Suggested monologues from The Tempest

MIRANDA If by your art, my dearest father, you have Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin's cheek, Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel, (Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her) Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd! Had I been any god of power, I would Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere It should the good ship so have swallowed and The fraughting souls within her.

MIRANDA I do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own. Nor have I seen More that I may call men than you, good friend, And my dear father. How features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty (The jewel in my dower) I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts I therein do forget.

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, wast 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.

PROSPERO Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid (Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimmed The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake and by the spurs plucked up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required Some heavenly music (which even now I do) To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book.

PROSPERO Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint. Now, 'tis true I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not, Since I have my dukedom got And pardoned the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands. Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free.

CALIBAN This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first, Thou strok’st me and made 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' th’ 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' th’ 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.

FERDINAND There be some sports are painful, and their labor Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters Point to rich ends. This my mean task Would be as heavy to me as odious, but The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead And makes my labors pleasures. O, she is Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed, And he's composed of harshness. I must remove Some thousands of these logs and pile them up, Upon a sore injunction. My sweet mistress Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness Had never like executor. I forget; But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labors, Most busiest when I do it.

ARIEL You are three men of sin, whom Destiny – That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in't – the never-surfeited sea Hath caused to belch up you and on this island, Where man doth not inhabit, you 'mongst men Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; And even with such-like valor men hang and drown Their proper selves. [They draw their swords] You fools! I and my fellows Are ministers of Fate. The elements, Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowle that's in my plume. My fellow-ministers Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, Your swords are now too massy for your strengths And will not be uplifted. But remember (For that's my business to you) that you three From Milan did supplant good Prospero; Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it, Him and his innocent child; for which foul deed The pow’rs, delaying, not forgetting, have Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, They have bereft; and do pronounce by me Ling’ring perdition (worse than any death Can be at once) shall step by step attend You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from, Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls Upon your heads, is nothing but heart’s sorrow And a clear life ensuing.