A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

  Out of his charity – who, 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,

  165

  Knowing I loved my books, he furnished 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.

  Sit still and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.

  170

  Here in this island we arrived, and here

  Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit

  Than other princes 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,

  175

  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

  180

  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 dullness,

  185

  And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.

  [to Ariel] 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,

  190

  To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

  On the curled clouds. To thy strong bidding, task

  Ariel and all his quality.

  PROSPERO Hast thou, spirit,

  Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?

  ARIEL To every article.

  195

  I boarded the King’s ship: now on the beak,

  Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin

  I flamed amazement. Sometime I’d divide

  And burn in many places – on the topmast,

  The yards and bowsprit would I flame distinctly,

  200

  Then meet and join. Jove’s lightning, the precursors

  O’th’ dreadful thunderclaps, 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,

  205

  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 played

  Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners

  210

  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 leapt, cried ‘Hell is empty,

  And all the devils are here’.

  PROSPERO Why, that’s my spirit!

  215

  But was not this nigh shore?

  ARIEL Close by, my master.

  PROSPERO But are they, Ariel, safe?

  ARIEL Not a hair perished;

  On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

  But fresher than before; and, as thou bad’st me,

  In troops I have dispersed them ’bout the isle.

  220

  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,

  225

  And all the rest o’th’ fleet?

  ARIEL Safely in harbour

  Is the King’s ship, in the deep nook where once

  Thou called’st me up at midnight to fetch dew

  From the still-vexed Bermudas; there she’s hid,

  The mariners all under hatches stowed,

  230

  Who, with a charm joined to their suffered labour,

  I have left asleep. And for the rest o’th’ fleet,

  Which I dispersed, they all have met again,

  And are upon the Mediterranean float,

  Bound sadly home for Naples,

  235

  Supposing that they saw the King’s ship wrecked

  And his great person perish.

  PROSPERO Ariel, thy charge

  Exactly is performed; but there’s more work.

  What is the time o’th’ day?

  ARIEL Past the mid-season.

  PROSPERO

  At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now

  240

  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 performed me.

  PROSPERO How now? Moody?

  What is’t thou canst demand?

  ARIEL My liberty.

  245

  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 did promise

  To bate me a full year.

  PROSPERO Dost thou forget

  250

  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’th’ earth

  255

  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.

  260

  ARIEL Sir, in Algiers.

  PROSPERO O, was she so? I must

  Once in a month recount what thou hast been,

  Which thou forget’st. This damned witch Sycorax,

  For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible

  To enter human hearing, from Algiers,

  265

  Thou knowst, was banished. 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 th’ sailors. Thou, my slave,

  270

  As thou report’st thyself, was 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

  275

  And in her most unmitigable rage,

  Into a cloven pine, within which rift

  Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain

  A dozen years, within which space she died

  And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans

  280

  As fast as millwheels 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.

  ARIEL Yes, Caliban, her son.

  PROSPERO Dull thing, I say so – he, that Caliban,

  285

  Whom now I keep in service. Thou best knowst

  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 damned, which Sycorax

  290

  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

  295

  Thou hast howled away twelve winters.

  ARIEL Pardon, master,

  I will be correspondent to command

  And do my spriting gently.

  PROSPERO Do so, and after two days

  I will discharge thee.

  ARIEL That’s my noble master.

  300

  What shall I do? Say what? What shall I do?

  PROSPERO Go make thyself like a nymph o’th’ 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.

  305

  Exit Ariel.

  [to Miranda] 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,

  310

  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.

  315

  PROSPERO

  Come forth I say, there’s other business for thee.

  Come, thou tortoise, when?

  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

  320

  Upon thy wicked dam; come forth!

  Enter CALIBAN.

  CALIBAN As wicked dew as ere my mother brushed

  With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen

  Drop on you both. A southwest blow on ye

  And blister you all o’er.

  325

  PROSPERO

  For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,

  Side-stitches, that shall pen thy breath up; urchins

  Shall forth at vast of night that they may work

  All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinched

  As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging

  330

  Than bees that made ’em.

  CALIBAN I must eat my dinner.

  This island’s mine by Sycorax, my mother,

  Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first

  Thou strok’st me and made much of me; wouldst

  give me

  Water with berries in’t, and teach me how

  335

  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 o’th’ isle:

  The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile.

  Cursed be I that did so! All the charms

  340

  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’th’ island.

  PROSPERO Thou most lying slave,

  345

  Whom stripes may move, not kindness; I have used thee