Caliban

Caliban does not know himself. When he looks in Miranda’s mirror or in the waters formed by the island's springs, he beholds a youth whose likeness to a flower, though unremarkable to him, is at odds with how others see him. They see but a fish, and a stinky one at that. Miranda mischievously teaches him words by which he can sing of himself. And so he sings: “O sun and moon, to you I rise and bend and with you each night and day I live and die. How many deaths, how many lives, there have been!” Miranda laughs, her cleverness confirmed, so like her father’s. Of course, his little song, if we may call it that, is utterly ridiculous. Rather he should praise the darkness that hides his ugliness. So Miranda teaches him new words and now he sings a different song: “O darkness that loves not the light, I bring you this flower to enfold in your night.” And Miranda, mirabile visu, blushes like a rose.