Act I

Not a soul

But felt a fever of the mad and play’d

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners

Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,

Then all afire with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,

With hair up-staring⁠—then like reeds, not hair⁠—

Was the first man that leap’d; cried, “Hell is empty

And all the devils are here.”

Why that’s my spirit!

But was not this nigh shore?

Close by, my master.

But are they, Ariel, safe?

Not a hair perish’d;

On their sustaining garments not a blemish,

But fresher than before: and, as thou badest me,

In troops I have dispersed them ’bout the isle.

The king’s son have I landed by himself;

Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs

In an odd angle of the isle and sitting,

His arms in this sad knot.

Of the king’s ship

The mariners say how thou hast disposed

And all the rest o’ the fleet.