Boats. None that I more love than myself.

PROSPERO.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

elements to silence, and work the peace of the

present, we shall not hand a rope more; use

your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts. Out of our way, I say. [Exit.

Mira. If by your art, my dearest father, you have

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks, he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the top-mast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main-course. 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'er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

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

blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drown

ed than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; tho' 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.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs

of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing: The wills above be

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 suffered
With those 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'er
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. O, woe the day!
Pro. No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

thee, my

(Of thee, 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. 'Tis time

I should inform thee further. 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 further.

Mira. You have often

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

Pro. The hour's now come:
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell ?

I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not Out three years old.

Mira. 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.

Mira. 'Tis far off;

That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou had'st, 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 aught, ere thou cam'st here,
How thou cam'st here, thou may'st.,

Mira. 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.

Mira. 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.

Mira. O, the heavens !

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
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, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner 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,-Dost hear?

Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd

And him he played it for, he needs will be

thence?

Or blessed was't, we did?

Pro. Both, both, my girl:

Was dukedom large enough; of temporal roy

alties

He thinks me now incapable: confederates

thence;

But blessedly 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, further.

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
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?

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

The creatures that were mine; I say, or chang'd them,

Or else new form'd them: having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts

To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't.-Thou at-
tend'st not:
I pray thee, mark me.

Mira. O, good sir, I do.

Pro. I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so retir'd,

To give him annual tribute, do him homage;
Subject his coronet to the crown, and bend
The dukedom, yet unbow'd, (alas! poor Milan !)
To most ignoble stooping.

Mira. O, the heavens!

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me,

If this might be a brother.

Mira. I should sin

To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pro. 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.

Mira. Alack, for pity!

I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint,
That wrings mine eyes.

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

Were most impertinent.

Mira. Wherefore did they not That hour destroy us?

Pro. Well demanded, wench;

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not;