William Shakespeare: The Tempest

ACT 4 1. SCENE I. Before PROSPERO'S cell (continued)

FERDINAND, MIRANDA.
We wish your peace.

[Exeunt.]

PROSPERO.
Come, with a thought.--[To them.] I thank thee:
Ariel, come!

[Enter ARIEL.]

ARIEL.
Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure?

PROSPERO.
Spirit,
We must prepare to meet with Caliban.

ARIEL.
Ay, my commander; when I presented Ceres,
I thought to have told thee of it: but I fear'd
Lest I might anger thee.

PROSPERO.
Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?

ARIEL.
I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor;
At which, like unback'd colts, they prick'd their ears,
Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses
As they smelt music: so I charm'd their ears,
That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail shins: at last I left them
I' the filthy-mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to the chins, that the foul lake
O'erstunk their feet.

PROSPERO.
This was well done, my bird.
Thy shape invisible retain thou still:
The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither
For stale to catch these thieves.

ARIEL.
I go, I go.

[Exit]

PROSPERO.
A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
Even to roaring.

[Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c.]

Come, hang them on this line.

[PROSPERO and ARIEL remain invisible. Enter
CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet]