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.
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, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
Pros.
Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee? Ari. 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.
Pros.
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Ari.
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."
Why, that's my spirit !
Close by, my master.
Pros.
But was not this nigh shore?
Ari.
Pros.
Ari.
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:
But are they, Ariel, safe?
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
Pros.
Of the king's ship
The mariners say how thou hast disposed
And all the rest o' the fleet.
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, 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.
Pros.
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is performed: but there's more work.
What is the time o' the dry?
Ari. Past the mid season. Pros. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously. 241
Ari. 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.
Pros.
How now ? moody?
What is't thou canst demand?
Ari.
My liberty.
Pros. Before the time be out? no more!
Ari.
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.
Pros.
Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee?
Ari.
No.
Pros. 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.
Ari.
I do not, sir.
Pros. 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?
Thou hast. Where was she born? speak; 260
tell me.
Ari. Sir, in Argier.
Pros.
O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou has been,
Which thou forget'st. This damned 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.
270
Pros. 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 earthly and abhorred 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 280 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.
Pros. 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 gare
The pine and let thee out.
Ari.
I thank thee, master.
Pros. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in its knotty entrails till
Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
Ari.
I will be correspondent to command.
And do my spiriting gently.
Pros.
I will discharge thee.
Do so, and after two days
Ari.
300
That's my noble master !
What shall I do? say what: what shall I do?
Pros. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea; te sub-
ject
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!
Mir. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
Pros.
Shake it off. Come on;
We'll visit Caliban my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.
Mir.
I do not love to look on.
Pros.
But as tis,
:
We cannot miss him he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood and serves in offices
That profit us. What, hol slave! Caliban I
Thou earth, thou speak.
Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph.
Cal. [Within] There's wood enough within. Pros. Come forth, I say! there's other business for thee; Come, thou tortoise! when?
Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear. ⠀
Ari.
My lord, it shall be done.
Pros. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!
Enter CALIBAN.
Cal. 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 !
Pros. 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.
Cal. 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.
Pros.
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.
Cal. O ho, O ho! would't had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison.
Pros.
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
361
Cal. 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 !
Pros.
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.
Cal.
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.
Pros.
So, slave; hence ! [Erit Caliban.
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