To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality.

PROS.

Hast thou, spirit,

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARI. TO every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometime I'ld divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the pre-

cursors

O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not: the fire and cracks Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune Seem'd to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident shake.

PROS.

My brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil

Would not infect his reason?

ARI.

Not a soul

But felt a fever of the mad and play'd

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners 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 leap'd; cried, 'Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.'

PROS.

Why, that's my spirit!

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle.
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.

PROS.

Of the king's ship

The mariners say how thou hast disposed
And all the rest o' the fleet.

ARI.
Safely in harbour
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet
Which I dispersed, they all have met again
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd

And his great person perish.

PROS.

Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform'd: but there's more work.

What is the time o' the day?

ARI.

Past the mid season.

C

PROS. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six

and now

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

ARI. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give

me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised, Which is not yet perform'd me.

PROS.

What is 't thou canst demand?

ARI.

How now ? moody?

My liberty.

PROS. Before the time be out? no more!

ARI.

I prithee, Remember I have done thee worthy service; Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst To bate me a full year.

PROS.

[promise

Dost thou forget

No.

From what a torment I did free thee?

ARI.

PROS. Thou dost, and think'st it much to tread Of the salt deep,

[the ooze

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' the earth

When it is baked with frost.

ARI.

I do not, sir,

PROS. 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? ARI. No, sir.

PROS.

Thou hast. Where was she born?

speak; tell me.

ARI. Sir, in Argier.

PROS.

O, 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?
ARI. Ay, sir.

PROS. This blue-eyed 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.

ARI.

Yes, Caliban her son.

PROS. 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 arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.

ARI.

I thank thee, master.

PROS. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak And peg thee in his knotty entrails till

Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.

ARI.

Pardon, master;

I will be correspondent to command
And do my spiriting gently.

PROS.

I will discharge thee.

ARI.

That's my noble master!

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

PROS. Go make thyself like 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!
[Exit ARIEL.
Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!

MIR. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.