ACT I.

fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he

SCENE I.-On a ship at sea. A storm, with be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. thunder and lightning.

and a Boatswain.

BOATSWAIN,

Enter a Ship-inaster

Master.

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good: speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit.

Enter Mariners.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: take in the top-sail: tend to the master's whistle.-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand,
Gonzalo, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have a care. Where's the master? Play the men.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boastwain?
Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our la-
bour! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not.

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

2

Re-enter Boatswain.

[Exeunt.

Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
[Exeunt.

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?
Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us
assist them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.

lie drowning,

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, This wide-chapped rascal ;-'Would, thou might'st we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, The washing of ten tides! and make yourself ready in your cabin for the misHe'll be hanged yet; chance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good Though every drop of water swear against it, hearts. Out of our way, I say. [Exit. And gape at wid'st to glut him.

Gon.

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: me- [A confused noise within.] Mercy on us!-We thinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Farewell, brother!-We split, we split, we split.

(1) Readily.

(2) Present instant.

(3) Incontinent.

(4) Absolutely.

Mira.

But that I do not.

Ant. Let's all sink with the king. [Erit. In the dark backward and abysm of time? Seb. Let's take leave of him. Exit. If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here, Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of How thou cam'st here, thou may'st. sca for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing: the wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit. SCENE II.-The island: before the cell of Prospero. Enter Prospero and Miranda.

Mir. If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them:
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer'd
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. 0, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er1
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her.
Pro.

Be collected;
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira. Pro.

O, wo the day!

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

More to know

'Tis time

Did never meddle with my thoughts.
Pro.

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.-So;
[Lays down his mantle.
Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have
comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compassion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as a hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

You have often

Mira.
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.—

Pro.

The hour's now come;
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not
Out2 three years old.

Mira.
Certainly, sir, I can.
Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Mira.
'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?

Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda: but how
is it,

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else (2) Quite. (3) Abyss.

(1) Before.

Pro. Twelve years since,
Miranda, twelve years since, thy father was
The duke of Milan, and a prince of power.
Mira. Sir, are not you my father.

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir
She said-thou wast my daughter; and thy father
A princess;-no worse issued.
Mira.

O, the heavens!

What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?
Pro.

Both, both, my girl.
By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;
But blessedly holp hither.

I

Mira.
O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen' that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you further.
Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,-
pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be so perfidious!-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
Without a parallel; those being all my study,
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,
The government I cast upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported,
And wrapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

I pray thee, mark me.
Mira.
O good sir, I do.
Pro. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so refir'd,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother,
Awak'd an evil nature: and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
But what my power might else exact,-like one,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie,-he did believe
He was the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost hear?

Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Pro. To have no screen between this part he
play'd,

And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan: me, poor man!-my library

Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties From my own library, with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
Mira.

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arriv'd; and here
Have I, thy school-master, made thee more profit

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then Than other princes can, that have more time

Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari.

Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentle-But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,

Ari.

Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes,' there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stowed;
Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd la-
bour,

I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,1
Bound sadly home for Naples;

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

Pro.
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time o' the day?
Ari.

Past the mid season. Pro. At least two glasses: the time 'twixt six and now,

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give
me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promis
Which is not yet perform'd ine.

Pro.

What is't thou canst demand?
Ari.

How now? moody?|

My liberty.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.
Ari.
I pray thee
Remember, I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst pro-

mise

I do not, sir..

Ari.
Pro. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou
forgot

The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age, and envy,
Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
Ari. No, sir.
Pro..

Thou hast: where was she born?
speak; tell me.
Ari. Sir, in Argier.3
Pro.

O, was she so? I must,
Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banished; for one thing she
did,

They would not take her life. Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought

with child,

And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant:
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate

As fast as mill-wheels strike: then was this island
(Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honoured with
A human shape.

Ari.

Yes; Caliban, her son.
Pro. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever angry bears: it was a torment
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,
When I arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape
The pine, and let thee out.
Ari.
I thank thee, master.
Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
Ari.
Pardon, master:
will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.

I

Pro.

Do so; and after two days

I will discharge thee.
Ari.
That's my noble master!
What shall I do? say what: what shall I do?
Pro. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea;
Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible
To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.

[Exit Ariel.

Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

Mira. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

Pro.

We'll visit Caliban, my
Yields us kind answer.

Mira.

Shake it off; come on; slave, who never

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,

I do not love to look on.
Pro.
We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood; and serves in offices
That profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban!
Thon earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [Within.] There's wood enough within.
Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business
for thee;
Come forth, thou tortoise! when?

Re-enter Ariel, like a water-nymph.
Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.
Ari.
My lord, it shall be done. [Erit.
Pro. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil
himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Enter Caliban.

Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,
(5) Do without.

(4) Commands.