Act I.
Sc. 1.
"Mercy on us!
We split, we split! farewell, my wife and children!
Farewell, my brother! we split, we split, we split!"
This is, beyond question, "the confused noise within," and not the exclamation of Gonzalo, of whose family we hear nothing. Speaking behind the scenes was not unusual.
"Long heath, brown furze."
As the epithets are here most inappropriate, we should probably transpose them, as I have done (see on iv. 1); for heath is brown, and "they were in a clump or cluster of tall furze," says Scott (Redgauntlet, ch. xvi.). We might also transpose the substantives (see on Twelfth Night, i. 2, and on M. N. D. ii. 1). Hanmer proposed to read "Ling, heath, broom, furze;" and this reading Mr. Dyce adopts; but ling was probably a word unknown to the poet, and it is only another name for heath.