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From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari.

Pros.

No.

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?
Ari. No, sir.

Pros.

Thou hast. Where was she born?

speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Argier.*

Pros.

260

*Algiers.

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.

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

*Commands.

To act her earthy and abhorr'd 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 riftt
Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years; within which space she died

† Split.

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 gape The pine and let thee out.

Ari.

290

I thank thee, master. Pr. 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 spiriting gently.

Pros.

I will discharge thee.

Ari.

Do so, and after two days

That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what; what shall I do? 300 Pros. Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea:

be subject

To no sight but thine
To every eyeball else.
And hither come in't

and mine, invisible Go take this shape 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.

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,

I do not love to look on.

Pros.

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.

Cal. [Within] There's wood enough within.

310

Pros. Come forth, I say! there's other busi

ness for thee:

Come, thou tortoise! when?

Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph.

Fine apparition! My quaint* Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.

*Curiously beautiful.

Ari.

My lord, it shall be done. [Exit. Pros. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Enter CALIBAN.

320

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.

*Baneful.

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.

*Hedgehogs.

†Dead.

Cal. I must eat my dinner. 330 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

you have,

341

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that
Which first was mine own king: and here you
sty* me

* Lodge.

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 hav

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, Oho! would't had been done! Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else This isle with Calibans.

Pros.

Abhorred slave,

Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,

350

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.

[blocks in formation]

But thy vile

*Inherited nature.

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.

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! *Erysipelas destroy.
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 * Offspring.
What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar 370
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.

*Fiend's name.

Pros.

So, slave; hence! [Exit Caliban.

Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing; FERDINAND following.

ARIEL'S Song.

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:

Courtsied when you have and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,*

Foot it featly here and there;

*Silent.

+Nimbly. 380

And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.

Burthen [dispersedly]. Hark, hark!

The watch-dogs bark:

Ari. Hark, hark! I hear

Bow-wow.

Bow-wow.

The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

Fer. 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, 390
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:

400

Burthen. Ding-dong.

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

Fer. 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.

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