SCENE III.
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
-- 6 --
On curled clouds; to thy strong bidding task
Ariel, and all his qualities.
AIR.
In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud,
Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly,
All racking along in a downy white cloud:
And lest our leap from the sky should prove too far,
We slide on the back of a new-falling star.
Merry, merry, merry, we sail from the east,
Half tippled at a rainbow feast.
PROSPERO.
Spirit, thou hast perform'd to point
The tempest that I bade thee, and dispos'd
The ship and princes exactly to thy charge;
But there's more work: what is the time o'th' day?
ARIEL.
Past the mid-season.
AIR.
PROSPERO.
We must work, we must haste;
Noontide hour is long since past;
Sprights that glimmer in the sun,
Into shades already run;
Naples will be here anon.
-- 7 --
ARIEL.
Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd.
PROSPERO.
What is't thou can'st demand?
ARIEL.
My liberty.
PROSPERO.
Before the time be out? No more.
Do'st thou forget
The foul witch Sycorax, the dam of Caliban,
Whom I now keep in service?
ARIEL.
No.
PROSPERO.
Thou do'st, and think'st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep;
To run against the sharp wind of the north,
To do my business in the veins of the earth,
When it is bak'd with frost!
ARIEL.
I do not, sir.
PROSPERO.
Thou best know'st what torment I found thee in:
It was my art, when I arriv'd and heard thee,
That made the pine, within whose rift thou wast
Imprisoned, to gape and let thee out;
-- 8 --
And, if thou murmurest, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till thou
Hast howl'd out twelve long winters.
ARIEL.
Pardon, master.
PROSPERO.
Go, make thyself like a nymph of the sea;
Be subject to no mortal sight but mine.
Hark thee in thine ear—
ARIEL.
My lord, it shall be done.
[Exit.
PROSPERO.
Awake, dear heart, awake! Thou hast slept well,
Awake—
MIRANDA.
The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
[Exeunt.
David Garrick [1756], The tempest. An opera. Taken from Shakespear. As it is Performed at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. The Songs from Shakespear, Dryden, &c. The Music composed by Mr. Smith (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [etc.], London) [word count] [S34200].
