Saturday, January 07, 2012

Draft footnotes of the day: The Tempest & Cymbeline

Jane de Gay's excellent book led me to look again at Ariel's song in The Tempest. Earlier, I had heard 'those are pearls that were his eyes' more strongly through Eliot's quotation of it than through Shakespeare himself. Jane's work taught me to think differently and led me to a great dog footnote too. Enjoy.
61:18 Fear no more From Cymbeline. See EN 16:23. See also 46:26, 211:1. Jane deGay notes that Woolf’s earlier allusion to Ariel’s song from The Tempest (47:21) informs this allusion to Cymbeline: ‘Fear no more says the heart, committing its burden to the sea’ (61:18-19). Both songs are dirges sung for characters presumed dead who turn out to be alive (de Gay 89). See also EN:61:24. 
61:24 the dog barking See The Tempest: ‘Hark, hark! | burthen dispersedly, [within]. Bow-wow. | The watch-dogs bark! (1:2:381-383). This, from the first half of Ariel’s song, closely follows the combined allusion to Cymbeline and The Tempest above (61:18).

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