TEMPEST.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-On a Ship at Sea.

A Storm, with Thunder and Lightning.

Enter a Ship-master and a Boatswain.

Master. BOATSWAIN,

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good: speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely,' or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit.

Enter Mariners.

Boats. Heigh, my hearts; cheerly, cheerly, my hearts; yare, yare: Take in the top-sail; Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Enter ALONZO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others.

Alon. Good Boatswain, have care. Where's the master? Play the men.2

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labor! keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is.

1 Readily, nimbly.

Hence! What care these

2 Behave like men.

roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence: trouble us not.

Gon. Good; yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present,' we will not hand a rope more; use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.-Cheerly, good hearts.-Out of our way, I say. [Exit.

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good fate, to his hanging! make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage! if he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

2

Boats. Down with the top-mast; yare; lower, lower; bring her to try with main course. [A cry within.] A plague upon this howling! they are louder than the weather, or our office.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO. Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Seb. A pox o' your throat! you bawling, blasphemous, uncharitable dog!

Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him from drowning; though the

1 The present instant.

2 In Smith's Sea Grammar, 1627, 4to., under the article How to handle a Ship in a Storme :-"Let us lie as Trie with our main course; that is, to hale the tacke aboord, the sheat close aft, the boling set up, and the helm tied close aboord."

ship were no stronger than a nut-shell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses;1 off to sea again, lay her off.

Enter Mariners, wet.

Mar. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

[Exeunt.

Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let us assist

them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I am out of patience.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.

This wide-chapped rascal;-'Would, thou might'st lie

drowning,

The washing of ten tides!

Gon.

He'll be hanged yet;

Though every drop of water swear against it,

And gape at wid'st to glut3 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.

1 The courses are the main-sail and fore-sail. To lay a ship a-hold, is to bring her to lie as near the wind as she can, in order to keep clear of the land and get her out to sea.

2 Absolutely, entirely.

3 To englut, to swallow.

4 Sir Thomas Hanmer reads-ling, heath, broom, furze, &c.

VOL. I.

2

SCENE II.-The Island: before the Cell of Prospero.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mira. 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 suffered

With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel,
Who had no doubt some noble creatures in her,
Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e'er

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

Pro.

Be collected:

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

Mira.

Pro.

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

Mira.

Did never meddle with my

Pro.

More to know

thoughts.

'Tis time

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand,
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 touched

1 The first folio reads fraughting. 2 To mix, or to interfere with

The very virtue of compassion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered, that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as an 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.

You have often

Mira.
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopped
And left me to a bootless inquisition;
Concluding, Stay, not yet.—

Pro.

The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;

Obey, and be attentive. Can'st thou remember
A time before we came into this cell?

I do not think thou can'st; for then thou wast not
Out' three years old.

Mira.

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.

Mira.

'Tis far off;

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 had'st, and more, Miranda: But how

is it,

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

If thou remember'st aught, ere thou cam'st here,
How cam'st thou here, thou may'st.

Mira.

But that I do not.

Pro. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years