Imatges de pàgina
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Come away, fservant, come; I'm ready now:
Approach, my Ariel. Come.

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Ari. All hail, great master! grave Sir, hail! I come

To answer thy best pleasure: be't to fly;

To fwim; to dive into the fire; to ride

On the curl'd clouds: to thy strong bidding tafk
Ariel, and all his qualities.

Pro. Haft thou, spirit,

Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?

Ari. To every article.

I boarded the King's ship: now on the beak,
Now in the waste, the deck, in everv cabin,
I flam'd amazement. Sometimes I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the top-mast,
The yards, and bolt-sprit, would I flame distinctly;
Then meet and join. Jove's lightnings, the precursers
Of dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And fight out-running were not; the fire and cracks
Of fulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem'd to befiege, and make his bold waves tremble;
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Pro. My brave, brave spirit!

Who was fo firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason ?

Ari. Not a foul

But felt a fever of the mind, and play'd
Some tricks of desperation: all, but mariners,
Plunge'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
Then all a-fire with me: the King's fon Ferdinand
With hair up-staring (then like reeds, not hair)
Was the first man that leap'd, cry'd, "Hell is empty;
"And all the devils are here.

Pro. Why, that's my spirit!

But was not this nigh shore?
Ari. Close by, my mafter.

Pro. But are they, Ariel, fafe?

Ari. Not a hair perish'd:

On their fustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before. And as thou bad'st me,
In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the ifle :

VOL. I.

B

The

The King's fon have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with fighs,
In an odd angle of the ifle, and fitting,
His arms in this fad knot.

Pro. Of the King's ship
The mariners, fay how thou hast dispos'd,
And all the rest o' th' fleet?

Ani. Safely in harbour

Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'dst me up at midnight, to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes*, there she's hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow'd,

Who, with a charm join'd to their fuffered labour,
I've left afleep; and for the rest o' th' fleet,
(Which I difpers'd), they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound fadly home for Naples;

Suppofing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd,
And his great perfon perish.

Pro. Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work:
What is the time o' th' day?

Ari Past the mid feafon, at least two glasses..
Pro. The time 'twixt fix and now

Must by us both be spent molt preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? fince thou doft give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro. How now? moody? What is't thou canst demand?

Ari. My liberty.

Pro. Before the time be out? no more.
Ari. I pr'ythee,

Remember, I have done thee worthy service;

This is the Spanish pronoune ation of Bermudas; the account of which illand in Purchas's pilgrimage is, th t it was called the island of devils, a' d the in banted island; th se names being given it from the monstrous tempelts which there have been often fußained And again speaking of the whole uster of isaeds with which the great one is fur ou ded, he faith The island seem rent wird empests of thunder, lightning, and rain, which threaten in time to devour them all.

Told

Told thee no lyes, made no mistakings, serv'd Without or grudge, or grumblings; thou didst promife To bate me a full year.

Pro. Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari. No.

Pro. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze Of the falt deep;

To run upon the sharp wind of the north;
To do me business in the veins o' th' earth,

When it is bak'd with froft.

Ari. I do not, Sir.

Pro. Thou ly'st, malignant thing! hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?

Ari. No, Sir.

Pro. Thou hast: where was the born? speak; tell me. Ari. Sir, in Argier.

Pro. Oh, was the fo? I must

Once in a month recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold and forceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'it was banish'd: for one thing she did,
They would not take her life. Is not this true?

Ari. Ay, Sir.

Pro. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by th' failors: thou, my flave,
As thou report'st thyself, wast then her fervant.
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthly and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprifon'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years, within which space the dy'd,
And left thee there: where thou didst vent thy groans,
As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island

(Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honour'd with
A human shape.

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Ari. Yes; Caliban her fon.

Pro. Dull thing, I say fo: he, that Caliban, Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st, What torment I did find thee in; thy groans Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax Could not again undo: it was mine art, When I arriv'd and heard thee, that made gape The pine, and let thee out.

Ari. I thank thee, master.

Pro. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, And peg thee in his knotty intrails, till Thou'st howl'd away twelve winters. Ari. Pardon, maiter. I will be correfpondent to command, And do my sp'riting gently.

Pro. Do fo: and after two days I will discharge thee.

Ari. That's my noble master:

What shall I do? say, what? what shall I do?
Pro. Go make thyself like to a nymph o' th' fea,

Be subject to no fight but mine; invisible
To ev'ry eye-ball elfe. Go take this shape,

And hither come in it: go hence with diligence.

[Exit Ariel.

Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake

Mira. The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.

Pro. Shake it off: come on;
We'll vifit Caliban my flave, who never
Yields us kind answer.

Mira. 'Tis a villain, Sir,

I do not love to look on
Pro. But, as 'tis,

We cannot miss him he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and ferves in offices
That profit us What ho! slave Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! fpeak.

Gal. [within.] There's wood enough within.

Pro

Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee. Come thou tortoife! when?

Enter Ariel like a water-nymph.

Fine apparition! my quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.

[Exit,

Ari. My Lord, it shall be done. Pro. Thou poisonous flave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth.

SCENE IV. Enter Caliban.

Cal. "As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd "With raven's feather from unwholesome fen, "Drop on you both! a fouth-west blow on ye, " And blifter you all o'er!

[cramps,

Pro. For this, be fure, to-night thou shalt have Side-stiches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch'd

As thick as honey-combs, each pinch more stinging Than bees that made 'em.

Cal. "

I must eat my dinner.

"This ifland's mine by Sycorax my mother,

"Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first,

"Thou ftroak'dit me, and madst much of ine; and

would'st give me

"Water with berries in't; and teach me how

"To name the bigger light, and how the lefs,

"That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,

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And shew'd thee all the qualities o' th' ifle,

"The fresh springs, brine-pits; barren place, and

fertile.

"Curs'd be I, that I did fo! all the charms

"Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!

" For I am all the fubjects that you have,

" Who first was mine own king; and here you sty me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me

The rest of th' ifland.

Pro. Thou most lying slave,

Whom stripes may move, not kindness; I have us'd thee (Filth as thou art) with humane care, and lodg'd In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate

The

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