Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

Gonz. The king and prince at pray’rs ? let us assist ’em. For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I'm out of patience.

Ant. We're meerly cheated of our lives by drunkards.
This wide-chopt rascal-would, thou might'st lye drowning
The washing of ten tides !

Gonz. He'll be hang'd yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid'ft to glut him.
Seb. Mercy on us !

[A confused noise within.
We split, we split ! farewell my wife and children,
Brother farewel: we split, we split, we split !

Ant. Let's all fink with the king.
Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. Gonz. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground: ling, heath, broom, furze, any thing;—the wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit.

The Inchanted Island.

Enter Prospero and Miranda.
Mira. T F 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 th’ welkin's cheek,
Dalhes the fire out.

Q! 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 pow'r, I would

(Of thee

Have funk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship fo have swallow'd, and
The fraighted souls within her.

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

Mira. O wo the day!

Pro. No harm.
I have done nothing but in care of thee

my dear one, thee my daughter) who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am, nor that I'm more, or better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

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

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

[Lays down bis mantle.
Lye 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's no foul loft ;
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 : fit down,
For thou must now know farther.

Mira. You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopt,
And left me to the 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 remember

A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst, for then thou waft not
Out three years old.

Mira. Certainly, sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept in 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 hadft, and more, Miranda : but how is it
That this lives in thy mind? what seest thou else
In the dark back-ward and abysme of time?
If thou remember'st ought ere thou cam'st here,
How thou cam'ft here thou may ft.

Mira. But that I do not.

Pro. 'Tis twelve years since, Miranda; twelve years since
Thy father was the duke of Milan, and
A prince of pow'r.

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, thou his only heir
A princess, no worse iflu’d.

Mira. O the heav'ns !
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 fáy’It) were we heav’d thence,
But bleffedly help'd hither.

Mira. My heart bleeds
To think o'th'teene that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from

my
remembrance. Please

you,

farther. Pro. My brother and thy uncle, call’d Anthonio -pray thee mark me, (that a brother should Vol. I.

B

Be

And to my

Be so perfidious!) he whom next thy self
Of all the world I lov’d, 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 fo reputed
In dignity, and for the liberal arts,
Without a parallel ; those being all my study,
The government I caft upon my brother,

state grew stranger, being transported
And rapt in secret ftudies) 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 plash for over-topping ; new created
The creatures that were mine; I say, or chang’d 'em
Or else new form’d 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts
To what tune pleas’d his ear; that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And fuckt my verdure out on't. Thou attend ft not.

Mira. Good fir, I do.

Pro. I pray thee, mark me then.
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-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 falfhood, 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 loving an untruth, and telling’t oft',
Makes such a sinner of his memory

To

To credit his own lie; he did believe
He was, indeed, the duke, from substitution
And executing th' outward face of royalty
With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing —
Dost thou hear, child ?

Mira. Your tale, fir, would cure deafness.

Pro. To have no screen between this part he plaid,
And him he plaid 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' th' 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 much ignoble stooping.

Mira. O the heav'ns!

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

Mira. I should fin,
To think not nobly of my grand-mother.

Pro. Good wombs have born bad fons. Now the condition :
This king of Naples being an enemy
To me inveterate, hears my brother's suit;
Which was, that he in lieu o’th' 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 levy’d, one mid-night
Fated to th' purpose, did Anthonio open
gates

of Milan, and i'th' dead of darkness
The ministers for th' purpose hurry'd thence
Me and thy crying self

. Mira. Álack for pity! I not remembring how I cry'd out then,

Will

The

B 2