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 damn'd witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Argier,

Thou know'st, was banish'd: 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 the sailors. Thou, my slave,

As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;

And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy and abhorr'd 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

Imprison'd 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 honour'd 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 damn'd, 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.

CALIBAN: I must eat my dinner.

This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,

Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,

Thou strokedst me and madest much of me, wouldst give me

Water with berries in't, and teach me how

To name the bigger light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee

And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle,

The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile:

Cursed be I that did so! All the charms

Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!

For I am all the subjects that you have,

Which first was mine own king: and here you sty me

In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me

The rest o' the island.

CALIBAN: Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him,

I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him,

Having first seized his books, or with a log

Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,

Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember

First to possess his books; for without them

He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not

One spirit to command: they all do hate him

As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.

He has brave utensils,--for so he calls them--

Which when he has a house, he'll deck withal

And that most deeply to consider is

The beauty of his daughter; he himself

Calls her a nonpareil: I never saw a woman,

But only Sycorax my dam and she;

But she as far surpasseth Sycorax

As great'st does least.

PROSPERO: Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,

Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave,

His mother was a witch, and one so strong

That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,

And deal in her command without her power.

These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil--

For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them

To take my life. Two of these fellows you

Must know and own; this thing of darkness!

Acknowledge mine.