PROSPERO By what? By any other house or person?
Of any thing the image, tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
MIRANDA ’Tis far off,
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?
PROSPERO Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou rememb’rest aught ere thou cam’st here,
How thou cam’st here thou mayst.
MIRANDA But that I do not. (1.2.42-52)
Rather embarrassingly, having written a book about Shakespeare and memory, I don’t think I’ve ever written about this passage before. It’s a brilliant evocation of how memory works, and in particular memories of early childhood. Prospero wonders what Miranda can remember from her life before the island, given that she wasn’t quite three when they came to it: can she remember living somewhere else? Can she remember anyone other than him? And he seems to assume that if she does remember anything, it’ll be an image – snap-shot is anachronistic – but that’s what he means, something fleeting and pictorial. Miranda’s description of her memory is instantly recognisable – it’s far off and rather like a dream than an assurance – she’s not sure that what she’s remembering is accurate, it’s so fleeting and indistinct. (It’s also far off, it will transpire, because it’s geographically as well as temporally distant.) And it is a child’s memory: Had I not four or five women once that tended me? She remembers being looked after by other people, a number of women (but how many, she’s not sure). Tended is non-specific, but if this is a single, snapshot memory, rather than a series of individually recalled waiting-women, then perhaps Miranda is remembering being dressed – which, for a noble child, could indeed be the simultaneous work of multiple attendants. The impression is of a small child looking up at a blur of faces. Children’s earliest memories are often pictorial, an image rather than a scene, and they are also very frequently emotional. Miranda remembers being looked after. It is a safe, if vague and puzzling memory. Prospero seems pleased, even startled, and here, for the first time, he names her: Miranda. A clever girl, to remember back so far: how has she done it? Can she remember anything else at all of what he terms, so resonantly, the dark backward and abysm of time? She can’t – just that glimpse.
The backward is particularly interesting: it seems to be a portion (of time) that has past, but here it’s also got a locative sense, I think, especially if it’s thought of as back-ward. A hospital ward is still familiar, but ward could be used to describe the parts of a castle or other building, especially the divisions of space by walls, and in particular the parts of a prison, or a prison as a whole. Dark backward and abysm is therefore, I think, more of a hendiadys than it might at first appear: both the backward and the abysm, the chasm, the abyss, the pit might be thought of as prison cells. (Canst thou remember a time before we came unto this cell? Yes, it’s a hermit’s or scholar’s cell too, but the prison sense is there, and ideas of freedom and imprisonment will be central to the play.) The term ‘oubliette’ for a tiny dungeon or cell in which a prisoner is quite literally forgotten (French: oublier, to forget) seems to date from the eighteenth century, but the concept certainly predates it; there was, and is, one at Warwick Castle. And in early modern iconography and proverbs, Truth is the daughter of Time, and she is often portrayed as being led out of a cave into the light by her father. That emblem underpins this moment too. Time as a prison; memory as a prison. Time, now, for truth.
