Note 99:A — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The wreck of the Sea-Venture appears to have suggested to Shakespeare the groundwork for the plot of "The Tempest," several incidents and passages being evidently taken from the contemporary accounts of that disaster, as narrated by Jordan and the Council of the Virginia Company.
"Boatswain, down with the top-mast, yare Lower, lower; bring her to try with the main course."
Captain Smith, in his Sea-Grammar, published 1627, under the article how to handle a ship in a storm, says: "Let us lie as try with our main course—that is, to haul the tack aboard, the sheet close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboard." Again, the boatswain says: "Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses." The two courses are the mainsail and the foresail; and to lay a ship a-hold is to bring her to lie as near the wind as she can. These, and other nautical orders, are such as the brave old Somers probably gave when trying to keep the ship as upright as possible.
"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:—
"And for the rest of the fleet, Which I dispersed, they all have met again; And are upon the Mediterranean flote, Bound sadly home for Naples; Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked And his great person perish."
For nearly a year after the Sea-Venture's separation from the fleet, it was believed, in Virginia and in England, that she and her company were lost. Smith and Pocahontas may have suggested some materials for the characters of Ferdinand and Miranda.
Shakespeare, after abandoning the stage, in 1607 or 1608, about the time of the first landing at Jamestown, remained in London for some four or five years. Smith, and the early colonists of Virginia, had many of them probably witnessed the theatrical performances at the Globe or Black Fryars; Beggars' Bush, now Jordan's Point, an early plantation on the James River, derived its name from a comedy of Fletcher's. Shakespeare was, no doubt, quite familiar with the more remarkable incidents of the first settlement of the colony: the early voyages; the first discovery; the landing; Smith's rencontres with the Indians; his rescue by Pocahontas; the starving time, etc. Smith, indeed, as has been before mentioned, complained of his exploits and adventures having been misrepresented on the stage, in London. That Shakespeare makes few or no allusions to these incidents, is because they occurred after nearly all his plays had been composed. "The Tempest," however, was written several years after the landing at Jamestown, being one of his latest productions—a creation of his maturest intellect.