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 creature 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 ere
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her.

Pros. Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.

Mir. O, woe the day!

Pros. 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.

Mir. More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pros. ’Tis time
I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.—So: [Lays down his mantle.
Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have 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 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,
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
Out 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. '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 how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember’st ought 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
And princess, no worse issued.

Mir. O the heavens!
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was’t we did?

Pros. 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 that I have turn’d you to.
Which is from 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,
Through all the signories 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 transported
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, whom to advance, and whom
To trash for over-topping, new created
The creatures 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
To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck’d my verdure out on’t. Thou attend’st not.

Mir. O, good sir, I do.

Pros. I pray thee, mark me.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retired,
O’er-prized all popular rate, 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 revenue 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, he did believe
He was indeed the duke; out o’ the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:—hence his ambition growing,—
Dost thou hear?

Mir. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

Pros. To have no screen between this part he play’d
And him he play’d it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan. Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable; confederates,
So dry he was for sway, wi’ 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.

Mir. O the heavens!

Pros. Mark his condition, and th’ event; then tell me
If this might be a brother.

Mir. I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pros. Now the condition.
This King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother’s suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o’ the premises,
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently 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,
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.

Mir. Wherefore did they not
That hour destroy us?

Pros. Well demanded, wench:
My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
So dear the love my people bore me; nor set
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, 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,
Did us but loving wrong.

Mir. Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!

Pros. O, a cherubin
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck’d the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burthen groan’d; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

Mir. 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
I prize above my dukedom.

Mir. Would I might
But ever see that man!

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 princesses 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,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions:
Thou art inclined to sleep; ’tis a good dulness,
And give it way: I know thou canst not choose. [Miranda sleeps.
Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come. [Enter Ariel.
Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
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.

Pros. Hast thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?

Ari. To every article.
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 distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove’s lightnings, the precursors
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 coil
Would not infect his reason?

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 the vessel,
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. Close by, my master.

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 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.

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
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex’d Bermoothes, there she’s hid:
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,
Bound sadly home for Naples;
Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wreck’d,
And his great person perish.

Pros. Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform’d: but there’s more work.
What is the time o’ the day?

Ari. Past the mid season.

Pros. 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 give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet perform’d me.

Pros. How now? moody?
What is’t thou canst demand?

Ari. My liberty.

— based on Project Gutenberg text
.

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