This text of The Tempest is from Volume I of the nine-volume 1863 Cambridge edition of Shakespeare. The editors’ preface (e-text [23041]) and the other plays from this volume are each available as separate e-texts.

General Notes are in their original location at the end of the play, followed by the text-critical notes originally printed at the bottom of each page. All notes are hyperlinked in both directions. In dialogue, a link from a speaker’s name generally means that the note applies to the entire line or group of lines.

Line numbers—shown in the right margin and used for all notes—are from the original text. In prose passages the exact line counts will depend on your browser settings, and will probably be different from the displayed numbers. Stage directions were not included in the line numbering.

Texts cited in the Notes are listed at the [end of the e-text].

THE WORKS

OF

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

EDITED BY

WILLIAM GEORGE CLARK, M.A.

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, AND PUBLIC ORATOR
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE;

and JOHN GLOVER, M.A.

LIBRARIAN OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

VOLUME I.

Cambridge and London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1863.

THE TEMPEST.

[ DRAMATIS PERSONÆ].[1]

Scene—A ship at sea[4]: an uninhabited island.

[1.] Dramatis Personæ] Names of the actors F₁ at the end of the Play.

[2.] presented by] Edd.

[3.] Other ... Prospero] Theobald.

[4.] A ship at sea:] At sea: Capell.

THE TEMPEST.

[ACT I.]

[ I. 1 Scene I.] On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.

[Enter a Ship-Master and a Boatswain.]

Mast. Boatswain!

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. [Good,] speak to the mariners: fall to’t, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. Exit.

Enter Mariners.

5 Boats. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master’s whistle. Blow, [till thou burst thy wind], if room enough!

[Enter] Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master? Play the men.

10 Boats. I pray now, keep below.

[Ant.] Where is the master, [boatswain]?

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.

Gon. Nay, good, be patient.

15 Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What [cares] these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

Gon. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boats. None that I more love than myself. You are a 20 Counsellor; if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good I. 1. 25 hearts! Out of our way, I say. Exit.

Gon. I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth 30 little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable. [ Exeunt.]

Re-enter Boatswain.

[Boats.] Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! [Bring her to try] with main-course. [A cry within.] [A plague upon this howling!] they are louder than the weather 35 or our office.

Re-enter Sebastian, Antonio, and Gonzalo.

Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o’er, and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

Seb. A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

40 Boats. Work you, then.

Ant. Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noise-maker. We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

Gon. I’ll warrant him [for] drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched 45 wench.

Boats. Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her [two courses off to sea] again; lay her off.

[Enter Mariners wet.]

[Mariners.] All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!

Boats. What, must our mouths be cold?

I. 1. 50 [Gon.] The king and prince [at] prayers! let’s assist them,

For our case is as theirs.

Seb.

I’m out of patience.

Ant. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:

This wide-chapp’d rascal,—would thou mightst lie drowning

The washing of ten tides!

Gon.

He’ll be hang’d yet,

55 Though every drop of water swear against it,

And gape at widest [to glut] him.

[A confused noise within]: “Mercy on us!”—“We split, we split!”—“Farewell my wife and children!”—[“Farewell, brother!”]—“We split, we split, we split!”

60 Ant. Let’s all sink [with the] king.

Seb. Let’s take leave of him. [ Exeunt Ant. and Seb.]

Gon. 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 65 dry death. [ Exeunt.]

[ I. 2 Scene II. The island. Before Prospero’s cell.]

Enter Prospero and Miranda.

Mir. 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],

5 Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffer’d

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!

10 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.

Pros.

Be collected:

No more amazement: tell your piteous heart

There’s no harm done.

[Mir.]

O, woe the day!

Pros.

15 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]

20 Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,

And thy no greater father.

Mir.

More to know

Did never meddle with my thoughts.

Pros.

’Tis time

I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magic garment from me.—So: [ Lays down his mantle.]

I. 2. 25 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 order’d, that there is no [soul],

30 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.

Mir.

You have often

Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp’d,

35

And left me to [a] bootless inquisition,

Concluding “Stay: not yet.”

Pros.

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?

40 I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not

[Out] three years old.

Mir.

Certainly, sir, I can.

Pros. By what? by any other house or person?

Of any thing the image tell me that

Hath kept [with] thy remembrance.

Mir.

’Tis far off,

45 And rather like a dream than an assurance

That my remembrance warrants. Had I not

Four or five women once that tended me?

Pros. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else

I. 2. 50 In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember’st ought ere thou camest here,

How thou camest here thou mayst.

Mir.

But that I do not.

Pros. [Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year] since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and

A prince of power.

Mir.

55 Sir, are not you my father?

Pros. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and

She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father

Was Duke of Milan; [and his only heir]

And princess, no worse issued.

Mir.

O the heavens!

60 What foul play had we, that we came from thence?

Or blessed was’t we did?

Pros.

Both, both, my girl:

By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heaved thence;

But blessedly [holp] hither.

Mir.

[O, my heart] bleeds

To think o’ the teen that I have turn’d you to.

65 Which is from my remembrance! Please you, farther.

Pros. My brother, and thy uncle, call’d Antonio,—

I pray thee, mark me,—that a brother should

Be so perfidious!—he whom, next thyself,

Of all the world I loved, and to him put

70 The manage of my state; as, at that time,

Through all the signories it was the first,

And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed

In dignity, and for the liberal arts

Without a parallel; those being all my study,

I. 2. 75 The government I cast upon my brother,

And to my state grew stranger, being transported

And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle—

Dost thou attend [me]?

Mir.

Sir, most heedfully.

Pros. Being once perfected how to grant suits,

80 How to deny them, [whom to advance, and whom]

To [trash] for over-topping, new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed [’em],

Or else new form’d [’em]; having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts [i’ the state]

85 To what tune pleased his ear; that now he was

The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

And suck’d my verdure out on’t. Thou attend’st not.

[Mir.] O, good sir, I do.

Pros.

I pray thee, mark me.

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all [dedicated]

90 To closeness and the bettering of my mind

With that which, but by being [so] retired,

O’er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother

Awaked an evil nature; and my trust,

Like a good parent, did beget of him

95 A falsehood in its contrary, as great

As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,

A confidence sans bound. He being thus [lorded],

Not only with what my revenue yielded,

But what my power might else [exact, like] one

I. 2. 100 Who [having into truth, by telling of it],

[Made such a sinner of his memory],

To credit his own lie, he did believe

He was [indeed the duke]; out o’ the substitution,

And executing the outward face of royalty,

105 With all prerogative:—hence [his ambition growing],—

Dost thou [hear]?

Mir.

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

Pros. To have no screen between this part he play’d

And him he play’d it for, he needs will be

Absolute [Milan]. Me, poor man, my library

110 Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties

He thinks me now incapable; confederates,

So dry he was for sway, [wi’ the] King of Naples

To give him annual tribute, do him homage,

Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend

115 The dukedom, yet unbow’d,—alas, poor Milan!—

To [most] ignoble stooping.

Mir.

O the heavens!

Pros. Mark his condition, and th’ event; then tell me

If this might be a brother.

Mir.

I should sin

To think [but] nobly of my grandmother:

[Good wombs have borne bad sons.]

Pros.

120 Now the condition.

This King of Naples, being an enemy

To me inveterate, [hearkens] my brother’s suit;

Which was, that he, in lieu o’ the premises,

Of homage and I know not how much tribute,

I. 2. 125 Should presently extirpate me and mine

Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,

With all the honours, on my brother: whereon,

A treacherous army levied, one midnight

[Fated] to the [purpose], did Antonio open

130 The gates of Milan; and, i’ the dead of darkness,

The [ministers] for the purpose hurried thence

Me and thy crying self.

Mir.

Alack, for pity!

I, not remembering how I cried [out] then,

Will cry it o’er again: it is a hint

That wrings mine eyes [to’t].

Pros.

135 Hear a little further,

And then I’ll bring thee to the present business

Which now’s upon ’s; without the which, this story

Were most impertinent.

Mir.

[Wherefore] did they not

That hour destroy us?

Pros.

Well demanded, wench:

140 My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,

So dear the love my people bore [me]; nor set

A mark so bloody on the business; but

With colours fairer painted their foul ends.

In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,

145 Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared

A rotten carcass of a [boat], not rigg’d,

Nor tackle, [sail], nor mast; the very rats

Instinctively [have] quit it: there they hoist us,

To cry to the sea that roar’d to us; to sigh

I. 2. 150 To [the winds], whose pity, sighing back again,

Did us but loving wrong.

Mir.

Alack, what trouble

Was I then to you!

Pros.

O, a cherubin

Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

155 When I have [deck’d] the sea with drops full salt,

Under my burthen groan’d; which raised in me

An undergoing stomach, to bear up

Against what should ensue.

Mir.

How came we ashore?

Pros. By Providence divine.

160 Some food we had, and some fresh water, that

A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

Out of his charity, [who] being then appointed

Master of this design, did give us, with

Rich garments, linens, stuffs and necessaries,

165 Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,

Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me