"We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards." This was suggested to the poet by the recorded incident of part of the crew of the Sea-Venture having undertaken to drown their despair in drunkenness. "Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, brother! _Ant._ Let's all sink with the king. _Seb._ Let's take leave of him." These answer to the leave-taking of the Sea-Venture's crew. Jordan, in his narrative, says: "It is reported that this land of Bermudas, with the islands about it, are enchanted and kept by evil and wicked spirits," etc. Shakespeare accordingly employs Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban to personate this fabled enchantment of the island. Ariel's task is, at Prospero's bidding-- "To fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curled clouds." The tempest, in which the ship was wrecked, is thus described by Ariel:-- "I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometimes I'd divide, And burn in many places; on the top-mast, The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join; Jove's lightnings, the precursors O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not; the fire, and cracks Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seemed to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble." Again:-- "Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad and played Some tricks of desperation." The almost miraculous escape of all from the very jaws of impending death, is thus alluded to by Ariel in her report to Prospero:-- "Not a hair perished; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before: and as thou bad'st me, In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle." The particular circumstances of the wreck are given quite exactly in the familiar verses:-- "Safely in harbor Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she's hid." Bermoothes, the Spanish pronunciation of Bermudas, or Bermudez, the original name of the island, taken, as is said, from that of a Spanish captain wrecked there. Another real incident is referred to in the following verses, the time only being transposed:-- "The mariners all under hatches stowed; Whom, with a charm joined to their suffered labor, I have left asleep." The return of the other seven vessels of the fleet is described with a change, however, of the sea in which they sailed, and in their place of destination:--