[Fer. my prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
If you be maid, or no?
Mira. No wonder, Sir;
But, certainly, a maid.]
[Nothing could be more prettily imagined to illustrate the singularity of her character, than this pleasant mistake. W.] Dr. Warburton has here found a beauty, which I think the author never intended. Ferdinand asks her not whether she was a created being, a question which, if he meant it, he has ill expressed, but whether she was unmarried; for after the dialogue which Prospero's interruption produces, he goes on pursuing his former question.
O, if a virgin, I'll make you queen of Naples.
I.ii.439 (32,5) [controul thee] Confute thee, unanswerably contradict thee.
I.ii.471 (33,7) [come from thy ward] Desist from any hope of awing me by that posture of defence.
II.i.3 (36,1) [our hint of woe] Hint is that which recals to the memory. The cause that fills our minds with grief is common. Dr. Warburton reads stint of woe.
II.i.11 (36,3) [Ant. The visitor will not give him o'er so] Why Dr. Warburton should change visitor to 'vizer for adviser, I cannot discover. Gonzalo gives not only advice, but comfort, and is therefore properly called The Visitor, like others who visit the sick or distressed to give them consolation. In some of the Protestant churches there is a kind of officers termed consolators for the sick.
II.i.78 (38,6) [Widow Dido!] The name of a widow brings to their minds their own shipwreck, which they consider as having made many widows in Naples.
II.i.132 (39,7)
[Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business' making,
Than we bring men to comfort them]