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 ; 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 drunk

ards.

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.

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 englul, to swallow.

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

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! Had I been any god of

Poor souls! they perished. 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.

1

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.

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;

Had I not

And rather like a dream than an assurance.

That my remembrance warrants:

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

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;-no worse issued.

Mira.

O, the heavens!

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

Pro.

Both, both, my girl:

O, my heart bleeds

By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence; But blessedly holp hither.

Mira.

To think o' the teen' that I have turned you to,

Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further

I

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, called 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 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?

Mira.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them; whom to advance, and whom

To trash for overtopping; new created

The creatures that were mine; I say, or changed them,
Or else new formed 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 sucked my verdure out on't.-Thou attend'st not.

1 Grief, sorrow.

2 To check the pace or progress of any one. Trashes are clogs strapped round the neck of a dog to prevent his overspeed. There was another word of the same kind used in falconry.

Mira. O good sir, I do.

I

pray

Pro.
thee mark me.
I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate
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,,
Like a good parent,' did beget of him

A falsehood, in its contrary as great

As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else exact,-like one,
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,

To credit his own lie,2-he did believe

He was indeed the duke; out of the substitution,
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative:-Hence his ambition
Growing,-Dost hear?

Mira. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness. Pro. To have no screen between this part he played And him he played it for, he needs will be Absolute Milan: Me, poor man!--my library Was dukedom large enough; of temporal royalties He thinks me now incapable: confederates (So dry he was for sway) with the king of Naples, To give him annual tribute, do him homage; Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend The dukedom, yet unbowed, (alas, poor Milan!) To most ignoble stooping.

Mira.

O the heavens!

Pro. Mark his condition, and the event; then

tell me,

If this might be a brother.

1 Alluding to the observation that a father above the common rate of men has generally a son below it.

2 "Who having made his memory such a sinner to truth as to credit his own lie by telling of it."