Complete Plays, The (48 page)

A
CT
I

S
CENE
I. O
N
A
SHIP
AT
SEA
:
A
TEMPESTUOUS
NOISE

S
CENE
II. T
HE
ISLAND
. B
EFORE
P
ROSPERO
’
S
CELL
.

A
CT
II

S
CENE
I. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

S
CENE
II. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

A
CT
III

S
CENE
I. B
EFORE
P
ROSPERO
’
S
C
ELL
.

S
CENE
II. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

S
CENE
III. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. B
EFORE
P
ROSPERO
’
S
CELL
.

A
CT
V

S
CENE
I. B
EFORE
P
ROSPERO
’
S
CELL
.

E
PILOGUE

C
HARACTERS
OF
THE
P
LAY

Alonso, King of Naples.
Sebastian, his brother.
Prospero, the right Duke of Milan.
Antonio, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan.
Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples.
Gonzalo, an honest old counsellor.

Lords.
Adrian.
Francisco.
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave.
Trinculo, a jester.
Stephano, a drunken butler.
Master Of A Ship.
Boatswain.
Mariners.

Miranda, daughter to Prospero.

Ariel, an airy spirit.

Spirits.
Iris.
Ceres.
Juno.
Nymphs.
Reapers.
Other Spirits attending on Prospero.

Scene: A ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island.

A
CT
I

S
CENE
I. O
N
A
SHIP
AT
SEA
:
A
TEMPESTUOUS
NOISE

of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Master and a Boatswain

Master

Boatswain!

Boatswain

Here, master: what cheer?

Master

Good, speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Exit

Enter Mariners

Boatswain

Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and others

Alonso

Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?
Play the men.

Boatswain

I pray now, keep below.

Antonio

Where is the master, boatswain?

Boatswain

Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Gonzalo

Nay, good, be patient.

Boatswain

When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

Gonzalo

Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain

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 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

Gonzalo

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

Boatswain

Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course.

A 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?

Sebastian

A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boatswain

Work you then.

Antonio

Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!
We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gonzalo

I’ll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boatswain

Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off.

Enter Mariners wet

Mariners

All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boatswain

What, must our mouths be cold?

Gonzalo

The king and prince at prayers! let’s assist them,
For our case is as theirs.

Sebastian

I’m out of patience.

Antonio

We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
This wide-chapp’d rascal — would thou mightst lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!

Gonzalo

He’ll be hang’d yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it
And gape at widest to glut him.

A confused noise within: ‘Mercy on us!’— ‘We split, we split!’—‘Farewell, my wife and children!’— ‘Farewell, brother!’—‘We split, we split, we split!’

Antonio

Let’s all sink with the king.

Sebastian

Let’s take leave of him.

Exeunt Antonio and Sebastian

Gonzalo

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 done! but I would fain die a dry death.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. T
HE
ISLAND
. B
EFORE
P
ROSPERO
’
S
CELL
.

Enter Prospero and Miranda

Miranda

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 suffered
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.

Prospero

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

Miranda

O, woe the day!

Prospero

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.

Miranda

More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Prospero

’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 ordered 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.

Miranda

You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp’d
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding ‘stay: not yet.’

Prospero

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.

Miranda

Certainly, sir, I can.

Prospero

By what? by any other house or person?
Of any thing the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Miranda

’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?

Prospero

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 aught ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

Miranda

But that I do not.

Prospero

Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power.

Miranda

 
Sir, are not you my father?

Prospero

Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued.

Miranda

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

Prospero

Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.

Miranda

O, my heart bleeds
To think o’ the teen that I have turn’d you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.

Prospero

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?

Miranda

Sir, most heedfully.

Prospero

Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who to advance and who
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.

Miranda

O, good sir, I do.

Prospero

 
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?

Miranda

 
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

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.