Points monologue (Act 32) — Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies

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?