Page images
PDF
EPUB

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 wracked,
And his great person perish.

Pros.

Ariel, thy charge

Past the mid season:

Exactly is performed; but there's more work :
What is the time of the day?

Ari.

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 performed me.

Pros.

What is't thou can'st demand?

Ari.

How now ? moody?

My liberty.

I pray thee

Pros. Before the time be out? no more.2
Ari.

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

Pros.

Dost thou forget

No.

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari.

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 of 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.

speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Argier.3

Pros.

Thou hast: Where was she born?

O, was she so? I must,

[blocks in formation]

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forgettest. This witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banished: Is not this true?
Ari. Ay, sir.

Pros. This blue-eyed hag was hither brought,
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 abhorred 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 rift1
Imprisoned, 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 honoured with

A human shape.

Ari.

Yes; Caliban her son.

Thou best know'st

Pros. Dull thing, I say so, he, that Caliban,
Whom now I keep in service.

What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; 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 murmurest, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters.
Ari.

I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spriting gently.

Pros.

I will discharge thee.

Ari.

Pardon, master:

Do so; and after two days

That's my noble master 1

What shall I do? say what: what shall I do?

1 A crack or chink: - from "to rive."

Pros. Go, make thyself like a nymph o' the sea;
Be subject to no sight but thine and mine; invisible
To every eye-ball 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!

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

Pros.

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Miran.

I do not love to look on.

Pros.

Shake it off: Come on;

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,

We cannot miss him1: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood; and serves in offices

That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [within.] There's wood enough within.

Pros. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee: Come, thou tortoise! when? 2

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, come forth!

Enter CALIBAN.

Cal. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen,
Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,

And blister ye all over.

Pros. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps, Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins3

Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinched

As thick as honey-comb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made them.

Cal.

1 Do without him.

2 An expression of impatience.

I must eat my dinner.

3 Hedgehogs.

4 Space.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first,

Thou strok❜dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st give me Water with berries in't; and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee,
And showed thee all the qualities of the isle,

The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fertile;
Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!

For I am all the subjects that

you have,

Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest of the island.

Pros.

Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness: abhorred slave;
Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou did'st not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but would'st gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes

With words that made them known: But thy vile race',
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou

Deservedly confined into this rock,

Who had'st deserved more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse: the red plague rid2 you,
For learning me your language!

Pros.
Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best,

To answer other business. Shrugg'st thou, malice?
If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;
Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

Cal.

I must obey his art is of such power,
It would control my dam's god, Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.

Pros.

1 Natural disposition.

No, pray thee!

So, slave; hence!

[Aside.

[Exit CALIBAN.

2 Kill, destroy.

Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing and singing; FERDINAND

following him.

ARIEL'S Song.

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have and kissed,

The wild waves whist,

Foot it featly here and there

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear, &c. &c.

Ferd. Where should this music be? i' the air, or the

earth?

It sounds no more:- and sure it waits upon
Some god of the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wrack,
This music crept by me upon the waters;
Allaying both their fury, and my passion,
With its sweet air: thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather :-But 'tis gone.
No, it begins again.

ARIEL sings.

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, bell.

Ferd. The ditty does remember1 my drowned father:

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owes 2:-I hear it now above me.

Pros. The fringèd curtains of thine eye advance

And say, what thou seest yond'.

Miran.

What is't? a spirit?

Pros. No, wench; it eats, and sleeps, and has such senses As we have, such: This gallant, which thou seest, Was in the wrack; and but he's something stained With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou might'st call him

1 Remind me of.

2 Owns.

« PreviousContinue »