- Gonzalo: Though this island seem to be desert, uninhabitable and almost inaccessible...
- Sebastian: Yet.
- Gonzalo: Yet...
- Antonio: I could not miss it.
- Gonzalo: The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
- Sebastian: As if it hand lungs, and rotten ones.
- Antonio: Or as 'twere perfumed by a fen.
- Gonzalo: Here is everything advantageous to life.
- Antonio: True, save means to live.
- Sebastian: Of that there's none, or little.
- Gonzalo: How lush and lusty the grass looks! Mm? How green!
- Antonio: The ground indeed is tawny.
- Sebastian: With an eye of green in't.
- Trinculo: [tripping over Caliban] What have we here? A man or a fish? Dead or alive?
- [sniffing]
- Trinculo: A fish. He smells like a fish. A very ancient fish-like smell. Whew. A strange fish. Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. There would this monster make a man. Any strange beast there makes a man. Where they will not give a penny to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man... and his fins... like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion, hold it no longer. This is no fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt.
- [thunder crashes]
- Trinculo: Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is to creep under his gaberdine. There is no other shelter hereabout.
- Trinculo: Stephano?
- Stephano: Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! This is a devil and no monster! I will leave him!
- Trinculo: Stephano? If thou beest Stephano, touch me and speak to me. Be not afeared, for I am Trinculo. Thy good friend Trinculo!
- Stephano: If thou beest Trinculo, come forth. I'll pull thee by the lesser legs. If any be Trinculo's legs, these are they.
- [pulling him out of his hiding place]
- Stephano: Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How camest thou to be the siege of this mooncalf? Can he vent Trinculos?
- Trinculo: I-I took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke. But art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hid me under the dead mooncalf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans 'scaped!
- [they spin around together, laughing]
- Stephano: [suddenly feeling sick] Prithee, do not turn me about. My stomach is not constant.
- King Alonso: Good boatswain, have care! Where's the master? Play the men!
- Boatswain: I pray now, keep below!
- King Alonso: Where is the master, boatswain?
- Guard: Do you not hear him? You mar our labor!
- Boatswain: Keep your cabins! You do assist the storm!
- Gonzalo: Nay, good, be patient!
- Boatswain: When the sea is!
- Prospera: I charge thee that thou attend me! Thou dost here usurp the name thou owest not and have put thyself upon this island as a spy, to win it from me, the sovereign on't.
- Prince Ferdinand: No, as I am a man.
- Miranda: There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
- Prospera: Follow me. Speak not you for him, he's a traitor. Come, I'll manacle thy neck and feet together. Seawater shalt thou drink. Follow.
- Prince Ferdinand: No, I will resist such entertainment till mine enemy has more power.
- Miranda: O, dear mother, make not too rash a trial of him, for he's gentle and not fearful.
- Prospera: What? I say, my foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor, for I can here disarm thee with this stick and make thy weapon drop.
- Miranda: Beseech you, mother.
- Prospera: Hang not upon my garment.
- Miranda: Ma'am, have pity. I'll be his surety.
- Prospera: Silence! One word more shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he, having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish child. To the most of men, this is a Caliban and they to him are angels.
- Miranda: My affections are then most humble. I have no ambition to see a goodlier man.
- Prospera: Come on. Obey. Thy nerves are in their infancy again and have no vigor in them.
- Prince Ferdinand: So they are. My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up. My father's loss, the weakness which I feel, the wreck of all my friends, nor this dame's threats, to whom I am subdued, are but light to me. Might I but through my prison once a day behold this maid. All corners else o' the earth let liberty make use of, space enough have I in such a prison.
- Gonzalo: The rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit, that our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric. In-In Tunis. At the marriage of your fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
- King Alonso: You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense. Would I had never married my daughter there. For, coming thence, my son is lost and, in my rate, she too, who is so far from Italy removed I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir of Naples and Milan, what strange fish hath made his meal on thee?
- Antonio: Sir, he may live. I saw him beat the surges under him and ride upon their backs. I not doubt he came alive to land.
- King Alonso: No, no, he's gone.
- Sebastian: Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, that would not bless our Europe with your daughter, but rather lose her to an African.
- King Alonso: Prithee, peace.
- Sebastian: We have lost your son, I fear, forever. The fault's your own.
- King Alonso: So is the dearest o' the loss.
- Gonzalo: My lord Sebastian, the truth you speak doth lack some gentleness. You rub the sore when you should bring the plaster.
- Sebastian: Very well.
- Antonio: And most like a surgeon.
- Gonzalo: Beseech you, sir. Be merry. You have cause, so have we all, of joy, for our escape is much beyond our loss. But for the miracle, I-I mean our preservation, few in millions can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh our sorrow with our comfort.
- King Alonso: Prithee, peace.
- Sebastian: He receives comfort like cold porridge.
- Antonio: Look. He's winding up the watch of his wit. By and by it will strike.
- Gonzalo: Sir...
- Sebastian: One! Tell.
- Gonzalo: When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd comes to the entertainer...
- Sebastian: A dollar.
- Gonzalo: Dolor comes to him, indeed. You have spoken truer than you purposed.
- Sebastian: You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.
- Gonzalo: There... thereford, my lord...
- Antonio: Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
- King Alonso: I prithee, spare.
- Stephano: Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon us, with savages and men of Indie? Huh? I have not 'scaped drowning to be afeared now of your four legs.
- Caliban: The spirit torments me, oh!
- Stephano: This is some monster of the isle with four legs who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him and keep him tame and get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor.
- Caliban: Oh, do not torment me, prithee. I'll bring my wood home faster!
- Stephano: He's in his fit now and does not talk after the wisest. He shall taste of my bottle.
- [pouring wine into Caliban's mouth]
- Stephano: Come on your ways. Open your mouth. This will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly. You cannot tell who's your friend. Open your chaps again.
- Trinculo: I should know that voice! It should be... but he is drowned, and these are devils. O defend me!
- Stephano: Four legs and two voices. A most delicate monster.
- Caliban: When thou camest first, thou strokedst 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 loved thee and show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, the fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile: cursed 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' the island.
- Prospera: Thou most lying slave, whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee with humane care, lodged thee in mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate the honor of my child.
- Caliban: Oh, ho. Would it had been done. Thou didst prevent me, I had peopled else this isle with Calibans.
- Miranda: Abhorred slave, which any print of goodness wilt not take. I pitied thee, took pains to make thee speak!
- 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!
- Prospera: Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us in fuel. 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.
- Prospera: Hast thou, spirit, perform'd to the point the tempest that I bade thee?
- Ariel: To every article. I boarded the king's ship. Now on the beak, now on the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement! Sometime I'd divide and burn in many places. The fire and cracks of sulfurous roaring the most mighty Neptune seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, yea, his dread trident shake!
- Prospera: My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant that this coil could not infect his reason?
- Ariel: Not a soul but felt a fever of the mad and play'd some tricks of desperation. The king's son, Ferdinand, with hair up-staring, was the first man that leap'd, cried, "Hell is empty and all the devils are here!"
- Prospera: Why, that's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore?
- Ariel: Close by, my master.
- Prospera: But are they, Ariel, safe?
- Ariel: Not a hair perish'd. On their sustaining garments, not a blemish, but fresher than before. And, as thou badest me, in troops I have dispersed them 'bout the isle. The king's son have I landed by himself, whom I left cooling of the air with sighs in an odd angle of the isle and sitting, his arms in this sad knot.
- Prospera: Of the king's ship, the mariners, say how thou has disposed.
- Ariel: Safely in harbor is the king's ship, in the deep nook, there she's hid. The mariners all under hatches stow'd, who with a charm I have left asleep.
- Miranda: If by your art, my dearest mother, you have put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. 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. Poor souls, they perish'd.
- Prospera: [stopping the storm] Be collected. No more amazement. Tell thy piteous heart there's no harm done.
- Miranda: O, woe the day.
- Prospera: 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, naught knowing of whence I am, nor that I am more better than Prospera, master of a full poor cell, and thy no greater mother.
- Miranda: More to know did never meddle with my thoughts.
- Prospera: 'Tis time I should inform thee further.
- Caliban: As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd with raven's feather from unwholesome fen dop on you both! A south-west blow on ye and blister you all o'er!
- Prospera: For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps, side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins shall work all exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinch'd as thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging than bees that made 'em.
- Prince Ferdinand: Most sure, the goddess on whom these airs attend. Vouchsafe my prayer may know if you remain upon this island, 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.
- Prince Ferdinand: My language! Heavens! I am the best of them that speak this speech, were I but where 'tis spoken.
- Prospera: How, the best? What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
- Prince 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, wreck'd.
- Miranda: Alack, for mercy!
- Prince Ferdinand: Yes, faith, and all his lords.
- Prospera: At first sight they have changed eyes. O delicate Ariel, I will set thee free for this. A word, good sir. I fear you have done yourself some wrong. A word!
- Miranda: Why speaks my mother so ungently? This is the second man that e'er I saw, the first that e'er I sighed for.
- Prospera: They are both in either's powers, but this swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning make the prize light.
- Ariel: Since thou dost give me pains, let me remember thee what thou hast promised, which is not yet perform'd me.
- Prospera: How now? Moody? What is't thou canst demand?
- Ariel: My liberty!
- Prospera: Before the time be out? No more!
- Ariel: I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service. Thou didst promise to bate me a full year.
- Prospera: Dost thou forget from what a torment I did free thee?
- Ariel: No.
- Prospera: Thou dost.
- Ariel: I do not, ma'am.
- Prospera: Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot the foul witch Sycorax? Hast thou forgot her?
- Ariel: No, ma'am.
- Prospera: Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak. Tell me.
- Ariel: Ma'am, in Algiers.
- Prospera: O, was she so? I must once in a month recount what thou hast been, which thou forget'st. This dam'd witch Sycorax, for mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible to enter human hearing, from Algiers, thou know'st, was banish'd. Is not this true?
- Ariel: Aye, ma'am.
- Prospera: This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child and here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave, as thou report'st thyself, was then her servant, but for thou wast a spirit too delicate to act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, she did confine thee into a cloven pine, within which imprison'd thou didst painfully remain a dozen years, within which space she died and left thee there. Thou best know'st what a torment I did find thee in. Thy groans did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts of ever angry bears. It was mine art, when I arrived and heard thee, that made gape the pine and let thee out.
- Ariel: I thank thee, master.
- Prospera: If thou more murmurest, I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails 'til thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
- Ariel: Pardon, master. I will be correspondent to command and do my spiriting gently.
- Prospera: Do so. And after two days I will discharge thee.
- Prospera: The King of Naples, being an enemy to me inveterate, hearkens to my brother's suit, which was that he should presently eradicate me and mine out of the dukedom and confer fair Milan with all its honors upon my brother. Whereon, one midnight did Antonio open the gates of Milan. Into the dead of darkness, his ministers for the purpose hurried thence me and thy crying self.
- Miranda: Wherefore did they not that hour destroy us?
- Prospera: Dear, they durst not, so dear the love my people bore me. In few, they hurried us aboard a bark, bore us some leagues to sea, where they'd prepared a rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd, nor tackle, sail, nor mast. The very rats instinctively had quit it. And there they hoist us, to cry to the seas 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.
- Prospera: O, a cherubim thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile, infused with a fortitude from heaven that raised in me an undergoing stomach to bear up against what should ensue.
- Miranda: How came we ashore?
- Prospera: By providence divine. Some food we had and some fresh water that a noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo, out of his charity did give us, with rich garments, stuffs and necessaries, which since have steaded much. Of his gentleness, knowing I loved my books, he furnish'd me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.
- Prospera: Canst thou remember a time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst, for then thou was not out three years old.
- Miranda: Certainly, ma'am, I can.
- Prospera: By what? By any other house or person? Of anything the image tell me that hath kept with thy remembrance.
- Miranda: 'Tis far off and rather like a dream. Had I not four or five women once that tended me?
- Prospera: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since, thy mother held the dukedom of Milan and its princely power.
- Miranda: But are not you my mother?
- Prospera: The very same. Who, long ago, was wife to him who ruled Milan most liberally. Who, with as tolerant a hand toward me, gave license to my long hours in pursuit of hidden truths, of coiled powers contained within some elements to harm or heal. I brooked no interruption but your squalling, for thou, child, art a princess born.
- Miranda: O heavens! What foul play had we that we came from thence?
- Prospera: Upon thy father's death, authority was conferred, as was his will, to me alone, thereby awakening the ambition of my brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio. Thou attendest not!
- Miranda: Good madam, I do.
- Prospera: I pray thee, mark me, that a brother should be so perfidious! He whom I did charge to execute express commands as to the prudent governing of fair Milan, instead undid, subverted... dost thou attend me?
- Miranda: Ma'am, most heedfully.
- Prospera: Perverting my upstanding studies, now his slandering and bile-dipped brush did paint a faithless portrait. His sister, a practicer of the black arts! A demon, not a woman, nay, a witch! And he full knowing that others of my sex have burned for no less. The flames now fanned, my counselors turned against me. Dost thou hear?
- Miranda: Your tale, ma'am, would cure deafness.
- Prospera: The fringed curtains of thine eye advance and say, say what thou seest yond.
- Miranda: [seeing Ferdinand] What is't? A spirit?
- Prospera: No, child. It eats and sleeps and hath such senses as we have, such. This gallant which thou seest was in the wreck.
- Miranda: I might call him a thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.
- Miranda: You look wearily.
- Prince Ferdinand: No, noble mistress. 'Tis fresh morning with me when you are by at night. I do beseech you, what is your name?
- Miranda: Miranda. O my mother, I have broken your hest to say so!
- Prince Ferdinand: Admired Miranda! Indeed the top of admiration, worth what's dearest to the world.
- Prince Ferdinand: Full many a lady have I eyed with best regard. Many a time the harmony of their tongues hath into bondage brought my too diligent ear. For several virtues have I liked several women, never any with so full soul. But some defect in her did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed and put it to the foil. But you... O you, so perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature's best.
- Miranda: I know only one more of my sex, no young woman's face remember, save from my glass, mine own. Nor have I seen more that I may call men than you, good friend. How features are abroad, I am skill-less of, but by my modesty, I would not wish any companion in the world but you. Nor can imagination form a shape, besides yourself, to the like of. But I prattle something too wildly. My mother's precepts I therein do forget.
- Prince Ferdinand: I am in my condition a prince, Miranda. I do think a king. I would not so. Hear my soul speak. The very instant that I saw you did my heart fly to your service. There resides, to make me slave to it. And for your sake am I this patient log-man.
- Miranda: Do you love me?
- Prince Ferdinand: O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound. I beyond all limit of what else i' the world, do love, prize, honor you.
- Miranda: I am a fool... to weep at what I am glad of.
- Prince Ferdinand: Wherefore weep you?
- Miranda: At mine unworthiness, which dare not offer what I desire to give, and much less take what I shall die to want. But this is trifling, and all the more it seeks to hide itself, the bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning, and prompt me, plain and holy innocence. I am your wife, if you will marry me. If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow, you may deny me, but I'll be your servant, whether you will or no.
- Prince Ferdinand: My mistress, dearest, and I thus humble ever.
- Miranda: My husband, then?
- Prince Ferdinand: Ay, with a heart as willing as bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.
- Miranda: And mine, with my heart in't.
- Antonio: Although this lord hath here almost persuaded the king his son's alive, 'tis as impossible that he's undrown'd as he that sleeps here swims.
- Sebastian: I have no hope that he's undrown'd.
- Antonio: O, out of that "no hope" what great hope have you! No hope that way is another way so high a hope that even ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, but doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me that Ferdinand is drowned?
- Sebastian: He's gone.
- Antonio: Then tell me, who's the next heir of Naples?
- Sebastian: Claribel.
- Antonio: She that is queen of Tunis? She that dwells ten leagues beyond man's life? She that from whom we all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again, and by that destiny to perform an act whereof what's past is prologue, what to come in yours and my discharge.
- Sebastian: What stuff is this! How say you?
- Antonio: Say this were death that now hath seized them. Why, they were no worse than now they are. There be that can rule Naples as well as he that sleeps. O, that you bore the mind that I do! What a sleep were this for your advancement. Do you understand me?
- Sebastian: Methinks I do.
- Antonio: Then how does your content tender your own good fortune?
- Sebastian: I remember you did supplant your sister Prospera.
- Antonio: True. And look how well my garments sit upon me. My sister's servants were then my fellows, now they are my men.
- Sebastian: But, for your conscience?
- Antonio: Ay, sir, where lies that? 20 consciences that stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they and melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother, no better than the earth he lies upon. If he were that which now he's like, that's dead, whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it, can lay to bed forever, whiles you, doing thus, to this ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who should not upbraid our course.
- Sebastian: Thy case, dear friend, shall be my precedent. As thou got'st Milan, I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest, and I, the king, shall love thee.
- Sebastian: [Gonzalo and King Alonzo fall asleep] What a strange drowsiness possesses them.
- Antonio: 'Tis the quality o' the climate.
- Sebastian: Why doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not myself disposed to sleep.
- Antonio: Nor I. My spirits are nimble. They fell together as by consent. They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might, worthy Sebastian? O, what might? No more. And yet methinks I see it in thy face what thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and my strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head.
- Sebastian: What? Art thou waking?
- Antonio: Do you not hear me speak?
- Sebastian: I do. And surely 'tis a sleepy language and thou speak'st out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say? This is a strange repose, to be asleep with eyes wide open. Standing, speaking, moving, and yet so fast asleep.
- Antonio: Noble Sebastian, thou let'st thy fortune sleep. Die, rather. Wink'st whiles thou art waking.
- Sebastian: Thou dost snore, distinctly. There's meaning in thy snores.
- Antonio: I more serious than my custom. You must be too, if heed me, which to do trebles thee o'er.
- Sebastian: Well... I am standing water.
- Antonio: I'll teach you how to flow.
- Sebastian: Do so. To ebb hereditary sloth instructs me.
- Gonzalo: I would with such perfection govern, sir, as to excel the golden age.
- Sebastian: [chuckling] God save his majesty!
- Antonio: Long live Gonzalo!
- Gonzalo: And, do you... do you mark me, sir?
- King Alonso: Prithee, no more. Thou dost talk nothing to me.
- Gonzalo: I do well believe your majesty, and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always used to laugh at nothing.
- Antonio: 'Twas you we laughed at.
- Gonzalo: Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you, so you may continue and laugh at nothing still.