The Plays of Shakespeare

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.

Pro.

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

'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

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?

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

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.
Mira.

But that I do not.
Pro. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.

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,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus loaded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,

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,

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, i̇' 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?

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. 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?

Ari.

Safely in harbour

Pro. 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'd 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, they all have met again,
you, sir,

And all upon the Mediterranean float,

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.

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.

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.

Pro.

Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness, I have us'd thee,

Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but would'st gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known; but thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could not abide to be with: therefore wast thou
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you, For learning me your language!

Pro.

Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou'rt best, To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice? If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps; Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar, That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

[Aside. As my soul prompts it.-Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee Within two days for this.

Fer. Most sure, the goddess [Seeing her. On whom these airs attend!-Vouchsafe, my prayer May know if you remain upon this island, [Kneels. And that you will some good instruction give, How I may bear me here: my prime request, Which I do last pronounce, is, Ŏ you wonder! If you be maid, or no?

Mira.

But, certainly a maid. Fer.

No wonder, sir;

My language! heavens!-[Rises. I am the best of them that speak this speech, Were I but where 'tis spoken.

Pro.

How! the best?

What wert thou, if the king of Naples heard thee? Fer. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me, And that he does I weep myself am Naples; Who with mine eyes, ne'er since at ebb, beheld The king, my father, wreck'd.

Mira. Alack, for mercy! Fer. Yes, faith, and all his lords; the duke of Milan, And his brave son, being twain.

Pro.
The duke of Milan,
And his more braver daughter, could control thee,
If now 'twere fit to do't.-[Aside.] At the first sight
They have chang'd eyes:-delicate Ariel,

I'll set thee free for this!—[To him.] A word, good sir;
I fear, you have done yourself some wrong: a word.
Mira. Why speaks my father so ungently? This
Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first
That e'er I sigh'd for. Pity move my father
To be inclin'd my way!

Fer.

And your affection not The queen of Naples.

Pro.

O! if a virgin,
gone forth, I'll make you

Soft, sir: one word more.

[Aside.] They are both in either's powers: but this

swift business

I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light.-[To him.] One word more : I
charge thee,

That thou attend me. Thou dost here usurp
The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself
Upon this island as a spy, to win it

From me, the lord on't.

Pro. Follow me.

[To FERD. And they to him are angels.

Speak not you for him; he's a traitor.-Come.
I'll manacle thy neck and feet together;
Sea-water shalt thou drink, thy food shall be
The fresh-brook muscles, wither'd roots, and husks
Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.

Mira.

So they are:

My affections Are then most humble: I have no ambition To see a goodlier man. Pro. Come on; obey: [To FERD. Thy nerves are in their infancy again, And have no vigour in them. Fer. My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats, To whom I am subdued, are but light to me, Might I but through my prison once a day Behold this maid: all corners else o' th' earth Let liberty make use of; space enough Have I in such a prison. Pro.

It works. Come on.Thou hast done well, fine Ariel !-Follow me.[To FERD. and MIR. [To ARIEL. Be of comfort.

Hark, what thou else shalt do me.
Mira.

My father's of a better nature, sir,
Than he appears by speech: this is unwonted,
Which now came from him.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-Another part of the Island. Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and Others.

Gon. Beseech you, sir, be merry: you have cause

(So have we all) of joy, for our escape

Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
Is common: every day, some sailor's wife,
The master of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,
I mean our preservation, few in millions

Can speak like us: then, wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.

Adr. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.

Ant. Temperance was a delicate wench.

Seb. Ay, and a subtle, as he most learnedly delivered. Adr. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. Seb. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

Ant. Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.

Gon. Here is every thing advantageous to life.
Ant. True; save means to live.

Seb. Of that there's none, or little.

Gon. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green! Ant. The ground, indeed, is tawny.

Seb. With an eye of green in't.

Ant. He misses not much.

Seb. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. Gon. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit

Seb. As many vouch'd rarities are.

Gon. That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness, and glosses; being rather new dyed, than stain'd with salt water.

Ant. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say, he lies?

Seb. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
Gon. Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as

« Previous Continue »

Books

The Plays of Shakespeare: The Text Regulated by the Old Copies, and by the ...