Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (48 page)

PROSPERO (cont.)

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I’ll drown my book.

PROSPERO (cont.)

A solemn air and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil’d within thy skull! There stand,

For you are spell-stopp’d.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine,

Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,

And as the morning steals upon the night,

Melting the darkness, so their rising senses

Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle

Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,

My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him you follow’st! I will pay thy graces

Home both in word and deed.

PROSPERO (cont.)

Most cruelly

Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:

Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.

Thou art pinch’d for it now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,

You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition,

Expell’d remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,

Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,

Would here have kill’d your king; I do forgive thee,

Unnatural though thou art.

PROSPERO (cont.)

Their understanding

Begins to swell, and the approaching tide

Will shortly fill the reasonable shore

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them

That yet looks on me, or would know me Ariel,

Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell:

I will discase me, and myself present

As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit;

Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL

Where the bee sucks. there suck I:

In a cowslip’s bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat’s back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

PROSPERO

Why, that’s my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee:

But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so.

To the king’s ship, invisible as thou art:

There shalt thou find the mariners asleep

Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain

Being awake, enforce them to this place,

And presently, I prithee.

ARIEL

I drink the air before me, and return

Or ere your pulse twice beat.

GONZALO

All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement

Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us

Out of this fearful country!

PROSPERO

Behold, sir king,

The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero:

For more assurance that a living prince

Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;

And to thee and thy company I bid

A hearty welcome.

ALONSO

Whether thou be’st he or no,

Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,

As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse

Beats as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,

The affliction of my mind amends, with which,

I fear, a madness held me: this must crave,

An if this be at all, a most strange story.

Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat

Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero

Be living and be here?

PROSPERO

First, noble friend,

Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot

Be measured or confined.