FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess.]MIRANDA.
Sweet lord, you play me false.
FERDINAND.
No, my dearest love,
I would not for the world.
MIRANDA.
Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.
ALONSO.
If this prove
A vision of the island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.
SEBASTIAN.
A most high miracle!
FERDINAND.
Though the seas threaten, they are merciful:
I have curs’d them without cause.
[Kneels to ALONSO.]
ALONSO.
Now all the blessings
Of a glad father compass thee about!
Arise, and say how thou cam’st here.
MIRANDA.
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!
PROSPERO.
‘Tis new to thee.
ALONSO.
What is this maid, with whom thou wast at play?
Your eld’st acquaintance cannot be three hours:
Is she the goddess that hath sever’d us,
And brought us thus together?
FERDINAND.
Sir, she is mortal;
But by immortal Providence she’s mine.
I chose her when I could not ask my father
For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Receiv’d a second life: and second father
This lady makes him to me.
ALONSO.
I am hers:
But, O! how oddly will it sound that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!
PROSPERO.
There, sir, stop:
Let us not burden our remembrances with
A heaviness that’s gone.
GONZALO.
I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessed crown;
For it is you that have chalk’d forth the way
Which brought us hither.
ALONSO.
I say, Amen, Gonzalo!
GONZALO.
Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves,
When no man was his own.
ALONSO.
[To FERDINAND and MIRANDA] Give me your hands:
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy!
GONZALO.
Be it so. Amen!
[Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.]
O look, sir! look, sir! Here are more of us.
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown.—Now, blasphemy,
That swear’st grace o’erboard, not an oath on shore?
Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?
BOATSWAIN.
The best news is that we have safely found
Our king and company: the next, our ship,—
Which but three glasses since we gave out split,—
Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg’d as when
We first put out to sea.
ARIEL.
[Aside to PROSPERO] Sir, all this service
Have I done since I went.
PROSPERO.
[Aside to ARIEL] My tricksy spirit!
ALONSO.
These are not natural events; they strengthen
From strange to stranger—Say, how came you hither?
BOATSWAIN.
If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
I’d strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,
And,—how, we know not,—all clapp’d under hatches,
Where, but even now, with strange and several
