The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's maturest productions, and is commonly assigned to the year 1610 or 1611. It may have had its origin in the spur given to the imagination by the widespread interest in the newly discovered Bermudas, where in the year 1609 the vessel of Sir George Somers was wrecked. A romantic play, with elements of both tragedy and comedy, and an included masque (if that be Shakespeare's); and with characters ranging from a brutish monster through the lowest and highest ranks of men to a creature of the spirit world, it contains perhaps in itself the best epitome of its creator's varied powers.

ARIEL, an airy Spirit.

IRIS,

CERES,

JUNO,

presented by Spirits.

Nymphs,

Reapers,

Other Spirits attending on Prospero.

ACT I.
SCENE I.

On a ship at sea:

a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a SHIP-MASTER and a BOATSWAIN.

MAST.

Boatswain!

BOATS. Here, master: what cheer?

MAST. Good, speak to the mariners: fall we run ourselves aground: [Exit.

to 't, yarely, or
bestir, bestir.

BOATS.
ANT.

11

I pray now, keep below.
Where is the master, boatswain?
BOATS. Do you not hear him? You mar our
keep your cabins: you do assist the

GON. Nay, good, be patient.

19

BOATS. When the sea is. Hence! What carest these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not. GON. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

"The persons in this play," writes Edward Dowden, "while remaining real and living. are conceived in a more abstract way, more as types, than those in any other work of labour: Shakespeare. Prospero is the highest wisdom and moral attainment; Gonzalo is humorous storm. common-sense incarnated; all that is meanest and most despicable appears in the wretched conspirators; Miranda, whose name seems to suggest wonder, is almost an elemental being, framed in the purest and simplest type of womanhood, yet made substantial by contrast with Ariel, who is an unbodied joy, too much a creature of light and air to know human affection or human sorrow: Caliban (the name formed from cannibal) stands at the other extreme, with all the elements in him-appetites, intellect, even imagination-out of which man emerges into early civilization, but with a moral nature that is still gross and malignant. Over all presides Prospero like a providence. And the spirit of reconciliation, of forgiveness, harmonizing the contentions of men, appears in The Tempest in the same noble manner that it appears in The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, and Henry VIII."

"Nowhere," says Sidney Lee, "did Shakespeare give rein to his imagination with more imposing effect than in The Tempest. As in A Midsummer Night's Dream, magical or supernatural agencies are the mainsprings of the plot. But the tone is marked at all points by a solemnity and profundity of thought and sentiment which are lacking in the early comedy. In Prospero, the guiding providence of the romance, who resigns his magic power in the closing scene. traces have been sought of the lineaments of the dramatist himself, who in this play probably bade farewell to the enchanted work of his life."

[4 cry within.] A plague upon this howling! Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

they are louder than the weather or our office.

GON. The king and prince at prayers! let's have done nothing but in care of thee,

30

So safely ordered, that there is no soul,
No, not so much perdition as an 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 farther.

MIR.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,21
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

PROS.
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

40

Out22 three years old.
MIR.
Certainly, sir, I can.
PROS. By what? by any other house or
person?

Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

MIR.

Which is from25 my remembrance! Please you,
farther.

PROS. 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 loved, and to him put
The manage of my state; as at that time 70
Through all the signories26 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 trans-
ported

And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle—
Dost thou attend me?
MIR.

Sir, most heedfully.

PROS. Being once perfected how to grant
suits,

How to deny them, who to advance, and who 80
To trash27 for over-topping,28 new created
The creatures29 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

"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? PROS. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was how is it The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou And suck'd my verdure out else

50

attend 'st not.
MIR. O, good sir, I do.
PROS.

In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember 'st aught ere thou camest
here,

How thou camest here thou mayst.
MIR.
But that I do not.
PROS. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve
year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.
MIR.

Sir, are not you my father?
PROS. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy
father

Was Duke of Milan; and his only heir
A princess, no worse issued.23

on 't.30

Thou

90

I pray thee, mark me.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but32 my being so retired,
O'er-prized all popular rate,33 in my false

brother

Awaked 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 revenue35 yielded,
But what my power might else exact, like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,36 he did believe

25 out of

26 seignories, lordships
27 check (said of
hounds or it may
be a figure from
gardening to
"top," lop)

O, my heart bleeds

28 outrunning

To think o' the teen24 that I have turn'd you to,

29 followers, lords

30 out of it

31 seclusion
32 except

100

33 out-valued all popular esteem (was better than any popularity, except that it enforced seclusion)

34 without

35 Pronounce reren'ne.

He was indeed the duke; out o' the37 substitu- | My tale provokes that question. Dear, they tion,

MIR.

O the heavens!

durst not,

So dear the love my people bore me; nor set 141
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few,46 they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they
prepared

A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have 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, 150
Did us but loving wrong.
MIR.

Was I then to you!
PROS.

Alack, what trouble

O, a cherubin

Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

PROS. Mark his condition,39 and the event; 40 When I have deck'd47 the sea with drops full then tell me

If this might be a brother.

To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

PROS.
Now the condition. 120
This King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises+2
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently 43 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 purpose, did Antonio open

The gates of Milan; and, i' the dead of
darkness,
130
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self.

MIR.

Alack, for pity!

I, not remembering how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to 't.

PROS.
Hear a little further,
And then I'll bring thee to the present business
Which now's upon's; without the which, this
story

Were most impertinent.44
MIR.

That hour destroy us?
PROS.

37 in consequence of the
38 Duke of Milan. (So
Cleopatra is called
Egypt, etc.)

39 terms of confederation

40 outcome

Wherefore did they not

salt,
Under my burthen groan'd; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach,48 to bear up
Against what should ensue.
MIR.

161

How came we ashore?
PROS. By Providence divine.
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 loved my books, he furnish'd me
From mine own library with volumes that
prize above my dukedom.
MIR.

But ever see that man!

Would I might

171

PROS. Now I arise: [Resumes his mantle.
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arrived; and here
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
Than other princess '49 can, that have more time
For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.
MIR. Heavens thank you for 't!
And now,

I pray you, sir,
For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason
For raising this sea-storm?

PROS.
Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Well demanded, wench:45 | Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies

41 otherwise than
42 in return for
guarantees

43 at once
44 not pertinent

45 girl (with none

Brought to this shore; and by my prescience 180 the I find my zenith doth depend upon

of

the modern con-
temptuous sense)

A most auspicious star, whose influence

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes

Will ever after droop. Here cease more ques- In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle. tions:

221

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.
PROS.
Of the king's ship,
The mariners, say how thou hast disposed,
And all the rest o' the fleet.

ARI.

Safely in harbour Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once 190 Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'd Bermoothes,53 there she's hid:

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.50

230

The mariners all under hatches stow 'd;
Who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd
labour,

I have left asleep: and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,54
Bound sadly home for Naples;
Supposing that they saw

wreck 'd,

the king's ship

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide, And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinetly,51 200 Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the Exactly is perform'd: but there's more work. precursors What is the time o' the day? ARI.

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.
PROS.
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil52
Would not infect his reason?

And his great person perish.
PROS.

Ariel, thy charge

Past the mid season. PROS. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now 240

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 promised,
Which is not yet perform 'd me.

PROS.

What is 't thou canst demand?

How now moody?

ARI.
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit

210
the

vessel,

ARI.
My liberty.
PROS. Before the time be out? no more!
ARI.
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings.
served

Then all afire 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.'
PROS.

Why, that's my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
ARI.

Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise

To bate me a full year.

PROS.
Dost thou forget 250
From what a torment I did free thee?
ARI.

No.
PROS. Thou dost, and think'st it much to
tread the ooze

Close by, my master. Of the salt deep,
PROS. 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 badest