Shakespeare borrowed this speech from Medea’s speech in Ovid, which he knew in the translation of Arthur Golding; and really Shakespeare seems almost to have held the book in his hand while penning Prospero’s speech. The following is from Golding’s translation, published in 1567: “Ye Ayres and windes; ye Elves of Hilles and Brooks, of Woods alone, Of standing Lakes and of the Night approach ye every chone. Through helpe of whom (the crooked banks much wondering at the thing) I have compelled streams to run clean backward to their spring. By charmes I make the calm seas rough, and make the rough Seas plaine. And cover all the Skie with Clouds and chase them thence again. By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the Viper’s jaw. And from the bowels of the Earth both stones and trees doe draw. Whole woods and Forestes I remove: I make the Mountains shake, And even the Earth it selfe to grone and fearfully to quake. I call up dead men from their graves: and thee O lightsome Moone I darken oft, though beaten brasse abate thy perill soone. Our Sorcerie dims the Morning faire, and darkes the Sun at Noone. The flaming breath of fierie Bulles ye quenched for my sake. And caused their unwieldie neck the bended yokes to take. Among the Earthbred brothers you a mortell war did set And brought a sleepe the Dragon fell whose eyes were never shut.” There is, and is to be, no end of this reappearance of old metaphor, old trade secret, old usage of art. No sooner has a masterpiece appeared, that summarizes all knowledge, than men get up eagerly the next morning with chisel and brush, and try again. Nothing done satisfies. It is all in the making that the inspiration lies; and this endeavor renews itself with the ages, and grows by devouring its own offspring. The technique of any art is the whole body of experimental knowledge through which the art speaks. The glazes of pottery become forgotten and have to be hit upon over again. The knack of Venetian glass, the principle of effect in tiles, in lettering, in the sonnet, in the fugue, in the tower,--all the prestidigitation of art that is too subtle to be named or thought of, must yet be acquired and kept up by practice, held to by constant experiment.