The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

You taught me language; and my profit on't Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you For learning me your language!

Swum ashore. man, like a duck: I can swim like a duck,

There be some sports are painful, and their labour 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 labours pleasures:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!

Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own,

As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free.