help of your good hands: 10
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair, 15
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free. 20

Notes: Epilogue.

EPILOGUE ... PROSPERO.] advancing, Capell.]
1: _Now_] _Now, now_ F3 F4.
3: _now_] _and now_ Pope.
13: _Now_] _For now_ Pope.

NOTES.

NOTE I.

I. 1. 15. _What cares these roarers._ This grammatical inaccuracy, which
escaped correction in the later folios, probably came from Shakespeare's
pen. Similar cases occur frequently, especially when the verb precedes
its nominative. For example, _Tempest_, IV. 1. 262, 'Lies at my mercy
all mine enemies,' and _Measure for Measure_, II. 1. 22, 'What knows the
laws, &c.' We correct it in those passages where the occurrence of a
vulgarism would be likely to annoy the reader. In the mouth of a
Boatswain it can offend no one. We therefore leave it.

NOTE II.

I. 1. 57-59. _Mercy on us!--we split, &c._ It may be doubtful whether
the printer of the first folio intended these broken speeches to express
'a confused noise within.' Without question such was the author's
meaning. Rowe, however, and subsequent editors, printed them as part of
Gonzalo's speech. Capell was the first editor who gave the true
arrangement.

NOTE III.

I. 2. 173. _princesses._ See Mr Sidney Walker's _Shakespeare's
Versification_, p. 243 sqq. 'The plurals of substantives ending in _s_,
in certain instances, in _se_, _ss_, _ce_, and sometimes _ge_, ... are
found without the usual addition of _s_ or _es_, in pronunciation at
least, although in many instances the plural affix is added in printing,
where the metre shows that it is not to be pronounced.'

In this and other instances, we have thought it better to trust to the
ear of the reader for the rhythm than to introduce an innovation in
orthography which might perplex him as to the sense. The form
'princesses,' the use of which in Shakespeare's time was doubted by one
of our correspondents, is found in the _History of King Leir_.

Rowe's reading 'princes' might be defended on the ground that the
sentiment is general, and applicable