And pluck my magic garment from me.-So; [lays down his mantle. Lie there my art.-Wipe thou tline eyes; have comfort. The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd I have with such provision in mine art Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. For thou must now know further. Mir. You have often Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd Pro. The hour's now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear: I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not Mir. 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. "Tis far off; 1 The essence, the most efficacious part. And rather like a dream, than an assurance 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 abysm1 of time? If thou remember'st aught, ere thou camest here, Mir. But that I do not. Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and A prince of power. Mir. Sir, are not you my father? Pro. 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. Mir. 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 heaved thence, But blessedly holp hither. Mir. O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen 2 that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further. . Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd An- I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should 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, And to my state grew stranger, being transported, Mir. Sir, most heedfully. Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom To trash 1 for over-topping; new created The creatures that were mine; I say, or changed them, Or else new form'd them: having both the key And suck'd my verdure out on 't.-Thou attend'st To closeness, and the bettering of my mind A falsehood, in its contrary as great As my trust was, which had, indeed, no limit, To credit his own lie,-he did believe He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,2 With all prerogative :-Hence his ambition Mir. 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 Without. 2 From being the substitute. Mir. O the heavens ! Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me, If this might be a brother. Mir. I should sin To think but1 nobly of my grandmother : Pro. Now the condition. This king of Naples, being an enemy To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit; Out of the dukedom; and confer fair Milan, The gates of Milan; and, i̇' the dead of darkness, Mir. Will Alack, for pity! I, not remembering how I cried out then, Pro. Hear a little further, And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us; without the which, this story 1 Otherwise than. 2 In consideration of the foregoing. 3 Suggestion. 4 Squeezes the water out of them. |