The Tempestthe whole play in modern English, scene by scene
An exiled duke with a book of magic raises a storm to wreck his enemies on his island — then has to decide whether to take revenge or forgive. Probably Shakespeare's last play alone. Every scene below shows Shakespeare's original text and a plain modern English translation side by side — free, printable, no account, no paywall.
Act 1
- Scene 1A ship carrying Alonso, King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, his brother Sebastian, Antonio the Duke of Milan, and the old counsellor Gonzalo is torn apart by a violent storm at sea.
- Scene 2Outside his cell, Prospero finally tells Miranda their history: twelve years ago he was Duke of Milan until his brother Antonio, backed by Alonso of Naples, seized the dukedom and set them adrift, with only Gonzalo's secret kindness keeping them alive.
Act 2
- Scene 1Washed up elsewhere on the island, Alonso grieves for Ferdinand while Gonzalo tries to cheer him and Sebastian and Antonio mock everything he says, including his sketch of an ideal commonwealth with no laws, work or property.
- Scene 2Caliban, cursing Prospero as he hauls firewood, mistakes the jester Trinculo for a tormenting spirit and hides under his cloak; Trinculo, caught in a second storm, crawls under the same cloak, so the drunken butler Stephano finds what looks like a four-legged, two-voiced monster.
Act 3
- Scene 1Ferdinand carries logs as the punishment Prospero has set him, finding the work light because he is doing it for Miranda.
- Scene 2Drunk on Stephano's wine, Caliban proposes that Stephano murder Prospero in his afternoon sleep, seize his books first, and take Miranda as his queen.
- Scene 3Exhausted from searching the island for Ferdinand, Alonso gives up hope while Antonio and Sebastian quietly agree to murder him that night.
Act 4
Act 5
Famous lines
- “What cares these roarers for the name of king?” — Act 1, Scene 1
- “Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren / ground.” — Act 1, Scene 1
- “I have done nothing but in care of thee, / Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter” — Act 1, Scene 2
- “Good wombs have borne bad sons.” — Act 1, Scene 2
- “Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come / In yours and my discharge.” — Act 2, Scene 1
- “I’ th’ commonwealth I would by contraries / Execute all things” — Act 2, Scene 1
- “misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows” — Act 2, Scene 2
- “Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, / high-day, freedom!” — Act 2, Scene 2
- “I am your wife if you will marry me; / If not, I’ll die your maid” — Act 3, Scene 1
- “There be some sports are painful, and their labour / Delight in them sets off” — Act 3, Scene 1
A free No Fear Shakespeare alternative
If you came here looking for a No Fear Shakespeare–style The Tempest, this is the same idea without the wall: SparkNotes now puts most of each play behind a subscription, while every scene here is free — the original text and a plain modern English translation side by side, phone-friendly, printable, and downloadable as a full-play PDF. We're not affiliated with SparkNotes; our translations are written in-house from the public-domain text, and you can paste any line from any edition to translate it.
Want to read Shakespeare unassisted? The Shakespearean English course teaches the grammar and vocabulary behind these lines — or paste anything into the Shakespearean English translator.