Chapter Text
Scene Two: (Enter ARIEL)
(Enter BLAZE)
BLAZE: How dost thou, good Ariel?
ARIEL: Who are thou that calls me
by name?
BLAZE: Dost thou not know me?
ARIEL: I do not.
BLAZE: I prithee, look again,
and wake thy sleeping mind.
Dost thou see nothing?
ARIEL: Pardon, but nothing.
BLAZE: So thou art lost again.
Oh, my brother, to lose thee twice.
ARIEL: How is it that thou canst
see me?
BLAZE: Oh, that I should be blind
to mine own brethren! As spirit
thou art as solid to me as human.
ARIEL: Art thou spirit?
BLAZE: Yes, and of fire. Truly, thou
knows me not?
ARIEL: Truly, yet thou knowest me.
We have met once before?
BLAZE: Oh, longer than once, but
'ere we'd met twice, I'd lost thee.
Seeing as thou knowest me not,
it seems fit to introduce us again.
I am called Blaze, nymph of flame,
bound to none. Thou art Ariel, tempest,
a spirit of the air, bound to?
ARIEL: My master calls himself Prospero.
BLAZE: Bound to the mage Prospero.
How dost thou since Sycorax?
ARIEL: Thou knowest of Sycorax, as well?
Thou art a stranger, but for thy familiarity.
BLAZE: Thou remembers her contract?
ARIEL: As it was written.
BLAZE: False, rotten contract, but farther.
How fared thou?
ARIEL: She, Sycorax, did compel me to all
sort of horrid deeds, but just short of having
served a full year, I could, her wickedest command
no more obey. Angered, thus, she bound me in a
tree of pine. There I remained, I am told, some dozen
years. Prospero unbound the spell, binding myself to
him, and Sycorax was gone, dead said he, after
childbirth. Hence I have served him.
BLAZE: I could tell a longer one, with this, methinks.
Thou and I were infants together, for as much as spirits
can be infant. We sought to discover the world apaired
and moved from wilderness to land of men, called then Algiers.
Many spirits moved amongst the land, a larger troupe
over one house 'bove the other. Thus attracted, we made
to see the meaning of the gathering. It was the hag herself,
but as she'd no fire to contain myself with, she sought, with
her ministers to make a slave of thee. The contract struck
there was naught I could do. She could tell, I presume, that
I'd not abandon thee, mine own brethren and so took thy
memories, wiped thy mind as blank to prohibit me
from moving 'gainst her.
This scheme of hers did work, for you'd no knowledge
of the free, and I no more sense of thy presence.
It took two decades and a half 'ere, upon this hour
I found thee.
ARIEL: Brethren?
BLAZE: We are spirit are we not?
Of one kind and no king.
For this Prospero,
When dost thy service end? How long 'til thy liberty?
For he nigh as bad as Sycorax for having kept thee
bound so long after thy debt. A dozen turns have
passed, have they not, since you 'came his?
ARIEL: Ay, but he doth promise freedom in
two days time, so long as I serve well.
But, lo, the time comes, I must away,
there's duty to be done.
BLAZE: Then I'll shadow thee.
(Exit BLAZE and ARIEL.)
(Enter PROSPERO)
PROSPERO: So another spirit walks upon this isle.
She may pollute fair Ariel's mind, I'll mark her.
(Exuent PROPSERO)