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A tempestuous noise of Thunder and Lightning heard. Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain, as on shipboard, shaking off wet.

Master. Boatswain!

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 topsail; tend to the master's whistle.- Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GON-
ZALO, and Others, from the Cabin.
Alon. Good boatswain, have a care.
master? Play the men.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Where's the

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

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

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard. 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, we will tot hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.—Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say. [Exit. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the top-mast: yare; lower, lower. Bring her to try with main-course. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO. Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Seb. A poxo' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art. Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold. Set her two courses : off to sea again; lay her off.

Enter Mariners, wet.
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 drunk-
ards.-

This wide-chapp'd rascal,-would, thou might'st lie
drowning,
The washing of ten tides!

Gon.
He'll be hanged yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'st to glut him. [4 confused noise
within.] Mercy on us!-
We split, we split !-Farewell, my wife and children !—
Farewell, brother!-We split, we split, we split !—
Ant. Let's all sink with the king.
[Exit.
Seb. Let's take leave of him.
[Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain [Exeunt. die a dry death. [Exit.

B

SCENE II. The Island: before the cell of PROSPERO.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mira. 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 heat,
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. O! 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'er
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraughting souls within her.

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'Tis time

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro.

I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.-So:

[Lays down his robe.
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 prevision in mine art

So safely order'd, that there is no soul

No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

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

Mira.

O! my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.
Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,—

I 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
In dignity) and, for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel: those being all my study,

The government I cast upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mira.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, whom t'advance, and whom
To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd them,
Or else new form'd them; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not.
Mira. O good sir! I do.
Pro.

I pray thee, mark me.
I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit To closeness, and the bettering of my mind

down;

For thou must now know farther.

Mira.

You have often

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

Pro.

With that, which but by being so retired
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,

The hour's now come, A confidence sans bound. He being thus loaded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,

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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
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here,
How thou cam'st here, thou may'st.

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But what my power might else exact,—like one,
Who having to untruth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie, -he did believe

He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution,
And executing th' outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative :-hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost thou 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
He thinks me now incapable; confederates
(So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples,
To give him annual tribute, do him homage,
Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
The dukedom, yet unbow'd, (alas, poor Milan!)
To most ignoble stooping.

Mira.
O the heavens !
Pro. Mark his condition, and th' event; then tell me,

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Pro.

Now the condition. This king of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Which was, that he in lieu o' the premises,Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,Should presently extirpate me and mine Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan, With all the honours, on my brother: whereon, A treacherous army levied, one midnight, Fated to the practise, did Antonio open The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of darkness, The ministers for the purpose hurried thence Me, and thy crying self. Mira.

Alack, for pity!

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then, Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint,

That wrings mine eyes to 't.

Pro.

Hear a little farther, And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon's; without the which this story Were most impertinent. Mira.

That hour destroy us? Pro.

Wherefore did they not

Well demanded, wench:

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
So dear the love my people bore me, nor set
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,

Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepar'd
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

Mira.

Was I then to you! Pro.

Alack! what trouble

O! a cherubim

Thou wast, that did preserve me.
Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

Mira.

Pro. By Providence divine.

How came we ashore?

Some food we had, and some fresh water, that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

Out of his charity, (who being then appointed.
Master of this design) did give us; with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much so, of his gentleness,
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,
From my own library, with volumes that

I prize above my dukedom.

Mira.

But ever see that man!

Pro.

Would I might

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Hast thou, spirit,
Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ari. To every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursors
O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not: the fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pro.
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?

Ari.
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
Some tricks of desperation. All, but mariners,
Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair)
Was the first man that leap'd; cried, "Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here."

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

Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle.
The king's son have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Pro.
Of the king's ship
The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o' the fleet?

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Now I arise:- [Puts on his robe again. Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.

Here in this island we arriv'd; and here

Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
Than other princes can, that have more time
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.

Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'à Bermoothes, there she's hid: The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm joined to their suffer'd labour, I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet

Mira. Heavens thank you for 't! And now, I pray Which I dispers'd, you, sir,

they all have met again, And all upon the Mediterranean float,

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Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much, to tread the ooze Yields us kind answer. Of the salt deep,

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,

To do me business in the veins o' th' earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

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speak; tell me.

Ari. Sir, in Argier.

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 banish'd: for one thing she did,
They would not take her life. Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-eyed 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

To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,

And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island
(Save for a son that she did litter here,

A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honour'd with
A human shape.

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Mira.

"Tis a villain, sir,

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

Cal. [Within.] There's wood enough within.
Pro. Come forth, I say: there's other business for thee.
Come, 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. [Exit.
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,
And blister you all o'er!

Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.

Cal. I must eat my dinner. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st here first, Thou strok'dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st

give me

Water with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,

The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fertile.
Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you;
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me,
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' th' island.

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