| ACT III SCENE III | Another part of the island. | |
| [
Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO,
ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others
] |
| GONZALO | By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir; |
| My old bones ache: here's a maze trod indeed |
| Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience, |
| I needs must rest me. |
| ALONSO | Old lord, I cannot blame thee, | 5 |
| Who am myself attach'd with weariness, |
| To the dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest. |
| Even here I will put off my hope and keep it |
| No longer for my flatterer: he is drown'd |
| Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks | 10 |
| Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go. |
| ANTONIO | [Aside to SEBASTIAN] I am right glad that he's so
|
| out of hope. |
| Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose |
| That you resolved to effect. | 15 |
| SEBASTIAN | [Aside to ANTONIO] The next advantage
|
| Will we take throughly. |
| ANTONIO | [Aside to SEBASTIAN] Let it be to-night;
|
| For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they |
| Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance | 20 |
| As when they are fresh. |
| SEBASTIAN | [Aside to ANTONIO] I say, to-night: no more.
|
| [Solemn and strange music] |
| ALONSO | What harmony is this? My good friends, hark! |
| GONZALO | Marvellous sweet music! |
| [
Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter several
strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet;
they dance about it with gentle actions of
salutation; and, inviting the King, &c. to
eat, they depart
] |
| ALONSO | Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these? | 25 |
| SEBASTIAN | A living drollery. Now I will believe |
| That there are unicorns, that in Arabia |
| There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix |
| At this hour reigning there. |
| ANTONIO | I'll believe both; | 30 |
| And what does else want credit, come to me, |
| And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er did |
| lie, |
| Though fools at home condemn 'em. |
| GONZALO | If in Naples | 35 |
| I should report this now, would they believe me? |
| If I should say, I saw such islanders-- |
| For, certes, these are people of the island-- |
| Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note, |
| Their manners are more gentle-kind than of | 40 |
| Our human generation you shall find |
| Many, nay, almost any. |
| PROSPERO | [Aside] Honest lord,
|
| Thou hast said well; for some of you there present |
| Are worse than devils. | 45 |
| ALONSO | I cannot too much muse |
| Such shapes, such gesture and such sound, expressing, |
| Although they want the use of tongue, a kind |
| Of excellent dumb discourse. |
| PROSPERO | [Aside] Praise in departing.
| 50 |
| FRANCISCO | They vanish'd strangely. |
| SEBASTIAN | No matter, since |
| They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs. |
| Will't please you taste of what is here? |
| ALONSO | Not I. | 55 |
| GONZALO | Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys, |
| Who would believe that there were mountaineers |
| Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em |
| Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men |
| Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find | 60 |
| Each putter-out of five for one will bring us |
| Good warrant of. |
| ALONSO | I will stand to and feed, |
| Although my last: no matter, since I feel |
| The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke, | 65 |
| Stand to and do as we. |
| [
Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a
harpy; claps his wings upon the table; and,
with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes
] |
| ARIEL | You are three men of sin, whom Destiny, |
| That hath to instrument this lower world |
| And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea |
| Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island | 70 |
| Where man doth not inhabit; you 'mongst men |
| Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; |
| And even with such-like valour men hang and drown |
| Their proper selves. |
[ALONSO, SEBASTIAN &c. draw their swords] |
| You fools! I and my fellows | 75 |
| Are ministers of Fate: the elements, |
| Of whom your swords are temper'd, may as well |
| Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs |
| Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish |
| One dowle that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers | 80 |
| Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, |
| Your swords are now too massy for your strengths |
| And will not be uplifted. But remember-- |
| For that's my business to you--that you three |
| From Milan did supplant good Prospero; | 85 |
| Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it, |
| Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed |
| The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have |
| Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, |
| Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, | 90 |
| They have bereft; and do pronounce by me: |
| Lingering perdition, worse than any death |
| Can be at once, shall step by step attend |
| You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-- |
| Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls | 95 |
| Upon your heads--is nothing but heart-sorrow |
| And a clear life ensuing. |
| [
He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music
enter the Shapes again, and dance, with
mocks and mows, and carrying out the table
] |
| PROSPERO | Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou |
| Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring: |
| Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated | 100 |
| In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life |
| And observation strange, my meaner ministers |
| Their several kinds have done. My high charms work |
| And these mine enemies are all knit up |
| In their distractions; they now are in my power; | 105 |
| And in these fits I leave them, while I visit |
| Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd, |
| And his and mine loved darling. |
| [Exit above] |
| GONZALO | I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you |
| In this strange stare? | 110 |
| ALONSO | O, it is monstrous, monstrous: |
| Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; |
| The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder, |
| That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced |
| The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass. | 115 |
| Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded, and |
| I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded |
| And with him there lie mudded. |
| [Exit] |
| SEBASTIAN | But one fiend at a time, |
| I'll fight their legions o'er. | 120 |
| ANTONIO | I'll be thy second. |
| [Exeunt SEBASTIAN, and ANTONIO] |
| GONZALO | All three of them are desperate: their great guilt, |
| Like poison given to work a great time after, |
| Now 'gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you |
| That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly | 125 |
| And hinder them from what this ecstasy |
| May now provoke them to. |
| ADRIAN | Follow, I pray you. |
| [Exeunt] |
Did the storm described in the first scene suggest the title of the play?