lower! Bring her to try with main-course. [4 cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO.

Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er and drown? Have you a mind to sink? Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Boats. Work you then.

Ant. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off.

Enter Mariners wet.

Mariners. All lost! to prayers, to prayers!

all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb.

38. Bring her to try with main-course, bring her close to the wind with the main-sail. To 'lie as try with the main-course' was a recognised expedient in a

storm.

40. our office, my orders.
52. Lay her a-hold; set her two

I'm out of patience.

40

50

courses off to sea again, bring her close to the wind by hauling up the main-sail, and set her two lowest sails (courses) on the other tack, to try to clear the land that way. The third manoeuvre; which however fails, and the ship, not being able to weather a point, is driven ashore.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:

This wide-chapp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning

The washing of ten tides !

Gon.

He'll be hang'd yet,

Though every drop of water swear against it
And gape at widest to glut him.

[A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'-
'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.

60

[Exeunt Ant. and Seb. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, 70 brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO's cell.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mir. 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. O, I have suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,

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 swallow'd and
The fraughting souls within her.

Pros.

Be collected:

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.

Mir.

Pros.

O, woe the day!

No harm.

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.
Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have

comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
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.

You have often

Mir.
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,

13. The fraughting souls, the living freight.

ΙΟ

20

30

Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

Pros.

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.

Mir.

Certainly, sir, I can.

Pros. By what? by any other house or person? Of any thing the image tell me that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mir.

'Tis far off

And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

Pros. 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 camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

Mir.

But that I do not.

Pros. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and

A prince of power.

Mir.

Sir, are not you my father?

Pros. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir

And princess no worse issued.

Mir.

O the heavens !

40

50

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? 60 Or blessed was 't we did?

41. Out, fully.

56. piece, paragon.

59. issued, derived.

Pros.

Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,

But blessedly holp hither.

Mir.

O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you,
farther.

Pros. My brother and thy uncle, call'd AntonioI 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 signories 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 uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mir.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pros. 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

'em,

Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state

To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was

70

80

too high. Trash was a technical term of the kennel for the process of artificially retarding a dog too eager or forward in hunting.

83. key, tuning-key (with a play upon the ordinary sense). 85. that, so that.