Prospero's Books

---

Knowing I lov'd my books,

he furnish'd me from mine own library

with volumes that I prize

above my dukedom.

A Book of Water

This is a waterproof-covered book

which has lost its colour

by much contact with water.

It is full of investigative drawings

and exploratory text

written on many different

thicknesses of paper.

There are drawings of every

conceivable watery association

seas, tempests, streams, canals,

shipwrecks, floods and tears.

As the pages are turned,

there are rippling waves

and slanting storms.

Rivers and cataracts flow and bubble.

Plans of hydraulic machinery

and maps of weather-forecasting

flicker with arrows,

symbols and agitated diagrams.

The drawings are all made

by the same hand,

bounded into a book

by the King of France at Ambois

and bought by the Milanese Dukes

to give to Prospero

as a wedding present.

B o a t s w a i n ! B o a t s w a i n !

B o a t s w a i n !

Boatswain! Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Boatswain!

Here, master; what cheer?

Here, master; what cheer?

Good! Speak to th' mariners;

Good! Speak to th' mariners;

fall to't yarely,

or we run ourselves aground;

fall to't yarely,

or we run ourselves aground;

Down with the topmast

bestir, bestir

Yare, lower, lower!

bestir, bestir

Bring her to try wi' th' maincourse.

A plague upon this howling!

They are louder

than the weather or our office.

Yet again! What do you here?

Shall we give o'er, and drown?

Have you a mind to sink?

A pox o' your throat, you bawling,

blasphemous, incharitable dog!

Work you, then.

Hang, cur;hang,

we are less afraid to be

drown'd than thou art.

Methinks he hath no drowning

mark upon him;

his complexion is perfect gallows

fall to't yarely,

or we run ourselves aground.

bestir, bestir

Heigh, my hearts!

cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!

Take in the topsail.

Tend to th' master's whistle.

Blow till thou burst thy wind,

if room enough.

Bound in a gold cloth and very heavy,

this book has some eighty

shining mirrored pages;

some opaque, some translucent,

some manufactured with silvered papers,

some covered in a film of mercury

that will roll off the page unless treated cautiously.

Some mirrors simply reflect the reader,

some reflect the reader as he will be in a year's time,

as he would be if he were a child, a monster, or an angel.

Where is the master, boson?

Do you not hear him?

You mar our labour;

keep your cabins;

you do assist the storm.

What cares these roarers for the name of king?

To cabin! silence! Trouble us not.

Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

None that I more love than myself.

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 liv'd so long,

and make yourself ready in your cabin

for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.

Out of our way, I say.

Take in the topsail. Tend

to th' master's whistle.

Cheerly, good hearts!

bestir, bestir

Heigh, my hearts!

Trouble us not.

Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him;

his complexion is perfect gallows.

All lost! to prayers, to prayers!

- What, must our mouths be cold?

...we run ourselves aground;

- Tend to th' master's whistle.

We split, we split, we split!

3. A Memoria Technica called

Architecture and Other Music

When the pages are opened in this book,

plans and diagrams

spring up fully-formed.

There are definitive models of buildings

constantly shaded by moving cloud-shadow.

lights flicker in nocturnal urban landscapes

and music is played in the halls and towers.

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 th' welkin's cheek,

dashes the fire out.

O, I have suffered With those that I saw suffer!

A brave vessel, Who had no

doubt some noble creature in her,

dash'd all to pieces!

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea

for an acre of barren ground -

long heath, brown furze, any thing.

The wills above be done,

but I would fain die dry death.

Had I been any god of power, I would have sunk

the sea within the earth

or ere it should the good

ship so have swallow'd

and the fraughting souls within her.

Be conected;

No more amazement;

tell your piteous heart There's no harm done.

No harm.

I have done nothing but in care of thee,

Of thee, my dear one,

thee, my daughter,

who Art ignorant of what thou art,

nought knowing Of whence I am,

nor that I am more better Than Prospero,

master of a full poor cell,

And thy no greater father.

'Tis time I should inform thee farther.

Lend thy hand,

And pluck my magic garment from me.

So,

Lie there my art.

Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck,

which touch'd The very

virtue of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision in mine art

So safely ordered

that there is no soul- No,

not so much perdition as an hair

betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry,

which thou saw'st sink.

for thou must now know farther.

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 three years old.

Had I not four, or five, women once,

that tended me?

Thou hadst, and more, Miranda.

But how is it That this lives in thy mind?

What seest thou else In the dark backward

and abysm of time?

If thou rememb'rest aught,

ere thou cam'st here,

How thou cam'st here thou mayst.

Twelve year since, Miranda,

twelve year since, Thy father was the Duke of Milan,

and A prince of power.

Thy mother was a piece of virtue,

and she said thou wast my daughter;

8. An Alphabetical Inventory of the Dead

8. An Alphabetical Inventory of the Dead

This is a funereal volume.

It contains all the names of the dead,

who have lived on earth.

The first name is Adam

and the last is Susannah,

Prospero's wife.

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 lov'd,

and to him put the manage of my state;

as at that time Through all the signories it was the first,

and Prospero the prime 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

and to my state grew stranger,

being transported and rapt in secret studies.

The Book of Colours

This is a large book bound in watered silk.

300 pages cover the colour spectrum

in finely differentiated shades

moving from black back to black again.

This is a thick, brown, leather-covered book,

stippled with gold numbers.

The pages flicker with logarithmic figures.

Angles are measured by needle-thin metal pendulums,

activated by magnets.

6. An Atlas Belonging to Orpheus

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