THE TEMPEST.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

ALONSO, King of Naples.

SEBASTIAN, his brother.

PROSPERO, the rightful Duke of

Milan.

MASTER of a SHIP, BOATSWAIN, and MARINERS.

ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping MIRANDA, Daughter to Prospero.

Duke of Milan.

FERDINAND, son to the King of

Naples.

GONZALO, an honest old Counsellor

of Naples.

ADRIAN,

FRANCISCO, } Lords.

NYMPHS,

CALIBAN, a savage and deformed REAPERS,
Slave.

TRINCULO, a Jester.

STEPHANO, a drunken Butler.

OTHER SPIRITS attending on PROS

PERO.

SCENE. The Sea, with a ship; afterwards, an uninhabited Island.

ACT I.

SCENE I-On a Ship at Sea.

A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning.

Enter a SHIP-MASTER and a BOATSWAIN.

Mast. Boatswain,

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good: Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we

run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

Enter MARINERS.

[Exit.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the topsail; 'Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO,

and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play

the men.

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

You mar our labour! keep

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain ?
Boats. Do you not hear him?
your cabins: you do assist the storm.
Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not. Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present,* we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts. Out of our way, I say. [Exit.

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter BOATSWAIN.

Boats. Down with the topmast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main course. [A 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, uncharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, 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.

Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

[Exeunt.

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

For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

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 hanged yet;

Though every drop of water swear against it,

And gape at wid'st 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.

[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. O, I have suffer'd
With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er*
It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her.

Pro. Be collected;

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

Mira. O, woe the day!

Pro. 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.

Mira. More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro. 'Tis time

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,

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 order'd, 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 further.

Mira. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
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.

Mira. '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?

Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda: But how is it,

That this lives in thy mind? What see'st 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 mayst.

Mira. But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years 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; thou 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 turn'd you to,

Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd 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 wrapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mira. Sir, most heedfully.

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

To trash* for over-topping; new created

The creatures that were mine; I say, or changed them,
Or else new-form'd 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 suck'd my verdure out on't. --Thou attend'st not:
I pray thee, mark me.

Mira. O, good Sir, I do.

Pro. I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate

To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so retired,
O'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awaked an evil nature: and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood, in its contrary as great
As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sanst bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact, -like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie, he did believe
He was the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty
With all prerogative;-Hence his ambition
Growing, dost hear?

Mira. Your tale, Sir, would cure deafness.
Pro. To have no screen between this part he play'd

And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan:

Me, poor man!-my library

Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable: confederates

(So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples,

To give him annual tribute, do him homage;

Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend

The dukedom, yet unbow'd (alas, poor Milan!)

To most ignoble stooping.

Mira. O, the heavens!

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me,

If this might be a brother.

Mira. I should sin

To think but nobly of my grandmother:

Good wombs have borne bad sons.

Pro. Now the condition.

This king of Naples being an enemy