The Tempest: Act IV, Scene i

The Tempest.         Act 4, Scene 1.        Prospero

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

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1.  You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
2.  As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
3.  Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
4.  As I foretold you, were all spirits and
5.  Are melted into air, into thin air:
6.  And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
7.  The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
8.  The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
9.  Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
10.  And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
11.  Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
12.  As dreams are made on, and our little life
13.  Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex’d;
14.  Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
15.  Be not disturb’d with my infirmity:
16.  If you be pleased, retire into my cell
17.  And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
18.  To still my beating mind.