[114] The passage of Plato, referred to in note p. 280, in its context, respecting the slave who, well dressed and washed, aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to the attack of Caliban on Prospero's cell, and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the "Tempest" as well as in the "Merchant of Venice"; referring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. Miranda ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are respectively the spirits of freedom and mechanical labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true governor, 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,"--etc. For all dreams of Shakespeare, as those of true and strong men must be, are "[Greek: phantasmata theia, kai skiai ton onton]," phantasms of God, 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 say fairy tales to us, all fondness and emptiness. The "Tempest" is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of true liberty, in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild tyranny; venting groans as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of states, fearful; 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"--(fenceless, and countless--changing with the sweep of the sea--"vaga arena." Compare Horace's opposition of the sea-sand to the dust of the grave: "numero carentis"--"exigui;" and again compare "animo rotundum percurrisse" with "put a girdle round the earth")--"and then take hands: court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,--the wild waves whist:" (mind it is "courtesia," not "curtsey") and read "quiet" for "whist" if you want the full sense. Then may you indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits bear the burden for you--with watch in the night, and call in early morning. The power of liberty 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-vex'd 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