GON. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, And that a strange one too, which did awake me: I shak'd you, sir, and cry'd; as mine eyes open'd, I saw their weapons drawn:-there was a noise, That's verity: 'Best stand upon our guard;2 Or that we quit this place: let's draw our weapons. ALON. Lead off this ground; and let's make further search

For my poor son.

GON.

Heavens keep him from these beasts! For he is, sure, i' the island.

ALON.

Lead away.

ARI. Prospero my lord shall know what I have

done:

Aside. So, king, go safely on to seek thy son. [Exeunt.

That's verity: 'Best stand upon our guard;] The old copy reads

"That's verily: 'Tis best we stand upon our guard." Mr. Pope very properly changed verily to verity: and as the verse would be too long by a foot, if the words 'tis and we were retained, I have discarded them in favour of an elliptical phrase which occurs in our ancient comedies, as well as in our author's Cymbeline, Act III. sc. iii:

""Best draw my i. e. it were best to draw it.

sword;"

STEEVENS.

Love Lab, no SCENE II.

Another part of the Island.

Enter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood.

A noise of thunder heard.

CAL. All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make

him

By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,
And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin shows, pitch me i' the mire,
Nor lead me, like a fire-brand, in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid them; but
For every trifle are they set upon me:

Sometime like apes, that moe3 and chatter at me,
And after, bite me; then like hedge-hogs, which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my foot-fall; sometime am I
All wound with adders," who, with cloven tongues,
Do hiss me into madness:-Lo! now! lo!

3

4

that moe &c.] i. e. make mouths. So, in the old version of the Psalms:

Again, in the Mystery of Candlemas-Day, 1512:

"And make them to lye and mowe like an ape."

Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book III:

66

Ape great thing gave, though he did mowing stand, "The instrument of instruments, the hand." STeevens. So, in Nashe's Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1593: "—found nobody at home but an ape, that sate in the porch and made mops and mows at him." MALone.

* Their pricks] i. e. prickles. STEEVENS.

5

wound with adders,] Enwrapped by adders wound or twisted about me. JOHNSON.

VOL. IV.

G

Enter TRINCULO.

Here comes a spirit of his; and to torment me,
For bringing wood in slowly: I'll fall flat;
Perchance, he will not mind me.

TRIN. Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond' same black cloud, yond' huge one, looks like a foul bumbard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder, as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond' same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of, not of the

6

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 bombards, when ye should do service." By these several passages, 'tis plain, the word meant a large vessel for holding drink, as well as the piece of ordnance 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, 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.

Again, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631:

"You are ascended up to what you are, from the black-jack to the bumbard distillation." STEEVENS.

Mr. Upton would read-a full bumbard. See a note on"I thank the Gods, I am foul," As you like it, Act III. sc. iii. MALONE.

newest, Poor-John. 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. Legg'd

8

7this fish painted,] To exhibit fishes, either real or imaginary, was very common about the time of our author. So, in Jasper Maine's comedy of the City Match:

"Enter Bright, &c. hanging out the picture of a strange fish.” This is the fifth fish now

"That he hath shewn thus."

It appears from the books at Stationers' Hall, that in 1604 was published, "A strange reporte of a monstrous fish, that appeared in the form of a woman from her waist upward, seene in the sea."

So likewise, in Churchyard's Prayse and Reporte of Maister Martyne Forboisher's Voyage to Meta Incognita, &c. bl. l. 12mo. 1578: "And marchyng backe, they found a straunge Fish dead, that had been caste from the sea on the shore, who had a boane in his head like an Unicorne, which they brought awaye and presented to our Prince, when thei came home."

8

STEEVENS.

make a man;] That is, make a man's fortune. So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: “ -we are all made men.”

9

Again, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

She's a wench

JOHNSON.

- a dead Indian.] In a subsequent speech of Stephano, we have: "-savages and men of Inde," in Love's Labour's Lost, a rude and savage man of Inde;" and in K. Henry VIII. the porter asks the mob, if they think "some strange Indian, &c. is come to court." Perhaps all these passages allude to the Indians brought home by Sir Martin Frobisher.

Queen Elizabeth's original instructions to him (MS. now before me)" concerning his voyage to Cathaia," &c. contain the following article:

"You shall not bring aboue iii or iiii persons of that countrey, the which shall be of diuers ages, and shall be taken in such sort as you may best avoyde offence of that people."

In the year 1577," A description of the portrayture and shape

like a man! and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion,' hold it no longer; this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunder-bolt. [Thunder.] Alas! the storm is come again: my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud, till the dregs of the storm be past.

3

2

of those strange kinde of people which the wurthie Mr. Martin Fourbosier brought into England in A°. 1576," was entered on the books of the Stationers' Company.

By Frobisher's First Voyage for the Discoverie of Cataya, bl. 1. 4to. 1578, the fate of the first savage taken by him is ascertained." Whereupon when he founde himself in captiuitie, for very choler and disdain he bit his tong in twaine within his mouth: notwithstanding, he died not thereof, but liued untill he came in Englande, and then he died of colde which he had taken STEEVENS.

at sea."

2

-Now

let loose my opinion, &c.] So, in Love's Labour's Lost : you will be my purgation, and let me loose."

STEEVENS.

his gaberdine;] A gaberdine is properly the coarse frock or outward garment of a peasant. Spanish Gaberdina. So, in Look about you, 1600:

"I'll conjure his gaberdine."

The gaberdine is still worn by the peasants in Sussex.

STEEVENS.

It here however means, I believe, a loose felt cloak. Minsheu in his DICT. 1617, calls it "a rough Irish mantle, or horseman's coat. Gaban, Span. and Fr.-Læna, i. e. vestis quæ super cætera vestimenta imponebatur." See also Cotgrave's Dicт. in v. gaban, and galleverdine. MALone.

3 a very ancient and fish like smell-misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.] One would almost think that Shakspeare had not been unacquainted with a passage in the fourth book of Homer's Odyssey, as translated by Chapman :

66

The sea-calves savour was

"So passing sowre (they still being bred at seas,)
"It much afflicted us: for who can please

"To lie by one of these same sea-bred whales ?""

STEEVENS.