Ari.

Close by, my master.

Pro. But are they, Ariel, safe?

Ari.

:

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.

Pro.

Of the king's ship,

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

Safely in harbour

Ari.
Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call'st me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex'd Bermoothes 24, there she's hid :
The mariners all under hatches stow'd;

Whom, with a charm join'd to their suffer'd labour,
I have left asleep and for the rest o' the fleet,
Which I dispers'd, they all have met again;
And are upon the Mediterranean flote 25,
Bound sadly home for Naples ;

Supposing that they saw the king's ship wreck'd,
And his great person perish.

Pro.

Ariel, thy charge

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

Ari.

Past the mid season.

24 The epithet here applied to the Bermudas will be best understood by those who have seen the chafing of the sea over the rugged rocks by which they are surrounded, and which renders access to them so difficult. It was then the current opinion that Bermudas was inhabited by monsters and devils. Setebos, the

God of Caliban's dam, was an American devil, worshiped by the giants of Patagonia.

25 i. e. waves, or the sea. Flora, SAX. Flot, FR.

Pro. At least two glasses: the time 'twixt six and

now

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

Ari. Is there more toil? since thou must give me

pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,
Which is not yet perform'd me.

Pro.

What is't thou can'st demand?

Ari.

How now ? moody?

My liberty.

I

pray thee

Pro. Before the time be out? no more. Ari. 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.

Pro.

Dost thou forget

No.

From what a torment I did free thee?

Ari.

Pro. 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' the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost.

Ari.

I do not, sir.

Pro. 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? Ari. No, sir.

Pro.

Thou hast: where was she born?

speak; tell me.

Ari. Sir, in Argier 26.

Pro.

O, was she so? I must,

Once in a month, recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch, Sycorax, 26 The old English name of Algiers.

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, 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 the sailors: Thou, my slave,
As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant:
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthly and abhorr'd commands,
Refusing her grand hests 27, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,

Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years; within which space she died,
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.

Ari.

Yes; Caliban her son.

Pro. Dull thing, I say so; 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, peg thee in his knotty entrails, till

And

Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.

27 Behests, commands.

Ari.

Pardon, master:

I will be correspondent to command,
And do my sprighting gently.

Pro.

I will discharge thee.

Ari.

Do so; and after two days

That's my noble master!

What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?

Pro. Go, make thyself like a nymph o' the sea; be subject

To no sight but thine and mine; invisible

To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in't: 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 visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

Mira.

I do not love to look on.

Pro.

'Tis a villain, sir,

But, as 'tis,

We cannot miss 28 him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood; and serves in offices

That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.

Cal. [Within.] There's wood enough within. Pro. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee:

Come forth, thou tortoise! when 29?

28 i.e. we cannot do without him. The phrase is still common in the midland counties.

29 This is a common expression of impatience. Vide note on King Richard II. Act i. Scene 1.

VOL. I.

D

Re-enter ARIEL, like a Water-nymph.

Fine apparition! My quaint 30 Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

Ari.

My lord, it shall be done. [Exit.

Pro. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

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 south-west blow on ye, And blister you all o'er!

Pro. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have

cramps,

Side-stitches that shall

pen thy breath up; urchins 31 Shall, for that vast 32 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 them.

Cal.

I must eat my dinner. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou tak'st from me. When thou camest first, Thou strok❜dst me, and mad'st much of me; would'st give me

30 Quaint here means brisk, spruce, dexterous, from the French cointe.

31 Urchins were fairies of a particular class. Hedgehogs were also called urchins; and it is probable that the sprites were so named, because they were of a mischievous kind, the urchin being anciently deemed a very noxious animal. Shakspeare again mentions these fairy beings in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

"Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies green and white." In the phrase still current, "a little urchin," the idea of the fairy still remains.

32 That vast of night is that space of night. So, in Hamlet: "In the dead waist and middle of the night," nox vasta, midnight, when all things are quiet and still, making the world appear one great uninhabited waste. In the pneumatology of ancient times visionary beings had different allotments of time suitable to the variety and nature of their agency.