Here is the line-by-line paraphrase of Caliban’s monologue from The Tempest (Act 2, Scene 2):

Original: All the infections that the sun sucks up
Modern: I hope every disease and plague that the hot sun pulls up

Original: From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
Modern: From swamps, marshes, and mudflats comes down on Prospero and makes him

Original: By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
Modern: Sick and rotting, little by little! I know his magical spirits can hear me saying this,

Original: And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
Modern: But I just can’t help cursing him. Those spirits won’t pinch me,

Original: Fright me with urchin—shows, pitch me i’ the mire,
Modern: Or scare me with goblin visions, or throw me into the mud,

Original: Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
Modern: Or lead me astray like a flickering flame in the darkness

Original: Out of my way, unless he bid ‘em; but
Modern: To get me lost — unless Prospero actually orders them to. But

Original: For every trifle are they set upon me;
Modern: They are sent to torment me over the smallest, most meaningless things.

Original: Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me
Modern: Sometimes they come at me like monkeys, making ugly faces and screeching,

Original: And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
Modern: And then they bite me. Other times they act like hedgehogs that

Original: Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Modern: Roll and curl up right in my path when I’m walking barefoot, and stick

Original: Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
Modern: Their sharp spines into my feet with every step I take. And sometimes I am

Original: All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Modern: Completely wrapped up in snakes that flick their forked tongues at me

Original: Do hiss me into madness.
Modern: And hiss so terribly that they drive me absolutely out of my mind.

In Act II, Scene 2 of “The Tempest,” Caliban enters carrying wood and cursing Prospero, whom he describes as a tyrant and sorcerer. He complains bitterly about the torments Prospero inflicts upon him through spirit servants who pinch, frighten, and plague him with various supernatural punishments. When Trinculo, the jester, appears seeking shelter from an approaching storm, Caliban mistakes him for one of Prospero’s tormenting spirits and throws himself flat on the ground, hiding beneath his cloak. Trinculo discovers what he believes to be a strange fish-like monster and, as the storm worsens, decides to crawl under Caliban’s cloak for protection, creating a bizarre four-legged creature.

Stephano, the drunken butler, enters singing and carrying a bottle of wine he salvaged from the shipwreck. He discovers the strange creature on the ground and, believing it to be a monster with four legs and two voices (as both Caliban and Trinculo speak from under the cloak), attempts to cure it with wine. Caliban drinks eagerly and becomes intoxicated, hailing Stephano as a god who has given him celestial liquor. Trinculo eventually emerges from under the cloak, and he and Stephano joyfully reunite, both delighted to have survived the wreck. The scene concludes with the drunken trio forming an unlikely alliance, as Caliban pledges his service to Stephano, believing him to be a divine being superior to Prospero, and agrees to show him all the qualities of the island if Stephano will help him gain freedom from his master.

The Tempest opens with a violent storm at sea that shipwrecks a vessel carrying Alonso, King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, his brother Sebastian, Antonio (the usurping Duke of Milan), the counselor Gonzalo, and others. The tempest has been conjured by Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, who lives in exile on an island with his daughter Miranda. Twelve years earlier, Prospero was overthrown by his brother Antonio with the help of Alonso, and set adrift at sea with the infant Miranda. They survived and reached this island, where Prospero has spent years studying magic and commanding the spirit Ariel, whom he freed from imprisonment in a tree.

The shipwreck separates the survivors into different groups across the island. Ferdinand becomes separated from the others and encounters Miranda, with whom he immediately falls in love, though Prospero tests the young man by enslaving him temporarily. Meanwhile, Antonio and Sebastian plot to murder Alonso and Gonzalo while they sleep, but Ariel awakens Gonzalo just in time. Another group, including the drunken butler Stephano and jester Trinculo, meets Caliban, Prospero’s reluctant servant who is the island’s original inhabitant. Caliban persuades them to help him kill Prospero and take control of the island.

Prospero orchestrates a series of magical interventions: he presents a banquet to Alonso’s group that vanishes when they try to eat, and Ariel appears as a harpy to remind them of their crimes against Prospero. Ariel also disrupts Caliban’s murder plot by leading the conspirators into a stinking pond and then tormenting them with spirits disguised as hunting dogs. Ferdinand proves his love for Miranda by completing the tasks Prospero sets him, and Prospero gives his blessing to their betrothal, celebrating with a masque of spirits.

In the final act, Prospero reveals himself to all the castaways, forgives his enemies, and renounces his magic, breaking his staff and freeing Ariel. Alonso repents his past actions and restores Prospero to his dukedom. Ferdinand and Miranda’s engagement is celebrated, Caliban acknowledges Prospero’s authority and promises to be wise hereafter, and Prospero prepares to return to Milan. The play concludes with Prospero’s epilogue, in which he asks the audience to free him with their applause, as he has freed Ariel.