The Tempest William Shakespeare (good english books to read .TXT) 📖

mast; the very rats
Instinctively had quit it: there they hoist us,
To cry to the sea that roar’d to us, to sigh
To the winds whose pity, sighing back again,
Did us but loving wrong. Miranda

Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!

Prospero

O, a cherubin
Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
When I have deck’d the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burthen groan’d; which raised in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.

Miranda How came we ashore? Prospero

By Providence divine.
Some food we had and some fresh water that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
Out of his charity, being then appointed
Master of this design, did give us, with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,
Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,
Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.

Miranda

Would I might
But ever see that man!

Prospero

Now I arise: Resumes his mantle.
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
Here in this island we arrived; and here
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
Than other princesses can that have more time
For vainer hours and tutors not so careful.

Miranda

Heavens thank you for’t! And now, I pray you, sir,
For still ’tis beating in my mind, your reason
For raising this sea-storm?

Prospero

Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions:
Thou art inclined to sleep; ’tis a good dulness,
And give it way: I know thou canst not choose. Miranda sleeps.
Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.
Approach, my Ariel, come.

Enter Ariel. Ariel

All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl’d clouds, to thy strong bidding task
Ariel and all his quality.

Prospero

Hast thou, spirit,
Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee?

Ariel

To every article.
I boarded the king’s ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement: sometime I’ld divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join. Jove’s lightnings, the precursors
O’ the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.

Prospero

My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?

Ariel

Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad and play’d
Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,
Then all afire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring⁠—then like reeds, not hair⁠—
Was the first man that leap’d; cried, “Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.”

Prospero

Why that’s my spirit!
But was not this nigh shore?

Ariel Close by, my master. Prospero But are they, Ariel, safe? Ariel

Not a hair perish’d;
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,
In troops I have dispersed 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.

Prospero

Of the king’s ship
The mariners say how thou hast disposed
And all the rest o’ the fleet.

Ariel

Safely in harbour
Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vex’d Bermoothes, there she’s hid:
The mariners all under hatches stow’d;
Who, with a charm join’d to their suffer’d labour,
I have left asleep; and for the rest o’ the fleet
Which I dispersed, they all have met again
And are upon the Mediterranean flote,
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wreck’d
And his great person perish.

Prospero

Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is perform’d: but there’s more work.
What is the time o’ the 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 perform’d 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 didst 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’ the 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 Argier. Prospero

O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget’st. This damn’d witch Sycorax,
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?

Ariel Ay, sir. Prospero

This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr’d 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
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