The honour of my child.CALIBAN.
Oh ho! Oh ho! Would it had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl’d else
This isle with Calibans.
PROSPERO.
Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endow’d thy purposes
With words that made them known: but thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confin’d into this rock, who hadst
Deserv’d more than a prison.
CALIBAN.
You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse: the red plague rid you,
For learning me your language!
PROSPERO.
Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou ‘rt best,
To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
CALIBAN.
No, pray thee.—
[Aside] I must obey. His art is of such power,
It would control my dam’s god, Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.
PROSPERO.
So, slave: hence!
[Exit CALIBAN]
[Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing and singing;
FERDINAND following]
[ARIEL’S SONG.]
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kiss’d,—
The wild waves whist,—
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
Hark, hark!
[Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.]
The watch dogs bark:
[Burden: Bow, wow, dispersedly.]
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting Chanticleer
[Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.]
FERDINAND.
Where should this music be? i’ th’ air or th’ earth?
It sounds no more;—and sure it waits upon
Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father’s wrack,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion,
With its sweet air: thence I have follow’d it,—
Or it hath drawn me rather,—but ‘tis gone.
No, it begins again.
[ARIEL sings]
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
[Burden: Ding-dong.]
Hark! now I hear them—ding-dong, bell.
FERDINAND.
The ditty does remember my drown’d father.
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes:—I hear it now above me.
PROSPERO.
The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,
And say what thou seest yond.
MIRANDA.
What is’t? a spirit?
Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form:—but ‘tis a spirit.
PROSPERO.
No, wench; it eats and sleeps, and hath such senses
As we have, such; this gallant which thou see’st
Was in the wrack; and but he’s something stain’d
With grief,—that beauty’s canker,—thou mightst call him
A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows
And strays about to find ‘em.
MIRANDA.
I might call him
A thing divine; for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble.
PROSPERO.
[Aside] It goes on, I see,
As my soul prompts it.—Spirit, fine spirit! I’ll
