MIRANDA
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. (1.2.1-5)
When Prospero uses his magic to orchestrate the storm that shipwrecks his enemies, it's as though the entire island is a stage, don't you think?
Quote 2
MIRANDA
I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble. (1.2.498-500)
Miranda suggests that only the world of the court can breed nobility. She denies that nature has its own nobility and grace, and likens the world she doesn't know (that of the court) to the divine world, perhaps because they're both alien to her and might as well be the same thing.
MIRANDA
Abhorrèd slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt 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 endow'd thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile
race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in 't which good
natures
Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison. (1.2.422-436)
Some editions of the play attribute this rant against Caliban to Prospero. Others assign the speech to Miranda. Either way, the point is pretty clear. Here, the speaker suggests that because Caliban had no language of his own when Prospero and Miranda arrived on the island, he somehow deserves to be a slave "confined into this rock." Scholars often point out that this is the same kind of rationale European colonizers used to enslave new world inhabitants.
MIRANDA
Abhorrèd slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt 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 't which good
natures
Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison. (1.2.422-436)
Can we ever unlearn what is natural within us? Is there a certain "civilized" kind of learning that is incompatible with man in the state of nature?
Quote 5
MIRANDA
I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble. (1.2.498-500)
Is Miranda here disputing the idea of the "noble savage"? Is there anything that we might consider "noble" in the natural world?
MIRANDA
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. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
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 swallowed, and
The fraughting souls within her. (1.2.5-13)
Miranda has a naturally merciful temperament. She wishes her father to be merciful, regardless of his aim.
MIRANDA
How came we ashore?
PROSPERO
By providence divine. (1.2.189-190)
Even if you know magic, some things are just dumb luck—or divine intervention.
Quote 8
MIRANDA
'Tis far off
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. (1.2.56-58)
What is the relationship between dreams and memory? Prospero has a handy habit of putting folks to sleep when he's up to some other sorcery—memories don't seem trustworthy in this environment.