sed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you
wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are
respectively the spirits of faithful and imaginative labour, opposed to
rebellious, hurtful and slavish labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true
governor, is opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her name
"Swine-raven," indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the
line--

"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with _raven's feather_,"--&c.

For all these dreams of Shakespeare, as those of true and strong men
must be, are "[Greek: phantasmata theia, kai skiai ton onton]"--divine
phantasms, and shadows of things that are. We hardly tell our children,
willingly, a fable with no purport in it; yet we think God sends his
best messengers only to sing fairy tales to us, fond and empty. The
_Tempest_ is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where
paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of generous and free-hearted service,
in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild
tyranny: venting groans as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of
states, dreadful; so that "all but mariners plunge in the brine, and
quit the vessel, then all afire with _me_," yet having in itself the
will and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called
"Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands, and there, _take hands_,"
"courtesied when you have, and kissed, the wild waves whist:" (mind, it
is "cortesia," not "curtsey,") and read "quiet" for "whist," if you want
the full sense. Then you may indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits
bear the burden for you--with watch in the night, and call in early
morning. The _vis viva_ in elemental transformation follows--"Full
fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving
rest _after_ labour, it "fetches dew from the still vext Bermoothes,
and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves men asleep."
Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a harpy;
followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to
whom it is the picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their
false and mocking catch, "Thought is free;" but leads them into briers
and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon them. Minister of
fate against the great criminal, it joins itself with the "incensed seas
and shores "--the sword that layeth at it cannot hold, and may "with
bemocked-at stabs as soon kill the still-c