Tempest by William Shakespeare
Act 3 - Scene 3
Another part of the island.
Gonzalo : By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir;
[p]My old bones ache: here's a
maze trod indeed
[p]Through forth-rights and meanders! By your
patience,
[p]I needs must rest me.
Alonso : Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
[p]Who am myself attach'd with
weariness,
[p]To the dulling of my spirits: sit down, and
rest.
[p]Even here I will put off my hope and keep it
[p]No longer for
my flatterer: he is drown'd
[p]Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea
mocks
[p]Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
Antonio : [Aside to SEBASTIAN] I am right glad that he's so
[p]out of
hope.
[p]Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
[p]That you
resolved to effect.
Sebastian : [Aside to ANTONIO] The next advantage
[p]Will we take throughly.
Antonio : [Aside to SEBASTIAN] Let it be to-night;
[p]For, now they are
oppress'd with travel, they
[p]Will not, nor cannot, use such
vigilance
[p]As when they are fresh.
Sebastian : [Aside to ANTONIO] I say, to-night: no more.
Alonso : What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
Gonzalo : Marvellous sweet music!
[p][Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter
several]
[p]strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet;
[p]they dance about
it with gentle actions of
[p]salutation; and, inviting the King, &c.
to
[p]eat, they depart]
Alonso : Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
Sebastian : A living drollery. Now I will believe
[p]That there are unicorns, that
in Arabia
[p]There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
[p]At
this hour reigning there.
Antonio : I'll believe both;
[p]And what does else want credit, come to
me,
[p]And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er
did
[p]lie,
[p]Though fools at home condemn 'em.
Gonzalo : If in Naples
[p]I should report this now, would they believe me?
[p]If
I should say, I saw such islanders--
[p]For, certes, these are people
of the island--
[p]Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet,
note,
[p]Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
[p]Our human
generation you shall find
[p]Many, nay, almost any.
Prospero : [Aside] Honest lord,
[p]Thou hast said well; for some of you there
present
[p]Are worse than devils.
Alonso : I cannot too much muse
[p]Such shapes, such gesture and such sound,
expressing,
[p]Although they want the use of tongue, a kind
[p]Of
excellent dumb discourse.
Prospero : [Aside]. Praise in departing.
Francisco : They vanish'd strangely.
Sebastian : No matter, since
[p]They have left their viands behind; for we have
stomachs.
[p]Will't please you taste of what is here?
Alonso : Not I.
Gonzalo : Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
[p]Who would believe
that there were mountaineers
[p]Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats
had hanging at 'em
[p]Wallets of flesh? or that there were such
men
[p]Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
[p]Each
putter-out of five for one will bring us
[p]Good warrant of.
Alonso : I will stand to and feed,
[p]Although my last: no matter, since I
feel
[p]The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke,
[p]Stand to and
do as we.
[p][Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a]
[p]harpy;
claps his wings upon the table; and,
[p]with a quaint device, the
banquet vanishes]
Ariel : You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
[p]That hath to instrument
this lower world
[p]And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
[p]Hath
caused to belch up you; and on this island
[p]Where man doth not
inhabit; you 'mongst men
[p]Being most unfit to live. I have made you
mad;
[p]And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
[p]Their
proper selves.
[p][ALONSO, SEBASTIAN &c. draw their swords]
[p]You
fools! I and my fellows
[p]Are ministers of Fate: the elements,
[p]Of
whom your swords are temper'd, may as well
[p]Wound the loud winds, or
with bemock'd-at stabs
[p]Kill the still-closing waters, as
diminish
[p]One dowle that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers
[p]Are
like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
[p]Your swords are now too massy
for your strengths
[p]And will not be uplifted. But remember--
[p]For
that's my business to you--that you three
[p]From Milan did supplant
good Prospero;
[p]Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it,
[p]Him
and his innocent child: for which foul deed
[p]The powers, delaying,
not forgetting, have
[p]Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the
creatures,
[p]Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
[p]They
have bereft; and do pronounce by me:
[p]Lingering perdition, worse
than any death
[p]Can be at once, shall step by step attend
[p]You and
your ways; whose wraths to guard you from--
[p]Which here, in this
most desolate isle, else falls
[p]Upon your heads--is nothing but
heart-sorrow
[p]And a clear life ensuing.
[p][He vanishes in thunder;
then, to soft music]
[p]enter the Shapes again, and dance,
with
[p]mocks and mows, and carrying out the table]
Prospero : Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
[p]Perform'd, my Ariel; a
grace it had, devouring:
[p]Of my instruction hast thou nothing
bated
[p]In what thou hadst to say: so, with good life
[p]And
observation strange, my meaner ministers
[p]Their several kinds have
done. My high charms work
[p]And these mine enemies are all knit
up
[p]In their distractions; they now are in my power;
[p]And in these
fits I leave them, while I visit
[p]Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose
is drown'd,
[p]And his and mine loved darling.
Gonzalo : I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
[p]In this strange
stare?
Alonso : O, it is monstrous, monstrous:
[p]Methought the billows spoke and told
me of it;
[p]The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
[p]That
deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
[p]The name of Prosper: it
did bass my trespass.
[p]Therefore my son i' the ooze is bedded,
and
[p]I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded
[p]And with him
there lie mudded.
Sebastian : But one fiend at a time,
[p]I'll fight their legions o'er.
Antonio : I'll be thy second.
Gonzalo : All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,
[p]Like poison
given to work a great time after,
[p]Now 'gins to bite the spirits. I
do beseech you
[p]That are of suppler joints, follow them
swiftly
[p]And hinder them from what this ecstasy
[p]May now provoke
them to.
Adrian : Follow, I pray you.
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Next: Act 4 - Scene 1
