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Dramatis Personae
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/ Home / Library / Complete Shakespeare / The Tempest / Act I Scene I
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The Tempest: Act 1 Scene 1
Scene: A ship at Sea: an island.
Scene I On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard.
- [Enter a Master and a Boatswain]
- Master
- Boatswain!
- Boatswain
- Here, master: what cheer?
- Master
- Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely,
- or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.
- [Exit]
- [Enter Mariners]
- Boatswain
- Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!
- yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to the
- master's whistle. Blow, till thou burst thy wind,
- if room enough!
- [Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND,
- GONZALO, and others]
- ALONSO
- Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?
- Play the men.
- Boatswain
- I pray now, keep below.
- ANTONIO
- Where is the master, boatswain?
- Boatswain
- Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your
- cabins: you do assist the storm.
- GONZALO
- Nay, good, be patient.
- Boatswain
- When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers
- for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.
- GONZALO
- Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
- Boatswain
- None that I more love than myself. You are a
- counsellor; if you can command these elements to
- silence, and work the peace of the present, we will
- not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you
- cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make
- yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of
- the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out
- of our way, I say.
- [Exit]
- GONZALO
- I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he
- hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
- perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his
- hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable,
- for our own doth little advantage. If he be not
- born to be hanged, our case is miserable.
- [Exeunt]
- [Re-enter Boatswain]
- Boatswain
- Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring
- her to try with main-course.
- [A cry within]
- A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
- the weather or our office.
- [Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO]
- Yet again! what do you here? Shall we give o'er
- and drown? Have you a mind to sink?
- SEBASTIAN
- A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
- incharitable dog!
- Boatswain
- Work you then.
- ANTONIO
- Hang, cur! hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!
- We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.
- GONZALO
- I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were
- no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an
- unstanched wench.
- Boatswain
- Lay her a-hold, a-hold! set her two courses off to
- sea again; lay her off.
- [Enter Mariners wet]
- Mariners
- All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
- Boatswain
- What, must our mouths be cold?
- GONZALO
- The king and prince at prayers! let's assist them,
- For our case is as theirs.
- SEBASTIAN
- I'm out of patience.
- ANTONIO
- We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards:
- This wide-chapp'd rascal--would thou mightst lie drowning
- The washing of ten tides!
- GONZALO
- He'll be hang'd yet,
- Though every drop of water swear against it
- And gape at widest to glut him.
- [A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'--
- 'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and
- children!'--
- 'Farewell, brother!'--'We split, we split, we split!']
- ANTONIO
- Let's all sink with the king.
- SEBASTIAN
- Let's take leave of him.
- [Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN]
- GONZALO
- Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an
- acre of barren ground, long heath, brown furze, any
- thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain
- die a dry death.
- [Exeunt]
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