SHAKESPEARE 127 



under the dastardly John, it is the Bastard who 

 exclaims : 



" Now powers from home and discontent at home 

 Meet in our land, and vast confusion waits, 

 As doth a raven on a sick-fallen beast, 

 The imminent decay of wrested pomp." 



Read, too, the imprecation which the misbegotten 

 Caliban 



" Abhorred slave, 



Which any print of goodness will not take, 



Being capable of all ill " 



hurls at the head of his master, Prospero, and 

 his lovely daughter, Miranda : 



" As wicked dew as ere my mother brushed 

 With raven's feather from unwholesome fen 

 Drop on you both ! A south-west blow on ye 

 And blister you all o'er ! 

 All the charms 

 Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you ! " 



A curious belief common among the Jews and 

 Arabs, and not unknown in the West as shown 

 by the Danish phrase " ravn-mudder " for a " bad 

 mother" that the raven is an unnatural parent 

 and leaves her young to starve in the nest, is 

 alluded to, on two occasions, by Shakespeare, and 

 an equally curious explanation is given of it. In 



