Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.
Pros. 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,[451-4] be kindlier moved 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.
Ari. I’ll fetch them, sir. [Exit.
Pros. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune,[451-5] and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets[451-6] make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms;[452-7] that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew;[452-8] by whose aid—
Weak masters[452-9] though ye be—I have be-dimm’d
The noon-tide Sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And twixt the green sea and the azure vault
Set roaring war: to the dread-rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s[452-10] stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs[452-11] pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have required
Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book. [Solemn music.
Re-enter Ariel: after him, Alonso, with a frantic gesture, attended by Gonzalo; Sebastian and Antonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francisco: they all enter the circle which Prospero has made, and there stand charmed; which Prospero observing, speaks.
A solemn air, as the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure the brains,
Now useless, boil’d[453-12] within the skull!—There stand,
For you are spell-stopp’d.—
Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes, even sociable to[453-13] the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops.[453-14]—The charm dissolves apace;
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses[453-15]
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle[453-16]
Their clearer reason.—O thou good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir
To him thou follow’st! I will pay thy graces
Home[453-17] both in word and deed.—Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act:—
Thou’rt pinch’d for’t now, Sebastian.—Flesh and blood,
You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition
Expell’d remorse[453-18] and nature;[453-19] who, with Sebastian,—
Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,—
Would here have kill’d your King; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art,—Their understanding
Begins to swell; and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shore,[454-20]
That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them
That yet looks on me, or would know me.—Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell:—
[Exit Ariel.
I will discase me,[454-21] and myself present
As I was sometime Milan:[454-22]—quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.
Ariel re-enters, singing, and helps to attire Prospero.
Ari. Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie,—
There I couch: when owls do cry,
On the bat’s back I do fly
After Summer, merrily.[454-23]
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Pros. Why, that’s my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
But yet thou shalt have freedom:—so, so, so.
To the King’s ship, invisible as thou art:
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain
Being awaked, enforce them to this place,
And presently, I pr’ythee.