O! I have suffer’d

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 further. 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 order’d, 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 further.

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. Canst thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

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

Out three years old

MIRANDA.                                             Certainly, sir, I can.

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

Of anything the image tell me, that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

MIRANDA.                                              ’Tis far off;

And rather like a dream than an assurance

That my remembrance warrants. Had I not

Four or five women once that tended me?

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

That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else

In the dark backward and abysm of time?

If thou remember’st aught ere thou cam’st here,

How thou cam’st here, thou may’st.

MIRANDA.                                              But that I do not.

PROSPERO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and

A prince of power.

MIRANDA.                                              Sir, are not you my father?

PROSPERO. 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

A princess,—no worse issued.

MIRANDA.