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?

No, sir.

ARIEL

PROSPERO

Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.

Sir, in Argier.

ARIEL

PROSPERO

Oh, was she so? I must

Once in a month recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold,

And sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banish'd: for one thing she did They would not take her life. Is not this true?

Ay, sir.

ARIEL

PROSPERO

This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,

Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,

And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island

(Save for the son that she did litter here,

A freckled whelp hag-born) not honour'd with

A human shape.

ARIEL

Yes, Caliban her son.

PROSPERO

Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban,

Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
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 damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,

When I arriv'd 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,

ARIEL

Pardon, master :

I will be correspondent to command,

And do my spiriting gently.

PROSPERO

Do so; and after two days

I will discharge thee.

ARIEL

That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what; what shall I do?

PROSPERO

Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the 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!

Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

[Exit ARIEL.

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.

I do not love to look on.

MIRANDA

"Tis a villain, sir,

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.

PROSPERO

Come forth, I say! there's other business for thee:

Come, thou tortoise! when?

Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph

Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

ARIEL

My lord, it shall be done.

PROSPERO

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

[Exit.

Enter CALIBAN

CALIBAN

As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye
And blister you all o'er !

PROSPERO

For this, be sure, to-night 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 pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
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 mad'st much of me; wouldst give me

Water with berries in 't; and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,

And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,

The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile :—
Curs'd be I that did so!-All the charms

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.