ACT V.

SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO’S cell Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL PROSPERO Now does my project gather to a head; My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day? ARIEL On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease.

PROSPERO I did say so, When first I rais’d the tempest. Say, my spirit, How fares the King and ‘s followers? ARIEL Confin’d together In the same fashion as you gave in charge; Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir, In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell; They cannot budge till your release. The King, His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted, And the remainder mourning over them, Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly Him you term’d, sir, ‘the good old lord, Gonzalo’; His tears run down his beard, like winter’s drops From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ‘em That if you now beheld them your affections Would become tender.

PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit? ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human.

PROSPERO And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion as they, be kindlier mov’d than thou art?

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick, Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury Do I take part; the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel; My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore, And they shall be themselves.

ARIEL I’ll fetch them, sir. Exit PROSPERO Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves; And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid Weak masters though ye be-I have bedimm’d The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds, And ‘twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d up The pine and cedar. Graves at my command Have wak’d their sleepers, op’d, and let ‘em forth, By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure; and, when I have requir’d Some heavenly music-which even now I doTo work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,