry VIII. the porter asks the mob, if they think some strange Indian, &c. is come to court. STEEV. his gaberdine; -) A gaberdine is properly Line 412. the coarse frock or outward garment of a peasant. Ital. gaverdina. Line 452. STEEVENS. too much] Meaning let me take or get what I can for him, it will not be too much. Line 455. I know it by thy trembling: Fear, convuls ive startings, were represented as the effects of being possessed by the devil. Line 458.cat; ) Alluding to the old proverb, that good liquor will make a cat speak. Line 470. STEEVENS. Amen!) means stop your draught, come to a conclusion. I will pour some, &c. Line 474. STEEVENS. I have no long spoon.] Alluding to the proverb, A long spoon to eat with the devil. See also, Comedy of Errors, Act 4. STEEVENS. Line 481. to be the siege of this moon-calf?] Siege is a stool of easement, as Dr. Ph. Holland phrases it, in his translation of Pliny's Natural History. TOLLET. A moon-calf, we are informed by Pliny, is a lump of inanimate and shapeless matter, engendered only by a woman. Line 502. Here: swear then, how escap'dst thou?] The meaning of this is rendered ambiguous, for want of a full stop after " swear then," as Caliban had just before proposed to swear himself a subject:-how thou escap'dst? should be read, how escap'dst thou? being addressed to Trinculo: to which he immediately replies, Swam ashore, &c. Line 520. I afeard of him? a very weak monster, &c.] It is to be observed, that Trinculo the speaker is not charged with being afraid: but it was his consciousness that he was so that drew this brag from him. This is nature. WARBURTON. Line 529. I'll kiss thy foot:-) A sneer upon the papists GREY, for kissing the Pope's pantofle. Line 552. sea-mells] i. e. Sea-gulls. Much criticism has been displayed upon this expression: the context of the line, I think, sufficiently indicates the meaning to be a sea fowl. Line 566. Get a new man.] Caliban here addresses himself to his old master, Prospero. ACT III. SCENE I. Line 17. Most busy-less, when I do it. The two first folios read: Most busy lest, when I do it. 'Tis true this reading is corrupt; but the corruption is so very little removed from the truth of the text, that I cannot afford to think well of my own sagacity for having discovered it. THEOBALD. Line 48. -hest-] For behest; i. e. command. STEEVENS. -60. Of every creature's best.) Alluding to the picture of Venus by Appelles. JOHNSON. Line 77. The flesh-fly blow my mouth.-] Meaning the act of a fly depositing her eggs in flesh, commonly called flyblows. Line 91. I am a fool, To weep at what I am glad of.] This is one of those touches of nature that distinguish Shakspeare from all other writers. It was necessary, in support of the character of Miranda, to make her appear ignorant, that excess of sorrow and excess of joy find alike their relief from tears; and as this is the first time that consummate pleasure had made any near approaches to her heart, she calls such an expression of it, folly. STEEVENS. |