hips is drawn from Eden's translation of
Magellan's 'Voyage to the South Pole' (in the 'Historie of Travell,'
1577), where the giants of Patagonia are described as worshipping a
'great devil they call Setebos.' No source for the complete plot has
been discovered, but the German writer, Jacob Ayrer, who died in 1605,
dramatised a somewhat similar story in 'Die schone Sidea,' where the
adventures of Prospero, Ferdinand, Ariel, and Miranda are roughly
anticipated. {253a} English actors were performing at Nuremberg, where
Ayrer lived, in 1604 and 1606, and may have brought reports of the piece
to Shakespeare. Or perhaps both English and German plays had a common
origin in some novel that has not yet been traced. Gonzalo's description
of an ideal commonwealth (II. i. 147 seq.) is derived from Florio's
translation of Montaigne's essays (1603), while into Prospero's great
speech renouncing his practice of magical art (V. i. 33-57) Shakespeare
wrought reminiscences of Golding's translation of Medea's invocation in
Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (vii. 197-206). {253b} Golding's rendering of
Ovid had been one of Shakespeare's best-loved books in youth.

A highly ingenious theory, first suggested by Tieck, represents 'The
Tempest' (which, excepting the 'The Comedy of Errors,' is the shortest of
Shakespeare's plays) as a masque written to celebrate the marriage of
Princess Elizabeth (like Miranda, an island-princess) with the Elector
Frederick. This marriage took place on February 14, 1612-13, and 'The
Tempest' formed one of a series of nineteen plays which were performed at
the nuptial festivities in May 1613. But none of the other plays
produced seem to have been new; they were all apparently chosen because
they were established favourites at Court and on the public stage, and
neither in subject-matter nor language bore obviously specific relation
to the joyous occasion. But 1613 is, in fact, on more substantial ground
far too late a date to which to assign the composition of 'The Tempest.'
According to information which was accessible to Malone, the play had 'a
being and a name' in the autumn of 1611, and was no doubt written some
months before. {254} The plot, which revolves about the forcible
expulsion of a ruler from his dominions, and his daughter's wooing by the
son of the usurper's chief ally, is, moreover, hardly one that a shrewd
playwright would deliberately choose as the setting of an official
epithalamium in honour of