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What is the time o’ th’ day?

Prospero
What is the time o’ th’ day?
Ariel
Past the mid season.
Prospero
At least two glasses. The time ’twixt six and now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
Ariel
Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet performed me.

Go make thyself like a nymph o’ th’ sea. Be subject
To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball else.

Prospero
How now? Moody?
What is ’t thou canst demand?
Ariel
My liberty.
Prospero
Before the time be out? No more.
Ariel
I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served
Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise
To bate me a full year.
Prospero
Dost thou forget
From what a torment I did free thee?
Ariel
No.
Prospero
Thou dost, and think’st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the North,
To do me business in the veins o’ th’ Earth
When it is baked with frost.
Ariel
I do not, sir.
Prospero
Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
Ariel
No, sir.
Prospero
Thou hast. Where was she born? Speak. Tell me.
Ariel
Sir, in Argier.
Prospero
O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget’st. This damned witch Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier,
Thou know’st, was banished. For one thing she did
They would not take her life. Is not this true?
Ariel
Ay, sir.
Prospero
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by th’ sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant,
And for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine, within which rift
Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years; within which space she died
And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill wheels strike. Then was this island
(Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honored with
A human shape.
Ariel
Yes, Caliban, her son.
Prospero
Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in. Thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears. It was a torment
To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax
Could not again undo. It was mine art,
When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape
The pine and let thee out.
Ariel
I thank thee, master.
Prospero
If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters.
Ariel
Pardon, master.
I will be correspondent to command
And do my spriting gently.
Prospero
Do so, and after two days
I will discharge thee.
Ariel
That’s my noble master.
What shall I do? Say, what? What shall I do?
Prospero
Go make thyself like a nymph o’ th’ sea. Be subject
To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
To every eyeball else. Go, take this shape,
And hither come in ’t. Go, hence with diligence!
 Ariel exits.

Source:
Act 1
Scene 2
Line 283

Source Type:

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