OTHERS]
ALONSO.
Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?
Play the men.
BOATSWAIN.
I pray now, keep below.
ANTONIO.
Where is the master, boson?
BOATSWAIN. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
GONZALO.
Nay, good, be patient.
BOATSWAIN. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble us not.
GONZALO.
Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
BOATSWAIN. None that I more love than myself. You are 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 hearts!—Out of our way, I say.
[Exit]
GONZALO. 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 little advantage! If he be not born to be hang’d, our case is miserable.
[Exeunt]
[Re-enter BOATSWAIN]
BOATSWAIN. Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi’ th’ maincourse. [A cry within] A plague upon this howling! They are louder than the weather 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?
SEBASTIAN. A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
BOATSWAIN.
Work you, then.
ANTONIO. Hang, cur, hang! you whoreson, insolent noisemaker, we are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.
GONZALO. I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.
BOATSWAIN. 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!
[Exeunt]
BOATSWAIN.
What, must our mouths be cold?
GONZALO.
The King and Prince at prayers! let us assist them,
For our case is as theirs.
SEBASTIAN.
I am out of patience.
ANTONIO.
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.—
This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou might’st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!
GONZALO.
He’ll be hang’d yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid’st 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!’—]
ANTONIO.
Let’s all sink wi’ the King.
[Exit]
SEBASTIAN.
Let’s take leave of him.
[Exit]
GONZALO. 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 dry death.
[Exit]
SCENE 2
[The Island. Before the cell of PROSPERO]
[Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA]
MIRANDA.
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 th’ welkin’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 creatures in her,
Dash’d all to pieces. O! the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e’er
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her.
PROSPERO.
Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.
MIRANDA.
O! woe the day!
PROSPERO.
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
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.
MIRANDA.
More to know
Did never meddle with my thoughts.
PROSPERO.
‘Tis time
I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
And pluck my magic garment from me.—So:
[Lays down his mantle]
Lie there my art.—Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch’d
The very virtue of compassion in thee,
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered that there is no soul—
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.
MIRANDA.
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am: but stopp’d,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding ‘Stay; not yet.’
PROSPERO.
The hour’s now come,
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear;
Obey, and be attentive.