The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare
Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;
Thou art inclin’d to sleep; ‘tis a good dulness,
And give it way;—I know thou canst not choose.—
[MIRANDA sleeps]
Come away, servant, come! I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel; Come!
[Enter ARIEL]
ARIEL.
All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds; to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.
PROSPERO.
Hast thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARIEL.
To every article.
I boarded the King’s ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam’d amazement; sometime I’d divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards, and boresprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join: Jove’s lightning, the precursors
O’ th’ dreadful thunderclaps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not: the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.
PROSPERO.
My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
ARIEL.
Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and play’d
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the King’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair upstaring—then like reeds, not hair—
Was the first man that leapt; cried ‘Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.’
PROSPERO.
Why, that’s my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?
ARIEL.
Close by, my master.
PROSPERO.
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 bad’st me,
In troops I have dispers’d 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.
PROSPERO.
Of the King’s ship
The mariners, say how thou hast dispos’d,
And all the rest o’ th’ fleet?
ARIEL.
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 stowed;
Who, with a charm join’d to their suff’red labour,
I have left asleep: and for the rest o’ th’ fleet
Which I dispers’d, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wrack’d,
And his great person perish.
PROSPERO.
Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform’d; but there’s more work:
What is the time o’ th’ day?
ARIEL.
Past the mid season.
PROSPERO.
At least two glasses. The time ‘twixt six and now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
ARIEL.
Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promis’d,
Which is not yet perform’d me.
PROSPERO.
How now! moody?
What is’t thou canst demand?
ARIEL.
My liberty.
PROSPERO.
Before the time be out! No more!
ARIEL.
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service;
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d
Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO.
Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
ARIEL.
No.
PROSPERO.
Thou dost; and think’st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt 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 frost.
ARIEL.
I do not, sir.
PROSPERO.
Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
ARIEL.
No, sir.
PROSPERO.
Thou hast. Where was she born?
Speak; tell me.
ARIEL.
Sir, in Argier.
PROSPERO.
O! was she so? I must