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 damn’d, which Sycorax
Could not again undo; it was mine art,
When I arriv’d 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 howl’d 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 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.
[Waking] 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?
[Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph.]
Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
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 brush’d
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o’er!
PROSPERO.
For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
Shall forth at vast of night that they may work
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinch’d
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made them.
CALIBAN.
I must eat my dinner.
This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and made much of me; wouldst give me
Water with berries in’t; and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I lov’d thee,
And show’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile.
Curs’d be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ th’ island.
PROSPERO.
Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us’d thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg’d thee
