ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.— Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say.

[Exit.

Gon. 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.

Boats. 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?

Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

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

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

Re-enter Mariners, wet.

Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

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

[Exeunt.

Seb. I am out of patience.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards. This wide-chapp'd rascal,-would thou might'st lie drowning, The washing of ten tides! [Exit Boatswain.

Gon.
He'll be hanged yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,

And gape at wid'st to glut him. [A confused noise within,-" Mercy

on us!"

"We split, we split!
33 66 Farewell, my wife and children!".
"Farewell, brother!"-" We split, we split, we split !"-]

Ant. Let's all sink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. [Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.

[Exit.

SCENE II.-The Island: before the Cell of PROSPERO.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mira. 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 suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures 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 e'er

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The fraughting souls within her.

Pro.
Be collected:
No more amazement. Tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mira.

O, woe the day!

Pro.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,
(Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter!) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, naught knowing
Of whence I am; nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira.
More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.

No harm.

Pro.
'Tis time
I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.-So:

[Lays down his robe.

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 order'd, that there is no soul—
No, not so much perdition as a 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.

Mira.

You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding, "Stay, not yet."

Pro.
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.

Mira.

Certainly, Sir, I can.
Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of anything the image tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mira.

"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?
Pro. 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 cam'st here,
How thou cam'st here, thou mayst.

Mira. But that I do not. Pro. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

Mira.
Sir, are not you my father?
Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess, no worse issu'd.

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

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

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

Pro. 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 lov'd, and to him put

The manage of my state; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories 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?

Mira.
Sir, most heedfully.
Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, whom t' advance, and whom
To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd them,
Or else new form'd them: having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state

To what tune pleas'd 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.
Mira. O, good Sir, I do.
Pro.
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 retir'd,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
Awak'd 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, unto 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 th' outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative :-hence his ambition.
Growing,-Dost thou hear?

Mira.

Your tale, Sir, would cure deafness. Pro. 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) with 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.

Mira.

O the heavens !

Pro. Mark his condition, and th' event; then tell me If this might be a brother.

Mira.
I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother :
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pro.
This 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.

Now the condition.

Mira.
Alack, for pity!
I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to 't.

Pro.
Hear a little farther,
And then I'll bring thee to the present business
Which now's upon 's; without the which, this story
Were most impertinent.

Mira.

Wherefore did they not

That hour destroy us?

Pro.

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 prepar'd

A rotten carcase of a boat, not rigg'd,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats