Miranda suffers because she empathizes with the suffering of those on board the ship caught in the wild tempest. She thinks they have all drowned and feels deeply for them. She says to Prospero:
Oh, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her
Dashed all to pieces. Oh, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perished.
She goes on to say that if she were a god, rather than sink the ship, she would sink the seas so that the ship and its passengers could be saved.
Prospero reassures her that he made sure everyone aboard the ship is safe and tells her that he raised up the storm for her sake.
Miranda's compassion characterizes her as a good, kind-hearted character. Very early in the play, it is also a bookend to the compassion Ariel will show to the suffering of the shipwrecked people at the end of the play—a compassion that moves Prospero to mercy.
Miranda explains to her father, Prospero, in act 1, scene 2 of the play that she is suffering because of what has happened to those whose ship has been caught in the storm. She queries whether Prospero himself has "put the wild waters in this roar" with his powers and says, "I have suffered / With those that I saw suffer."
The "brave vessel" of the ship has been utterly destroyed by the storm, and those within it have "perished." The experiences of these "fraughting souls" as they drowned in the wreck have had a significant impression upon Miranda, who feels their suffering acutely and felt their cries "against my very heart."
Prospero does not react well to this, commanding Miranda to "tell your piteous heart / There's no harm done." He says that everything he has done has been in the service of his daughter, and he goes on to assure her that nobody was actually hurt in the shipwreck, despite what Miranda thought she saw. The "direful spectacle" had been so carefully arranged by him that not a soul was really lost.
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