Act I

You have often

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

And left me to a bootless inquisition,

Concluding “Stay: not yet.”

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.

Certainly, sir, I can.

By what? by any other house or person?

Of any thing the image tell me that

Hath kept with thy remembrance.

’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?

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 remember’st aught ere thou camest here,

How thou camest here thou mayst.