MASTER
Boatswain!
BOATSWAIN
Here, master: what cheer?
MASTER
Good! Speak to the mariners: fall to ’t yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.
BOATSWAIN
Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend to th’ master’s whistle. Blow till burst wind, if room enough.
ALONSO
Good boatswain, have care. Where’s the master?
Play the men.
BOATSWAIN
I pray now, keep below.
ANTONIO
Where is the master, boson?
BOATSWAIN
Do you not hear him? You mar our labour: keep your cabins: you do assist the storm.
GONZALO
Nay, good, be patient.
BOATSWAIN
When the sea is. ! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble us not.
GONZALO
Good, yet remember whom aboard.
BOATSWAIN
None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor: if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more. Use your authority: if you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.—Cheerly, good hearts!—Out of our way, I say.
GONZALO
I have great comfort from this fellow. he no drowning mark upon him. His complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging! Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own little advantage! If he be not born to be hang’d, our case is miserable.
BOATSWAIN
Down with the topmast! yare! lower, lower! Bring her to try wi’ th’ maincourse.
BOATSWAIN
A plague upon this howling! They are louder than the weather or our office.
BOATSWAIN
Yet again! What do you here? Shall we give , and drown? Have you a mind to sink?
SEBASTIAN
A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
BOATSWAIN
Work you, then.
ANTONIO
Hang, cur, hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than art.
GONZALO
I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched .
BOATSWAIN
Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses: off to sea again: lay her off.
MARINERS
All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
BOATSWAIN
What, must our mouths be cold?
GONZALO
The King and Prince at prayers! Let’s assist them,
For our case is as theirs.
SEBASTIAN
I am out of patience.
ANTONIO
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
This wide-chapp’d rascal—would might’st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!
GONZALO
He’ll be hang’d yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid’st to glut him.
GONZALO
A confused noise within: “Mercy on us!”—
“We split, we split!”—“Farewell, my wife and children!”—
“Farewell, brother!”—“We split, we split, we split!”
ANTONIO
Let’s all sink wi’ th’ King.
SEBASTIAN
Let’s take leave of him.
GONZALO
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. Long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done! but I would die a dry death.