Would you not deem it breathed? and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?
Polixenes
Masterly done:
The very life seems warm upon her lip.
Leontes
The fixture of her eye has motion in’t,
As we are mock’d with art.
Paulina
I’ll draw the curtain:
My lord’s almost so far transported that
He’ll think anon it lives.
Leontes
O sweet Paulina,
Make me to think so twenty years together!
No settled senses of the world can match
The pleasure of that madness. Let ’t alone.
Paulina
I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr’d you: but
I could afflict you farther.
Leontes
Do, Paulina;
For this affliction has a taste as sweet
As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,
There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kiss her.
Paulina
Good my lord, forbear:
The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own
With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
Leontes
No, not these twenty years.
Perdita
So long could I
Stand by, a looker on.
Paulina
Either forbear,
Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
For more amazement. If you can behold it,
I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend
And take you by the hand; but then you’ll think —
Which I protest against — I am assisted
By wicked powers.
Leontes
What you can make her do,
I am content to look on: what to speak,
I am content to hear; for ’tis as easy
To make her speak as move.
Paulina
It is required
You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
On: those that think it is unlawful business
I am about, let them depart.
Leontes
Proceed:
No foot shall stir.
Paulina
Music, awake her; strike!
Music
’Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,
I’ll fill your grave up: stir, nay, come away,
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs:
Hermione comes down
Start not; her actions shall be holy as
You hear my spell is lawful: do not shun her
Until you see her die again; for then
You kill her double. Nay, present your hand:
When she was young you woo’d her; now in age
Is she become the suitor?
Leontes
O, she’s warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art
Lawful as eating.
Polixenes
She embraces him.
Camillo
She hangs about his neck:
If she pertain to life let her speak too.
Polixenes
Ay, and make’t manifest where she has lived,
Or how stolen from the dead.
Paulina
That she is living,
Were it but told you, should be hooted at
Like an old tale: but it appears she lives,
Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
Please you to interpose, fair madam: kneel
And pray your mother’s blessing. Turn, good lady;
Our Perdita is found.
Hermione
You gods, look down
And from your sacred vials pour your graces
Upon my daughter’s head! Tell me, mine own.
Where hast thou been preserved? where lived? how found
Thy father’s court? for thou shalt hear that I,
Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserved
Myself to see the issue.
Paulina
There’s time enough for that;
Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
Your joys with like relation. Go together,
You precious winners all; your exultation
Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
Will wing me to some wither’d bough and there
My mate, that’s never to be found again,
Lament till I am lost.
Leontes
O, peace, Paulina!
Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
As I by thine a wife: this is a match,
And made between’s by vows. Thou hast found mine;
But how, is to be question’d; for I saw her,
As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many
A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far —
For him, I partly know his mind — to find thee
An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,
And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty
Is richly noted and here justified
By us, a pair of kings. Let’s from this place.
What! look upon my brother: both your pardons,
That e’er I put between your holy looks
My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law,
And son unto the king, who, heavens directing,
Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand an answer to his part
Perform’d in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissever’d: hastily lead away.
Exeunt
ACT I
The Tempest
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
ACT I
SCENE I. ON A SHIP AT SEA: A TEMPESTUOUS NOISE
SCENE II. THE ISLAND. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.
ACT II
SCENE I. ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND.
SCENE II. ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND.
ACT III
SCENE I. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.
SCENE II. ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND.
SCENE III. ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND.
ACT IV
SCENE I. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.
ACT V
SCENE I. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.
EPILOGUE
CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY
Alonso, King of Naples.
Sebastian, his brother.
Prospero, the right Duke of Milan.
Antonio, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan.
Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples.
Gonzalo, an honest old counsellor.
Lords.
Adrian.
Francisco.
Caliban, a savage and deformed slave.
Trinculo, a jester.
Stephano, a drunken butler.
Master Of A Ship.
Boatswain.
Mariners.
Miranda, daughter to Prospero.
Ariel, an airy spirit.
Spirits.
Iris.
Ceres.
Juno.
Nymphs.
Reapers.
Other Spirits attending on Prospero.
Scene: A ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island.
ACT I
SCENE I. ON A SHIP AT SEA: A TEMPESTUOUS NOISE
of thunder and lightning heard.
Enter a Master and a Boatswain
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 the master’s whistle. 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, boatswain?
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 a 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. Cheerly, good hearts! 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 hanged, our case is miserable.
Exeunt
Re-enter Boatswain
Boatswain
Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try with main-course.
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!
Boatswain
What, must our mouths be cold?
Gonzalo
The king and prince at prayers! let’s assist them,
For our case is as theirs.
Sebastian
I’m out of patience.
Antonio
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
This wide-chapp’d rascal — would thou mightst 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 widest 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 with the king.
Sebastian
Let’s take leave of him.
Exeunt Antonio and Sebastian
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 a dry death.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE ISLAND. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.
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 the 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 creature 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 ere
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 wreck, 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.
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 remember’st aught ere thou camest here,
How thou camest 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 thou 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 heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.
Miranda
O, my heart bleeds
To think o’ the teen that I have turn’d you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.
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 loved 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 to advance and who
To trash for over-topping, new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed ’em,
Or else new form’d ’em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i’ the state
To what tune pleased 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 retired,
O’er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awaked 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 the outward face of royalty,
With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing —