Prosp. Thou liest, malignant thing!—Hast thou forgot The foul witch Sycorax, who, with age and envy, Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
Ariel. No, sir.
Prosp. Thou hast! Where was she born? Speak, tell me.
Ariel. Sir, in Argier.
Prosp. Oh, was she so!—I must, Once every month, recount what thou hast been, Which thou forgettest. This damned Witch Sycorax, For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries Too terrible to enter human hearing, From Argier, thou know'st, was banished: But, for one thing she did, They would not take her life.—Is not this true?
Ariel. Ay, sir.
Prosp. This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child, And here was left by the sailors: Thou, my slave, As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant; And, 'cause thou wast a spirit too delicate To act her earthy and abhorred commands, Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee, By help of her more potent ministers,
(In her unmitigable rage) into a cloven pine; Within whose rift imprisoned, thou didst painfully Remain a dozen years, within which space she died, And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this isle (Save for two brats, which she did litter here, The brutish Caliban, and his twin-sister, Two freckled hag-born whelps) not honoured with A human shape.
Ariel. Yes; Caliban her son, and Sycorax his sister.
Prosp. Dull thing! I say so.—He, That Caliban, and she, that Sycorax, Whom I now keep in service. Thou best know'st What torment I did find thee in; thy groans Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax Could ne'er again undo: It was my art, When I arrived and heard thee, that made the pine To gape, and let thee out.