418-1 Ferdinand says, “Some sports are painful, and the delight we take in them offsets the labor.”
418-2 Baseness here means lowliness, rather than anything base or evil.
418-3 Prospero has set Ferdinand to carrying logs, a hard task and a lowly one, to test his love for Miranda, to find out how manly he really is.
419-4 The meaning of this line probably is that when he works the least he is really most wearied because he does not have Miranda’s sympathetic words to cheer him, or the sweet thought that he is working for her.
420-5 Put it to the foil, means put it on the defensive. Foil was a general name for swords.
420-6 Ferdinand thinks his father has been drowned, but wishes it were not so, even though he is thereby made King.
422-7 The flesh-fly is the blow-fly, which lays its eggs in meat and helps its decay.
422-8 Hollowly here means falsely.
422-9 We would now say, “Whatsoever else.”
422-10 Instead of to want, we would say from wanting.
423-11 Fellow here means equal.
423-12 Bondman may be read for bondage. He accepts her as willingly as a slave ever accepted freedom.
423-13 “A thousand thousand farewells.”
423-14 Prospero desires Ferdinand to love and marry Miranda and has planned for it, but he is surprised at the suddenness and strength of their love.
423-1 As in a naval battle one ship runs alongside another, and the sailors leap aboard.
424-2 Set means fixed and staring.
424-3 Standard may be read standard-bearer.
424-4 Trinculo means that Caliban is too drunk to stand.
424-5 Trinculo is always jesting, even at his own expense. He means he is so drunk he would pick a quarrel with a constable.
424-6 Debosh’d means debauched.
425-7 A natural is a fool or a simpleton.
425-8 Stephano means “You shall be hanged on the next tree.”
425-9 As Ariel is invisible, each thinks another has spoken.
425-10 “This thing“ is Caliban himself.
426-11 The court fools or jesters of that day wore clothes of many colors—were pied, that is, dappled.
426-12 Patch is another word referring to the parti-colored clothing of the jester.
426-13 The quick freshes are the running springs of fresh water.
426-14 Stock-fish is a word used in the writings of that period to mean some kind of a fixture, which men struck with their fists or with cudgels in practicing boxing and fighting.
427-15 Stephano speaks first to Caliban, then to Trinculo.
427-16 The weazand is the windpipe or throat.
427-17 Sot in this place means fool, not drunkard. Caliban thinks Prospero’s books are the source of his magic power over such spirits as Ariel and those he commands.
427-18 Brave here means beautiful or showy.
428-19 This speech of Ariel’s is made aside, that is, out of hearing of the three conspirators.
428-20 Troll the catch means sing the jolly song.
428-21 While-ere means awhile since.
428-22 “I will do anything reasonable,” says Stephano.
428-23 “What is this music I hear?”
428-24 A common sign in those times was called the picture of Nobody. It consisted of a head upon two legs, with arms.
429-25 Stephano probably means, “Take a blow from my fist,” and speaks to the invisible spirit or devil that he now thinks to be near them, because of Ariel’s curious interruptions.
429-26 Sometime is again used for sometimes.
430-1 By our lady! was a common exclamation. A diminutive form of this was by our ladykin which was contracted into by our lakin.
430-2 Forth-rights are straight lines.
430-3 Meanders are crooked lines.
430-4 Attach’d with means seized by.
430-5 Frustrate means defeated or baffled.
430-6 Throughly means the same as through. Sebastian means that the next time he will carry his purpose through.
431-7 A drollery was an amusing show of the Punch and Judy kind, where the characters were puppets. In a living drollery, the characters would be alive instead of puppets.
431-8 The phoenix was a fabled bird of antiquity which lived a hundred years and then died in flames, only to rise young and strong again from its ashes. There was but one such bird in the world, and somewhere in Arabia was a tree, different from any other in the world, in which the phœnix built its nest.
431-9 Certes means for a certainty.
432-10 Muse here means wonder at.
432-11 Probably Prospero alludes to an old saying which meant, “Do not praise your banquet too soon; wait till it is over.”
432-12 Among the strange shapes that danced about the banquet were deformed men from whose throats the flesh hung down in huge pockets, like goitres, and others whose heads grew from their breasts without neck and shoulders.
432-13 Sometimes in Shakespeare’s days they practiced a curious kind of insurance. If a man were going on a long journey, he put out in the hands of agents a sum of money, under the agreement that if he returned he was to have a certain number of times the money he put out. If the journey was perilous, the agreement might call for five times the sum; if a safer journey, perhaps twice the amount. If the traveler did not return, the agents kept the sum put out. Gonzalo uses the phrase “Each putter-out of one for five,” to mean each man who goes on a perilous journey. He means that every traveler returning vouches for, or gives good warrant for, the wonders he has seen.
433-14 Instead of That hath to instrument, we might read That has control of. The whole sentence means: “You are three sinful men whom Destiny, that rules this lower world and what is in it, has caused the never-surfeited sea to throw on shore; yes, and on this island which man does not inhabit; you who are among men the most unfit to live.”
433-15 Water closes immediately over any cut made in it.
434-16 Dowle means down, and the comparison means, as cut off a single thread of down from my plumes.
434-17 Requit means here revenged.
434-18 Whose refers to the word powers six lines before. The meaning of the remainder of Ariel’s speech is as follows: “Nothing but repentance and a clear life hereafter can guard you from the wrath that otherwise will fall upon your heads in this desolate isle.”
435-19 The meaning of the preceding clause is: “Thus with the skill of life and keen observance of the ways of men, my humbler servants have done their work, each according to his nature or kind.”
435-20 It refers to his sin against Prospero.
435-21 That is: “It sang my misdeed in a terrible bass.”
435-22 This clause means: “My son sleeps in the ooze on the bottom of the ocean.”
435-23 Mudded means buried in mud. Alonso threatens to drown himself.
436-24 There are said to be poisons which will not work until a long time after a person takes them.
436-25 For ecstasy, read fit of madness.
437-1 Vanity probably means fine display.
437-2 With a twink means in the twinkling of an eye.
437-3 Mop means chattering.
437-4 Mow means making faces. Mop and mow were words applied to such chattering and grinning as a monkey makes.
437-5 A corollary here means more than enough.
437-6 Pertly means alertly.
437-7 Iris was the fleet messenger of the Greek gods. She had beautiful golden wings, and as she flew across the heavens, she left the many-colored rainbow as her trail.
437-8 Ceres was the Greek goddess of the earth, who especially watched over the growth of grain and fruits. She it is who brings rich harvests, or when her attention is called away, permits drought to kill the vegetation.
438-9 Stover is fodder. A mead thatched with stover is a meadow covered with rich grass and hay.
438-10 The common marsh-marigold was called peony in some localities.
438-11 Reeds were called twills in some localities.
438-12 The frequent rains of April make the ground like a water-soaked sponge.
438-13 This passage means: “Thy banks with edges bordered with marsh-marigolds and reeds which rainy April trims to make cold crowns for chaste nymphs.”
438-14 Lass-lorn means forsaken by his lass.
438-15 The poles in a vineyard are clipt or embraced by the vines.
438-16 Juno was Queen of the sky and Iris was her special messenger.
438-17 Rainbow.
438-18 Peacocks were sacred to Juno and are represented as accompanying her.
438-19 Jupiter was the chief god of the ancient Greeks, and Juno was his wife.
440-20 Bosky means wooded.
440-21 Unshrubbed downs are tracts of land on which no bushes grow.
440-22 Venus was the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
440-23 Dis is another name for Pluto, who according to the Greek mythology ruled in the dismal lower world.
440-24 By the aid of Venus, Pluto stole Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres and Jupiter, and carried her away to be his queen in Hades.
440-25 Her blind boy is Cupid, the mischievous little god of love.
440-26 Paphos was a city in Cyprus, where Venus loved to live.
440-27 Juno’s walk was very stately and dignified.
440-28 Juno was a large, noble, motherly-looking woman, who is represented in art as attended by the nymphs and the hours, as well as by Iris. The goose and the cuckoo were as much Juno’s birds as the peacock. She was the protectress of young married people and infants, and so was worshipped especially by women.
441-29 Foison and plenty mean about the same thing. The phrase might be read, overflowing plenty, a great plenty.
441-30 This means, may a new spring come as soon as you have gathered the harvest of the old one. May there be no winter in your lives.
441-31 Ferdinand is still amazed, and inquires if they are really spirits that he sees.
442-32 So rare a wonder’d father means, so rarely wonderful a father.
442-33 Crisp means curled, alluding to the wavelets that the breezes make on the surface of the water.
442-34 The sicklemen are reapers called from the harvest fields to make merry.
443-35 Avoid means begone.
443-36 The thin fleecy clouds, highest in the sky, were called rack.
443-37 On is here used for of.
443-38 We would say rounded off or finished.
444-39 I thank ye is spoken to Ferdinand and Miranda, and is Prospero’s reply to their good wishes.
444-40 Meet with means oppose or counteract.
444-41 For breathing means because it breathed. In the next line, for kissing means because it kissed.
444-42 Unback’d means unridden.
444-43 Advanced means raised.
445-44 The pool was mantled, or covered over, with filth.
445-45 For that read so that or insomuch that.
445-46 Stale means bait. It was a term used by hunters for a bait that would lure birds.
445-47 Caliban.
445-48 Nurture can never stick on his nature: that is, he can never be improved by culture or education.
445-49 Cankers means rusts, or here, eats into itself.
445-50 It is not known whether line refers to a clothesline or to a line tree. Only Shakespeare himself could tell us to a certainty.
446-51 Play’d the Jack with us. “Led us astray as a Jack-o’-lantern might.”
446-52 To hoodwink this mischance means to make it forgotten or overlooked.
446-53 In Hudson’s Shakespeare this is explained as an allusion to the old ballad entitled “Take thy old Cloak about thee.” The following stanza is quoted:
“King Stephen was a worthy peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown:
He held them sixpence all too dear.
Therefore he called the tailor lown.”
447-54 A frippery was a shop where old clothes were sold. Trinculo has found the clothing Ariel hung upon the line.
447-55 Under the line. We can imagine that Stephano has pulled the leather jerkin or coat from the line. When he says under the line, he thinks of that as an expression sailors use when they are near the equinoctial line or equator, where the heat is intense, so strong as to take the hair or fur off the coat and make it a bald jerkin.
447-56 By line and level, that is, as architects build, by plumb line and level. Trinculo picks up the word line and makes a new pun on it.
448-57 A pass is a thrust; pate is head. Pass of pate is a thrust or sally of wit.
448-58 Lime is a sticky substance used to catch birds.
448-59 Barnacles here means barnacle-geese, a kind of geese supposed by the superstitious to be produced when certain barnacles or shell-fish fell into the sea water.
449-60 Pard is a contraction for leopard; cat-o’-mountain may be another name for wild-cat, though wild-cats are not spotted. Probably the term is loosely used to mean any spotted animal of the cat tribes.
450-1 Goes upright with his carriage means, goes erectly under his burden, that is, there is time enough to accomplish what Prospero wishes to do.
450-2 That is, “In the grove of line-trees which protects your cell from the weather.”
450-3 Till your release means till you release them.
451-4 In this place all has the sense of quite; relish means feel; passion has the sense of suffering. The meaning of the clause is, that feel suffering quite as sharply as they.
451-5 Neptune, the name of the god of the seas, is used for sea or ocean.
451-6 “Fairy rings” are green circles in the grass. They were supposed to be caused by fairies dancing in a circle, but are now known to be caused by mushrooms which grow in circles and which enrich the ground as they decay. Because it contained some peculiar quality which Shakespeare calls sourness, the sheep would not eat the grass of the rings.
452-7 Because mushrooms and toadstools spring up so quickly in the night, they were supposed to be the work of fairies.
452-8 The curfew rings at night, and the fairies rejoice to hear it, for it is the signal for them to begin their frolics.
452-9 The fairies are weak masters, that is, they can accomplish little if left to themselves, but under the direction of a human mind like Prospero’s they could work such wonders as he describes.
452-10 The oak was sacred to Jove (Jupiter), and lightning and thunder-bolts were his chief weapons.
452-11 The spurs are the long roots of the pines and cedars.
453-12 Boil’d is used for boiling or seething.
453-13 Sociable to means sympathizing with.
453-14 Fall fellowly drops means shed tears in sympathy.
453-15 Rising senses means clearing mental faculties.
453-16 Ignorant fumes that mantle alludes to the confusion that the charm has caused in their ideas. The whole passage means simply that they are recovering their senses.
453-17 This sentence means, I will reward thee to the utmost.
453-18 Remorse here means pity.
453-19 Nature here means brotherly love.
454-20 The reasonable shore means the shore of reason. As the tide rises to the shore of the sea, so their clearing thoughts fill their minds.
454-21 Discase me means remove my disguise.
454-22 As I was sometime Milan means as I was once, the Duke of Milan.
454-23 The meaning of the three lines preceding has been much disputed. No one knows exactly what the poet meant. Perhaps Ariel sings with this meaning: “When the owls cry and foretell the approach of winter, I fly on the back of a bat in a merry search for summer.”
456-24 Ariel uses this fanciful way of saying that he will go as fast as human thought.
456-25 Whêr is a contraction of whether.
456-26 Trifle here means phantom or spirit.
456-27 This clause means, if this be at all true.
456-28 My wrongs means the wrongs I have done.
456-29 He speaks to Gonzalo.
457-30 Taste some subtilties means feel some deceptions.
457-31 Justify you traitors means prove that you are traitors.
457-32 Woe here means sorry.
458-33 As late means as recent.
458-34 In this place admire means wonder.
458-35 Are natural breath means are the breath of a human being. The lords are still amazed; they cannot reason, they can scarcely believe their eyes or that the words they hear come from a living human being.
458-36 In this connection yet means now or for the present.
458-37 That is, it is a story to be told day after day.
459-38 Miranda playfully accuses Ferdinand of cheating in the game.
459-39 The exact meaning of wrangle has not been determined, and critics still disagree. However, what Miranda says is, “you might cheat me for a score of kingdoms and yet I would call it fair play.”
459-40 Alonzo means that if this sight of Ferdinand is one of the witcheries of the island, he will feel that he has lost his son a second time.
460-41 And this lady by becoming my wife makes him a second father to me.
462-42 That is, “all of us have found our senses, when no man was in possession of his own.”
462-43 See Act I—Scene I.
462-44 This sentence means, “Now you blasphemous man who swore so on board the ship that we could be saved, have you not an oath to swear on shore?”
463-45 Tricksy means clever.
463-46 Capering to eye her means dancing with joy at seeing her.
463-47 Moping here means bewildered.
463-48 Conduct of is used for conductor or leader of.
463-49 That is, “some wise man must make it clear to us.”
463-50 This sentence means “Do not trouble your mind by hammering away at the strangeness of these happenings.”
464-51 At pick’d leisure is at a chosen time when we have the opportunity.
464-52 Single I’ll resolve means I will explain singly.
464-53 Of every these happen’d accidents means how every one of these things happened.
464-54 Stephano is still a little drunk and his tongue uncertain in its speech. He means, Let us every man shift for himself.
464-55 Coragio is used for courage!
464-56 Trinculo means, “If my eyes do not deceive me.”
465-57 Without here means outside of or beyond.
465-58 Gilded is a word that was commonly applied to a man who was drunk.
465-59 Meat that is infested with maggots which have hatched from eggs laid by flies is said to be fly-blown. These will not lay their eggs in pickled meat. Trinculo says he has been so pickled, that is drunk, that the flies will not blow him.
465-60 Stephano is sore from his torments, but as the word sore also means harsh and severe, he makes a good pun in his speech.
466-61 Retire me means withdraw myself.
466-62 Prospero has accomplished his purpose; he has recovered his dukedom, has found a suitable husband for his daughter, and now feels that life has little in store for him. So every third thought will be in preparation for his death.
467-63 The Epilogue is a part spoken by one of the actors after the play is over, and is addressed to the audience. Here Prospero steps forward and speaks.
467-64 He has dismissed Ariel and laid aside all his magic arts.
467-65 The audience may hold him on the island or send him to Naples, for he is still under a spell.
467-66 He asks the audience to applaud, to clap their hands, for noise always breaks charms, and will release him from the enchantment so that he may return to his dukedom.