Ant. Where is the master, Boatswain? Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour; 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 elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks 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.

you

have

[Exit.

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 ad

vantage! 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. [4 cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GoN

ZALO.

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

Mira. Pro.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

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.

(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.

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

coinfort.

A

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 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 car; 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; And rather like a dream than an assurance, That my remembrance warrants: Had I not Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou had'st, and more, Miranda: But

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 attend'st not: pray thee, mark me. Mira.

O good sir, I do.

Pro. I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedi

cate

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
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 exccuting the outward face of royalty,

He thinks me now incapable: confederates
(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.
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 Ininisters 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.

That hour destroy us? Pro.

Wherefore did they not

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 pre-
par'd

A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: ere 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.

Mira. Was I then to you!

Pro.

Alack! what trouble

Q! a cherubim

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.
Mira.

cracks

Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,

Yea, his dread trident shake.
Pro.

My brave spirit!

Pro. 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 gen-
tleness,

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
From my own library with volumes, that
I prize above my dukedom,

Mira.

But ever see that man!

'Would I might

Now I arise:

Pro. Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow, Here in this island we arriv'd; and here Have I, thy school-master, made thee more profit Than other princes can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful. Mira. 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? Pro. Know thus far forth.— By accident most strange, bountiful fortune, Now my dear lady, hath mine enemics 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 can'st not choose.[Miranda sleeps. Come away, servant, come: I am ready now; Approach, my Aricl; 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.

Pro,
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 flam'd amazement; Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join: Jove's lightnings, the pre-

cursors

Close by, my master.

Pro. 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 bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd 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.
Pro.
Of the king's ship,
The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd,
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;
Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd la-
bour,

I have left asleep: and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers'd, 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.

Pro.
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time of the day!

Ari.
Past the mid season.
Pro. 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 reniember thee what thou hast promis'd,
Which is not yet perform'd me.
How now? moody!
What is't thou canʼst demand?

Pro.

Ari.
My liberty,
Pro. Before the time be out? no more.
Ari.
I pray thee