The Tempest | Page 6

Here cease more questions; Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dulness, And give it way;--I know thou canst not choose.--
[MIRANDA sleeps]
Come away, servant, come! I am ready now. Approach, my Ariel; Come!
[Enter ARIEL]
ARIEL. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality.
PROSPERO. Hast thou, spirit, Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARIEL. To every article. I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak, Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin, I flam'd amazement; sometime I'd divide, And burn in many places; on the topmast, The yards, and boresprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join: Jove's lightning, the precursors O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary And sight-outrunning were not: the fire and cracks Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble, Yea, his dread trident shake.
PROSPERO. My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil Would not infect his reason?
ARIEL. Not a soul But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me: the King's son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring--then like reeds, not hair-- Was the first man that leapt; cried 'Hell is empty, And all the devils are here.'
PROSPERO. Why, that's my spirit! But was not this nigh shore?
ARIEL. Close by, my master.
PROSPERO. But are they, Ariel, safe?
ARIEL. Not a hair perish'd; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before: and, as thou bad'st me, In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle. The king's son have I landed by himself, Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot.
PROSPERO. Of the King's ship The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd, And all the rest o' th' fleet?
ARIEL. Safely in harbour Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vex'd Bermoothes; there she's hid: The mariners all under hatches stowed; Who, with a charm join'd to their suff'red labour, I have left asleep: and for the rest o' th' fleet Which I dispers'd, they all have met again, And are upon the Mediterranean flote Bound sadly home for Naples, Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrack'd, And his great person perish.
PROSPERO. Ariel, thy charge Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work: What is the time o' th' day?
ARIEL. Past the mid season.
PROSPERO. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now Must by us both be spent most preciously.
ARIEL. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains, Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd, Which is not yet perform'd me.
PROSPERO. How now! moody? What is't thou canst demand?
ARIEL. My liberty.
PROSPERO. Before the time be out! No more!
ARIEL. I prithee, Remember I have done thee worthy service; Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv'd Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO. Dost thou forget From what a torment I did free thee?
ARIEL. No.
PROSPERO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze Of the salt deep, To run upon the sharp wind of the north, To do me business in the veins o' th' earth When it is bak'd with frost.
ARIEL. I do not, sir.
PROSPERO. Thou liest, malignant thing! Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
ARIEL. No, sir.
PROSPERO. Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak; tell me.
ARIEL. Sir, in Argier.
PROSPERO. O! was she so? I must Once in a month recount what thou hast been, Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible To enter human hearing, from Argier, Thou know'st,was banish'd: for one thing she did They would not take her life. Is not this true?
ARIEL. Ay, sir.
PROSPERO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant: And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands, Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, By help of her more potent ministers, And in her most unmitigable rage, Into a cloven pine; within which rift Imprison'd, thou didst painfully remain A dozen years; within which space she died, And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-- Save for the son that