On a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.
Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain severally.
MASTER.
Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN.
Here, master: what cheer?
MASTER.
Good! Speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.
Exit.
Enter Mariners.
BOATSWAIN.
Heigh, my hearts! Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to th’ master’s whistle.
To the storm.
Blow till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.
Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo and Others.
ALONSO.
Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?
Play the men.
BOATSWAIN.
I pray now, keep below.
ANTONIO.
Where is the master, boson?
BOATSWAIN.
Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
GONZALO.
Nay, good, be patient.
BOATSWAIN.
When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble us not.
GONZALO.
Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
BOATSWAIN.
None that I more love than myself. You are counsellor: if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more. Use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.
To the sailors.
Cheerly, good hearts!
To the passengers.
Out of our way, I say.
Exit.
GONZALO.
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 hang’d, our case is miserable.
Exeunt.
Re-enter Boatswain.
BOATSWAIN.
Down with the topmast! Yare! Lower, lower! Bring her to try wi' th' maincourse.
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?
SEBASTIAN.
A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
BOATSWAIN.
Work you, then.
ANTONIO.
Hang, cur, hang! You whoreson, insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.
GONZALO.
I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.
BOATSWAIN.
Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses: off to sea again: lay her off.
Enter Mariners, wet.
MARINERS.
All lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!
Exeunt.
BOATSWAIN.
What, must our mouths be cold?
GONZALO.
The King and Prince at prayers! Let us assist them, for our case is as theirs.
SEBASTIAN.
I am out of patience.
ANTONIO.
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou might’st lie drowning the washing of ten tides!
GONZALO.
He'll be hang'd 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!'
ANTONIO.
Let's all sink wi' the King.
Exit.
SEBASTIAN.
Let's take leave of him.
Exit.
GONZALO.
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 dry death.
Exit.
The Island. Before the cell of Prospero.
Enter Prospero and Miranda.
MIRANDA.
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 th' 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,
Dash'd all to pieces. O! the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd.
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 swallow'd and
The fraughting souls within her.
PROSPERO.
Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.
MIRANDA.
O! Woe the day!
PROSPERO.
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.
MIRANDA.
More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.
PROSPERO.
'Tis time
I should inform thee farther. 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 wrack, which touch'd
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 farther.
MIRANDA.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am: but stopp'd,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding ‘Stay; not yet.’
PROSPERO.
The hour's now come,
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.
MIRANDA.
Certainly, sir, I can.
PROSPERO.
By what? By any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image, tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
MIRANDA.
'Tis far off,
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four, or five, women once, that tended me?
PROSPERO.
Thou hadst, 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 rememb'rest aught ere thou cam'st here,
How thou cam'st here, thou mayst.
MIRANDA.
But that I do not.
PROSPERO.
Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.
MIRANDA.
Sir, are not you my father?
PROSPERO.
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
And princess, no worse issued.
MIRANDA.
O, the heavens!
What foul play had we that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?
PROSPERO.
Both, both, my girl.
By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;
But blessedly holp hither.
MIRANDA.
O! my heart bleeds
To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance. Please you, further.
PROSPERO.
My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,
I pray thee, mark me, that a brother should
Be so perfidious! he, whom next thyself,
Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
The manage of my state; as at that time
Through all the signories 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?
MIRANDA.
Sir, most heedfully.
PROSPERO.
Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them, who t' advance, and who
To trash for over-topping; new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,
Or else new form'd 'em: having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
To what tune pleas'd his ear: that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.
MIRANDA.
O, good sir! I do.
PROSPERO.
I pray thee, mark me.
I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind
With that, which, but by being so retir'd,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
Awak'd 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, into 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 o' the substitution,
And executing th' outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing
Dost thou hear?
MIRANDA.
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
PROSPERO.
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, wi' th' 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.
MIRANDA.
O the heavens!
PROSPERO.
Mark his condition, and the event; then tell me
If this might be a brother.
MIRANDA.
I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother:
Good wombs have borne bad sons.
PROSPERO.
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' th' dead of darkness,
The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence
Me and thy crying self.
MIRANDA.
Alack, for pity!
I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
Will cry it o'er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to't.
PROSPERO.
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.
MIRANDA.
Wherefore did they not
That hour destroy us?
PROSPERO.
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
A rotten carcass of a boat, not rigg'd,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats
Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us,
To cry to th' sea, that roar'd to us: to sigh
To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong.
MIRANDA.
Alack! What trouble
Was I then to you!
PROSPERO.
O, a cherubin
Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burden groan'd: which rais'd in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.
MIRANDA.
How came we ashore?
PROSPERO.
By Providence divine.
Some food we had and some fresh water that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
Out of his charity,—who being then appointed
Master of this design,—did give us, with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much: so, of his gentleness,
Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me,
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
MIRANDA.
Would I might
But ever see that man!
END OF EXTRACT
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Published by Les Éditions de Londres
© 2013 — Les Éditions de Londres
ISBN : 978-1-909782-34-1