For vainer hours and tutors not so careful.

Mir. Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you, sir,

For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason
For raising this sea-storm?

Know thus far forth,

Pros.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies

Brought to this shore; and by my prescience 180
I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions:
Thou art inclined to sleep; 'tis a good dulness,
And give it way: I know thou canst not choose.
[Miranda sleeps.
Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come.

Enter ARIEL.

Ari. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I

come

To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

190

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

Hast thou, spirit,

Pros.
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'd 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

201

O' the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune Seem 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

4

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners 210 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.'

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. 220
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.

Of the king's ship,

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

Ari.
Safely in harbor
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;

230

Who, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labor,
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.

Pros.

At least two glasses. The time 'twixt

six and now

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

240

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.

How now ? moody?

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari.

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,

Pros. Thou dost, and think'st it much to

tread the ooze

Of the salt deep,

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.

260

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

280

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 honor'd with
A human shape.

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.

290

I thank thee, master. Pr. 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.

Do so, and after two days

That's my noble master !

What shall I do? say what; what shall I do? 300 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.

Pros.

Shake it off. Come on;

We'll visit Caliban my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.

Mir.

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,

I do not love to look on.

Pros.

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.

310

Cal. [Within] There's wood enough within. Pros. "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.

Ari.

My lord, it shall be done. [Exit.

Pros. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil

himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Enter CALIBAN.

320

Cal. 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 !

Pros. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that 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.