| [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, 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 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. |
| 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 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? |
| 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; 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 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 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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 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, 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 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 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 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; 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, 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 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] |
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| 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 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; 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? |
| 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. 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. |
| 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 And hinder them from what this ecstasy May now provoke them to. |
| ADRIAN | Follow, I pray you. |
| [Exeunt] |