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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.

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.—

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 noise-maker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

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

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?
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 mightst 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 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!—
Ant. Let's all sink with the king.
Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exit. [Exit.

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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 pe-
rished.

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 swallowed, and
The freighting souls within her.
Be collected;

Pro.

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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
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.

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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.

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Pro. By what? by any other house, or person? Of any thing the image tell me, that Hath kept with thy remembrance. "T is far off;

Mira.

And rather like a dream than an assurance That my remembrance warrants: Had I not Four or five women once that tended me?

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To think o' the teen that I have turned you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.

Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, called 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 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 over-topping; 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.

Mira. O, good sir, I do.

Pro. I pray 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'erprized 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,-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 grow-
ing,-

Dost thou 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 the crown, and bend
The dukedom, yet unbowed, (alas, poor Milan !)
To most ignoble stooping.

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Pro.

Now the condition.

This 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.

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And then I'll bring thee to the present business Which now's upon us, without the which, this

story Were most impertinent.

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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 rigged,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roared to us; to sigh
To the winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.

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But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation: All, but mariners,
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me; the king's son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair),
Was the first man that leaped; cried, “Hell is
empty,

And all the devils are here!"

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But was not this nigh shore?
Ari. Close by, my master.
Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?
Ari. Not a hair perished;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st 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.

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The mariners, say, how thou hast disposed, And all the rest o' the fleet?

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I must eat my dinner.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camést first,

Thou strok'st me, and mad'st 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 showed thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and
fertile ;

Curséd 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,

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