ACT I.

Miranda, daughter to Prospero.

Ariel, an airy spirit.

Iris,

Ceres,

Juno,

Nymphs,

Reapers,

spirits.

Other spirits attending on Prospero.

Scene, the sea, with a ship; afterwards an unhabited island.

Hate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he SCENE I-On a ship at sea. A storm, with be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

thunder and lightning. Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain.

Enter Mariners.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: take in the top-sail: tend to the master's whistle.-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand,
Gonzalo, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have a care. Where's the master? Play the men.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boastwain?
Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our la-
bour! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers 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 ele

Re-enter Boatswain.

[Exeunt.

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'cr, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, and as leaky as an unstaunched' wench.

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

ments to silence, and work the peace of the present,2 This wide-chapped rascal;-'Would, thou might'st

we will not hand a rope more; use your authority.

Gon.

lie drowning,

He'll be hanged yet; If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, The washing of ten tides! and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good Though every drop of water swear against it,' [Exit. And gape at wid'st to glut him. nearts.--Out of our way, I say. Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: me-[A confused noise within.] Mercy on us!-We thinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Farewell, brother!-We split, we split, we split.

(1) Readily.

(2) Present instant.

(3) Incontinent.

(4) Absolutely.

୫

Ant. Let's all sink with the king.

Mira.

Act 1.

"But that I do not.

Seb. Let's take leave of him. [Exit. In the dark backward and abysın3 of time! Gon. Now would I give a thousand Jurlongs of How thou cam'st here, thou may'st. Exit. If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here, sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing: the wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit. SCENE II.-The island: before the cell of Prospero. Enter Prospero and Miranda.

Mir. 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 cheek,
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'er1
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her.
Pro.
Be collected;
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira. Pro.

O, wo the day!

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.

More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.
Pro.

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
'Tis time
And pluck my magic garment from me.-So;
Lie there my art.-Wipe thou thine eyes; have
[Lays down his mantle.
comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art

So safely order'd, that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as a 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 further.

You have often

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

Pro.

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
The hour's now come;
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
Out? three years old.

Mira.
Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Certainly, sir, I can.
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira.
And rather like a dream than an assurance
'Tis far off;
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 '2) Quite. (3) Abyss.

'1) Before.

Pro. Twelve years since,
Miranda, twelve years since, thy father was
The duke of Milan, and a prince of power.
Mira. Sir, are not you my father.

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir
She said-thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Mira.
A princess;-no worse issued.
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
O, the heavens!
Or blessed was't we did?
Pro.

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

Mira.
To think o' the teen' that I have turn'd you to,
O, my heart bleeds
Which is from my remembrance! Please you furthe

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
Without a parallel; those being all my study,
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,
The government I cast upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported
And wrapt 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 to advance, and whom
To trash' for over-topping; new created
Or else new form'd them: having both the key
The creatures that were mine; I say or chang'
them,
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
Of officer and office, set all hearts
The ivy, which had my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend's

not:

I pray thee, mark me.
Mira.

O good sir, I do.
Pro. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedica.e
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so retir'd,
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
As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
A confidence sans bound.
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
He being thus lorded,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
But what my power might else exact,-like one,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
He was the duke; out of the substitution,
To credit his own lie,-he did believe
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost hear?

Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness
Pro. To have no screen between this part he
And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
play'd,
Absolute Milan: me, poor man!- my library

Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties From my own library, with volumes that
He thinks me now incapable: confederates I prize above my dukedom.
Mira.

(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.

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arriv'd; and here
Have I, thy school-master, Inade thee more profit

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then Than other princes can, that have more time
tell me,

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

Not a hair perish'd;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentle-But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me,

To act ner earthly 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 the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born,) not honoured with
A human shape.

I will discharge thee. Ari. 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 mine; invisible To every eye-ball else. Go, take this shape, pro-And hither come in't: hence, with diligence.