Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
Kathman refutation - The Oxford Authorship Site
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FALSE PARALLELS IN DAVID KATHMAN’S ‘DATING THE TEMPEST’ 30<br />
________________________________________________________________________<br />
<strong>The</strong> very virtue of compassion in thee,<br />
I have with such provision in mine art<br />
So safely ordered that there is no soul--<br />
No, not so much perdition as an hair<br />
Betid to any creature in the vessel. (1.2.26-31)<br />
By no stretch of the imagination can divine providence be equated with Prospero's<br />
magical powers. <strong>The</strong> idea that Shakespeare equated the mercy of God with Prospero's<br />
magic, and used the one as an inspiration for the other, is one of the silliest of David<br />
<strong>Kathman</strong>’s false parallels.<br />
David <strong>Kathman</strong>'s false parallel can thus be analyzed as follows:<br />
A ship and its passengers and crew are saved by magic.<br />
True for <strong>The</strong> Tempest.<br />
Not true for the Strachey letter.<br />
Ergo: a false parallel.<br />
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&<br />
(16) David <strong>Kathman</strong> writes:<br />
Jourdain tells how they "had time and leasure to save some good part of our goods and<br />
provision, which the water had not spoyled" (7-8);<br />
Gonzalo mentions how "our garments, being (as they were) drench'd in the sea, hold<br />
notwithstanding their freshness and glosses, being rather new dy'd than stain'd with salt<br />
water" (2.1.62-65).<br />
Here is a fuller quotation from Jourdain:<br />
And there neither did our ship sink, but more fortunately in so great a misfortune fell in<br />
between two rocks where she was fast lodged and locked for further budging, whereby we<br />
gained not only sufficient time with the present help of our boat and skiff safely to set and<br />
convey our men ashore (where were one hundred and fifty in number) but afterwards had<br />
time and leisure to save some good part of our goods and provision which the water had<br />
not spoiled, with all the tackling of the ship and much of the iron about her, which were<br />
necessaries not a little available for the building and furnishing of a new ship and<br />
pinnace which we made there for the transporting and carrying of us to Virginia.<br />
(Adams, pp. 7-8)<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is no parallel. In fact, the situations are exactly opposite. In the Jourdain account,<br />
goods and provisions which the sea-water had not spoiled, as well as tackling and iron<br />
© 2005 Nina Green All Rights Reserved<br />
http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/