William Shakespeare: The Tempest

ACT 2 2. SCENE II. Another part of the island

[Enter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder
heard]

CALIBAN.
All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him
By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,
And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' the mire,
Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but
For every trifle are they set upon me:
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me; then like hedge-hogs which
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount
Their pricks at my foot-fall; sometime am I
All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.--

[Enter TRINCULO]

Lo, now, lo!
Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat;
Perchance he will not mind me.

TRINCULO.
Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any
weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it
sing i' th' wind; yond same black cloud, yond huge one,
looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If
it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to
hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by
pailfuls.--What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or
alive? A fish: he smells like a fish: a very ancient and
fish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-John. A
strange fish! Were I in England now,--as once I was, and
had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but
would give a piece of silver: there would this monster
make a man; any strange beast there makes a man. When
they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they
will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg'd like a
man, and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now
let loose my opinion: hold it no longer; this is no
fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by
thunderbolt. [Thunder] Alas, the storm is come again! My
best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no
other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with
strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs
of the storm be past.