William Shakespeare - The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

And hither come in ‘t: go, hence with diligence!

[Exit ARIEL]

Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;

Awake!

MIRANDA.

[Waking] 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,

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.

PROSPERO.

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

Come, thou tortoise! when?

[Re-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

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

[Enter CALIBAN]

CALIBAN.

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!

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 pinch’d

As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging

Than bees that made them.

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

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I lov’d thee,

And show’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,

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

Curs’d 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’ th’ island.

PROSPERO.

Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us’d thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg’d thee

In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate

The honour of my child.

CALIBAN.

Oh ho! Oh ho! Would it had been done!

Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl’d else

This isle with Calibans.

PROSPERO.

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

Deservedly confin’d into this rock, who hadst

Deserv’d more than a prison.

CALIBAN.

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!

PROSPERO.

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.

CALIBAN.

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.

PROSPERO.

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:

Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d,—

The wild waves whist,—

Foot it featly here and there;

And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

Hark, hark!

[Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.]

The watch dogs bark:

[Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.]

Hark, hark! I hear

The strain of strutting Chanticleer

[Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.]

FERDINAND.

Where should this music be? i’ th’ air or th’ earth?

It sounds no more;—and sure it waits upon

Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,

Weeping again the king my father’s wrack,

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:

[Burden: Ding-dong.]

Hark! now I hear them—ding-dong, bell.

FERDINAND.

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.

PROSPERO.

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,

And say what thou seest yond.

MIRANDA.

What is’t? a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,

It carries a brave form:—but ‘tis a spirit.

PROSPERO.

No, wench; it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses

As we have, such; this gallant which thou see’st

Was in the wrack; and but he’s something stain’d

With grief,—that beauty’s canker,—thou mightst call him

A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows

And strays about to find ‘em.

MIRANDA.

I might call him

A thing divine; for nothing natural

I ever saw so noble.

PROSPERO.

[Aside] It goes on, I see,

As my soul prompts it.—Spirit, fine spirit! I’ll free thee

Within two days for this.

FERDINAND.

Most sure, the goddess

On whom these airs attend!—Vouchsafe, my prayer

May know if you remain upon this island;

And that you will some good instruction give

How I may bear me here: my prime request,

Which I do last pronounce, is,—O you wonder!—

If you be maid or no?

MIRANDA.

No wonder, sir;

But certainly a maid.

FERDINAND.

My language! Heavens!—

I am the best of them that speak this speech,

Were I but where ‘tis spoken.

PROSPERO.

How! the best?

What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?

FERDINAND.

A single thing, as I am now, that wonders

To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;

And, that he does, I weep: myself am Naples,

Who with mine eyes,—never since at ebb,—beheld

The King, my father wrack’d.

MIRANDA.

Alack, for mercy!

FERDINAND.

Yes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan,

And his brave son being twain.

PROSPERO.

[Aside.] The Duke of Milan,

And his more braver daughter could control thee,

If now ‘twere fit to do’t.—At the first sight [Aside.]

They have changed eyes;—delicate Ariel,

I’ll set thee free for this!—[To FERDINAND] A word, good sir:

I fear you have done yourself some wrong: a word.

MIRANDA.

[Aside.] Why speaks my father so ungently? This