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The phrase comes from this speech from the Tempest:

Being once perfected how to grant suits,

How to deny them, who to advance and who

To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em,

Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state

To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was

The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

And suck'd my verdure out on't.

Prospero compares himself to a tree when he was Duke of Milan. His brother, the usurping Duke, had taken over all of Prospero's functions as Duke and eventually made himself the centre of the government. He compares his brother to ivy which can grow up the trunk of a tree and then take all of the sunlight the tree needs thus killing it. In this way the brother, using the legitimate title of the real Duke for support, took all of the authority which was due to him. The word "trunk" means a tree trunk. It is "princely" because the Duke was a monarch like a prince.

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13y ago

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