I boarded the king’s ship; now on the beak,

Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,

I flam’d amazement: sometime I ’d divide

And burn in many places; on the topmast,

The yards, and boresprit, would I flame distinctly,

Then meet, and join: Jove’s lightnings, the precursors

O’ the dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary

And sight-outrunning were not: the fire and cracks

Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune

Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,

Yea, his dread trident shake.

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 play’d

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners,

Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,

Then all a-fire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,

With hair up-staring,—then like reeds, not hair,—

Was the first man that leap’d; cried, ‘Hell is empty,

And all the devils are here.’

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 perish’d;

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou bad’st me,

In troops I have dispers’d them ’bout the isle.

The king’s son have I landed by himself;

Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs

In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,

His arms in this sad knot.

PROSPERO.                                              Of the king’s ship

The mariners, say how thou hast dispos’d,

And all the rest o’ the fleet.

ARIEL.                                              Safely in harbour

Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where once

Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew

From the still-vex’d Bermoothes; there she ’s hid:

The mariners all under hatches stow’d;

Who, with a charm join’d to their suffer’d labour,

I have left asleep: and for the rest o’ the fleet

Which I dispers’d, they all have met again,

And are upon the Mediterranean flote,

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king ’s ship wrack’d,

And his great person perish.

PROSPERO.                                              Ariel, thy charge

Exactly is perform’d; 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 what thou hast promis’d,

Which is not yet perform’d me.

PROSPERO.                                              How now! moody?

What is ’t thou canst demand?

ARIEL.                                              My liberty.

PROSPERO. Before the time be out! no more!

ARIEL.                                              I prithee

Remember, I have done thee worthy service;

Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, serv’d

Without or grudge or grumblings: thou didst promise

To bate me a full year.