ACT IV.....SCENE I. Before Prospero's Cell. Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA. Pro. If I have too austerely punish'd you, I tender to thy hand: all thy vexations 6 Hast strangely stood the test:7 here, afore Heaven, 6 a thread of mine own life,] The old copy reads-third. The word thread was formerly so spelt, as appears from the following passage: "Long maist thou live, and when the sisters shall decree "To cut in twaine the twisted third of life, "Then let him die," &c. See comedy of Mucedorus, 1619, signat. C 3. Hawkins. "A third of mine own life" is a fibre or a part of my own life. Prospero considers himself as the stock or parent-tree, and his daughter as a fibre or portion of himself, and for whose benefit he himself lives. In this sense, the word is used in Markham's English Husbandman, edit. 1635, p. 146: "Cut off all the maine rootes, within half a foot of the tree, only the small thriddes or twist rootes you shall not cut at all." Again, ibid: "Every branch and thrid of the root." This is evidently the same word as thread, which is likewise spelt thrid by Lord Bacon. Tollet. So, in Lingua, &c. 1607; and I could furnish many more in stances: "For as a subtle spider closely sitting "In center of her web that spreadeth round, "She feels it instantly." The following quotation, however, should seem to place the meaning beyond all dispute. In Acolastus, a comedy, 1540, is this passage: "one of worldly shame's children, of his countenance, and THREDE of his body." Steevens. Again, in Tancred and Gismund, a tragedy, 1592, Tancred, speaking of his intention to kill his daughter, says: "Against all law of kinde, to shred in twaine "The golden threede that doth us both maintain." Malone. 7 strangely stood the test:] Strangely is used by way of commendation, merveilleusement, to a wonder; the same is the sense in the foregoing scene. Johnson. I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand, For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise, Fer. Against an oracle. I do believe it, Pro. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition If thou dost break her virgin knot, before Fer. As I hope For quiet days, fair issue, and long life, With such love as 'tis now; the murkiest den, The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion 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.2 i. e. in the last scene of the preceding act: 66 with good life, "And observation strange -" Steevens. 8 Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition -] My guest, first folio. Rowe first read-gift. Johnson. A similar thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra: 9 66 I send him "The greatness he has got." Steevens. - her virgin knot —] The same expression occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre, 1609: "Untide I still my virgin knot will keepe." Steevens. 1 No sweet aspersion] Aspersion is here used in its primitive sense of sprinkling. At present, it is expressive only of calumny and detraction. Steevens. 2 When I shall think, or Phabus' steeds are founder'd, Or night kept chain'd below.] A similar train of ideas occur in the 23d Book of Homer's Odyssey, thus translated by Chapman : Pro. Fairly spoke:3 Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own.- Enter ARIEL. Ari. What would my potent master? here I am. Pro. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service Did worthily perform; and I must use you In such another trick: go, bring the rabble,4 Ari. Pro. Ay, with a twink. Presently? Ari. Before you can say, Come, and go, And breathe twice; and cry, so, 80; Each one, tripping on his toe,5 Will be here with mop and mowe: Do you love me, master? no. Pro. Dearly, my delicate Ariel: Do not approach, Till thou dost hear me call. Ari. Well I conceive. [Exit. Pro. Look, thou be true; do not give dalliance Fer. Pro. Well. 66 she th' extended night "With-held in long date; nor would let the light 3 Fairly spoke:] Fairly is here used as a trisyllable. Steevens. the rabble,] The crew of meaner spirits. Johnson. Come and go, Each one, tripping on his toe,] So, in Milton's L'Allegro, v. 33: Steevens. 6 Now come, my Ariel; bring a corollary, A Masque. Enter IRIS. [Soft musick. Iris. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas 6 8 bring a corollary,] That is, bring more than are sufficient, rather than fail for want of numbers. Corollary means surplus. Corolaire, Fr. See Cotgrave's Dictionary. Steevens. 7 No tongue;] Those who are present at incantations are obliged to be strictly silent, "else," as we are afterwards told, "the spell is marred." Johnson. 8 thatch'd with stover,] Stover (in Cambridgeshire and other counties) signifies hay made of coarse, rank grass, such as even cows will not eat, while it is green. Stover is likewise used as thatch for cart-lodges, and other buildings that deserve but rude and cheap coverings. The word occurs in the 25th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion: "To draw out sedge and reed, for thatch and stover fit." Again, in his Muses' Elyzium: "Their browse and stover, waxing thin and scant." Steevens. 9 Thy banks with peonied, and lilied brims,] The old edition reads pioned and twilled brims, which gave rise to Mr. Holt's conjecture, that the poet originally wrote: with pioned and tilled brims." Peonied is the emendation of Hanmer. Spenser, and the author of Muleasses the Turk, a tragedy, 1610, use pioning for digging. It is not, therefore, difficult to find a meaning for the word, as it stands in the old copy; and remove a letter from twilled, and it leaves us tilled. I am yet, however, in doubt whether we ought not to read lilied brims; for Pliny, B. XXVI. ch. x. mentions the water-lily, as a preserver of chastity; and says, elsewhere, that the Peony medetur Faunorum in Quiete Ludibriis, &c. In a poem, entitled The Herring's Tayle, 4to. 1598, "the mayden piony" is introduced. In the Arraigne ment of Paris, 1584, are mentioned: "The watry flow'rs and lillies of the banks." In the 20th song of Drayton's Polyolbion, the Naiades are represented as making chaplets, with all the tribe of aquatic flow. ers; and Mr. Tollet informs me, that Lyte's Herbal says, kind of peonie is called by some, maiden or virgin peonie." K "one To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves, 1 Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves, In Ovid's Banquet of Sense, by Chapman, 1595, I meet with the following stanza, in which twill-pants are enumerated among flowers: "White and red jasmines, merry, melliphill, "Fair crown imperial, emperor of flowers; « Immortal amaranth, white aphrodill, "And cup-like twill-pants strew'd in Bacchus' bowers." If twill be the ancient name of any flower, the old reading, pioned and twilled, may stand. Steevens. Mr. Warton, in his notes upon Milton, after silently acquiescing in the substitution of pionied for pioned, produces from the ARCADES "Ladon's lillied banks," as an example to countenance a further change of twilled to lillied, which, accordingly, Mr. Rann hath foisted into the text. But, before such a licence is allowed, may it not be asked-If the word pionied can any where be found?-or (admitting such a verbal from peony, like Milton's lillied from lily, to exist,)-On the banks of what river do peonies grow?-Or (if the banks of any river should be discovered to yield them) whether they and the lilies that, in common with them, betrim those banks, be the produce of spongy APRILOr, whence it can be gathered that Iris here is at all speaking of the banks of a river ?-and, whether, as the bank in question is the property, not of a water-nymph, but of Ceres, it is not to be considered as an object of her care?-Hither, the goddess of husbandry is represented as resorting, because, at the approach of spring, it becomes needful to repair the banks (or mounds) of the flat meads, whose grass not only shooting over, but being more succulent than that of the turfy mountains, would, for want of precaution, be devoured, and so the intended stover [hay, or winter keep,] with which these meads are proleptically described as thatched, be lost. The giving way, and caving in, of the brims of those banks, occasioned by the heats, rains, and frosts of the preceding year, are made good, by opening the trenches whence the banks themselves were at first raised, and facing them up afresh, with the mire those trenches contain. This being done, the brims of the banks are, in the poet's language, pioned and twilled.—Mr. Warton himself, in a note upon Comus, hath cited a passage in which pioners are explained to be diggers, [rather trenchers] and Mr. Steevens mentions Spenser and the author of Muleasses, as both using pioning for digging. TWILLED is obviously formed from the participle of the French verb touiller, which Cotgrave interprets filthily to mix or mingle; confound or shuffle together; bedirt; begrime; besmear:-significations, that join to confirm the explanation, here given. |