Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew by John McCann, Monica Sweeney, Becky Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench.

    BOATSWAIN
    Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to sea again; lay her off.
    MARINERS
    All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

    BOATSWAIN
    What, must our mouths be cold?

    GONZALO
    The king and prince at prayers! let’s assist them,
    For our case is as theirs.
    SEBASTIAN
    I’m out of patience.

    ANTONIO
    We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
    This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou mightst lie drowning
    The washing of ten tides!

    GONZALO
    He’ll be hang’d yet,
    Though every drop of water swear against it
    And gape at widest to glut him.
    ANTONIO
    Let’s all sink with the king.

    SEBASTIAN
    Let’s take leave of him.
    GONZALO
    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.

ACT I. Scene II (1–305).

MIRANDA
    If by 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.

    PROSPERO
    Be collected:
    No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
    There’s no harm done.

    MIRANDA
    O, woe the day!
    PROSPERO
    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 Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
    And thy no greater father.
    MIRANDA
    More to know
    Did never meddle with my thoughts.

    PROSPERO
    ’Tis time
    I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
    And pluck my magic garment from me. So:
    Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
    The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch’d
    The very virtue of compassion in thee,
    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.

    MIRANDA
    You have often
    Begun to tell me what I am, but stopp’d
    And left me to a bootless inquisition,
    Concluding “Stay: not yet.”
    PROSPERO
    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?
    I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not
    Out three years old.

    MIRANDA
    Certainly, sir, I can.
    PROSPERO
    By what? by any other house or person?
    Of any thing the image tell me that
    Hath kept with thy remembrance.

    MIRANDA
    ’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?

    PROSPERO
    Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
    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.
    MIRANDA
    But that I do not.

    PROSPERO
    Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
    Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
    A prince of power.
    MIRANDA
    Sir, are not you my father?

    PROSPERO
    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.

    MIRANDA
    O the heavens!
    What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
    Or blessed was’t we did?
    PROSPERO
    Both, both, my girl:
    By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heaved