Miranda Act 1

A person is speaking to their father, asking him to calm down the wild waters and save the people on a ship that has been destroyed. The person is confused about their identity and asks if their father is truly their father. They express pity for someone they have turned into and ask why they were not destroyed. They mention seeing a man who looks noble but is actually a spirit. They ask their father to show kindness and not judge the spirit too quickly. The person assures their father that they have no ambition and just want to see the spirit. They mention that their father's current behavior is unusual. If by your art, my dearest father, you have put the wild waters in this roar, allay them. The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, but that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek, dashes the fire out. Oh, I have suffered with those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel, who had no doubt some noble creature in her, dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish. Had I been any god of power, I would have sunk the sea within the earth or air. It should the good ship so have swallowed, and the fraught souls within her. Oh, woo the day! More to know, to never meddle with my thoughts. You have often begun to tell me what I am, but stopped, and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding, Stay, not yet. Certainly, sir, I can. Tis far off, and rather like a dream, that an assurance that my remembrance warrants. Had I not four or five women that once tended me? But that I do not. Sir, are you not my father? Oh, the heavens! What foul play had we that we came from thence, or blessed wasn't we did? Oh, my heart bleeds to think of the thing that I have turned you to, which is, from my remembrance, please you further. Sir, most heefully. Oh, good sir, I do. Your tail, sir, would cure deafness. Oh, the heavens! I should sin to think but nobly of my grandmother. Good wombs have borne bad sons. Alack for pity, I, not remembering how I cried out then, will cry it over again. It is a hint that rings mine eyes to tears. Wherefore did they not that hour destroy us? Alack, what trouble was I then to you? How can we assure? Would I might but ever see that man. Heavens thank you for this, and now I pray you, sir, for still disbeating in this storm. Is there a reason for raising this sea storm? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Oh, the strangeness of your story put heaviness in me. Tis a villain, sir, I do not love to look on. A bored slave, which any print of goodness will not take, being capable of all ill, I pitied thee. Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour one thing or other. When thou didst not savage, know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known but thy vile race. Though thou didst learn had that in which good nature could not abide with, wherefore wast thou deservedly confined unto this rock? Who has deserved more than a prison? What is it, a spirit? O Lord, how it looks about, believe me, sir, it carries a brave form. But tis a spirit. I might call him a thing divine for nothing natural I ever saw so noble. No wonder, sir, but certainly a maid. A lack for mercy. Why speaks my father so ungently? This is the third man that ever I saw, the first that ever I sighed for. Pity move my father to be inclined my way. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. If the ill spirit have so fair a house, good things will strive to dwell with it. O dear father, make not too rash a trial of him, for he's gentle and not fearful. Beseech you, father. Sir, have pity, I'll be a surety. My affections are the most humble, I have no ambition to see a goodlier man. Be of comfort, my father's of a better nature, sir, than he appears by speech. This is unwanted, which now came from him.