Seb. Let's take leave of him.

[Exeunt Ant. and Seb. Gon. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea 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, [Exeunt.

-SCENE II. The island. Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA.

Mir. Ifby your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer': a brave vessel, Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish'd. Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallow'd and The fraughting souls within her. Pros. Be collected: No more amazement: tell your piteous heart There's no harm done.

Mir. Pros.

O, woe the day!

ΙΟ

No harm.

I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered that there is no soul-
No, not so much perdition as an hair
Betid to any creature in the vessel
Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
Sit down;

For thou must now know farther.
Mir.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding 'Stay: not yet.'

Pros.

The hour's now come;

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;

Obey and be attentive. Canst thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

Pros. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it

50

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.
Mir.
But that I do not.
Pros. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve
year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power.
Mir.
Sir, are not you my
father?
Pros. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; and thou his only heir
And princess no worse issued.

Mir.
O the heavens !
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?
Pros.

Both, both, my girl: 61 By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence,

But blessedly holp hither.

Mir.

O, my heart bleeds To think o' the teen that I have turn'd you to, Which is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.

I

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Pr. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antoniopray thee, mark me-that a brother should Be so perfidious !-he whom next thyself Of all the world I loved and to him put The manage of my state; as at that time Through all the signories it was the first And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed In dignity, and for the liberal arts Without a parallel; those being all my study, The government I cast upon my brother And to my state grew stranger, being transported And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncleDost thou attend me?

Mir. Sir, most heedfully. Pros. Being once perfected how to grant suits, How to deny them, who to advance and who 80 To trash for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed

'em,

Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' the state
To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st

not.

Mir. O, good sir, I do. Pros.

90

Certainly, sir, I can.

Mir.
Pros. By what? by any other house or person?
Of any thing the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

Mir.
'Tis far off
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

A falsehood in its contrary as great
As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact, like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie, he did believe

100

He was indeed the duke; out o' the substitution,