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"How now!" said Prospero. "You do not recollect what a torment I freed you from. Have you forgot the wicked witch Sycorax, who with age and envy was almost bent double? Where was she born? Speak; tell me."

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Sir, in Algiers," said Ariel.

" I

'Oh, was she so?" said Prospero. must recount what you have been, which I find you do not remember. This bad witch Sycorax, for her witchcrafts, too terrible to enter human hearing, was banished from Algiers, and here left by the sailors; and because you were you were a spirit too delicate to execute her wicked commands, she shut you up in a tree, where I found you howling. This torment, remember, I did free you from."

"Pardon me, dear master," said Ariel, ashamed to seem ungrateful; "I will obey your commands.”

you free."

"Do so," said Prospero, "and I will set He then gave orders what further he would have him do; and away went Ariel, first to where he had left Ferdinand, and found him still sitting on the grass in the same melancholy posture.

"O my young gentleman," said Ariel, when he saw him, "I will soon move you. You must be brought, I find, for the Lady Miranda to have a sight of your pretty person. Come, sir, follow me. He then began singing; and this was his first song :Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:

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Ferdinand was filled with wonder when he heard the music; he could not understand whence it came, for Ariel was invisible. Indeed, the island seemed an isle of music, and even the monster Caliban felt the strange beauty of its magical charm which he thus once described :—

"The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and

hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,

That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again and then in dreaming,

:

The clouds methought would open, and show riches

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked, I cried to dream again."

As in a dream Ferdinand followed the sound of Ariel's song, which was now here, now there, and then suddenly ceased. Listen to his words—

"Where should this music be? i' the air, or th' earth?

It sounds no more: and, sure, it waits upon Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank, Weeping again the king my father's wreck, This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion

With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it, Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone."

The next moment the singing began again, and this was Ariel's second song:

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;

Hark! now I hear them,

[Ding-dong,

Ding-dong, bell.

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THIS strange news of his

lost father soon roused the prince from the stupid fit into which he had fallen. He followed in amazement the sound of Ariel's voice, till it led him to Prospero and Miranda, who were sitting under the shade of a large tree. Now Miranda had never seen a man before, except her own father.

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Miranda," said Prospero, “tell me what you are looking at yonder.

Lord!

"O father," said Miranda, in a strange surprise, “surely that is a spirit! how it looks about! Believe me, sir, it is a beautiful creature. I might call him a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.' Is it not a spirit?"

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"No, girl," answered her father ; "it eats, and sleeps, and has senses such as we have. This young man you see was in the ship.

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