And doubtless the scene which follows this soliloquy, in which Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano mistake one another in turn for evil spirits, fully flavoured with fun as it still remains, had far more point for the audiences at the Globe—to whom a stray devil or two was quite in the natural order of things under such circumstances—than it can possibly possess for us. In this play, Ariel, Prospero's familiar, besides appearing in his natural shape, and dividing into flames, and behaving in such a manner as to cause young Ferdinand to leap into the sea, crying, "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!" assumes the forms of a water-nymph,[5] a harpy,[6] and also the goddess Ceres;[7] while the strange shapes, masquers, and even the hounds that hunt and worry the would-be king and viceroys of the island, are Ariel's "meaner fellows."
[Footnote 1: For instance, an eye without a head.—Ibid.]
[Footnote 2: The Tempest, II. ii. 10.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. I. ii. 198.]
[Footnote 4: A Midsummer Night's Dream, II. i. 39; III. i. 111.]
[Footnote 5: I. ii. 301-318.]
[Footnote 6: III. iii. 53.]
[Footnote 7: IV. i. 166.]
52. Puck's favourite forms seem to have been more outlandish than Ariel's, as might have been expected of that malicious little spirit. He beguiles "the fat and bean-fed horse" by
"Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool[1] mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her, and down topples she."