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,
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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.
Sit still and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
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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,
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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
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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,
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And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.
[to Ariel] 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,
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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.
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I boarded the King’s ship: now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin
I flamed amazement. Sometime I’d divide
And burn in many places – on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly,
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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,
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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
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Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel;
Then all afire with me, the King’s son Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair),
Was the first man that leapt, cried ‘Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here’.
PROSPERO Why, that’s my spirit!
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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.
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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,
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And all the rest o’th’ fleet?
ARIEL Safely in harbour
Is the King’s ship, in the deep nook where once
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,
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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,
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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,
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Thou knowst, 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,
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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
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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 groan
s
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As fast as millwheels 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,
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Whom now I keep in service. Thou best knowst
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
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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
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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.
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What shall I do? Say what? What shall I do?
PROSPERO Go make thyself like 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.
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Exit Ariel.
[to Miranda] Awake, dear heart, awake; thou hast slept
well.
Awake.
MIRANDA 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,
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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.
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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.
ARIEL My lord, it shall be done. Exit.
PROSPERO
Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
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Upon thy wicked dam; come forth!
Enter CALIBAN.
CALIBAN As wicked dew as ere 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.
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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Whom stripes may move, not kindness; I have used thee
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 471
