On a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning · Master, Boatswain, Alonso, Antonio, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Mariners
A 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. The Boatswain, fighting to save the vessel, orders the noble passengers below and tells them their rank means nothing to the waves; Sebastian and Antonio abuse him for it while Gonzalo jokes that a man with such a hanging-face can't possibly drown. The ship splits and everyone goes overboard, setting up the shipwreck that strands them on Prospero's island.
heard.
Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain severally.
Master
Boatswain!
Boatswain!
Boatswain
Here, master
Here, sir
what cheer?
What's the situation?
Master
Good!
Good, you're here.
Speak to the mariners: fall to ’t yarely, or we run ourselves
aground
Get the crew moving — quickly, or we'll run aground.
bestir, bestir.
Move, move.
Exit.
Enter Mariners.
Boatswain
Heigh, my hearts!
All right, lads!
cheerly, cheerly, my hearts!
Lively now, lively!
yare, yare!
Quick, quick!
Take in the
topsail.
Bring in the topsail.
Tend to th’ master’s whistle.
Listen for the master's whistle.
Blow till thou burst thy wind,
if room enough.
— Blow yourself out, wind, as long as we have sea room.
Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo and others.
Alonso
Good boatswain, have care.
Take care, boatswain.
Where’s the master?
Where's the master?
Play the men.
Show some courage, men.
Boatswain
I pray now, keep below.
Please, stay below deck.
Antonio
Where is the master, boson?
Boatswain, where's the master?
Boatswain
Do you not hear him?
Can't you hear him?
You mar our labour
You're getting in the way of our work.
keep your cabins: you do
assist the storm.
Get to your cabins — you're helping the storm.
Gonzalo
Nay, good, be patient.
Come now, my good man, be patient.
Boatswain
When the sea is.
I will when the sea is.
Hence!
Get out of here!
What cares these roarers for the name of king?
What do these waves care about the word "king"?
To cabin!
Below deck!
silence!
Quiet!
Trouble us not.
Stop bothering us.
Gonzalo
Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
Fair enough — but remember who you have on board.
Boatswain
None that I more love than myself.
No one I love better than myself.
You are a counsellor: if you can
command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present,
we will not hand a rope more.
You're a counsellor: if you can order these elements to be quiet and negotiate peace here and now, we'll never touch another rope.
Use your authority
Go on, use your authority.
if you cannot, give
thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin
for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.
If you can't, be grateful you've lived this long, and go get ready in your cabin for whatever happens next.
—Cheerly, good hearts!
— Look sharp, lads!
—Out
of our way, I say.
— Get out of my way, I said.
Exit.
Gonzalo
I have great comfort from this fellow.
This fellow is a great comfort to me.
Methinks he hath no drowning
mark upon him.
He doesn't look like a man marked for drowning —
His complexion is perfect gallows.
that's a face made for the gallows if I ever saw one.
Stand fast, good
Fate, to his hanging!
Hold firm, Fate, and see him hanged.
Make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our
own doth little advantage!
Let the rope destined for his neck be our anchor cable, because our own is doing us no good.
If he be not born to be hang’d, our case is
miserable.
If he isn't born to hang, we're in trouble.
Exeunt.
Re-enter Boatswain.
Boatswain
Down with the topmast!
Lower the topmast!
yare!
Quick!
lower, lower!
Lower, lower!
Bring her to try wi’ th’
maincourse.
Bring her round to ride out the storm under the mainsail alone.
A cry within.
Boatswain
A plague upon this howling!
Curse that screaming!
They are louder than the weather or our
office.
They're drowning out the weather and our own orders.
Enter Sebastian, Antonio and Gonzalo.
Boatswain
Yet again!
You again!
What do you here?
What are you doing up here?
Shall we give o’er, and drown?
Shall we just quit and drown?
Have you a
mind to sink?
Are you in a hurry to sink?
Sebastian
A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
To hell with your throat, you loud, blaspheming, heartless dog!
Boatswain
Work you, then.
Then you do the work.
Antonio
Hang, cur, hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker!
Hang, you mongrel, hang, you insolent, foul-mouthed noise-maker!
We are less afraid
to be drowned than thou art.
We're less afraid of drowning than you are.
Gonzalo
I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a
nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench.
I'll guarantee he doesn't drown, even if this ship were no sounder than a nutshell and leaking like a sieve.
Boatswain
Lay her a-hold, a-hold!
Hold her close to the wind, close!
Set her two courses: off to sea again: lay her
off.
Set the two lower sails: back out to sea, get her clear.
Enter Mariners, wet.
Mariners
All lost!
All lost!
to prayers, to prayers!
Start praying, start praying!
all lost!
All lost!
Exeunt.
Boatswain
What, must our mouths be cold?
What, are we done for already?
Gonzalo
The King and Prince at prayers!
The King and the Prince are praying.
Let’s assist them,
For our case is as theirs.
Let's join them — we're in the same position.
Sebastian
I am out of patience.
I've run out of patience.
Antonio
We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
We're being robbed of our lives by drunks.
This wide-chapp’d rascal—would thou might’st lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!
This slack-jawed thug — I hope you drown and lie under ten tides' worth of water.
Gonzalo
He’ll be hang’d yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it,
And gape at wid’st to glut him.
He'll be hanged yet, even if every drop in the sea swears otherwise and opens wide to swallow him.
_A confused noise within: _
A confused noise within:
“Mercy on us!”—
"Mercy on us!" —
“We split, we split!”—
"We're splitting apart, we're splitting apart!" —
“Farewell, my wife and children!”—
"Goodbye, wife and children!" —
“Farewell, brother!”—
"Goodbye, brother!" —
“We split, we split, we split!”
"We're splitting, we're splitting, we're splitting!"
Antonio
Let’s all sink wi’ th’ King.
Let's go down with the King.
Exit.
Sebastian
Let’s take leave of him.
Let's say goodbye to him.
Exit.
Gonzalo
Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren
ground.
Right now I'd trade a thousand miles of ocean for one acre of dry, useless land.
Long heath, brown furze, anything.
Scrub grass, brown gorse, anything at all.
The wills above be done!
Let heaven's will be done —
but
I would fain die a dry death.
but I would very much rather die on dry ground.
Exit.
The Tempest Act 1, Scene 1 summary
A 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. The Boatswain, fighting to save the vessel, orders the noble passengers below and tells them their rank means nothing to the waves; Sebastian and Antonio abuse him for it while Gonzalo jokes that a man with such a hanging-face can't possibly drown. The ship splits and everyone goes overboard, setting up the shipwreck that strands them on Prospero's island.
Who appears in this scene
Master, Boatswain, Alonso, Antonio, Gonzalo, Sebastian, Mariners — On a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning.
Famous lines in The Tempest Act 1, Scene 1, explained
- “What cares these roarers for the name of king?” (line 15)
- The Boatswain snaps that the roaring waves have no respect for royal titles — a king drowns exactly like anyone else. It is the play's opening statement of a theme it keeps returning to: authority is a human arrangement, worthless outside the society that agrees to it. Within minutes the storm has flattened the whole hierarchy of the ship, and the island will go on doing the same thing to these men.
- “Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren / ground.” (line 59)
- Gonzalo, expecting to drown, says he would trade miles of ocean for the poorest patch of dry land. The line is remembered because it is exactly what the play then grants him — barren ground on an unknown island — and because Gonzalo's instinct even at the point of death is to make a wry joke rather than despair. His closing wish for "a dry death" is the last word of the scene and gets answered in the next one.
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About this translation: the original text follows the public-domain Project Gutenberg Globe edition; the modern English translation was written in-house for Polytranslator and is reviewed on an ongoing basis (last revised August 2026). Free to print and photocopy for classroom use. Cite as: “The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 1. Polytranslator side-by-side translation, polytranslator.com/shakespeare/the-tempest/act-1-scene-1.”
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