Another Part of the Island. | |
| |
Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and others. | |
| Gon. By’r lakin, I can go no further, sir; | |
| My old bones ache: here’s a maze trod indeed, | 4 |
| Through forth-rights, and meanders! by your patience, | |
| I needs must rest me. | |
| Alon. Old lord, I cannot blame thee, | |
| Who am myself attach’d with weariness, | 8 |
| 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 | 12 |
| Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go. | |
| Ant. [Aside to SEB.] I am right glad that he’s so out of hope. | |
| Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose | |
| That you resolv’d to effect. | 16 |
| Seb. [Aside to ANT.] The next advantage | |
| Will we take throughly. | |
| Ant. [Aside to SEB.] Let it be to-night; | |
| For, now they are oppress’d with travel, they | 20 |
| Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance | |
| As when they are fresh. | |
| Seb. [Aside to ANT.] I say to-night: no more. | |
| |
Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter below 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. | 24 |
| Alon. What harmony is this? my good friends, hark! | |
| Gon. Marvellous sweet music! | |
| Alon. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these? | |
| Seb. A living drollery. Now I will believe | 28 |
| That there are unicorns; that in Arabia | |
| There is one tree, the phœnix’ throne; one phœnix | |
| At this hour reigning there. | |
| Ant. I’ll believe both; | 32 |
| 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 them. | |
| Gon. If in Naples | 36 |
| 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, | 40 |
| Their manners are more gentle-kind than of | |
| Our human generation you shall find | |
| Many, nay, almost any. | |
| Pro. [Aside.] Honest lord, | 44 |
| Thou hast said well; for some of you there present | |
| Are worse than devils. | |
| Alon. I cannot too much muse, | |
| Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,— | 48 |
| Although they want the use of tongue,—a kind | |
| Of excellent dumb discourse. | |
| Pro. [Aside.] Praise in departing. | |
| Fran. They vanish’d strangely. | 52 |
| Seb. No matter, since | |
| They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.— | |
| Will’t please you to taste of what is here? | |
| Alon. Not I. | 56 |
| Gon. 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 them | |
| Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men | 60 |
| Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find | |
| Each putter-out of five for one will bring us | |
| Good warrant of. | |
| Alon. I will stand to and feed, | 64 |
| 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. | 68 |
| Ari. 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 | 72 |
| Where man doth not inhabit; you ’mongst men | |
| Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad; [Seeing ALON., SEB., &c., draw their swords. | |
| And even with such-like valour men hang and drown | |
| Their proper selves. You fools! I and my fellows | 76 |
| 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 | 80 |
| 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,— | 84 |
| For that’s my business to you,—that you three | |
| From Milan did supplant good Prospero; | |
| Expos’d unto the sea, which hath requit it, | |
| Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed | 88 |
| The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have | |
| Incens’d the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures, | |
| Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso, | |
| They have bereft; and do pronounce, by me, | 92 |
| 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 | 96 |
| 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 carry out the table. | |
| Pro. [Aside.] Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou | 100 |
| 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 | 104 |
| 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 | 108 |
| Young Ferdinand,—whom they suppose is drown’d,— | |
| And his and mine lov’d darling. [Exit above. | |
| Gon. I’ the name of something holy, sir, why stand you | |
| In this strange stare? | 112 |
| Alon. 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, pronounc’d | 116 |
| The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass. | |
| Therefore my son i’ th’ ooze is bedded; and | |
| I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded, | |
| And with him there lie mudded. [Exit. | 120 |
| Sob. But one fiend at a time, | |
| I’ll fight their legions o’er. | |
| Ant. I’ll be thy second. [Exeunt SEB. and ANT. | |
| Gon. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, | 124 |
| 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 | 128 |
| May now provoke them to. | |
| Adr. Follow, I pray you. [Exeunt. | |
