Beginning of Scene 2 | If by your art, my dearest mother, 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 sky’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,/ Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock/ Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished./ 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 swallowed, and/ The fraughting souls within her. |
Prospero: …There’s no harm done. | O, woe the day! |
Prospero: …And thy no greater mother. | More to know did never meddle with my thoughts. |
Prospero: …For thou must now know farther. | You have often/ Begun to tell we what I am, but stopped/ And left me to a useless inquisition,/ Concluding “Stay. Not yet.” |
Prospero: …Out three years old. | Certainly, madam, I can. |
Prospero: …Hath kept with thy remembrance. | ‘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: …How thou cam’st here thou mayst. | But that I do not. |
Prospero: …A prince of power. | Madam, are not you my mother? |
Prospero: And princess no worse issued. | O, the heavens!/ What foul play had we that we came from thence?/Or blessèd was’t we did? |
Prospero: …But blessedly holp hither. | O, my heart bleeds/ To think o’ th’ teen that I have turned you to,/ Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther. |
Prospero: Dost thou attend me? | Madam, most heedfully. |
Prospero: Thou attend’st not. | O, good madam, I do. |
Prospero: Dost thou hear? | Your tale, madam, would cure deafness. |
Prospero: …To most ignoble stooping. | O, the heavens! |
Prospero: …If this might be a brother. | I should sin/ To think but nobly of my grandmother./ Good wombs have borne bad sons. |
Prospero: …Me and thy crying self. | Alack, for pity!/ I, not rememb’ring how I cried out then,/ Will cry it o’er again. It is a hint/ That wrings mine eyes to ‘t. |
Prospero: …Were most impertinent. | Wherefore did they not/ That hour destroy us? |
Prospero: …Did us but loving wrong. | Alack, what trouble/ Was I then to you! |
Prospero: …Against what should ensue. | How came we ashore? |
Prospero: …I prize above my dukedom. | Would I might/ But ever see that woman. |
Prospero: …For vainer hours and tutors not so careful. | Heavens thank you for ‘t. And now I pray you, madam–/ For still ’tis beating in my mind– your reason/ For raising this sea storm? |
Prospero: Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well./ Awake. | The strangeness of your story put/ Heaviness in me. |
Prospero: …Yields us kind answer. | ‘Tis a villain, madam, I do not love to look on. |
Caliban: …This isle with Calibans. | Abhorrèd 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 endowed 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 confined into this rock,/ Who hadst deserved more than a prison. |
Prospero: …And say what thou seest yond. | What is ‘t? A spirit?/ Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, madam,/ It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit. |
Prospero: …And strays about to find ’em. | I might call him/ A thing divine, for nothing natural/ I ever saw so noble. |
Ferdinand: …If you be maid or no. | No wonder, sir,/ But certainly a maid. |
Ferdinand: …The King my father wracked. | Alack, for mercy! |
Prospero: I fear you have done yourself some wrong. A word. | Why speaks my mother so ungently? This/ Is the second man that e’er I saw, the first/ That e’er I sighed for. Pity move my mother/ To be inclined my way. |
Ferdinand: No, as I am a man! | There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple./ If the ill spirit have so fair a house,/ Good things will strive to dwell with ‘t. |
Ferdinand: Mine enemy has more power. | O, dear mother,/ Make not too rash a trial of him, for/ He’s gentle and not fearful. |
Prospero: …And make thy weapon drop. | Beseech you, mother– |
Prospero: Hence! Hang not on my garments. | Madam, have pity. |
Prospero: …And they to him are angels. | My affections/ Are then most humble. I have no ambition/ To see a goodlier man. |
Prospero: Hark what thou else shalt do me. | Be of comfort./ My mother’s of a better nature, sir,/ Than she appears by speech. This is unwonted/ Which now came from her. |
The Tempest Lines Act 1 Scene 2
July 30, 2019