elves
“of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves—Ye,”
THE TEMPEST, v. 1. 33.
In this speech Shakespeare had an eye to that of Medea in Golding's translation of
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book vii.:
“
Ye ayres and windes, ye elues of hills, of brookes, of woods alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night, approache ye everychone.
Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at
the thing)
I haue compelled streames to run cleane backward to their
spring:
By charmes I make the calme seas rough, and make the rough
seas playne,
And couer all the skie with clouds, and chase them thence againe:
By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the vipers iaw,
And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw.
Whole woods and forrests I remooue, I make the mountaines
shake,
And euen the earth itselfe to grone and fearefully to quake.
I call up dead men from their graues, and thee, O lightsome
moone,
I darken oft, through [though] beaten brasse abate thy perill
soone.
Our sorcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darkes the sun at
noone.
The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my sake,
And caused their vnwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take.
Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortall warre did set,
And brought asleepe the dragon fell, whose eyes were neuer
shet.” Fol. 81, ed. 1603. To the preceding quotation in the Var. Shakespeare Boswell appends the remark, “It would be an injustice to our great poet, if the reader were not to take notice that Ovid has not supplied him with anything resembling the exquisite fairy imagery with which he has enriched this speech.”
Ye ayres and windes, ye elues of hills, of brookes, of woods alone,
Of standing lakes, and of the night, approache ye everychone.
Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at
the thing)
I haue compelled streames to run cleane backward to their
spring:
By charmes I make the calme seas rough, and make the rough
seas playne,
And couer all the skie with clouds, and chase them thence againe:
By charmes I raise and lay the windes, and burst the vipers iaw,
And from the bowels of the earth both stones and trees do draw.
Whole woods and forrests I remooue, I make the mountaines
shake,
And euen the earth itselfe to grone and fearefully to quake.
I call up dead men from their graues, and thee, O lightsome
moone,
I darken oft, through [though] beaten brasse abate thy perill
soone.
Our sorcerie dimmes the morning faire, and darkes the sun at
noone.
The flaming breath of fierie bulles ye quenched for my sake,
And caused their vnwieldy neckes the bended yoke to take.
Among the earth-bred brothers you a mortall warre did set,
And brought asleepe the dragon fell, whose eyes were neuer
shet.” Fol. 81, ed. 1603. To the preceding quotation in the Var. Shakespeare Boswell appends the remark, “It would be an injustice to our great poet, if the reader were not to take notice that Ovid has not supplied him with anything resembling the exquisite fairy imagery with which he has enriched this speech.”
