In the opening scene of The Tempest, one of William Shakespeare’s later plays, a ship at sea encounters a mighty storm and threatens to sink. Shakespeare reportedly used as one of the sources for his tale William Strachey‘s account “A true reportory of the wracke, and redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight.” Circulated in London in the years prior to The Tempest‘s first staging, Strachey’s manuscript told of the near-sinking of the Sea Venture on its way to Jamestown in 1609. Some spelling has been modernized and contractions expanded.
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