Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (30 page)

PROSPERO

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.

MIRANDA

O the heavens!

PROSPERO

Mark his condition and the event; then tell me

If this might be a brother.

MIRANDA

I should sin

To think but nobly of my grandmother:

Good wombs have borne bad sons.

PROSPERO

Now the condition.

The 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.

MIRANDA

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.

PROSPERO

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.

MIRANDA

Wherefore did they not

That hour destroy us?

PROSPERO

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 had 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.

MIRANDA

Alack, what trouble

Was I then to you!

PROSPERO

O, a cherubim

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.

MIRANDA

How came we ashore?

PROSPERO

By Providence divine.

Some food we had and some fresh water that

A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

Out of his charity, 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.

MIRANDA

Would I might

But ever see that man!

PROSPERO

Now I arise:

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.

MIRANDA

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?