The Tempest

On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Ship-Master and a Boatswain.

Master

Boatswain!

Boatswain

Here, master: what cheer?

Master

Good, speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. Exit.

Enter Mariners.

Boatswain

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.

Alonso

Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master? Play the men.

Boatswain

I pray now, keep below.

Antonio

Where is the master, boatswain?

Boatswain

Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Gonzalo

Nay, good, be patient.

Boatswain

When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

Gonzalo

Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain

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.

Gonzalo

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.

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 suffered With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature 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 ere It should the good ship so have swallow’d and The fraughting souls within her.

Prospero

Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There’s no harm done.

Miranda

O, woe the day!

Prospero

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.

Miranda

More to know Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Prospero

’Tis time I should inform thee farther. 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 ordered 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 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.

Ariel

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. 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: Burthen. Ding-dong.

Ariel

Hark! now I hear them⁠—Ding-dong, bell.

Ferdinand

The ditty does remember my drown’d father. This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.

Prospero

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance And say what thou seest yond.

Miranda

What is’t? a spirit? Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir, It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit.

Prospero

No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest Was in the wreck; and, but he’s something stain’d With grief that’s beauty’s canker, thou mightst call him A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows And strays about to find ’em.

Alonso

Thank you. Wondrous heavy. Alonso sleeps. Exit Ariel.

Sebastian

What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

Antonio

It is the quality o’ the climate.

Sebastian

Why Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not Myself disposed to sleep.

Antonio

Nor I; my spirits are nimble. They fell together all, as by consent; They dropp’d, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, Worthy Sebastian? O, what might?⁠—No more:⁠— And yet me thinks I see it in thy face, What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and My strong imagination sees a crown Dropping upon thy head.

Sebastian

What, art thou waking?

Antonio

Do you not hear me speak?

Sebastian

I do; and surely It is a sleepy language and thou speak’st Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say? This is a strange repose, to be asleep With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep.

Antonio

Noble Sebastian, Thou let’st thy fortune sleep⁠—die, rather; wink’st Whiles thou art waking.

Sebastian

Thou dost snore distinctly; There’s meaning in thy snores.

Antonio

I am more serious than my custom: you Must be so too, if heed me; which to do Trebles thee o’er.

Sebastian

Well, I am standing water.

Antonio

I’ll teach you how to flow.

Sebastian

Do so: to ebb Hereditary sloth instructs me.

Antonio