The Tempest Quotations: Full Text

Gonzalo I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hat no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows!
Gonzalo I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstaunched wench!
Gonzalo Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground … The wills above me done, but I would fain die a dry death!
Prospero Tis time / I should inform thee farther.
Prospero And to my state grew stranger, being transported / And rapt in secret studies.
Miranda Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Prospero Me (poor man) my library / Was dukedom large enough. … To give him annual tribute, do him homage / Subject his coronet to his crown!
Miranda Good wombs have born bad sons.
Prospero Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me / From mine own library with volumes that / I prize above my dukedom.
Ariel My liberty!
Caliban As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed / With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen / Drop on you both!
Caliban This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother
Caliban His art is of such pow’r / It would control my dam’s god, Setebos, / And make a vassal of him!
Ariel Full fathom five thy father lies; / Of his bones are coral made; / Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Miranda I might call him / A thing divine; for nothing natural / I ever saw so noble.
Prospero But, this swift business / I must uneasy make, less too light winning / Make the prize light.
Miranda 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
Prospero What, I say, / My foot my tutor?
Prospero Foolish wench! / To th’ most of men this is a Caliban, / And they to him are angels
Miranda My Affections / Are then most humble. I have no ambition / To see a goodlier man
Alonso Prithee peace!
Alonso O thou mine heir / Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish / Hath made his meal on thee?
Sebastian Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, / That would not bless our Europe with your daughter / But rather loose her to an African
Gonzalo You rub the sore / When you should bring the plaster.
Gonzalo It is foul weather in us all, good sir, / When you are cloudy.
Gonzalo I’ th’ commonwealth I would by contraries / Execute all things; for no kind of traffic / Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Gonzalo Letters should not be known; riches, poverty
Gonzalo And use of service, none; contract, succession / Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; / No use of metal, corn or wine, or oil; /
Gonzalo No occupation; all men idle, all; / And women too, but innocent and pure; / No sovereignty.
Gonzalo All things in common nature should produce / Without sweat or endeavor. Treason, felony, / Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine
Gonzalo Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, / Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, / To feed my innocent people.
Sebastian There’s meaning in thy snores
Antonio O, out of that no hope / What great hope have you!
Antonio And, by that destiny, to perform an act, / Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come / Is yours and my discharge
Antonio If ’twere a kibe, / ‘Twould put me to my slipper
Antonio Twenty consciences / That stand ‘twixt me and Milan, candied be they / And melt, ere they molest!
Gonzalo Heavens keep him from these beasts! / For he is sure I’ th’ island
Trinculo What have we here? A man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fishlike smell
Trinculo Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Stephano Four legs and two voices — a most delicate monster! His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend;
Caliban And I will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god.
Caliban Freedom, high-day! High-day, freedom!
Ferdinand Fully many a lady / I have eyed with best regard, and many a time / Th’ harmony of their tongues hath into bondage,
Miranda Do you love me?
Ferdinand A thousand thousand!
Caliban First possess his books; for without them / He’s but a sot, as am I, nor hat not / One spirit to command. They all do hate him
Stephano He that dies pays all debts.
Caliban Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises, / Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Alonso Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it / No longer for my flatterer; he is drowned / Whom thus we stray to find; and the sea mocks / Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
Ariel You are three men of sin whom destiny — / Hatch caused to belch up you upon this island / … I have made you mad
Prospero My high charms work, / And these, mine enemies, are all knit up / In their distractions: they now are in my power!
Alonso O, it is monstrous, monstrous! / Methought the billows spoke and told me of it: … pronounced / The name of Prosper
Gonzalo All three of them are desperate: their great guilt / Like poison given to work a great time after, / Now gins to bite the spirits.
Prospero If thou dost break her virgin-knot before / All sanctimonious ceremonies may / With full and holy rite be minist’red / No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
Ferdinand The white cold virgin snow upon my heart / Abates the ardor of my liver
Prospero Our revels now are ended. These our actors / As I foretold you, were all spirits and / Are melted into air, into thin air
Prospero We are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed
Prospero A devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick: on whom my pains, / Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost!
Trinculo Monster, I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation!
Stephano Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody thoughts.
Caliban What do you mean / To dote thus on such luggage? Let’t alone, / And do the murder first.
Prospero At this hour / Lie at my mercy all mine enemies
Ariel Mine would, sir, were I human
Prospero The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance.
Prospero Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves / And ye that on the sands with printless foot / Do chase the ebbing Neptune
Prospero But this rough magic / I here abjure; … I’ll break my staff, / Bury it certain fathoms in the earth / … I’ll drown my book.
Alonso Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat / Thou pardon me my wrongs.
Prospero At this time / I will tell no tales
Miranda How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in’t!
Prospero Tis new to thee.
Gonzalo And all of us [found] ourselves / When no man was his own
Prospero Two of these fellows you / Must know and own; this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine.
Trinculo I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that I fear me will never out of my bones.
Caliban What a thrice-double ass / Was I to take this drunkard for a god / And worship this dull fool!
Prospero Every third thought shall be my grave.
Prospero Now my charms are all o’erthrown, / And what strength I have’s mine own, / Which is most faint.
Prospero As you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgences set me free.
July 18, 2019