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, 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.

Boats. Down with the top-mast; 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, uncharitable 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 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!

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!

He'll be hanged yet;

Gon.
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.

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.

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! Poor souls! they perished.
Had I been any god of 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.

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.

Mira.

More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro.

'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
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 since, Thy father was the duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

Mira.

Sir, are not you my father?

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:

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

Mira.

O, my heart bleeds

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 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. 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'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,-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 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) with 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.

Mira.

O the heavens!

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

Mira.

I should sin

To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.

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.

Mira.

Alack, for pity! I, not rememb'ring how I cry'd out then, Will cry it o'er again: it is a hirt,

That wrings mine eyes.

Pro.

Hear a little further,

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

Were most impertinent.

Mira.

That hour destroy us?

Pro.

Wherefore did they not

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