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There’s no harm done.

       MIRANDA.

       O! woe the day!

       PROSPERO.

       No harm.

       I have done nothing but in care of thee,

       Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who

       Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing

       Of whence I am: nor that I am more better

       Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,

       And thy no greater father.

       MIRANDA.

       More to know

       Did never meddle with my thoughts.

       PROSPERO.

       ‘Tis time

       I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,

       And pluck my magic garment from me.—So:

       [Lays down his mantle]

       Lie there my art.—Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.

       The direful spectacle of the wrack, which touch’d

       The very virtue of compassion in thee,

       I have with such provision in mine art

       So safely ordered that there is no soul—

       No, not so much perdition as an hair

       Betid to any creature in the vessel

       Which thou heard’st cry, which thou saw’st sink. Sit down;

       For thou must now know farther.

       MIRANDA.

       You have often

       Begun to tell me what I am: but stopp’d,

       And left me to a bootless inquisition,

       Concluding ‘Stay; not yet.’

       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 any thing 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 blessed was’t we did?

       PROSPERO.

       Both, both, my girl.

       By foul play, as thou say’st, were we heav’d thence;

       But blessedly holp hither.

       MIRANDA.

       O! my heart bleeds

       To think o’ th’ teen that I have turn’d you to,

       Which is from my remembrance. Please you, further.

       PROSPERO.

       My brother and thy uncle, call’d Antonio—

       I pray thee, mark me,—that a brother should

       Be so perfidious!—he, whom next thyself,

       Of all the world I lov’d, and to him put

       The manage of my state; as at that time

       Through all the signories it was the first,

       And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed

       In dignity, and for the liberal arts,

       Without a parallel: those being all my study,

       The government I cast upon my brother,

       And to my state grew stranger, being transported

       And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle—

       Dost thou attend me?

       MIRANDA.

       Sir, most heedfully.

       PROSPERO.

       Being once perfected how to grant suits,

       How to deny them, who t’ advance, and who

       To trash for overtopping; new created

       The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang’d ‘em,

       Or else new form’d ‘em: having both the key

       Of officer and office, set all hearts i’ th’ state

       To what tune pleas’d his ear: that now he was

       The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,

       And suck’d my verdure out on’t.—Thou attend’st not.

       MIRANDA.

       O, good sir! I do.

       PROSPERO.

       I pray thee, mark me.

       I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated

       To closeness and the bettering of my mind

       With that, which, but by being so retir’d,

       O’er-priz’d all popular rate, in my false brother

       Awak’d an evil nature; and my trust,

       Like a good parent, did beget of him

       A falsehood, in its contrary as great

       As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,

       A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,

       Not only with what my revenue yielded,

       But what my power might else exact,—like one

       Who having, into truth, by telling of it,

       Made such a sinner of his memory,

       To credit his own lie,—he did believe

       He was indeed the Duke; out o’ the substitution,

       And executing th’ outward face of royalty,

       With all prerogative.—Hence his ambition growing—

       Dost thou hear?

      

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