Here in this island we arriv’d; and here Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit Than other princess’ can, that have more time For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.

MIRANDA Heavens thank you for’t! And now, I pray you, sir, For still ‘tis beating in my mind, your reason For raising this sea-storm? PROSPERO Know thus far forth: By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune, Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions; Thou art inclin’d to sleep; ‘tis a good dullness, And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.

[MIRANDA sleeps] Come away, servant; come; I am ready now. Approach, my Ariel. Come.

Enter ARIEL ARIEL All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl’d clouds. To thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality.

PROSPERO Hast thou, spirit, Perform’d to point the tempest that I bade thee? ARIEL To every article.

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 bowsprit, would I flame distinctly, Then meet and join Jove’s lightning, the precursors O’ th’ 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 Plung’d in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel, Then all afire with me; the King’s son, Ferdinand, With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair Was the first man that leapt; 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.