POINTS. 1.  Explain the nautical terms.  ‘Master’s whistle.’  In Shakespeare’s time naval commanders wore great whistles of gold.  A modern boatswain’s badge is a silver whistle suspended to the neck by a lanyard.  Holt extols the excellence of Shakespeare’s sea-terms, but makes an exception of Gonzalo’s ‘cable,’ which he says is of no use unless the ship is at anchor, and here it is plainly sailing; to which Furness replies, Shakespeare anchors Gonzalo’s hopes on the boatswain’s ‘gallows complexion,’ and the cable of that anchor was the hangman’s rope. 2.  ‘Washing of ten tides.’  An allusion to the custom of hanging pirates at low-water mark. (See Notes I. i. 67 First Folio Edition). 3.  Compare this storm with that in ’Pericles,’—­’Do not assist the storm,’ etc., with ‘Per.’  III. i. 51-60. 4.  Explain ’To trash for over-topping,’ I. ii. 98, which is a blending of two metaphors.  Trash refers to the habit of hanging a weight round the neck of the fleetest of a pack of hounds, to keep him from getting ahead of the rest; and ‘overtopping’ to trees shooting up above the others in a grove, which have to be lopped to keep them even. 5.  What does Prospero mean by saying, ‘Now I arise’?  Simply, now I get up, and now my fortunes change? 6.  ‘Still vex’d Bermoothes.’  Bermudas, spelled in several ways in Shakespeare’s time, and called ‘still vex’d,’ from accounts of tempests prevailing there. 7.  ‘Argier.’  The name of Algiers till after the Restoration. 8.  ‘One thing she did.’  What?  Are we anywhere told what?

QUERIES FOR DISCUSSION

Does the long monologue of Prospero in this act detract from its dramatic force?  Did the arrangement of Shakespeare’s stage make this convenient. (See description of the threefold stage of the Globe Theatre in “Anthonie and Cleopatra,” pp. 172-173).  Is the monologue rightly disused in modern plays?  Why?  Compare Ibsen’s plays in this respect.

ACT II

THE COUNTERPLOT

Tell the story of Act II, showing how its main event is the conspiracy of Antonio and Sebastian against Alonzo and Gonzalo.  Is the issue left undecided long, so that it threatens the result?  How and why does Ariel prevent the success of it?  Might it not have been to Prospero’s advantage to have the King killed, since Ferdinand would then succeed to the throne of Naples?  Did Ariel’s intervention kill the plot?  What light is thrown on the characters by scene i. of this act?  Do you think it is intended to be shown that Gonzalo is prosy and tiresome, although good, or only that the lower and more frivolous characters find him so?  Which is the likelier, that Shakespeare intended the dialogue about Gonzalo’s ideal commonwealth to be a satire upon it, or favorable to Utopian schemes?  Which comes out the better at last in the wit-combat,—­the quick Antonio and Sebastian, or the thoughtful Gonzalo?  Is