Complete Plays, The
Page 39
Dost thou hear?
Miranda
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Prospero
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 — wi’ 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.
Miranda
O the heavens!
Prospero
Mark his condition and the event; then tell me
If this might be a brother.
Miranda
I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.
Prospero
Now the condition.
The King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother’s suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o’ the premises
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan
With all the honours on my brother: whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose did Antonio open
The gates of Milan, and, i’ the dead of darkness,
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self.
Miranda
Alack, for pity!
I, not remembering how I cried out then,
Will cry it o’er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to’t.
Prospero
Hear a little further
And then I’ll bring thee to the present business
Which now’s upon’s; without the which this story
Were most impertinent.
Miranda
Wherefore did they not
That hour destroy us?
Prospero
Well demanded, wench:
My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
So dear the love my people bore me, nor set
A mark so bloody on the business, but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg’d,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar’d to us, to sigh
To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.
Miranda
Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!
Prospero
O, a cherubim
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck’d the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burthen groan’d; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.
Miranda
How came we ashore?
Prospero
By Providence divine.
Some food we had and some fresh water that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
Out of his charity, being then appointed
Master of this design, did give us, with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
Miranda
Would I might
But ever see that man!
Prospero
Now I arise:
Resumes his mantle
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arrived; and here
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
Than other princesses can that have more time
For vainer hours and tutors not so careful.
Miranda
Heavens thank you for’t! And now, I pray you, sir,
For still ’tis beating in my mind, your reason
For raising this sea-storm?
Prospero
Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions:
Thou art inclined to sleep; ’tis a good dulness,
And give it way: I know thou canst not choose.
Miranda sleeps
Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come.
Enter Ariel
Ariel
All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Prospero
Hast thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?
Ariel
To every article.
I boarded the king’s ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometime I’ld divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove’s lightnings, the precursors
O’ the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.
Prospero
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Ariel
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play’d
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring,— then like reeds, not hair,—
Was the first man that leap’d; cried, ‘Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.’
Prospero
Why that’s my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
Ariel
Close by, my master.
Prospero
But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ariel
Not a hair perish’d;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed them ’bout the isle.
The king’s son have I landed by himself;
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Prospero
Of the king’s ship
The mariners say how thou hast disposed
And all the rest o’ the fleet.
Ariel
Safely i
n harbour
Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex’d Bermoothes, there she’s hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow’d;
Who, with a charm join’d to their suffer’d labour,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o’ the fleet
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 wreck’d
And his great person perish.
Prospero
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform’d: but there’s more work.
What is the time o’ the day?
Ariel
Past the mid season.
Prospero
At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
Ariel
Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet perform’d me.
Prospero
How now? moody?
What is’t thou canst demand?
Ariel
My liberty.
Prospero
Before the time be out? no more!
Ariel
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
Prospero
Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
Ariel
No.
Prospero
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 o’ the earth
When it is baked with frost.
Ariel
I do not, sir.
Prospero
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?
Ariel
No, sir.
Prospero
Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; tell me.
Ariel
Sir, in Argier.
Prospero
O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget’st. This damn’d witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know’st, was banish’d: for one thing she did
They would not take her life. Is not this true?
Ariel
Ay, sir.
Prospero
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
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 abhorr’d 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 rift
Imprison’d 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 honour’d with
A human shape.
Ariel
Yes, Caliban her son.
Prospero
Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
Did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts
Of ever angry bears: it was a torment
To lay upon the damn’d, which Sycorax
Could not again undo: it was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.
Ariel
I thank thee, master.
Prospero
If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou hast howl’d away twelve winters.
Ariel
Pardon, master;
I will be correspondent to command
And do my spiriting gently.
Prospero
Do so, and after two days
I will discharge thee.
Ariel
That’s my noble master!
What shall I do? say what; what shall I do?
Prospero
Go make thyself like a nymph o’ the sea: be subject
To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball 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!
Miranda
The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
Prospero
Shake it off. Come on;
We’ll visit Caliban my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.
Miranda
’Tis a villain, sir,
I do not love to look on.
Prospero
But, as ’tis,
We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood and serves in offices
That profit us. What, ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.
Caliban
[Within] There’s wood enough within.
Prospero
Come forth, I say! there’s other business for thee:
Come, thou tortoise! when?
Re-enter Ariel like a water-nymph
Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
Ariel
My lord it shall be done.
Exit
Prospero
Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!
Enter Caliban
Caliban
As wicked dew as e’er my mother brush’d
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye
And blister you all o’er!
Prospero
For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch’d
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made ’em.
Caliban
I must eat my dinner.
This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,
Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst 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 show’d thee all the qualities o’ 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
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In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ the island.
Prospero
Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
Caliban
O ho, O ho! would’t had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
Prospero
Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt 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 didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow’d 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 hadst deserved more than a prison.
Caliban
You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!
Prospero
Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou’rt best,
To answer other business. Shrug’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.
Caliban
No, pray thee.
Aside
I must obey: his art is of such power,
It would control my dam’s god, Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.
Prospero
So, slave; hence!
Exit Caliban
Re-enter Ariel, invisible, playing and singing; Ferdinand following
Ariel’s song.
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Courtsied when you have and kiss’d
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Burthen (dispersedly, within)
The watch-dogs bark!
Burthen Bow-wow
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.
Ferdinand
Where should this music be? i’ the air or the 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.