Sit down, For thou must now know farther.

Prospero
Sit down,
For thou must now know farther.
 They sit.
Miranda
You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopped
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding “Stay. Not yet.”

What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

Prospero
The hour’s now come.
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not
Out three years old.
Miranda
Certainly, sir, I can.
Prospero
By what? By any other house or person?
Of anything the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
Miranda
’Tis far off
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?
Prospero
Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou rememb’rest aught ere thou cam’st here,
How thou cam’st here thou mayst.
Miranda
But that I do not.
Prospero
Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power.
Miranda
Sir, are not you my father?
Prospero
Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter. And thy father
Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
And princess no worse issued.
Miranda
O, the heavens!
What foul play had we that we came from thence?
Or blessèd was ’t we did?
Prospero
Both, both, my girl.
By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.
Miranda
O, my heart bleeds
To think o’ th’ teen that I have turned you to,
Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.