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, And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till

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.

Ꭰ

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.

dinner.

Cal. I must eat my 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.

Water with berries in't; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov'd thee,
And shew'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place, and fertile;
Cursed be I that did so!-All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that

you have,
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest of the island.

Pro.

Thou most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have us'd

thee,

Filth as thou art, with human care; and lodg'd thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.

Cal. O ho, O ho!-'would it had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.

Pro.

Abhorred slave;

Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other; when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known: But thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good

natures

Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confin'd into this rock,

Who hadst deserv'd more than a prison.

Cal. You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse: The red plague rid 33 For learning me your language!

you,

33 Destroy.

Pro.

Hag-seed, hence! Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou wert best, To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice? If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly

What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps;

Fill all thy bones with aches 34: make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din!

Cal. No, 'pray thee!

I must obey his art is of such power,
It would control my dam's god, Setebos 35,
And make a vassal of him.

Pro.

[Aside.

So, slave; hence!

[Exit CALIBAN.

Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing and singing; ` FERDINAND following him.

ARIEL'S SONG.

Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands:
Court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,
(The wild waves whist 36)

34 The word aches is evidently a dissyllable here and in two passages of Timon of Athens. The reader will remember the senseless clamour that was raised against Kemble for his adherence to the text of Shakspeare in thus pronouncing it as the measure requires. 'Ake," says Baret in his Alvearie," is the verb of this substantive Ache, ch being turned into k." And that ache was pronounced in the same way as the letter h is placed beyond doubt by the passage in Much Ado about Nothing, in which Margaret asks Beatrice for what she cries Heigh ho, and she answers for an h. i. e. ache. See the Epigram of Heywood adduced in illustration of that passage. This orthography and pronunciation continued even to the times of Butler and Swift. It would be easy to produce numerous instances.

35"The giants when they found themselves fettered roared like bulls, and cried upon Setebos to help them."-Eden's Hist. of Travayle, 1577. p. 434.

36 Still, silent.