The Tempest

1 Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco, &c.
2 GONZALO.
3 By ’r lakin, I can go no further, sir;
4 My old bones ache: here’s a maze trod, indeed,
5 Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,
6 I needs must rest me.
7 ALONSO.
8 Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
9 Who am myself attach’d with weariness
10 To th’ dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest.
11 Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
12 No longer for my flatterer: he is drown’d
13 Whom thus we stray to find; and the sea mocks
14 Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
15 ANTONIO.
16 [_Aside to Sebastian._] I am right glad that he’s
17 so out of hope.
18 Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose
19 That you resolv’d to effect.
20 SEBASTIAN.
21 [_Aside to Antonio._] The next advantage
22 Will we take throughly.
23 ANTONIO.
24 [_Aside to Sebastian._] Let it be tonight;
25 For, now they are oppress’d with travel, they
26 Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
27 As when they are fresh.
28 SEBASTIAN.
29 [_Aside to Antonio._] I say, tonight: no more.
30 Solemn and strange music: and Prospero above, invisible. Enter several
31 strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet: they dance about it with gentle
32 actions of salutation; and inviting the King &c., to eat, they depart.
33 ALONSO.
34 What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
35 GONZALO.
36 Marvellous sweet music!
37 ALONSO.
38 Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
39 SEBASTIAN.
40 A living drollery. Now I will believe
41 That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
42 There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne; one phoenix
43 At this hour reigning there.
44 ANTONIO.
45 I’ll believe both;
46 And what does else want credit, come to me,
47 And I’ll be sworn ’tis true: travellers ne’er did lie,
48 Though fools at home condemn them.
49 GONZALO.
50 If in Naples
51 I should report this now, would they believe me?
52 If I should say, I saw such islanders,—
53 For, certes, these are people of the island,—
54 Who, though, they are of monstrous shape, yet, note,
55 Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of
56 Our human generation you shall find
57 Many, nay, almost any.
58 PROSPERO.
59 [_Aside._] Honest lord,
60 Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
61 Are worse than devils.
62 ALONSO.
63 I cannot too much muse
64 Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing—
65 Although they want the use of tongue—a kind
66 Of excellent dumb discourse.
67 PROSPERO.
68 [_Aside._] Praise in departing.
69 FRANCISCO.
70 They vanish’d strangely.
71 SEBASTIAN.
72 No matter, since
73 They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.—
74 Will’t please you taste of what is here?
75 ALONSO.
76 Not I.
77 GONZALO.
78 Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
79 Who would believe that there were mountaineers
80 Dewlapp’d like bulls, whose throats had hanging at ’em
81 Wallets of flesh? Or that there were such men
82 Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
83 Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
84 Good warrant of.
85 ALONSO.
86 I will stand to, and feed,
87 Although my last, no matter, since I feel
88 The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke,
89 Stand to, and do as we.
90 Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel like a Harpy; claps his wings upon
91 the table; and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.
92 ARIEL.
93 You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
94 That hath to instrument this lower world
95 And what is in’t,—the never-surfeited sea
96 Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island
97 Where man doth not inhabit; you ’mongst men
98 Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
99 And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
100 Their proper selves.
101 [_Seeing Alonso, Sebastian &c., draw their swords._]
102 You fools! I and my fellows
103 Are ministers of Fate: the elements
104 Of whom your swords are temper’d may as well
105 Wound the loud winds, or with bemock’d-at stabs
106 Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
107 One dowle that’s in my plume. My fellow-ministers
108 Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
109 Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
110 And will not be uplifted. But, remember—
111 For that’s my business to you,—that you three
112 From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
113 Expos’d unto the sea, which hath requit it,
114 Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed
115 The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have
116 Incens’d the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
117 Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
118 They have bereft; and do pronounce, by me
119 Ling’ring perdition,—worse than any death
120 Can be at once,—shall step by step attend
121 You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from—
122 Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
123 Upon your heads,—is nothing but heart-sorrow,
124 And a clear life ensuing.
125 [_He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the Shapes again,
126 and dance, with mocks and mows, and carry out the table._]
127 PROSPERO.
128 [_Aside._] Bravely the figure of this Harpy hast thou
129 Perform’d, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.
130 Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
131 In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life
132 And observation strange, my meaner ministers
133 Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
134 And these mine enemies are all knit up
135 In their distractions; they now are in my power;
136 And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
137 Young Ferdinand,—whom they suppose is drown’d,—
138 And his and mine lov’d darling.
139 [_Exit above._]
140 GONZALO.
141 I’ the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
142 In this strange stare?
143 ALONSO.
144 O, it is monstrous! monstrous!
145 Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
146 The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
147 That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc’d
148 The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
149 Therefore my son i’ th’ ooze is bedded; and
150 I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded,
151 And with him there lie mudded.
152 [_Exit._]
153 SEBASTIAN.
154 But one fiend at a time,
155 I’ll fight their legions o’er.
156 ANTONIO.
157 I’ll be thy second.
158 [_Exeunt Sebastian and Antonio._]
159 GONZALO.
160 All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,
161 Like poison given to work a great time after,
162 Now ’gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you
163 That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly
164 And hinder them from what this ecstasy
165 May now provoke them to.
166 ADRIAN.
167 Follow, I pray you.
168 [_Exeunt._]