Ant. We are merely 1 cheated of our lives by

drunkards.-

This wide-chapp'd rascal;-'Would thou mightst lie drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

Gon.

He 'll be hang'd yet;

Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at widest to glut2 him.

[a confused noise within.] Mercy on us!-We split, we split!-Farewell, my wife and children!Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split !— Ant. Let's all sink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. [Exit.

Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. [Exit.

SCENE II.

The island: before the cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mir. 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 suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,

Who had no doubt some noble creatures 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 e'er 1

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her.

Pro.

Be collected;

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done.

Mir.

Pro.

O, woe the day!

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, naught knowing

Of whence I am; nor that I am more better 2
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,3
And thy no greater father.

or e'er I could

Give him that parting kiss.

2 This ungrammatical expression is very frequent among our oldest writers.

3 A cell in a great degree of poverty. So in Antony and Cleopatra, I am full sorry;' or, as we sometimes say, 'full well.'

• Mix. The modern and familiar phrase, by which that of Miranda may be explained, is, 'never entered my thoughts.'

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 1 of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art
So safely order'd, that there is no soul—
No, not so much perdition as a hair,

Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink. Sit down;

For thou must now know further.

Mir.

You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition; 2
Concluding, Stay, not yet.'

Pro.

The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not Out 3 three years

Mir.

old.

Certainly, sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person? Of any thing the image tell me, that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Mir.

"Tis far off;

1 The essence, the most efficacious part.
2 Useless inquiry.
3 Quite.

And rather like a dream, than an assurance

That my remembrance warrants: Had I not
Four or five women once, that tended me?

Pro. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it,

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm 1 of time?

If thou remember'st aught, ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

Mir.

But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years

since,

Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

Mir.

Sir, are not you my father?

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and

She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father

Was duke of Milan; and his only heir

A princess;

Mir.

no worse issued.

O the heavens !

What foul play had we, that we came from thence; Or blessed was 't, we did?

Pro.

Both, both, my girl :

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd An

tonio,

I pray thee, mark me,-that a brother should
Be so perfidious!-he, whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I loved, and to him put
The manage of my state: as, at that time,
Through all the signiories it was the first,
And Prospero the prime duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and, for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel; those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger, being transported,
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
Dost thou attend me?

Mir.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom To trash 1 for over-topping; new created

The creatures that were mine; I say, or changed

them,

Or else new form'd them: having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,

And suck'd my verdure out on 't.-Thou attend'st