William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (557 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

Tags: #Drama, #Literary Criticism, #Shakespeare

BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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MIRANDA
Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!
PROSPERO
O,a cherubin
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have decked the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burden groaned; 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—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 furnished 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.

He stands and puts on his cloak

 
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 princes 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.
PROSPERO
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 dullness,
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
 
ARIEL
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 curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
PROSPERO
Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARIEL
To every article.
I boarded the King’s ship. Now on the beak,
Now in the waste, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement. Sometime 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 lightning, the precursors
O’th’ dreadful thunderclaps, 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.
PROSPERO
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
ARIEL
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
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 upstaring—then like reeds, not hair—
Was the first man that leaped; cried ‘Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here’.
PROSPERO
Why, that’s my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
ARIEL
Close by, my master.
PROSPERO
But are they, Ariel, safe?
ARIEL
Not a hair perished.
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before. And, as thou bad’st 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.
PROSPERO
Of the King’s ship,
The mariners, say how thou hast disposed,
And all the rest o’th’ fleet.
ARIEL
Safely in harbour
Is the King’s ship, in the deep nook where cnce
Thou called‘st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermudas, there she’s hid;
The mariners all under hatches stowed,
Who, with a charm joined to their suffered labour,
I have left asleep. And for the rest o’th’ fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean float
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the King’s ship wrecked,
And his great person perish.
PROSPERO
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is performed; but there’s more work.
What is the time o’th’ day?
ARIEL
Past the mid season.
PROSPERO
At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
ARIEL
Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised
Which is not yet performed me.
PROSPERO
How now? Moody?
What is’t thou canst demand?
ARIEL My liberty.
PROSPERO
Before the time be out? No more!
ARIEL
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise
To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO
Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
ARIEL
No.
PROSPERO
Thou dost, and think‘st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o’th’ earth
When it is baked with frost.
ARIEL
I do not, sir.
PROSPERO
Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
ARIEL
No, sir.
PROSPERO Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak, tell me!
ARIEL
Sir, in Algiers.
PROSPERO
O, was she so! I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget‘st. This damned witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Algiers
Thou know’st was banished. For one thing she did
They would not take her life. Is not this true?
ARIEL Ay, sir.
PROSPERO
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by th’ sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant;
And for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years, within which space she died
And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island—
Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born—not honoured with
A human shape.
ARIEL
Yes, Caliban her son.
PROSPERO
Dull thing, I say so: he, that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in. Thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax
Could not again undo. It was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.
ARIEL
I thank thee, master.
PROSPERO
If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters.
ARIEL
Pardon, master.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spriting gently.
PROSPERO Do so, and after two days
I will discharge thee.
ARIEL
That’s my noble master!
What shall I do? Say what, what shall I do?
PROSPERO
Go make thyself like to a nymph o’th’ sea. Be subject
To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,
And hither come in’t. Go; hence with diligence!
Exit Ariel
Awake, dear heart, awake! Thou hast slept well;
Awake.
MIRANDA
(awaking)
The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
PROSPERO
Shake it off. Come on;
We’ll visit Caliban my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.
MIRANDA ’Tis a villain, sir,
I do not love to look on.
PROSPERO
But as ’tis,
We cannot miss him. He does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us.—What ho! Slave, Caliban!
Thou earth, thou, speak!
CALIBAN
(within)
There’s wood enough within.
PROSPERO
Come forth, I say! There’s other business for thee.
Come, thou tortoise! When?
Enter Ariel, like a water-nymph
 
Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
He whispers
 
ARIEL
My lord, it shall be done. Exit
PROSPERO
Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!
Enter Caliban
 
CALIBAN
As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye,
And blister you all o’er!
PROSPERO
For this be sure tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins
Shall forth at vast of night, that they may work
All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made ’em.
CALIBAN
I must eat my dinner.
This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in’t, and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night; and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities o’th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile—
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you;
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king, and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’th’ island.
PROSPERO
Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used
thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
CALIBAN
O ho,O ho! Would’t had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
MIRANDA
Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take, Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee, Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes With words that made them known. But thy vile race, Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou Deservedly confined into this rock, Who hadst deserved more than a prison.

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