The Tempest: Act II, Scene ii

 

The Tempest.         Act 2, Scene 2.      Caliban

(This text is featured in our interview with Robert Richmond and Richard Sheridan Willis)

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1.  All the infections that the sun sucks up
2.  From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
3.  By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
4.  And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
5.  Fright me with urchin—shows, pitch me i’ the mire,
6.  Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
7.  Out of my way, unless he bid ’em; but
8.  For every trifle are they set upon me;
9.  Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me
10.  And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
11.  Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
12.  Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
13.  All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
14.  Do hiss me into madness.

[Enter TRINCULO]

15.  Lo, now, lo!
16.  Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
17.  For bringing wood in slowly. I’ll fall flat;
18.  Perchance he will not mind me.

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