ARIEL

Safely in harbour

Is the King’s ship, in the deep nook where cnce

Thou called‘st me up at midnight to fetch dew

From the still-vexed Bermudas, there she’s hid;

The mariners all under hatches stowed,

Who, with a charm joined to their suffered labour,

I have left asleep. And for the rest o’th’ fleet,

Which I dispersed, they all have met again,

And are upon the Mediterranean float

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the King’s ship wrecked,

And his great person perish.

PROSPERO

Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is performed; but there’s more work.

What is the time o’th’ day?

ARIEL

Past the mid season.

PROSPERO

At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now

Must by us both be spent most preciously.

ARIEL

Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,

Let me remember thee what thou hast promised

Which is not yet performed me.

PROSPERO

How now? Moody?

What is’t thou canst demand?

ARIEL My liberty.

PROSPERO

Before the time be out? No more!

ARIEL

I prithee,

Remember I have done thee worthy service,

Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served

Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise

To bate me a full year.

PROSPERO

Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?

ARIEL

No.

PROSPERO

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’th’ earth

When it is baked with frost.

ARIEL

I do not, sir.

PROSPERO

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?

ARIEL

No, sir.

PROSPERO Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak, tell me!

ARIEL

Sir, in Algiers.

PROSPERO

O, was she so! I must

Once in a month recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget‘st. This damned witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Algiers

Thou know’st was banished. For one thing she did

They would not take her life. Is not this true?

ARIEL Ay, sir.

PROSPERO

This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,

And here was left by th’ sailors. Thou, my slave,

As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant;

And for thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorred commands,

Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee

By help of her more potent ministers,

And in her most unmitigable rage,

Into a cloven pine; within which rift

Imprisoned 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 honoured with

A human shape.

ARIEL

Yes, Caliban her son.

PROSPERO

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 damned, which Sycorax

Could not again undo. It was mine art,

When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape

The pine and let thee out.

ARIEL

I thank thee, master.

PROSPERO

If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak,

And peg thee in his knotty entrails till

Thou hast howled away twelve winters.

ARIEL

Pardon, master.

I will be correspondent to command,

And do my spriting gently.

PROSPERO Do so, and after two days

I will discharge thee.

ARIEL

That’s my noble master!

What shall I do? Say what, what shall I do?

PROSPERO

Go make thyself like to a nymph o’th’ 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.

MIRANDA (awaking) The strangeness of your story put

Heaviness in me.

PROSPERO

Shake it off. Come on;

We’ll visit Caliban my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

MIRANDA ’Tis a villain, sir,

I do not love to look on.

PROSPERO

But as ’tis,

We cannot miss 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!

CALIBAN (within)

There’s wood enough within.

PROSPERO

Come forth, I say! There’s other business for thee.

Come, thou tortoise! When?

Enter Ariel, like a water-nymph

Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

He whispers

ARIEL

My lord, it shall be done. Exit

PROSPERO

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

Enter Caliban

CALIBAN

As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed

With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen

Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye,

And blister you all o’er!

PROSPERO

For this be sure tonight thou shalt have cramps,