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Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Boats. Do you not hear him? you mar our labour

keep your cabins, you do assist the storm. Gonz. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence - what care these Roarers for the name of King? to cabin; filence; trouble us not.

Gonz. Good, yet remember whom thou haft aboard. Boats. None, that I more love than my self. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to filence, and work the peace o'the (1) present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have liv'd so long, and make your self ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts: out of our way, I say. [Exit.

Gonz. I have great comfort from this fellow; methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging; make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage: if he be not born to be hang'd, our cafe is miferable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the top-mast: yare, lower, lower; bring her to try with main-course. A plague upon this howling!

A cry within. Re-enter Sebastian, Anthonio, and Gonzalo. they are louder than the weather, or our office. Yet again? what do you here? shall we give o'er, and drown? have you a mind to fink?

Sebaf. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blafphemous, uncharitable dog.

Boats. Work you then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang; you whoreson, infolent, noifemaker; we are less afraid to be drown'd, than thou art.

(1) i. e. on the present, at this Inftant.

Gonz.

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With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel
(Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her)
Dafh'd all to pieces. O! the cry did knock
Against my very heart: poor fouls, they perish'd!
Had I been any God of Pow'r, I would
Have funk the fea within the earth; or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraighting fouls within her.

Pro. Be collected;

No more amazement; tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira. O wo the day!

Pro. No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

(Of thee my dear one, thee my daughter) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better (2)
Than Profpero, master of a full-poor cell, (3)

And thy no greater father.

Mira. More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro. 'Tis time,

I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magick garment from me: fo!

[Lays down his mantle.

Lye there my Art. Wipe thou thine eyes, have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch'd The very virtue of compaffion in thee,

I have with such provifion in mine art [4]

So

(2) I am more better.] This is the genuine Reading, which the last Editor has fophifticated; not observing, I suppose, how frequent it is with Shakespeare, and the other Writers of that Age, to add the Termination to Adjectives of the comparative and fuperlative Degrees, and at the same time prefix the Signs showing the Degrees,

(3) full poor Cell,] These two Adjectives without a Hyphen, and taking the first adverbially, make ftark Nonsense; but full-poor is what the Latines used to express by perpauper, perexiguus. The French likewise have a fimilar Form of Expreffion; fort-pauvre, fort-debile, fort-malade, &c.

(4) Provifion in mine Art.) This is the Reading of the 1st fol. Edition, which I have therefore restored. The word Compaffion took place

after

So fafely order'd, that there is no foyle, (5)
No not so much perdition as an hair,

Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st fink: fit

down.

For thou must now know farther.

Mira. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am, but stopt,
And left me to a bootless inquifition;
Concluding, Stay; not yet.

Pro. The hour's now come,

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time, before we came unto this cell?

I do not think, thou canst; for then thou wast not
Out three years old. (6)

Mira. Certainly, Sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?

Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept in thy remembrance.

Mira. 'Tis far off;

And rather like a dream, than an affurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four, or five, women once, that tended me?

afterwards, I presume, from the mistake of the Printers, who threw their Eyes twice inadvertently on the preceding Line, where this Word is, and so happen'd to fubstitute it.

(5) is no Foyle,] i. e. no Damage, Loss, Detriment. The two old Folio's read, - is no Soul: which will not agree in Grammar with the following Part of the Sentence. Mr. Rowe first substituted - no Soul loft, which does not much mend the Matter, taking the Context together. Foyle is a Word familiar with our Poet, and in some Degree synonomous to Perdition in the next Line. So in the Beginning of the third Act of this Play,

- but some Defect in her

Did quarrel with the noblest Grace she ow'd,
And put it to the foil.

i. e. abated, undid it.

(6) out three years old.) This is the old Reading: 'tis true, the Expreffion is obfolete, but it supply'd the Sense of, full out, out-right, or

right-out, as in the fourth Act of this Play;

Swears, he will shoot no more, but play with Sparrows,
And be a boy right-out.

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