storm at sea, and it is possible that it may even have furnished
suggestions to Shakespeare for _The Tempest_. If so, it is interesting to
compare these with what they produced in Shakespeare's mind. Strachey tells
how "the sea swelled above the clouds and gave battle unto heaven." He
speaks of "an apparition of a little round light, like a faint star,
trembling and streaming along with a sparkling blaze, half the height upon
the main mast, and shooting sometimes from shroud to shroud." Ariel says to
Prospero:--

"I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: Sometimes I'ld divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join."

Strachey voices the current belief that the Bermudas were harassed by
tempests, devils, wicked spirits, and other fearful objects. Shakespeare
has Ferdinand with fewer words intensify Strachey's picture:--

"Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here."

The possibility that incidents arising out of Virginian colonization may
have turned Shakespeare's attention to "the still vex'd Bermoothes" and
given him suggestions for one of his great plays lends added interest to
Strachey's True Repertory. But, aside from Shakespeare, this has an
interest of its own. It has the Anglo-Saxon touch in depicting the wrath of
the sea, and it shows the character of the early American colonists who
braved a wrath like this.