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TEMPEST.

49

ACT IV.

Each one, tripping on his too,
Will be here with mop and mowe:

SCENE I.--Before Prospero's Cell. Enter PROS- Do you love me, master? no.

PERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA.

Pro. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not ap

Pro. Look, thou be true; do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw

Pro. If I have too austerely punish'd you,

Your compensation makes amends; for I

Have given you here a thread of mine own life,

proach,
Till thou dost hear me call.
Ari.

Well I conceive. [Exit.

Or that for which I live; whom once again

I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations

To the fire i' the blood: be more abstemious,

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Were but my trials of thy love, and thou

Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven, Or else, good night, your vow!

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For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,

With such love as 'tis now; the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion3
Our worser Genius can, shall never melt

Mine honour into lust; to take away

The edge of that day's celebration,

When I shall think, or Phœbus' steeds are founder'd,
Or night kept chain'd below.

Pro.

Fairly spoke;

Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own.-
What, Ariel; my industrious servant Ariel!

Enter ARIEL.

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Ari. Before you can say, Come, and go,

And breathe twice; and cry, 80, 80;

1 The same expression occurs in Pericles. Mr. Henley says that it is a manifest allusion to the zones of the ancients, which were worn as guardians of chastity before marriage.

2 Aspersion is here used in its primitive sense of sprinkling, at present it is used in its figurative sense of throwing out hints of calumny and detraction.

3 Suggestion here means temptation or wicked prompting.

4 Some vanity of mine art " is some illusion. Thus in a passage, quoted by Warton, in his Dissertation on the Gesta Romanorum, from Emare, a metrical

Romance.

"The emperor said on high
Sertes thys is a fayry
Or ellys a vanite."

5 That is, bring more than are sufficient. "Corollary, the addition or vantage above measure, an overplus, or surplusage."-Blount.

6 Stover is fodder for cattle, as hay, straw, and the like: estovers is the old law term, it is from estouvier, old French.

7 The old editions read Pioned and Twilled brims. In Ovid's Banquet of Sense, by Geo, Chapman, 1595,

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The white-cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardour of my liver.

Pro.

Well.

Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary,
Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.-
No tongue; all eyes; be silent.
[Soft music.

A Masque. Enter IRIS.

Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and peas;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
Thy banks with peonied and lilied brims,"
Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy

broom groves,

Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
And thy sea-marge, steril, and rocky-hard,
Where thou thyself dost air: The queen o' the sky,
Whose watery arch, and messenger, am I,
Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign

grace,

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain;
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.
Enter CERES.

Cer. Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers:9
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres, and my unshrubb'd down.
Rich scarf to my proud earth: Why hast thy queen
Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green?
Iris. A contract of true love to celebrate;

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
The means, that dusky Dis my daughter got,
Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company
I have forsworn.

he derives from the French verb touiller, which Cotgrave interprets, "filthily to mix, to mingle, confound, or shuffle together." He objects to peonied and lillied because these flowers never blow in April. But Mr. Boaden has pointed out a passage in Lord Bacon's Essay on Gardens which supports the reading in the text. "In April follow the double white violet, the wall-flower, the stock-gilly-flower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces. and lillies of all nutures; rose-mary flowers, the tulippe, the double piony, &c." Lyte, in his Herbal, says one kind of peonie is called by some, maiden or virgin peonie. And Pliny mentions the water-lilly as a preserver of chastity, B. xxvi. C. 10. Edward Fenton, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," 1569, 4to. B. vi. asserts that "the water-lilly mortifieth altogether the appetite of sensuality and defends from unchaste thoughts and dreams of venery." The passage certainly gains by the reading of Mr. Steevens, which I have, for these reasons, retained.

8 That is, forsaken by his lass.

9 Mr. Douce remarks that this is an elegant expansion of the following lines in Phaer's Virgil Æneid, Lib. iv.

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Jun. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
Cer. Earth's increase, and foison1 plenty;
Barns and garners never empty;
Vines, with clust'ring bunches growing;
Plants, with goodly burden bowing;
Spring come to you, at the farthest,
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres blessing so is on you.

Fer. This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmonious charmingly: May I be bold
To think these spirits?

Pro.

Spirits, which by mine art

I have from their confines call'd to enact

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Sweet now, silence:

Jano and Ceres whisper seriously;
There's something else to do: hush, and be mute,
Or else our spell is marr'd.

Iris. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wand'ring brooks,

With your sedg'd crowns, and ever harmless looks, Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land

Answer your summons; Juno does command:
Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
A contract of true love; be not too late.
Enter certain Nymphs.

You sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary,

1 Foison is abundance, particularly of harvest 2 For charmingly harmonious.

COFH

3 "So rare a wonder'd father," is a father able to produce such wonders.

4 Crisp channels; i. e. curled, from the curl raised by a breeze on the surface of the water. So in 1 K. Hen. IV. Act i. Sc. 3.

"Hid his crisp head in the hollow bank." 5 In the tragedy of Darius, by Lord Sterline, printed in 1603, is the following passage:

"Let greatness of her glassy sceptres vaunt

Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
Make holy-day: your rye-straw hats put on,
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country footing.

Enter certain Reapers, properly habited: they join
with the Nymphs in a graceful dance; towards the
end of which PROSPERO starts suddenly, and
speaks; after which, to a strange, hollow, and com
fused noise, they heavily vanish.

Pro. [Aside.] I had forgot that foul conspiracy
Of the beast Caliban, and his confederates,
Against my life; the minute of their plot
Is almost come.- [To the Spirits.] Well done ;-

avoid; no more.

Fer. This is strange: your father's in some passion

That works him strongly.

Mira.

Never till this day,

Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.
Pro. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir:
Our revels now are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack" behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.-Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:

If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell,
And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk,

To still my beating mind.

Fer. Mira.

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Pro. Come with a thought:-I thank you:

Ariel, come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. Thy thoughts I cleave to: What's thy plea

Pro.

sure?

Spirit,
We must prepare to meet with Caliban..
Ari. Ay, my commander: when I presented

Ceres,
I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd,
Lest I might anger thee.

Pro. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?

Ari. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;

So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet: yet always bending
Towards their project: then I beat my tabor,
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their

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6 Faded, i. e. vanished, from the Latin vado. The ancient English pageants were shows, on the reception

Not sceptres, no, but reeds, soon bruised soon of princes or other festive occasions; they were exhibit

broken;

And let this worldly pomp our wits enchant,

All fades, and scarcely leaves behind a token.
Those golden palaces, those gorgeous halls,
With furniture superfluously fair,

Those stately courts, those sky-encountering walls,
Evanish all like vapours in the air."

The preceding stanza also contains evidence of the same
train of thought with Shakspeare.

"And when the eclipse comes of our glory's light,
Then what avails the adoring of a name?
A meer illusion made to mock the sight,
Whose best was but the shadow of a dream.

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Advanc'd their eye-lids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt music; so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd, through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and
thorns,

Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,

There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake O'er-stunk their feet.

Pro. This was well done, my bird:

Thy shape invisible retain thou still:
The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither,
For stale to catch these thieves.

Ari.

I go, I go. [Exit.

Trin. Do, do: We steal by line and level, and't like your grace.

Ste. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country: Steal by line and level, is an excellent pass of pate; there's another garment for't.

Trin. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest.

Cal. I will have none on't: we shall lose our time, And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes With foreheads villanous low.

Ste. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this away, where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this. Trin. And this.

Ste. Ay, and this.

Pro. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as, with age, his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers: I will plague them all,
Re-enter ARIEL loaden with glistering apparel, &c.
Even to roaring: -Come, hang them on this line.
PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter CA-hark!

LIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO; all wet.
Cal. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole

may not

Hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell.

Ste. Monster, your fairy, which, you say, is a harmless fairy, has done little better than play'd the

Jack with us.

Trin. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss; which my nose is in great indignation.

at

Ste. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I displeasure against you; look you,

should take

a

Trin. Thou wert but a lost monster.
Cal. Good my lord, give me thy favour still:

Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to
Shall hood-wink this mischance; therefore, speak
softly,

All's hush'd as midnight yet.

Trin. but to lose our bottles in

Ste. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in

that, monster, but an infinite loss.

Trin. That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster.

Ste. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er

ears for my labour.

Cal. Pr'ythee, my king, be quiet: Seest thou here, This is the mouth of the cell: no noise, and enter: Do that good mischief, which may make this island Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,

For aye thy foot-licker.

Ste. Give me thy hand: for I do begin to have

bloody thoughts.

Trin. O king Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! look, what a wardrobe here is for thee! Cal. Let it alone, thou fool: it is but trash.

Trin. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a frippery: O king Stephano!

Ste. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll have that gown.

Trin. Thy grace shall have it.

Cal. The dropsy drown this fool! what do you

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Enter divers Spirits

A noise of Hunters heard.
in shape of hounds, and hunt them about; PROS-
PERO and ARIEL setting them on.
Pro. Hey, Mountain, hey!
Ari. Silver! there it goes, Silver!
Pro. Fury! Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark,

[CAL. STE. and TRAN. are driven out. Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints With dry convulsions; shorten up their sinews With aged cramps; and more pinch-spotted make them,

Than pard, 10 or cat o' mountain

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In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the lime grove which weather-fends your cell:
They cannot budge, till you release. 12 The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim-full of sorrow, and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, The good old lord, Gonzalo;
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly

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Dost thou think so, spirit?

Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.

Pro.

And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, 1 a feeling
Of their afflictions? and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art? fera, which ancient credulity believed to produce the barnacle-goose. Bishop Hall refers to it in the second

Satire of his fourth Book

"That Scottish barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worm doth wax a winged goose."

Gerrard, in his Herbal, 1597, p. 1391, gives a full de scription of it; and the worthy Dr. Bullein treats those as ignorant and incredulous, who do not believe in the transformation.-Bulwarke of Defence, 1562. Cali ban's Barnacle is the clakis, or tree-goose.

1 Stale, in the art of fowling, signified a bait or lure to decoy birds.

2 Nurture is Education, in our old language.

3 To play the Jack, was to play the Knave.

4 This is a humorous allusion to the old ballad "King Stephen was a worthy peer," of which Iago sings a verse in Othello.

5 A shop for the sale of old clothes. - Fripperie, Fr. 6 The old copy reads "Let's alone."

Bird-lime.

9 See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, Note on v. 6441 10 Pard, i. e. Leopard.

11 Defends it from the weather.

12 i. e. Until you release them

8 The barnacle is a kind of shell-fish, lepas anati-13 A sensation,

• Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the Will shortly fill the reasonable shores,

quick,

Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury,

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel;
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

Ari.

I'll fetch them, sir. [Exit. Pro. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves';

And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demy-puppets, that
By moon-shine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pas-

time

Is to make midnight-mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though you be3) I have be-dimm'd
The noon-tide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine, and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their sleepers; op'd and let them forth,
By my so potent art: But this rough magic
I here abjure: and, when I have requir'd
Some heavenly music, (which even now I do,)
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I'll drown my book.

[Solemn music.

That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them,
That yet looks on me, or would know me:-Ariel,

Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;

[Exit ARIEL.

I will dis-case me, and myself present,
As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL re-enters, singing, and helps to attire

PROSPERO.

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Alon.

Whe'r thou beest he, or no

Re-enter ARIEL: after him, ALONSO, with a fran- Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,

tic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee, and FRANCISCO: They all enter the circle which The affliction of my mind amends, with which, PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; I fear, a madness held me: this must crave which PROSPERO observing, speaks.

A solemn air, and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There

stand,

For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the shew of thine,

Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace;

And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason. O my good Gonzalo,

My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed.-Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act;-
Thou'rt pinch'd for't now, Sebastian.-Flesh and
blood,

You brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
Expell'd remorse and nature; who with Sebas-

tian

(Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,)
Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive
thee,
Unnatural though thou art!-Their understanding
Begins to swell; and the approaching tide

1 This speech is in some measure borrowed from Medea's, in Ovid; the expressions are, many of them in the old translation by Golding. But the exquisite fairy imagery is Shakspeare's own.

2 That is; ye are powerful auxiliaries, but weak if left to yourselves. Your employments are of the trivial

nature before mentioned.

3 So in Mids. Night's Dream"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains." 4 Remorse is pity, tenderness of heart; nature is natural affection.

5 This was the received opinion so in Fairfax's 1asso, B. iv St. 18.

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Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost
(How sharp the point of this remembrance is!)
My dear son Ferdinand.
Pro.

Alon. Irreparable is the Says, it is past her cure. Pro.

I am woe1 for't, sir. loss; and Patience

I rather think,

Fer.

Sir, she's mortal; But, by immortal Providence, she's mine; I chose her, when I could not ask my father For his advice; nor thought I had one: she Is daughter to this famous duke of Milan, Of whom so often I have heard renown, But never saw before; of whom I have

You have not sought her help; of whose soft grace, Received a second life, and second father

For the like loss, I have her sovereign aid, And rest myself content.

Alon.

You the like loss?

Pro. As great to me, as late; and portable" To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker Than you may call to comfort you; for I

Have lost my daughter.

Alon.

A daughter?

O heavens! that they were living both in Naples, The king and queen there! that they were, I wish Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

Pro. In this last tempest. I perceive, these lords At this encounter do so much admire, That they devour their reason; and scarce think Their eyes do offices of truth, their words

Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have Been justled from your senses, know for certain, That I am Prospero, and that very duke

Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was

landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast, nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.
My dukedom, since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing;
At least, bring forth a wonder, to content ye,
As much as me my dukedom.

The entrance of the Cell opens, and discovers FER-
DINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess.

Mira. Sweet lord, you play me false.
Fer.

I would not for the world.

No, my dearest love,

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53

There, sir, stop:

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you

gods,

And on this couple drop a blessed crown; For it is you, that have chalk'd forth the way Which brought us hither!

Alon.

I say, Amen, Gonzalo Gon. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom,
In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own.4
Alon.

Give me your hands: [TO FER. and MIRA.

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart, That doth not wish you joy!

Gon.

Be't so! Amen!

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look, sir, look, sir; here are more of us!
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown:-Now, blasphemy,
That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on
shore?

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? Boats. The best news is, that we have safely found

Our king, and company: the next our ship,
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split,-
Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when

We first put out to sea.

Ari.

Sir, all this service

[Aside

My tricksy spirit!

Have I done since I went.
Pro.

Alon. These are not natural events; they strengthen,

[FER. kneels to ALON. Now all the blessings

From strange to stranger:-Say, how came you hither ?

Of a glad father compass thee about! Arise, and say how thou cam'st here. Mira.

O! wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!

Pro.

'Tis new to thee.

Alon. What is this maid, with whom thou wast at play?

Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours: Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

1 I am sorry for it.

2 Bearable.

3 Mr. Pye says, I conceive Shakspeare, who was no nice weigher of words, meant wrangling to be equivalent with playing false, or with unfair advantage. So in Henry V. the king, in allusion to the tennis balls, directs the ambassadors to tell the dauphin

"He hath made a match with such a wrangler,
That all the courts of France shall be disturb'd
With chases."

Mr. Pye's explanation is correct; but his deduction that Shakspeare was "no nice weigher of words" is totally false. Shakspeare's words are always the most

Boats. If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, And (how, we know not,) all clapp'd under hatches, Where, but even now, with strange and several

noises

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, gingling chains,
And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awak'd; straightway at liberty:
Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
Cap'ring to eye her: On a trice, so please you,
Even in a dream, were we divided from them,

And were brought moping hither.

expressive and most appropriate. To wrangle, in the language of his time, was to haft or overthwart; to run back and yet not cease to contend.

4 When no man was in his senses or had self-pos

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