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. |
The Tempest Quotations: Full Text
July 18, 2019