We split, we split!-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. Oh! I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,
Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere

It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The fraughting souls within her.

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

And pluck my magic garment from me.-So:

[Lays down his mantle.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched
The very virtue of compassion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered, that there is no soul-

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. Sit down;

For thou must now know farther.

Mira.

You have ofter:

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopped,
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.

"Tis far off;

Mira.
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 may'st.

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 issued.

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 turned you to,

Which is from my remembrance.

farther.

Please you,

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, called Antonio,-

I pray thee, mark me,—that a brother should
Be so perfidious !-he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I loved, 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 uncleDost thou attend me?

Mira.

Sir, most heedfully.—

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance, and who

To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed

them,

Or else new formed them having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

And sucked my verdure out on 't.-Thou attend'st

not.

Mira. O, good sir, I do!

Pro.

I pray thee, mark me.-.