And Trinculo's subsequent jesting remark, which evidently refers to the accompaniment of a clown's morris dance: "I would I could see this tabourer; he lays it on." Compare also Alonso's lament (Act iii. sc. 3):
"Oh, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prospero: it did bass my trespass."
Shakespeare may have found the first suggestions of Caliban and Ariel in Greene's Friar Bacon. In the ninth scene of this play, two necromancers, Bungay and Vandermast, dispute as to which possess the greater power, the pyromantic (fire) spirits or the geomantic (earth) spirits. The fire spirits, says Bungay, are mere transparent shadows that float past us like heralds, while the spirits of earth are strong enough to burst rocks asunder. Vandermast maintains that earth spirits are dull, as befits their place of abode. They are coarse and earthly, less intelligent than other spirits, and thus it is they are at the service of jugglers, witches, and common sorcerers. But the fine spirits are mighty and swift, their power is far-reaching.
A more direct suggestion of Ariel's charming ways was probably found by Shakespeare at the close of the already mentioned Faithful Shepherdess, written by his young friend Fletcher. In it the satyr offers his services to the beautiful Corin in terms which recall Ariel's speech to Prospero (Act i. sc. 2):
"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality."
Fletcher's satyr makes the same offer:
"Tell me, sweetest,
What new service now is meetest
For a satyr? Shall I stray
In the middle air, and stay
The sailing rack, or nimbly take
Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night
For a beam to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea,
And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves that fall
In snowy fleeces?" &c.
But a much more striking example of Shakespeare's taste and talent for adaptation is presented by Prospero's farewell speech to the elves (Act v. sc. I), "Ye elves of hills, brooks," &c. Warburton was the first to draw attention to the fact that this speech, in which Shakespeare bids farewell to his art, and tells, through the medium of Prospero's marvellous eloquence, of all that he has accomplished, was founded upon the great incantation in Ovid's Metamorphoses (vii. 197-219), where, after the conquest of the golden fleece, Medea, at Jason's request, invokes the spirits of night to obtain the prolongation of his old father's life. A comparison of the text plainly proves Shakespeare's indebtedness to Golding's translation of the Latin work:
"Ye Ayres and Windes: ye Elites of Hillies, of Brooks, of Woods alone,
Of standing Lakes, and of the Night approche ye everyone
Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing)
I haue compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring.
By charmes I make the calme seas rough, and make the rough seas
playne,
And cover all the Skie with clouds and chase them thence againe.
By charmes I raise and lay the windes and burst the Viper's iaw,
And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw.
Whole woods and Forrests I remoouve: I make the Mountains shake,
And euen the earth it selfe to grone and fearefully to quake.
I call up dead men from their graues, and thee, O lightsome Moone,
I darken oft, though beaten brass abate thy perill soone.
Our Sorcerie dimmes the Morning faire, and darkes the Sun at Noone.
. . . . . . . . . .
Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortall warre did set
And brought asleepe the Dragon fell whose eyes were neuer shet."
The corresponding lines in The Tempest run: