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THE TEMPEST.1

ACT I.

SCENE 1.-On a Ship at sea: a storm, with thunder and lightning.

Enter a Ship-Master and a Boatswain.

Mast.

Boatswain!

Boats. Here, master: what cheer?

Mast. Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir. [Exit.

Enter Mariners. Boats. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the top-sail. Tend to the master's whistle.-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!❜

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND, GONZALO, and others.

Alon. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?

Play the men.*

Boats. I pray now, keep below.

Ant. Where is the master, boatswain ?

Boats. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm. Gon. Nay, good, be patient. Boats. When the sea is. Hence! What care these roarers for the name of king? To cabin: silence! trouble us not.

1. The earliest printed copy known of "THE TEMPEST" is that in the Folio published by Shakespeare's fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, in 1623, seven years after the poet's death. The first performance of this play is believed to have taken place on "Hallowmas Night" (1st November), 1611. This gives confirmation to the internal evidence of the style-mature in beauty and rich fancy that this play was one of the lastwritten productions of its author. The source of the plot was supposed to have been derived from an Italian novel, translated into English in 1588, and since thought to be traced to a German play, called "The Beautiful Sidea;" while some of the circumstances recorded in the life of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, a patron of Petrarch, the founder of Milan Cathedral, and a man much addicted to books and studious

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