You have often
Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd
And left me to a bootless inquisition,[372-10]
Concluding, _Stay, not yet_.

_Pros._ The hour's now come;
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear:
Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not
Out[372-11] three years old.

_Mira._ Certainly, sir, I can.

_Pros._ By what? by any other house or person?
Of any thing the image tell me that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.

_Mira._ 'Tis far off,
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

_Pros._ Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What see'st thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember'st aught ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here, thou mayst.[372-12]

_Mira._ But that I do not.

_Pros._ Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
A prince of power.

_Mira._ Sir, are you not my father?

_Pros._ Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan; thou his only heir,
A princess--no worse issued.

_Mira._ O the Heavens!
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blessed was't we did?

_Pros._ Both, both, my girl:
By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence;
But blessedly holp[373-13] hither.

_Mira._ O, my heart bleeds
To think o' the teen[373-14] that I have turn'd you to,
Which is from my remembrance! Please you, further.[373-15]

_Pros._ My brother, and thy uncle, call'd Antonio,--
I pray thee, mark me;--that a brother should
Be so perfidious!--he whom, next thyself,
Of all the world I loved, and to him put
The manage[373-16] of my State; as, at that time,
Through all the signiories[373-17] it was the first,
And Prospero the prime[373-18] Duke; being so reputed
In dignity, and for the liberal arts
Without a parallel: those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,