Pro.

My brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil 1
Would not infect his reason?

But felt a fever of the mad,2 and play'd

Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners, Plunged 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.'

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed 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.3

Pro.

Of the king's ship,

The mariners, say, how thou hast disposed,

And all the rest o' the fleet?

Bustle, tumult.

2 Not a soul but felt such a fever as madmen feel, when the frantic fit is on them.

• Folded.

Ari.

Safely in harbor

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,1 there she's hid
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labor,
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,

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

me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro.

give

How now ? moody?

My liberty.

What is 't thou canst demand?

Ari.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.

I pray thee

Ari.
Remember, I have done thee worthy service:

Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served Without or grudge, or grumblings: thou didst promise

Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread

the ooze

Of the salt deep;

To run upon the sharp wind of the north;

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

Ari.

I do not, sir.

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?

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?

Algiers.

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,1 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 she died,
space
And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy

groans,

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 honor'd 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 arrived, 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.

I will be correspondent to command,

And do my sprighting1 gently.

Pro.

I will discharge thee.

Ari.

Pardon, master:

Do so; and after two days

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 thine and mine; invisible

To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in 't; go, hence, with diligence.

[Exit Ariel. Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well; Awake!

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

Pro.

Shake it off: Come on;

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Mir.

'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