As in the larger work, we have numbered the lines of each scene for convenience of reference.

In the stage directions we have preserved as far as we could, consistently with clearness, the language of the oldest texts.

The Glossary has been prepared by the Rev. J. M. Jephson.

We trust that the title which has been chosen for the present edition will neither be thought presumptuous nor be found inappropriate. It seems indeed safe to predict that any volume which presents, in a convenient form, with clear type and at a moderate cost, the complete works of the foremost man in all literature, the greatest master of the language most widely spoken among men, will make its way to the remotest corners of the habitable globe.

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

Boats. I pray now, keep below.
Ant. Where is the master, boatswain?

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

Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

Gon. Cood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

21

II

Boatswain.
Mariners.

MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero.

ARIEL, an airy Spirit.

IRIS,
CERES,

JUNO,
Nymphs,

Reapers,

presented by Spirits.

Other Spirits attending on Prospero.
SCENE-A ship at Sea: an island.

age.
If he be not born to be hanged, our case
is miserable.
[Exeunt.

Re-enter Boatswain.

Boats. Down with the topmast! 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.

40

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, incharitable dog! Boats. Work you then.

Ant. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

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

Enter Mariners wet.

Mariners, All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?
Gon. The king and prince at prayers! let's
assist them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb. I'm out of patience. Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards: This wide-chapp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning

60

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 glut him.
[A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!—
We split, we split !'-'Farewell my wife and
children!'-

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,Farewell, brother!'-'We split, we split, we gcod Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advant

split!']

Ant. Let's all sink with the king.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exeunt Ant. and Seb. 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. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mir. Ifby 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 creature 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 ere
It should the good ship so have swallow'd and
The fraughting souls within her.

ΙΟ

Pros.
Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.

O, woe the day!

Mir.
Pros.
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.

Mir.
More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.
Pros.

'Tis time
I should inform thee farther. 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.

Mir.
'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?

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

Mir.

Certainly, sir, I can.
Pros. By what? by any other house or person?
Of any thing the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

50

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 camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.
Mir.
But that I do not.
Pros. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve
year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power.
Mir.

Sir, are not you my father?
Pros. Thy mother was a piece
and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued.

Mir.

O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you,

farther.

I

20

Pr. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-
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 signories 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.
Pros. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who to advance and who 80
To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed.

'em,

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
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. To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
Sit down;
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

30

Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state

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

not.

For thou must now know farther.
Mir.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

Pros.
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 40 Like a good parent, did beget of him

Out three years old.

A falsehood in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being this lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact, like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie, he did believe
He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitutin,

po

70

Mir. O, good sir, I do.
Pros.
I pray thee, mark me.
I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
'To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retired,
O'er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awaked an evil nature; and my trust,

90