The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 478

by William Shakespeare


  Against my life. The minute of their plot

  Is almost come. [to the spirits] Well done. Avoid, no

  more! [Spirits depart.]

  FERDINAND [to Miranda]

  This is strange. Your father’s in some passion

  That works him strongly.

  MIRANDA Never till this day

  Saw I him touched with anger so distempered!

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  PROSPERO You do look, my son, in a moved sort,

  As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.

  Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

  As I foretold you, were all spirits and

  Are melted into air, into thin air;

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  And – like the baseless fabric of this vision –

  The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

  The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

  Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

  And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

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  Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

  As dreams are made on, and our little life

  Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed;

  Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.

  Be not disturbed with my infirmity.

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  If you be pleased, retire into my cell

  And there repose. A turn or two I’ll walk

  To still my beating mind.

  FERDINAND, MIRANDA We wish your peace. Exeunt.

  PROSPERO

  Come with a thought, I thank thee, Ariel. Come!

  Enter ARIEL.

  ARIEL

  Thy thoughts I cleave to. What’s thy pleasure?

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  PROSPERO

  Spirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.

  ARIEL Ay, my commander. When I presented Ceres,

  I thought to have told thee of it, but I feared

  Lest I might anger thee.

  PROSPERO

  Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?

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  ARIEL

  I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking,

  So full of valour that they smote the air

  For breathing in their faces, beat the ground

  For kissing of their feet, yet always bending

  Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,

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  At which like unbacked colts they pricked their ears,

  Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses

  As they smelt music; so I charmed their ears

  That calf-like they my lowing followed, through

  Toothed briars, sharp furzes, pricking gorse and thorns,

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  Which entered their frail shins. At last I left them

  I’th’ filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,

  There dancing up to th’ chins, that the foul lake

  O’erstunk their feet.

  PROSPERO This was well done, my bird.

  Thy shape invisible retain thou still.

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  The trumpery in my house: go bring it hither,

  For stale to catch these thieves.

  ARIEL I go, I go. Exit.

  PROSPERO A devil, a born devil, on whose nature

  Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains

  Humanely taken – all, all lost, quite lost!

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  And, as with age his body uglier grows,

  So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,

  Even to roaring. Come, hang them on this line.

  Enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, etc.

  Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO and TRINCULO, all wet.

  CALIBAN Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may

  Not hear a footfall. We now are near his cell.

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  STEPHANO Monster, your fairy, which you say is a

  harmless fairy, has done little better than played the

  jack with us.

  TRINCULO Monster, I do smell all horse piss, at which

  my nose is in great indignation.

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  STEPHANO So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I

  should take a displeasure against you, look you!

  TRINCULO Thou wert but a lost monster.

  CALIBAN Good my lord, give me thy favour still.

  Be patient, for the prize I’ll bring thee to

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  Shall hoodwink this mischance. Therefore speak softly;

  All’s hushed as midnight yet.

  TRINCULO Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool –

  STEPHANO There is not only disgrace and dishonour in

  that, monster, but an infinite loss.

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  TRINCULO That’s more to me than my wetting, yet this

  is your harmless fairy, monster.

  STEPHANO I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o’er

  ears for my labour.

  CALIBAN Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here;

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  This is the mouth o’th’ cell. No noise, and enter.

  Do that good mischief which may make this island

  Thine own forever, and I, thy Caliban,

  For aye thy foot-licker.

  STEPHANO Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody

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  thoughts.

  TRINCULO [Sees the clothes.] O King Stephano! O peer!

  O worthy Stephano! Look what a wardrobe here is for

  thee!

  CALIBAN Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.

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  TRINCULO O ho, monster; we know what belongs to a

  frippery! O King Stephano! [Puts on a garment.]

  STEPHANO Put off that gown, Trinculo. By this hand,

  I’ll have that gown.

  TRINCULO Thy grace shall have it.

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  CALIBAN

  The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean

  To dote thus on such luggage? Let’t alone

  And do the murder first. If he awake,

  From toe to crown he’ll fill our skins with pinches,

  Make us strange stuff.

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  STEPHANO Be you quiet, monster. Mistress Line, is not

  this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line! Now

  jerkin you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald

  jerkin.

  TRINCULO Do, do. We steal by line and level, an’t like

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  your grace.

  STEPHANO I thank thee for that jest; here’s a garment

  for’t. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of

  this country. ‘Steal by line and level’ is an excellent

  pass of pate. There’s another garment for’t.

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  TRINCULO Monster, come put some lime upon your

  fingers and away with the rest.

  CALIBAN I will have none on’t. We shall lose our time,

  And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes

  With foreheads villainous low.

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  STEPHANO Monster, lay to your fingers. Help to bear

  this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I’ll turn

  you out of my kingdom! Go to; carry this.

  TRINCULO And this.

  STEPHANO Ay, and this.

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  A noise of hunters heard. Enter diverse spirits in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on.

  PROSPERO Hey, Mountain, hey!

  ARIEL Silver! There it goes, Silver!

  PROSPERO

  Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!

  [The spirits chase Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo off stage.]

  Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints

  With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews

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  With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them

 
; Than pard or cat o’mountain.

  ARIEL Hark, they roar!

  PROSPERO Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour

  Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.

  Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou

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  Shalt have the air at freedom. For a little,

  Follow and do me service. Exeunt.

  5.1 Enter PROSPERO, in his magic robes, and ARIEL.

  PROSPERO Now does my project gather to a head.

  My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time

  Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day?

  ARIEL On the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,

  You said our work should cease.

  PROSPERO I did say so,

  5

  When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,

  How fares the King and’s followers?

  ARIEL Confined together

  In the same fashion as you gave in charge,

  Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

  In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.

  10

  They cannot budge till your release. The King,

  His brother and yours abide all three distracted,

  And the remainder mourning over them,

  Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly

  Him that you termed, sir, the good old Lord Gonzalo.

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  His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops

  From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em

  That, if you now beheld them, your affections

  Would become tender.

  PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit?

  ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human.

  PROSPERO And mine shall.

  20

  Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

  Of their afflictions, and shall not myself

  (One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

  Passion as they) be kindlier moved than thou art?

  Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,

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  Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury

  Do I take part. The rarer action is

  In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,

  The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

  Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.

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  My charms I’ll break; their senses I’ll restore;

  And they shall be themselves.

  ARIEL I’ll fetch them, sir. Exit.

  PROSPERO [Traces a circle.]

  Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

  And ye that on the sands with printless foot

  Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him

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  When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

  By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,

  Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

  Is to make midnight-mushrooms, that rejoice

  To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid –

  40

  Weak masters though ye be – I have bedimmed

  The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

  And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault

  Set roaring war; to the dread-rattling thunder

  Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak

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  With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory

  Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up

  The pine and cedar; graves at my command

  Have waked their sleepers, ope’d and let ’em forth

  By my so potent art. But this rough magic

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  I here abjure; and when I have required

  Some heavenly music (which even now I do)

  To work mine end upon their senses that

  This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

  Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

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  And deeper than did ever plummet sound

  I’ll drown my book. [Solemn music.]

  Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which Prospero had made and there stand charmed, which Prospero observing, speaks:

  A solemn air and the best comforter

  To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains

  (Now useless) boiled within thy skull. There stand,

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  For you are spell-stopped. –

  Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

  Mine eyes, ev’n sociable to the show of thine,

  Fall fellowly drops. [aside] The charm dissolves apace,

  And as the morning steals upon the night,

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  Melting the darkness, so their rising senses

  Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle

  Their clearer reason. – O good Gonzalo,

 

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