Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8Sylvester, Charles Herbert
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Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8
Sylvester, Charles Herbert
Children's literature; Literature -- Collections
_Ari._ Pardon, master:
I will be correspondent[384-85] to command,
And do my spriting gently.
_Pros._ Do so; and after two days
I will discharge thee.
_Ari._ That's my noble master!
What shall I do? say what; what shall I do?
_Pros._ Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea:
Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible
To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,
And hither come in't: hence, with diligence!--
[_Exit ARIEL._
Awake, dear heart, awake! thou hast slept well;
Awake!
_Mira._ [_Waking._] The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
_Pros._ Shake it off. Come on;
We'll visit Caliban my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.
_Mira._ 'Tis a villain, sir,
I do not love to look on.
_Pros._ But, as 'tis,
We cannot miss him:[385-86] he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us.--What, ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.
_Cal._ [_Within._] There's wood enough within.
_Pros._ Come forth, I say! there's other business for thee:
Come forth, thou tortoise! when![385-87]--
_Re-enter ARIEL, like a Water-nymph._
Fine apparition! My quaint[386-88] Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
_Ari._ My lord, it shall be done. [_Exit._
_Pros._ Thou poisonous slave, come forth!
_Enter CALIBAN._
_Cal._ As wicked[386-89] dew as e'er my mother brush'd
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both! a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o'er![386-90]
_Pros._ For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches[386-91] that shall pen thy breath up; urchins[386-92]
Shall, for that vast[386-93] of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.
_Cal._ I must eat my dinner
This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother.
Which thou takest from me. When thou camest here first,
Thou strokedst me, and madest much of me; wouldst give me
Water with berries in't[386-94] and teach me how
To name the bigger light, and how the less,
That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee,
And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile.
Cursèd be that I did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king: and here you sty[387-95] me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' the island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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