Original Text |
Modern Text |
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Enter FERDINAND and
ARIEL, invisible, playing and singing
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FERDINAND enters with
ARIEL, who is invisible and playing music and
singing.
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ARIEL
380
(sings)
Come unto these yellow
sands,
And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have, and
kissed
The wild waves whist.
Foot it featly here and
there,
And, sweet sprites,
bear
The burden. Hark,
hark!
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ARIEL (singing)
Come onto these yellow
sands,
And we’ll join
hands,
When you’ve curtsied
and kissed
The waves into silence.
Prance lightly here and
there,
And the sweet spirits
bear
The burden. Listen,
listen!
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SPIRITS
(dispersedly, within)
Bow-wow.
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SPIRITS
(refrain of the song is heard offstage,
from different places, not in unison)
Bow-wow.
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ARIEL The watchdogs bark.
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ARIEL The watchdogs bark.
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(within) Bow-wow.
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SPIRITS
(offstage) Bow-wow.
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ARIEL Hark, hark! I hear
385The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry “Cock-a-diddle-dow.”
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ARIEL Listen, listen! I hear
The tune of the strutting rooster
Who cries cock-a-doodle-doo.
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FERDINAND Where should this music be? I' th' air or
th' earth?
It sounds no more, and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,
390Weeping again the king my father’s wrack,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air. Thence I have followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather. But ’tis gone.
395No, it begins again.
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FERDINAND Where’s that music coming from? From the earth, or the
air? It’s stopped now—it must be played for
some local god of the island. As I sat on the shore crying over my
father’s shipwreck, I heard the music creep over the wild
waves, calming their fury and soothing my own grief with its sweet
melodies. I followed it here, or I should say it dragged me here.
But now it’s stopped. No, there it is again.
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