Against my life. The minute of their plot
Is almost come. [to the spirits] Well done. Avoid, no
more! [Spirits depart.]
FERDINAND [to Miranda]
This is strange. Your father’s in some passion
That works him strongly.
MIRANDA Never till this day
Saw I him touched with anger so distempered!
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PROSPERO You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
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And – like the baseless fabric of this vision –
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
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Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
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If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose. A turn or two I’ll walk
To still my beating mind.
FERDINAND, MIRANDA We wish your peace. Exeunt.
PROSPERO
Come with a thought, I thank thee, Ariel. Come!
Enter ARIEL.
ARIEL
Thy thoughts I cleave to. What’s thy pleasure?
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PROSPERO
Spirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.
ARIEL Ay, my commander. When I presented Ceres,
I thought to have told thee of it, but I feared
Lest I might anger thee.
PROSPERO
Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?
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ARIEL
I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking,
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces, beat the ground
For kissing of their feet, yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,
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At which like unbacked colts they pricked their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music; so I charmed their ears
That calf-like they my lowing followed, through
Toothed briars, sharp furzes, pricking gorse and thorns,
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Which entered their frail shins. At last I left them
I’th’ filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to th’ chins, that the foul lake
O’erstunk their feet.
PROSPERO This was well done, my bird.
Thy shape invisible retain thou still.
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The trumpery in my house: go bring it hither,
For stale to catch these thieves.
ARIEL I go, I go. Exit.
PROSPERO A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains
Humanely taken – all, all lost, quite lost!
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And, as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
Even to roaring. Come, hang them on this line.
Enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, etc.
Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO and TRINCULO, all wet.
CALIBAN Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may
Not hear a footfall. We now are near his cell.
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STEPHANO Monster, your fairy, which you say is a
harmless fairy, has done little better than played the
jack with us.
TRINCULO Monster, I do smell all horse piss, at which
my nose is in great indignation.
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STEPHANO So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I
should take a displeasure against you, look you!
TRINCULO Thou wert but a lost monster.
CALIBAN Good my lord, give me thy favour still.
Be patient, for the prize I’ll bring thee to
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Shall hoodwink this mischance. Therefore speak softly;
All’s hushed as midnight yet.
TRINCULO Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool –
STEPHANO There is not only disgrace and dishonour in
that, monster, but an infinite loss.
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TRINCULO That’s more to me than my wetting, yet this
is your harmless fairy, monster.
STEPHANO I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o’er
ears for my labour.
CALIBAN Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here;
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This is the mouth o’th’ cell. No noise, and enter.
Do that good mischief which may make this island
Thine own forever, and I, thy Caliban,
For aye thy foot-licker.
STEPHANO Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody
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thoughts.
TRINCULO [Sees the clothes.] O King Stephano! O peer!
O worthy Stephano! Look what a wardrobe here is for
thee!
CALIBAN Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.
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TRINCULO O ho, monster; we know what belongs to a
frippery! O King Stephano! [Puts on a garment.]
STEPHANO Put off that gown, Trinculo. By this hand,
I’ll have that gown.
TRINCULO Thy grace shall have it.
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CALIBAN
The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean
To dote thus on such luggage? Let’t alone
And do the murder first. If he awake,
From toe to crown he’ll fill our skins with pinches,
Make us strange stuff.
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STEPHANO Be you quiet, monster. Mistress Line, is not
this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line! Now
jerkin you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald
jerkin.
TRINCULO Do, do. We steal by line and level, an’t like
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your grace.
STEPHANO I thank thee for that jest; here’s a garment
for’t. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of
this country. ‘Steal by line and level’ is an excellent
pass of pate. There’s another garment for’t.
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TRINCULO Monster, come put some lime upon your
fingers and away with the rest.
CALIBAN I will have none on’t. We shall lose our time,
And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villainous low.
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STEPHANO Monster, lay to your fingers. Help to bear
this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I’ll turn
you out of my kingdom! Go to; carry this.
TRINCULO And this.
STEPHANO Ay, and this.
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A noise of hunters heard. Enter diverse spirits in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on.
PROSPERO Hey, Mountain, hey!
ARIEL Silver! There it goes, Silver!
PROSPERO
Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!
[The spirits chase Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo off stage.]
Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
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With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
; Than pard or cat o’mountain.
ARIEL Hark, they roar!
PROSPERO Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour
Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.
Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
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Shalt have the air at freedom. For a little,
Follow and do me service. Exeunt.
5.1 Enter PROSPERO, in his magic robes, and ARIEL.
PROSPERO Now does my project gather to a head.
My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time
Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day?
ARIEL On the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease.
PROSPERO I did say so,
5
When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,
How fares the King and’s followers?
ARIEL Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
In the line grove which weather-fends your cell.
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They cannot budge till your release. The King,
His brother and yours abide all three distracted,
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
Him that you termed, sir, the good old Lord Gonzalo.
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His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em
That, if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human.
PROSPERO And mine shall.
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Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself
(One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they) be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
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Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury
Do I take part. The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.
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My charms I’ll break; their senses I’ll restore;
And they shall be themselves.
ARIEL I’ll fetch them, sir. Exit.
PROSPERO [Traces a circle.]
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
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When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight-mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid –
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Weak masters though ye be – I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread-rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
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With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, ope’d and let ’em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
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I here abjure; and when I have required
Some heavenly music (which even now I do)
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
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And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book. [Solemn music.]
Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which Prospero had made and there stand charmed, which Prospero observing, speaks:
A solemn air and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains
(Now useless) boiled within thy skull. There stand,
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For you are spell-stopped. –
Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes, ev’n sociable to the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops. [aside] The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
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Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason. – O good Gonzalo,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 478