Pro.

The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee

Obey, and be attentive.

ope thine ear;

Can'st thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast-not Outб three years old.

Mira.

Certainly, sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person? Of any thing the image tell me, that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira.
"Tis far off;
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou had'st, and more, Miranda: But how is it,
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam❜st here,
How thou cam'st here, thou may'st.

Mira.

But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years

since,

Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

Mira.

Sir, are not you my father?

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and

She said-thou wast my daughter; and thy father

Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess;

Mira.

-no worse issued.

O, the heavens!

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or blessed was't we did?

6 Out is used for entirely, quite. Thus in Act iv: "And be a boy right out."

7 Abysm was the old mode of spelling abyss; from its French original abisme.

Pro.

Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;

But blessedly holp hither.

Mira.

O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.
Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio—
I pray thee, mark me,—that a brother should
Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel; those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger, being transported,
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mira.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom To trash 9 for overtopping; new created The creatures that were mine; I say, or chang'd them, Or else new form'd them: having both the key

8 Teen is grief, sorrow.

9 To trash means to check the pace or progress of any one. The term is said to be still in use among sportsmen in the North, and signifies to correct a dog for misbehaviour in pursuing the game; or overtopping or outrunning the rest of the pack. Trashes are clogs strapped round the neck of a dog to prevent his overspeed.

Todd has given four instances from Hammond's works of the word in this sense. Clog and trash"-" encumber and trash -" to trash or overslow "and" foreslowed and trashed."

There was another word of the same kind used in Falconry (from whence Shakspeare very frequently draws his similes); "Trassing is when a hawk raises aloft any fowl, and soaring with it, at length descends therewith to the ground.”—Dictionarium Rusticum, 1704.

Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not.
Mira. O good sir, I do.

Pro.

I pray thee, mark me. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retir'd, O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother. Awak'd an evil nature: and my trust,

Like a good parent 10, did beget of him

A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,—-like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,

Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie 11,

he did believe

Probably this term is used by Chapman in his address to the reader prefixed to his translation of Homer.

"That whosesoever muse dares use her wing,

When his muse flies she will be trass't by his,

And show as if a Bernacle should spring

Beneath an Eagle."

There is also a passage in the Bonduca of Beaumont and Fletcher, wherein Caratach says:

"I fled too,

But not so fast; your jewel had been lost then,
Young Hengo there, he trasht me, Nennius."

i. e. checked or stopped my flight.

I rather think it will be found that the Editors have been very precipitate in changing trace to trash in Othello, Act ii. Scene I. See note on that passage.

10 Alluding to the observation that a father above the common rate of men has generally a son below it. Heroum filii noxæ.

11 "Who having made his memory such a sinner to truth as to credit his own lie by telling of it."

He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost hear?

Mira.

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd
And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan: Me, poor man!-my library
Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable: confederates
(So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples,
To give him annual tribute, do him homage;
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend

The dukedom, yet unbow'd, (alas, poor Milan!)
To most ignoble stooping.

Mira.

O the heavens!

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me, If this might be a brother.

I should sin

Mira.
To think but 12 nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pro.

Now the condition.

This king of Naples, being an enemy

To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he in lieu 13 o' the premises,-

12 Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, has clearly shown that we use one word, But, in modern English, for two words Bŏt and Būt, originally (in the Anglo Saxon) very different in signification, though (by repeated abbreviation and corruption) approaching in sound. Bot is the imperative of the A. S. Botan to boot. Būt is the imperative of the A. S. Be-utan, to be out. By this means all the seemingly anomalous uses of But may be explained; I must however content myself with referring the reader to the Diversions of Purley, vol. i. p. 190. Merely remarking that BUT (as distinguished from Bot) and BE-OUT have exactly the same meaning, viz. in modern English, WITHOUT.

13 In lieu of the premises; that is, “in consideration of the

Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,—
Should presently extirpate me and mine

Out of the dukedom; and confer fair Milan,
With all the honours, on my brother: Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight

Fated to the

purpose,

did Antonio open

The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence

Me, and thy crying self.

Mira.

Alack, for pity!

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint 14,
That wrings mine eyes to't.

Hear a little further,

Pro. And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us; without the which, this story Were most impertinent.

Mira.

That hour destroy us?

Pro.

Wherefore did they not.

Well demanded, wench;

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not;

(So dear the love my people bore me) nor set

A mark so bloody on the business; but

With colours fairer painted their foul ends.

In few, they hurried us aboard a bark;

Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepar'd
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit 15 it; there they hoist us,

premises, &c." This seems to us a strange use of this French word, yet it was not then unusual.

"But takes their oaths in lieu of her assistance."

Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess.

14 Hint is here for cause or subject. Thus in a future passage we have:-" Our hint of woe."

15 Quit was commonly used for quitted.