Hail, many-colour’d messenger, that ne’er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers;
And with each end of the blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres and my unshrubb’d down,
Rich scarf to my proud earth;-why hath thy queen
Summon’d me hither , to this short-grassed green?
-Ceres
The Tempest Act III, Scene i, Line 83
Somehow, the word here that jumps out at me the most is ‘bosky’. What’s bosky? Okay, MW online says it’s ‘having abundant trees or shrubs.’ Wow, that sounds right. I mean, the word sounds like that’s what it should be. Bosky! And that makes sense seeing that Ceres is the goddess of agriculture. She’s talking to Iris who’s the goddess of rainbows and the messenger of the gods (which you might have picked up from the first line).
I gave you this whole passage instead of just the one line because I thought it was full of language that was worth reading. Did you think so? I hope so. Hey, I just read it again and realized that she’s talking a lot about rainbows: ‘thy blue bow’ and ‘Rich scarf to my proud earth’ and ‘many colour’d messenger’. Well this is the scene where Prospero has conjures up a show for the kids, so what’s better than rainbows?
A Tennessee Rainbow
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