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 sits

MIRANDA

You have often

Begun to tell me what I am, but stopped

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 anything 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 abyss 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 sayst, were we heaved thence,

But blessedly holp hither.

MIRANDA

O, my heart bleeds

To think o’th’ teen that I have turned you to,

Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.

PROSPERO

My brother and thy uncle called 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 t‘advance and who

To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say—or changed ’em

Or else new formed ’em; having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i’th’ state

To what tune pleased his ear, that now he was

The ivy which had hid my princely trunk

And sucked 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-priced 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 oft,

Made such a sinner of his memory

To credit his own lie, he did believe

He was indeed the Duke. Out o’th’ 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 played

And him he played 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 unbowed—alas,poor Milan—

To most ignoble stooping.

MIRANDA

O the heavens!

PROSPERO

Mark his condition and th’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‘th’ 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,