Complete Plays, The Read online

  Show thee a jay’s nest and instruct thee how

  To snare the nimble marmoset; I’ll bring thee

  To clustering filberts and sometimes I’ll get thee

  Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?

  Stephano

  I prithee now, lead the way without any more talking. Trinculo, the king and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here: here; bear my bottle: fellow Trinculo, we’ll fill him by and by again.

  Caliban

  [Sings drunkenly]

  Farewell master; farewell, farewell!

  Trinculo

  A howling monster: a drunken monster!

  Caliban

  No more dams I’ll make for fish

  Nor fetch in firing

  At requiring;

  Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish

  ’Ban, ’Ban, Cacaliban

  Has a new master: get a new man.

  Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, freedom!

  Stephano

  O brave monster! Lead the way.

  Exeunt

  ACT III

  SCENE I. BEFORE PROSPERO’S CELL.

  Enter Ferdinand, bearing a log

  Ferdinand

  There be some sports are painful, and their labour

  Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness

  Are nobly undergone and most poor matters

  Point to rich ends. This my mean task

  Would be as heavy to me as odious, but

  The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead

  And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is

  Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed,

  And he’s composed of harshness. I must remove

  Some thousands of these logs and pile them up,

  Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress

  Weeps when she sees me work, and says, such baseness

  Had never like executor. I forget:

  But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,

  Most busy lest, when I do it.

  Enter Miranda; and Prospero at a distance, unseen

  Miranda

  Alas, now, pray you,

  Work not so hard: I would the lightning had

  Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin’d to pile!

  Pray, set it down and rest you: when this burns,

  ’Twill weep for having wearied you. My father

  Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself;

  He’s safe for these three hours.

  Ferdinand

  O most dear mistress,

  The sun will set before I shall discharge

  What I must strive to do.

  Miranda

  If you’ll sit down,

  I’ll bear your logs the while: pray, give me that;

  I’ll carry it to the pile.

  Ferdinand

  No, precious creature;

  I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,

  Than you should such dishonour undergo,

  While I sit lazy by.

  Miranda

  It would become me

  As well as it does you: and I should do it

  With much more ease; for my good will is to it,

  And yours it is against.

  Prospero

  Poor worm, thou art infected!

  This visitation shows it.

  Miranda

  You look wearily.

  Ferdinand

  No, noble mistress;’tis fresh morning with me

  When you are by at night. I do beseech you —

  Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers —

  What is your name?

  Miranda

  Miranda.— O my father,

  I have broke your hest to say so!

  Ferdinand

  Admired Miranda!

  Indeed the top of admiration! worth

  What’s dearest to the world! Full many a lady

  I have eyed with best regard and many a time

  The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage

  Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues

  Have I liked several women; never any

  With so fun soul, but some defect in her

  Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed

  And put it to the foil: but you, O you,

  So perfect and so peerless, are created

  Of every creature’s best!

  Miranda

  I do not know

  One of my sex; no woman’s face remember,

  Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen

  More that I may call men than you, good friend,

  And my dear father: how features are abroad,

  I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,

  The jewel in my dower, I would not wish

  Any companion in the world but you,

  Nor can imagination form a shape,

  Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle

  Something too wildly and my father’s precepts

  I therein do forget.

  Ferdinand

  I am in my condition

  A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king;

  I would, not so!— and would no more endure

  This wooden slavery than to suffer

  The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:

  The very instant that I saw you, did

  My heart fly to your service; there resides,

  To make me slave to it; and for your sake

  Am I this patient log — man.

  Miranda

  Do you love me?

  Ferdinand

  O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound

  And crown what I profess with kind event

  If I speak true! if hollowly, invert

  What best is boded me to mischief! I

  Beyond all limit of what else i’ the world

  Do love, prize, honour you.

  Miranda

  I am a fool

  To weep at what I am glad of.

  Prospero

  Fair encounter

  Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace

  On that which breeds between ’em!

  Ferdinand

  Wherefore weep you?

  Miranda

  At mine unworthiness that dare not offer

  What I desire to give, and much less take

  What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;

  And all the more it seeks to hide itself,

  The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!

  And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!

  I am your wife, it you will marry me;

  If not, I’ll die your maid: to be your fellow

  You may deny me; but I’ll be your servant,

  Whether you will or no.

  Ferdinand

  My mistress, dearest;

  And I thus humble ever.

  Miranda

  My husband, then?

  Ferdinand

  Ay, with a heart as willing

  As bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand.

  Miranda

  And mine, with my heart in’t; and now farewell

  Till half an hour hence.

  Ferdinand

  A thousand thousand!

  Exeunt Ferdinand and Miranda severally

  Prospero

  So glad of this as they I cannot be,

  Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing

  At nothing can be more. I’ll to my book,

  For yet ere supper-time must I perform

  Much business appertaining.

  Exit

  SCENE I. ELSINORE. A PLATFORM BEFORE THE CASTLE.

  Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo

  Bernardo

  Who’s there?

  Francisco

  Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

  Bernardo

  Long live the king!

  Franciscor />
  Bernardo?

  Bernardo

  He.

  Francisco

  You come most carefully upon your hour.

  Bernardo

  ’Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

  Francisco

  For this relief much thanks: ’tis bitter cold,

  And I am sick at heart.

  Bernardo

  Have you had quiet guard?

  Francisco

  Not a mouse stirring.

  Bernardo

  Well, good night.

  If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

  The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

  Francisco

  I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there?

  Enter Horatio and Marcellus

  Horatio

  Friends to this ground.

  Marcellus

  And liegemen to the Dane.

  Francisco

  Give you good night.

  Marcellus

  O, farewell, honest soldier:

  Who hath relieved you?

  Francisco

  Bernardo has my place.

  Give you good night.

  Exit

  Marcellus

  Holla! Bernardo!

  Bernardo

  Say,

  What, is Horatio there?

  Horatio

  A piece of him.

  Bernardo

  Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

  Marcellus

  What, has this thing appear’d again to-night?

  Bernardo

  I have seen nothing.

  Marcellus

  Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,

  And will not let belief take hold of him

  Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:

  Therefore I have entreated him along

  With us to watch the minutes of this night;

  That if again this apparition come,

  He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

  Horatio

  Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

  Bernardo

  Sit down awhile;

  And let us once again assail your ears,

  That are so fortified against our story

  What we have two nights seen.

  Horatio

  Well, sit we down,

  And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

  Bernardo

  Last night of all,

  When yond same star that’s westward from the pole

  Had made his course to illume that part of heaven

  Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

  The bell then beating one,—

  Enter Ghost

  Marcellus

  Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

  Bernardo

  In the same figure, like the king that’s dead.

  Marcellus

  Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

  Bernardo

  Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

  Horatio

  Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

  Bernardo

  It would be spoke to.

  Marcellus

  Question it, Horatio.

  Horatio

  What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,

  Together with that fair and warlike form

  In which the majesty of buried Denmark

  Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

  Marcellus

  It is offended.

  Bernardo

  See, it stalks away!

  Horatio

  Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

  Exit Ghost

  Marcellus

  ’Tis gone, and will not answer.

  Bernardo

  How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:

  Is not this something more than fantasy?

  What think you on’t?

  Horatio

  Before my God, I might not this believe

  Without the sensible and true avouch

  Of mine own eyes.

  Marcellus

  Is it not like the king?

  Horatio

  As thou art to thyself:

  Such was the very armour he had on

  When he the ambitious Norway combated;

  So frown’d he once, when, in an angry parle,

  He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.

  ’Tis strange.

  Marcellus

  Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

  With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

  Horatio

  In what particular thought to work I know not;

  But in the gross and scope of my opinion,

  This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

  Marcellus

  Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,

  Why this same strict and most observant watch

  So nightly toils the subject of the land,

  And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,

  And foreign mart for implements of war;

  Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

  Does not divide the Sunday from the week;

  What might be toward, that this sweaty haste

  Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:

  Who is’t that can inform me?

  Horatio

  That can I;

  At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

  Whose image even but now appear’d to us,

  Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

  Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,

  Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet —

  For so this side of our known world esteem’d him —

  Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,

  Well ratified by law and heraldry,

  Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

  Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:

  Against the which, a moiety competent

  Was gaged by our king; which had return’d

  To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

  Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,

  And carriage of the article design’d,

  His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

  Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

  Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there

  Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,

  For food and diet, to some enterprise

  That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other —

  As it doth well appear unto our state —

  But to recover of us, by strong hand

  And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

  So by his father lost: and this, I take it,

  Is the main motive of our preparations,

  The source of this our watch and the chief head

  Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

  Bernardo

  I think it be no other but e’en so:

  Well may it sort that this portentous figure

  Comes armed through our watch; so like the king

  That was and is the question of these wars.

  Horatio

  A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

  In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

  A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

  The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead

  Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

  As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

  Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

  Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

  Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

  And even the like precurse of fierce events,

  As harbingers preceding still the fates

  And prologue to the omen coming on,

  Have heaven and
earth together demonstrated

  Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

  But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

  Re-enter Ghost

  I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

  If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,

  Speak to me:

  If there be any good thing to be done,

  That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

  Speak to me:

  Cock crows

  If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,

  Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!

  Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life

  Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

  For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

  Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

  Marcellus

  Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

  Horatio

  Do, if it will not stand.

  Bernardo

  ’Tis here!

  Horatio

  ’Tis here!

  Marcellus

  ’Tis gone!

  Exit Ghost

  We do it wrong, being so majestical,

  To offer it the show of violence;

  For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

  And our vain blows malicious mockery.

  Bernardo

  It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

  Horatio

  And then it started like a guilty thing

  Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,

  The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,

  Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

  Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,

  Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

  The extravagant and erring spirit hies

  To his confine: and of the truth herein

  This present object made probation.

  Marcellus

  It faded on the crowing of the cock.

  Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes

  Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

  The bird of dawning singeth all night long:

  And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;

  The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

  No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

  So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

  Horatio

  So have I heard and do in part believe it.

  But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

  Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill:

  Break we our watch up; and by my advice,

  Let us impart what we have seen to-night

  Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,

  This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

  Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

  As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

  Marcellus

  Let’s do’t, I pray; and I this morning know

  Where we shall find him most conveniently.

  Exeunt

  SCENE II. ANOTHER PART OF THE ISLAND.

  Enter Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo