SCENE 2. Page 42. ARI. Those are pearls, that were his eyes. We had already had this image in King Richard the third, where Clarence, describing his dream, says: in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept MIRA. SCENE 2. Page 44. What is't, a spirit ? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, The incident of Miranda's surprise at the first sight of Ferdinand, and of her falling in love with him, might have been suggested by some lost translation of the 13th tale in the Cento novelle antiche, and which is in fact the subject of father Philip's geese, so admirably told by Boccaccio and Lafontaine. It seems to have been originally taken from the life of Saint Barlaam in The golden legend. ACT II. SCENE 1. Page 54. GON. How lush and lusty the grass looks! Lush, as Mr. Malone observes, has not yet been rightly interpreted. It is, after all, an old word synonymous with loose. In the Promptuarium parvulorum 1516, 4to, we find "lushe or slacke, laxus." The quotation from Golding, who renders turget by this word, confirms the foregoing definition, and demonstrates that as applied to grass, it means loose or swollen, thereby expressing the state of that vegetable when, the fibres being relaxed, it expands to its fullest growth. SCENE 2. Page 76. CAL. Sometime like apes, that moe and chatter at me Lie tumbling in my barefoot way Shakspeare, who seems to have been well acquainted with Bishop Harsnet's Declaration of Popish impostures, has here recollected that part of the work where the author, speaking of the supposed possession of young girls, says, "they make anticke faces, girn, mow and mop like an ape, tumble like a hedge-hogge, &c." Another reason for the introduction of urchins or hedge-hogs into this speech is, that on the first discovery of the Bermudas, which, as has been already stated, gave rise in part to this play, they were supposed to be "haunted as all men know with hogs and hobgoblings." See Dekkar's Strange horserace, &c. sign. f. 3. b. and Mr. Steevens's note in p. 28. SCENE 2. Page 77. TRIN. A strange fish! Were I in England now (as once I was) and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. This speech happily ridicules the mania that appears to have always existed among our countrymen for beholding strange sights, however trifling. A contemporary writer and professor of divinity has been no less severe. Speaking of the crocodile, he says, "Of late years there hath been brought into England, the cases or skinnes of such crocodiles to be seene, and much money given for the sight thereof; the policy of strangers laugh at our folly, either that we are too wealthy, or else that we know not how to bestow our money." Batman uppon Bartholome, fo. 359 b. SCENE 2. Page 82. STE. This mooncalf. The best account of this fabulous substance may be found in Drayton's poem with that title. SCENE 2. Page 83. STE. I was the man in the moon. This is a very old superstition founded, as Mr. Ritson has observed, on Numbers xv. 32. See Ancient songs, p. 34. So far the tradition is still preserved among nurses and schoolboys; but how the culprit came to be imprisoned in the moon, has not yet been accounted for. It should seem that he had not merely gathered sticks on the sabbath, but that he had stolen what he gathered, as appears from the following lines. in Chaucer's Testament of Creseid, where the poet, describing the moon, informs us that she had "On her brest a chorle painted ful even, Which for his theft might clime no ner the heven." We are to suppose that he was doomed to perpetual confinement in this planet, and precluded from every possibility of inhabiting the mansions of the just. With the Italians Cain appears to have been the offender, and he is alluded to in a very extraordinary manner by Dante in the twentieth canto of the Inferno, where the moon is described by the periphrasis Caino e le spine. One of the commentators on that poet says, that this alludes to the popular opinion of Cain loaded with the bundle of faggots, but how he procured them we are not informed. The Jews have some Talmudical story that Jacob is in the moon, and they believe that his face is visible. The natives of Ceylon, instead of a man, have placed a hare in the moon; and it is said to have got there in the following manner. Their great Deity Budha when a hermit on earth lost himself one day in a forest. After wandering about in great distress he met a hare, who thus addressed him: "It is in my power to extricate you from your difficulty; take the path on your right hand, and it will lead you out of the forest." "I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Hare," said Budha, "but I am unfortunately very poor and very hungry, and have nothing to offer you in reward for your kindness." "If you are hungry," returned the hare, "I am again at your service; make a fire, kill me, roast me, and eat me." Budha made the fire, and the hare instantly jumped into it. Budha now exerted his miraculous powers, snatched the animal from the flames, and threw him into the moon, where he has ever since remained. This is from the information of a learned and intelligent French gentleman recently arrived from Ceylon, who adds that the Cingalese would often request of him to permit them to look for the hare through his telescope, and exclaim in raptures, that they saw it. It is remarkable that the Chinese represent the moon by a rabbit pounding rice in a mortar. Their mythological moon Jut-ho is figured by a beautiful young woman with a double sphere behind her head, and a rabbit at her feet. The period of this animal's gestation is thirty days; may it not therefore typify the moon's revolution round the earth? SCENE 2. Page 86. CAL. Nor scrape-trenchering, nor wash-dish. Scraping trenchers was likewise a scholastic employment at college, if we may believe the illiterate parson in the pleasant comedy of Cornelianum dolium, where speaking of his haughty treatment of the poor scholars whom he had distanced in getting possession of a fat living, he says, "Illi inquam, qui ut mihi narrârunt, quadras adipe illitas deglubere sunt coacti, quamdiu inter academicas ulnas manent, dapsili more à me nutriti sunt, saginati imò &c." It was the office too of apprentices. In The life of a satirical puppy called Nim, 1657, 12mo, a citizen describes how long "he bore the water tankard, scrap't trenchers, and made clean shoes." ACT III. SCENE 1. Page 91. FER. This wooden slavery, than I would suffer. The old copy reads than to suffer, which, however ungrammatical, is justly maintained by Mr. Malone to be Shakspeare's language, and ought therefore to be restored. Mr. Steevens objects on the score of defective metre: but this is not the case; the metre, however rugged, is certainly perfect. SCENE 1. Page 92. MIRA. I am your wife, if you will marry me; If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow Mr. Malone has cited a very apposite passage from Catullus, but Shakspeare had probably on this occasion the pathetic old poem of The nut-brown maid in his recollection. SCENE 2. Page 94. STE. Thy eyes are almost set in thy head. TRIN. Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail. The curious reader may nevertheless be gratified with a ludicrous instance of eyes set in the tail, if he can procure a sight of the first cut in Caxton's edition of Æsop's fables. In the mean time he is referred to the genuine chap. xx. of Planudes's life of that fabulist, which is generally omitted in the modern editions. SCENE 2. Page 97. CAL. What a py'd ninny's this? thou scurvy patch! Dr. Johnson would transfer this speech to Stephano, on the ground that Caliban could know nothing of the costume of fools. This objection is fairly removed by Mr. Malone; besides which it may be remarked that at the end of the play Caliban specifically calls Trinculo a fool. The modern managers will perhaps be inclined for the future to dress this character in the proper habit. SCENE 2. Page 100. CAL. Will you troll the catch Troll is from the French trôler, to lead, draw, or drag, and |