Pro.

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 inclin'd 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.

Ari. 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 18: to thy strong bidding, task Ariel, and all his quality 19,

Pro.

Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point 20 the tempest that I bade thee? Ari. To every article.

I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak 21,

18 This is imitated in Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess:

66.

tell me, sweetest,

What new service now is meetest

For the satyre; shall I stray

In the middle air, and stay

The sailing racke, or nimbly take

Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night,
For a beame to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea,

And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves, &c."

19 Ariel's quality is not his confederates, but the powers of his nature as a spirit, his qualification in sprighting.

20 i. e. to the minutest article, literally from the French à point, so in the Chances,

are you all fit?

To point, Sir."

21 The beak was a strong pointed body at the head of ancient galleys; it is used here for the forecastle or boltsprit. The waist is the part between the quarter-deck and the forecastle.vál do

Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: Sometimes, I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
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-out-running were not: The fire, and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pro.
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil 22
Would not infect his reason?

Ari.

Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad 23, and play'd Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners, Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all a-fire 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.

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before and as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd 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,

Pro.

Of the king's ship,

The mariners, say, how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o' the fleet?

22 Coil is bustle, tumult.

23 That is, such a fever as madmen feel when the frantic fit is

on them.

Ari.

Safely in 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 24, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote 25
Bound sadly home for Naples;

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge Exactly is performed; but there's more work: What is the time o' the day?

Ari. Je

Past the mid season. Pro. At least two glasses: the time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? since thou must give me pains,'

Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me,

Pro.

What is't thou canst demand?

Ari.

How now ? moody?

My liberty.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more, Ari. I pray thee Remember, I have done thee worthy service; Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year.

Pro.

Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

24 The epithet here applied to the Bermudas will be best understood by those who have seen the chafing of the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which renders access to them so difficult. It was then the current opinion that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters and devils. Setebos, the God of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshipped by the giants of Patagonia.

35 i. e. waves, or the sea. Flot, FB.

Ari.

No.

Pro. 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 bak'd with frost.

Ari.

I do not, sir. Pro. 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?

Ari. No, sir.

Pro.

Thou hast: where was she born?

speak; tell me. Air. Sir, in Argier 26,

Pro. 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? Ari. Ay, sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd 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 earthly and abhorr'd commands.
Refusing her grand hests 27, 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.

Ari.

Yes; Caliban her son. Pro. 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 arriv'd, and heard thee, that made gape The pine, and let thee out.

Ari.

I thank thee, master. Pro. 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.

Ari. Pardon, master: I will be correspondent to command; And do my sprighting gently.

Pro.

Do so; and after two days

That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what? what shall I do? Pro. 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!

Mira. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

Pro.

Shake it off: Come on;

We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Mira.

I do not love to look on.

Pro.

VOL. I.

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,