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BOATS. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; fet her two courses; off to fea again, lay her off.

Enter MARINERS wet.

MAR. All loft! to prayers, to prayers! all loft! [Exeunt. BOATS. What, muft our mouths be cold?

GON. The king and prince at prayers! let us affift them, For our cafe is as theirs.

SEB. I am out of patience.

ANT. We're merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.

This wide-chopp'd rascal ;-'Would, thou might'st lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

GON. He'll be hang'd yet;

Though every drop of water fwear against it,

And gape at wid'ft to glut him. [A confufed noife within.] Mercy on us!—We split, we split !-Farewell, my wife and children!-Farewell, brother!-We split, we split, we split

ANT. Let's all fink with the king.

SEB. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. [Exit.

GON. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea 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,

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 ftinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dafhes the fire out. O, I have fuffer'd

With those that I faw fuffer! a brave veffel,

Who had no doubt fome noble creatures in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor fouls! they perifh'd,
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have funk the fea within the earth, or e'er
It should the good fhip fo have swallow'd, and
The freighting fouls within her.

PRO. Be collected;

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

MIRA. O, woe the day!

PRO. 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 Profpero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

MIRA. More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

PRO. 'Tis time

I should inform thee further.

Lend thy hand,

[Lays down his mantle.

And pluck my magick garment from me.-So;

Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine
Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.

-

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
The very virtue of compaffion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So fafely order'd, that there is no foul-
No, not fo much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink. Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

MIRA. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootlefs inquifition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.-

PRO. The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Can'ft thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou can'ft; for then thou waft not
Out three
years old.

MIRA. Certainly, fir, 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 affurance
That my remembrance warrants: Had I not

Four or five women once, that 'tended me?

PRO. Thou had'ft, and more, Miranda: But how is it,
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abyfm of time?

If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here,'
How thou cam'ft here, thou may'ft.

MIRA. But that I do not.

PRO, Twelve years fince, Miranda, twelve years fince,

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

She said—thou waft my daughter; and thy father

Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess ;-no worse issued.

MIRA. O the heavens !

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did?

PRO. Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou fay'st, were we heav'd thence;
But bleffedly 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,

I

further. PRO. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should

Be fo perfidious!—he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my ftate; as, at that time,
Through all the figniories it was the first,
And Profpero the prime duke; being fo reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel; thofe being all my study,
The government I caft upon my brother,

And to my state grew ftranger, being transported,
And rapt in secret studies. Thy falfe uncle—
Doft thou attend me?

MIRA. Sir, moft heedfully,

PRO. Being once perfected how to grant fuits,

How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom

To trash for over-topping; new created

The creatures that were mine; I fay, or chang'd them, Or else new-form'd them: having both the key

Of officer and office, fet all hearts

To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was

The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,

And fuck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not: I pray thee, mark me.

MIRA. O good fir, I do.

PRO. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate
To clofenefs, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being fo retired,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my falfe brother
Awak'd an evil nature: and my truft,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falfhood, in its contrary as great

As my truft was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence fans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might elfe exact,-like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made fuch a finner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,-he did believe
He was the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative :-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Doft hear?

MIRA. Your tale, fir, 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
Abfolute Milan: Me, poor man!-my library
Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable: confederates
(So dry he was for fway) 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 moft ignoble ftooping.

MIRA. O the heavens !

PRO. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me, If this might be a brother.

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