PROSPERO [to Miranda] Awake, dear heart, awake; thou has slept well. Awake. MIRANDA The strangeness of your story put Heaviness in me. PROSPERO Shake it off. Come on, We’ll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Yields us kind answer. MIRANDA ’Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on. PROSPERO But as ’tis, […]
Continue ReadingProspero simmers down, and Ariel – a sea-nymph, then invisible (1.2.294-305) #StormTossed
PROSPERO If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak And peg thee in his knotty entails till Thou hast howled away twelve winters. ARIEL Pardon, master, I will be correspondent to command And do my spriting gently. PROSPERO Do so, and after two days I will discharge thee. ARIEL That’s my noble master. What […]
Continue ReadingCaliban! a freckled whelp, hag-born – but human (1.2.281-293) #StormTossed
PROSPERO Then was this island (Save for the son that she did litter here, A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honoured with A human shape. ARIEL Yes, Caliban, her son. PROSPERO Dull thing, I say so—he, that Caliban, Whom now I keep in service. Thou best knowest What torment I did find thee in: thy groans […]
Continue ReadingAriel, enslaved, confined – and the blue-eyed hag (1.2.269-281) #StormTossed
PROSPERO This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by th’sailors. Thou, my slave, As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant, And – for thou was a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorred commands, Refusing her grand hests – she did confine thee, By help of her […]
Continue ReadingThe foul witch Sycorax! (Prospero projects…) (1.2.257-268) #StormTossed
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 Algiers. PROSPERO O, was she so? I must Once in a month recount […]
Continue ReadingRemembered torment, and imagined betrayal (1.2.246-256) #StormTossed
ARIEL I prithee Remember I have done thee worthy service, Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did 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 […]
Continue ReadingTime, toil, and bondage (1.2.237-246) #StormTossed
PROSPERO Ariel, thy charge Exactly is performed; 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 […]
Continue ReadingMore plottiness, and the still-vexed Bermudas – context! (1.2.224-237) #StormTossed
PROSPERO Of the King’s ship, The mariners, say how thou hast disposed, And all the rest o’th’ fleet? ARIEL Safely in harbour Is the King’s ship, in the deep nook where once Thou call’st me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vexed Bermudas; there she’s hid, The mariners all under hatches stowed, Who, […]
Continue ReadingAll safe, all dry – but separated, and Ferdinand alone (1.2.215-224) #StormTossed
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 perished; On their sustaining garments not a blemish, But fresher than before; and, as thou bad’st me, In troops I have dispersed them ’bout the isle. The King’s son […]
Continue ReadingMan overboard! (possibly with his hair on fire?) (1.2.206-215) #StormTossed
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 played 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 […]
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