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31. note.] Race and racinefs in wine, fignifies a kind of VOL. I.

tartnefs.

E.

34. Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark! now I hear them,- Ding, dong bell.
Burden, ding dong.]

So, in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight, &c. 13th edition, 1690:

"Corydon's doleful knell to the tune of Ding, dong."
"I must go feek a new love,

"Yet will I ring her knell,
Ding, dong."

The fame burthen to a fong occurs in the Merchant of Ve nice, p. 192. STEEVENS.

43. Widow Dido.] Perhaps there is here an allufion to fome old ballad. In the Pepyfian Collection at Magdalen College in Cambridge, there is a ballad to the tune of Queen Dido. MALONE.

Ibid. Note. Which was acted before queen Elizabeth in 1594.] Queen Elizabeth was not at Cambridge in 1594;the was there in 1564. But the play of Dido, then performed before her majefty, was not that written by Marlowe and Nafhe. See a note on the words-The rugged Pyrrhus, &c. in Hamlet, poft. MALONE,

45. But rather lofe her to an African.] The old copy reads:
toofe her which may be right. So, in Hamlet:
"At fuch a time I'll loofe my daughter to him."
Ibid.to wet the grief on't.] I fufpect the author

wrote:

Who hath caufe to whet the grief on't.

Whet and wet are often confounded in pronunciation.

MALONE. 47. You are gentlemen of brave metal.] This is the reading of the old copy; but mettle and metal are frequently confounded in the firft folio.

The epithet brave, fhews, I think, clearly, that we ought to read:

You are gentlemen of brave mettle. 49. I am more ferious than my custom: you Muft be fo too, if heed me; which to do Trebles thee o'er.]

MALONE.

This paffage is reprefented to me as an obfcure one. The meaning of it feems to be-You must put on more than your ufual seriousness, if you are difpofed to pay a proper at

VOL. I.

G

tention

TEMPEST

VOL. I. tention to my propofal; which attention if you beftow, it TEMPEST Will in the end make you Sebaftian is thrice what you are. already brother to the throne; but being made a king by Antonio's contrivance, would be (according to our author's idea of greatnefs) thrice the man he was before. In this fenfe he would be trebled o'er. So, in Pericles, 1609:

the mafter calls

"And trebles the confufion.”

Again, in The Two Noble Kinfmen, 1634:

66

-thirds his own worth."

STEEVENS.

64. Nor fcrape trencher, nor wash dish.] It should be remembered, that trenchers, which, in the time of our author, were generally used, were cleanfed by fcraping only, and were never washed. They were fcraped daily, till they were entirely worn away. This practice is again alluded to in Romeo and Juliet: Where's Potpan, that he helps not

to take away? he shift a trencher! he fcrape a trencher !"

WHITE.

67. Beyond all limit of what elfe i' the world.] I once thought that we fhould read:

-of aught elfe i' the world.

but what else is right. So in K. Henry VI. P. III:
"With promife of his fifter and what else,

"To ftrengthen and support king Edward's place."

Ibid. I am your wife &c.]

MALONE.

"Si tibi non cordi fuerant connubia noftra,.
"Attamen in veftras potuifti ducere fedes,
"Que tibi jucundo famularer ferva labore,
"Candida permulcens liquidis veftigia lymphis,
"Purpureave tuum confternens veste cubile."
Catul. 62. MALONE..

73. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the picture of nobody.] A ridiculous figure, fometimes reprefented on signs. Weftward for Smelts, a book which our author appears to have read, was printed for John Trundle in Barbican, at the figne of the No-body. MALONE. 77. Each putter out on five for one.] The old copy has:

-of five for one.

I believe the words are only tranfpofed, and that the author wrote:

Each putter out of one for five.

So, in The Scourge of Folly, by J. Davies of Hereford, printed about the year 1611:

*Sir Solus ftraight will travel, as they fay,
"And gives out one for three, when home comes he."

MALONE. 79. To follow Mr. Steevens's note.] The word is also used by John Davies of Hereford, in his Scourge of Folly, printed about the year 1611:

"Then here's a dowle, and there's a dab of fat,
"Which as unhandsome hangs about his ears."

MALONE. Ibid. —whofe wraths to guard you from,] The meaning, which is fomewhat obfcured by the expreffion, is,a miferable fate, which nothing but contrition and amendment of life can avert. MALONE.

82. a third of mine own life.] To follow Mr. Steevens's note, p. 83.-I meet the fame thought in Tancred and Gifmund, a tragedy, 1592. Tancred, speaking of his intention to kill his daughter, fays:

"Against all law of kinde, to fhred in twaine "The golden threede that doth us both maintaine.". Again, ibid:

"But Nature that hath lock'd within thy breaft "Two lives, the fame inclineth me to spare

"Thy blood, and fo to keep mine own unfpilt."

MALONE. 83. Do not fmile at me, that I boaft her off] The old copy

reads:

that I boaft her of.

I fufpect that the words were accidentally transposed at the prefs, and would read:

-that I boaft of her.

So, in the last act of this play, hang on them this line, is printed instead of hang them on this line.

I know no fuch phrafe as to boast off. MALONE.

88. High queen of state.] The first folio (the only authen tick copy of this play) reads:

Higheft queen of ftate. MALONE.

89. Harmonious charmingly.] A fimilar inverfion occurs in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

"But miferable moft to live unlov'd." MALONE. 91. And like an unsubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.]

To feel the juftice of this comparison, and the propriety of the epithet, the nature of these exhibitions fhould be remembered. The ancient English pageants were shows exhi

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bited

VOL. I.

TEMPEST

VOL. I. bited on the reception of a prince, or any other folemnity of TEMPEST a fimilar kind. They were prefented on occafional ftages

erected in the streets. Originally they appear to have been nothing more than dumb fhows; but before the time of our author, they had been enlivened by the introduction of fpeaking perfonages, who were characteristically habited. The fpeeches were in verfe; and as the proceffion moved forward, the speakers, who conftantly bore fome allusion to the ceremony, either converfed together in the form of a dialogue, or addreffed the noble perfon whofe presence occafioned the celebrity. On thefe allegorical fpectacles, very coftly ornaments were beftowed. So early as in the reign of king Henry VI. in a pageant prefented on that monarch's triumphal entry into London, after his coronation at Paris, the Seven Liberal Sciences, perfonified, were introduced in a tabernacle of curious worke, from whence their queen, Dame Sapience, fpoke verfes. At entering the city, he was met and faluted in metre by three ladies (the dames NATURE, GRACE and FORTUNE) richly cladde in golde and filkes, with coronets, who fuddenly iffued from a ftately tower, hung with the moft fplendid arras. See Fabian. Chron. tom. II. fol. 382. Warton's Hift. of Eng. Poet. vol. II. p. 190. 202. MALONE.

Ibid. Leave not a rack behind; we are such stuff

As dreams are made of.] After note ❝.

Track, I am perfuaded, was the author's word.

Rack is generally ufed for a body of clouds, or rather for the courfe of clouds in motion; fo, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"That which is now a horse, even with a thought, "The rack diflimns."

But no inftance has yet been produced where it is used to fignify a fingle fmall fleeting cloud, in which fenfe only it is at all applicable here.

The stanza which immediately precedes the lines quoted by Mr. Steevens from lord Sterline's Darius, may ferve ftill farther to confirm the conjecture that one of these poets imitated the other:

"And when the eclipfe comes of our glory's light, "Then what avails the adoring of our name? "A mere illufion made to mock the fight,

"Whose best was but the fhadow of a dream."

MALONE.

95. And as with age his body uglier grows,

Se his mind cankers:]

Shakspeare,

Shakspeare, when he wrote this description, perhaps re- VOL. I. collected what the great lord Effex, in an hour of discontent, TEMPEST faid of queen Elizabeth: "that he grew old and canker'd, and that her mind was become as crooked as her carcafe"—a fpeech, which, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, coft him his head, and which, we may therefore fuppofe, was at that time much talked of. This play being manifeftly written in the time of king James, thefe obnoxious words might be fafely repeated. MALONE.

101. Ye elves of hills &c.] To follow Dr. Farmer's note. Whoever will take the trouble of comparing this whole paffage with Medea's fpeech as tranflated by Golding, will fee evidently that Shakspeare copied the tranflation, and not the original. The particular expreffions that feem to have made an impreffion on his mind, are printed in Italicks : "Ye ayres and windes, ye elves of hills, of brookes, of woodes alone,

"Of standing lakes and of the night, approche ye everych

one.

"Through help of whom (the crooked bankes much wondering at the thing)

"I have compelled ftreames to run clean backward to their fpring.

"By charms I make the calm fea rough, and make the tough feas playne,

"And cover all the fkie with clouds, and chafe them thence

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again.

By charmes I raife and lay the windes, and burft the viper's jaw,

"And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do

draw.

"Whole woods and forrefts I remove, I make the mountains

Shake,

"And even the earth itself to groan and fearfully to quake. "I call up dead men from their graves, and thee, O light

fome moone,

"I darken oft, though beaten brafs abate thy peril foone,
"Our forcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darks the fun

at noone.

"The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my fake,

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"And caufed their unwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take. Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortal warre did fet, And brought afleep the dragon fell, whofe eyes were never fhet." MALONE.

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