William Shakespeare - The Tempest.doc

ACT I
SCENE I. On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise
of thunder and lightning heard.

Enter a Master and a Boatswain

Master 
Boatswain!

Boatswain 
Here, master: what cheer?

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

Exit

Enter Mariners

Boatswain 
Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!
yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the
master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,
if room enough!

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others

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

Boatswain 
I pray now, keep below.

ANTONIO 
Where is the master, boatswain?

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

GONZALO 
Nay, good, be patient.

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

GONZALO 
Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain 
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

GONZALO 
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

Boatswain 
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.

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?

SEBASTIAN 
A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
incharitable dog!

Boatswain 
Work you then.

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

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

Boatswain 
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!

Boatswain 
What, must our mouths be cold?

GONZALO 
The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,
For our case is as theirs.

SEBASTIAN 
I'm out of patience.

ANTONIO 
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!

GONZALO 
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!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'--'We split, we split, we split!'

ANTONIO 
Let's all sink with the king.

SEBASTIAN 
Let's take leave of him.

Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN

GONZALO 
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 
MIRANDA 
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 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.

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

MIRANDA 
O, woe the day!

PROSPERO 
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.

MIRANDA 
More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.

PROSPERO 
'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.
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. Sit down;
For thou must now know farther.

MIRANDA 
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

PROSPERO 
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
Out three years old.

MIRANDA 
Certainly, sir, I can.

PROSPERO 
By what? by any other house or person?
Of any thing the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

MIRANDA 
'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?

PROSPERO 
Thou hadst, 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 camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

MIRANDA 
But that I do not.

PROSPERO 
Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power.

MIRANDA 
Sir, are not you my father?

PROSPERO 
Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued.

MIRANDA 
O the heavens!
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?

PROSPERO 
Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.

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

PROSPERO 
My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio--
I 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?

MIRANDA 
Sir, most heedfully.

PROSPERO 
Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who to advance and who
To trash for over-topping, new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed 'em,
Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.

MIRANDA 
O, good sir, I do.

PROSPERO 
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,
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 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 substitution
And executing the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing--
Dost thou hear?

MIRANDA 
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

PROSPERO 
To have no screen between this part he play'd
And him he play'd 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--wi' the King of Naples
To give him annual tribute, do him homage,
Subject his coronet to his crown and bend
The dukedom yet unbow'd--alas, poor Milan!--
To most ignoble stooping.

MIRANDA 
O the heavens!

PROSPERO 
Mark his condition and the event; then tell me
If this might be a brother.

MIRANDA 
I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

PROSPERO 
Now the condition.
The King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
Which was, that he, in lieu o' the premises
Of homage and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan
With all the honours on my brother: whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight
Fated to the purpose did Antonio open
The gates of Milan, and, i' the dead of darkness,
The ministers for the purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self.

MIRANDA 
Alack, for pity!
I, not remembering how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to't.

PROSPERO 
Hear a little further
And then I'll bring thee to the present business
Which now's upon's; without the which this story
Were most impertinent.

MIRANDA 
Wherefore did they not
That hour destroy us?

PROSPERO 
Well demanded, wench:
My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
So dear the love my people bore me, nor set
A mark so bloody on the business, but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh
To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

MIRANDA 
Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!

PROSPERO 
O, a cherubim
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile.
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burthen groan'd; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

MIRANDA 
How came we ashore?

PROSPERO 
By Providence divine.
Some food we had and some fresh water that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
Out of his charity, being then appointed
Master of this design, did give us, with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

MIRANDA 
Would I might
But ever see that man!

PROSPERO 
Now I arise:

Resumes his mantle

Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here ...