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- $Unique_ID{SSP01707}
- $Title{The Tempest: Act III, Scene III}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*01700.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- THE TEMPEST
-
-
- 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,
- 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. 10
-
- 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. 20
-
- [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 30
- 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, 40
- 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 50
- 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 60
- 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 valor 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 70
- 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, 80
- 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.}
-
- 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 90
- 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, 100
- 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 110
- And hinder them from what this ecstasy
- May now provoke them to.
-
- ADRIAN: Follow, I pray you.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-