MIRANDA
Abhorrèd 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 endowed thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile
race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in 't which good
natures
Could not abide to be with. Therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison. (1.2.422-436)
Can we ever unlearn what is natural within us? Is there a certain "civilized" kind of learning that is incompatible with man in the state of nature?
Quote 5
MIRANDA
I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble. (1.2.498-500)
Is Miranda here disputing the idea of the "noble savage"? Is there anything that we might consider "noble" in the natural world?
MIRANDA
O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The fraughting souls within her. (1.2.5-13)
Miranda has a naturally merciful temperament. She wishes her father to be merciful, regardless of his aim.