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Re-enter Boatfwain.

Boats. Down with the top-maft: yare, lower, lower; bring her to try with main-courfe. A plague upon this howling!

A cry within. Re-enter Sebaftian, Anthonio, and

Gonzalo.

they are louder than the weather, or our office. Yet again? what do you here? fhall we give o'er, and drown? have you a mind to fink?

Seb. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blafphemous, uncharitable dog.

Boats. Work you then.

Ant. Hang, cur, hang; you whorefon, infolent, noisemaker; we are lefs afraid to be drown'd than thou art.

Gonz. I'll warrant him from drowning, tho' the fhip were no ftronger than a nut-fhell, and as leaky as an unftanch'd wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; fet her two courfes off to fea again, lay her off.

Enter Mariners wet.

Mar. All loft! to prayers! to prayers! all loft! [Exe. Boats. What, muft our mouths be cold?

Gonz. The King and Prince at pray'rs! let us affift

'em.

For our cafe is as theirs.

Seb. I'm out of patience.

[kards.

Ant. We're meerly cheated of our lives by drunThis wide-chopt rascal—'Would, thou might'st lye drowning,

The washing of ten tides !

Gonz. He'll be hang'd yet,

Though every drop of water fwear against it,

And gape at wid'ft to glut him.

A confufed noife within.] Mercy on us!

We split, we split! Farewel, my Wife and Children! Brother, farewel! we fplit, we fplit, we split!

Ant. Let's all fink with the King.

Seb. Let's take leave of him.

2

[Exit.

[Exit.

Gonz. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of fea 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!

[blocks in formation]

[Exit.

Changes to a Part of the Inchanted Island near the Cell of Profpero.

Mira. 3

Enter Profpero and Miranda.

F by your art (my deareft father)- you

'IF

have

Put the wild Waters in this roar, allay them:
The sky, it feems, would pour down ftinking pitch,
But that the fea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,
Dafhes the fire out. O! I have fuffer'd

With those that I faw fuffer: a brave vessel
(Who had, no doubt, fome noble creatures in her)
Dafh'd all to pieces. O the cry did knock
Against my very heart: poor fouls, they perish'd!
Had I been any God of Pow'r, I would
Have funk the fea within the earth; or ere

It should the good fhip fo have fwallow'd, and
The fraighting fouls within her.

2

long heath, ] This is the common name for the erica baccifera; which the Oxford Editor not understanding, conjectured that Shakespear wrote, Ling, Heath: But, unluckily, Heath and Ling are but two words for the fame plant.

3 If by your Art, &c.] Nothing was ever better contrived to inform the Audience of the Story than this Scene. It is a converfation that could not have happened before, and could not but happen now.

Pro.

Pro. Be collected;

No more amazement; tell your piteous heart,
There's no harm done,

Mira. O wo the day!

Pro. 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 Profpero, mafter of a full-poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Mira. More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pro. 'Tis time,

I fhould inform thee farther.

Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magick garment from me: fo!

[Lays down his mantle. Lye there my Art. Wipe thou thine eyes, have

comfort.

The direful fpectacle of the wreck, which touch'd 4 The very virtue of compaffion in thee,

I have with fuch provifion in mine art

So fafely order'd, that there's no foul loft,
No, not fo much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the veffel

down ;

Which thou heard'ft cry, which thou faw'ft fink: fit
For thou must now know farther.

Mira. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am, but ftopt,

4 The very Virtue of compaffion in thee, ] We muft not think that the very Virtue was intended to fhew the degree of her compaffion, but the kind. Compaffion for other's Misfortunes ofteneft arifes from a sense or apprehenfion of the like. And then it is Sympathy, not Virtue. Tho' the want of it may be esteemed vicious as arifing from a degeneracy of Nature, which cannot happen but by our own fault. Now the Compaffion of Miranda, who never ventured to Sea, not being of this kind, Shakespear with great propriety calls it the very Virtue, i. e. the real pure Virtue of Compaflion.

B

4

And

1

And left me to a bootlefs inquifition;
Concluding, Stay; not yet.-

Pro. The hour's now come.

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive. Canft thou remember
A time, before we came unto this cell?

I do not think, thou canst; for then thou waft not
Out three years old.

Mira. Certainly, Sir, I can.

Pro. By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image tell me, that
Hath kept in thy remembrance.

Mira. 'Tis far off;

And rather like a dream, than an affurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four, or five, women once, that tended me?
Pro. Thou hadft, and more, Miranda: but how is it,
That this lives in thy mind? what feest thou elfe
In the dark back-ward and abyfme of time?
If thou remember'ft aught, ere thou cam'ft here;
How thou cam'ft here, thou may'st.

Mira. But that I do not.

Pro. 'Tis twelve years fince, Miranda; twelve years fince,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and

A Prince of Pow'r.

Mira. Sir, are not you my father?

Pro. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and

She faid, thou waft my daughter; and thy father Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir

A Princess, no worse iffu'd.

Mira. O the heav'ns!

What foul play had we, that we came from thence? Or bleffed was't, we did?

Pro. Both, both, my girl:

By foul play (as thou fay'ft) were we heav'd thence; But bleffedly help'd hither.

Mira. O, my heart bleeds

To think o'th' teene that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance.

I pray thee, mark me;

Please you, farther. Pro. My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Anthonio---(that a brother should Be fo perfidious!) he whom next thy felf Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put The manage of my ftate; (as, at that time, Through all the fignories it was the first;

And Profpero the prime Duke, being fo reputed
In dignity; and for the liberal arts,

Without a parallel; thofe being all my study :)
The government I caft upon my brother,

And to my state grew ftranger; being transported,
And rapt in fecret ftudies. Thy falfe uncle-
(Doft thou attend me?

Mira. Sir, moft heedfully.

Pro. Being once perfected how to grant fuits,
How to deny them; whom t'advance, and whom
To trash for over-topping; new-created

The creatures, that were mine; I fay, or chang'd 'em,
Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, fet all hearts i'th' ftate
To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
The ivy, which had hid my princely trunk,
And fuckt my verdure out on't.

Mira. Good Sir, I do.

Pro. I pray thee, mark me then.

[not.

Thou attend'st

I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To clofenefs, and the bettering of my mind,
With that which, but by being fo retired,
O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother

5 To tra] fignifies to cut away the trafh or fuperfluities; as, to top, fignifies, to cut off the top. The Oxford Editor alters it to plab, not confidering that to plab fignifies to bind and complicate branches together, and fo is only used to fignify the dreffing and pleating of an Hedge.

Awak'd

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