| William
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Prospero: Thou
most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I
have used thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care, and
lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
Caliban:
O ho, O ho! would’t had been
done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
Prospero
[or Miranda]: Abhorred 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’to
which good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast
thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison.
Caliban:
You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid
you
For learning me your language!
Aimé Cesaire (Tempest, 1968)
Caliban: Prospero, you are the
master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(lied about the world, lied about me)
that you have ended by imposing on me
an image of myself.
Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That is the way you have forced me to see
myself
I detest that image! What’s more, it’s a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
and I know myself as well. |