Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian,
Francisco, etc. GONZALO
By ’r lakin, I can go no further, sir.
My old bones aches. Here’s a maze trod indeed
Through forthrights and meanders. By your
patience,
I needs must rest me. 5 ALONSO Old lord, I cannot blame thee.
Who am myself attached with weariness
To th’ 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 drowned 10
Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go. | Meanwhile, back on the other side of the island, Gonzalo is weary, and Alonso has given up hope that his son might still be alive. |
ANTONIO, aside to Sebastian
I am right glad that he’s so out of hope.
Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose
That you resolved t’ effect. 15 SEBASTIAN, aside to Antonio The next advantage
Will we take throughly. ANTONIO, aside to Sebastian Let it be tonight;
For now they are oppressed with travel, they
Will not nor cannot use such vigilance 20
As when they are fresh. SEBASTIAN, aside to Antonio I say tonight. No more. | Antonio, hearing this news, utters an aside to Sebastian, reminding him of their plan. Antonio says they will murder the King tonight when everyone else sleeps. |
Solemn and strange music, and enter Prospero on the
top invisible. ALONSO
What harmony is this? My good friends, hark. GONZALO Marvelous sweet music! Enter several strange shapes, bringing in a banquet, and
dance about it with gentle actions of salutations. 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. Travelers ne’er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn ’em. GONZALO If in Naples
I should report this now, would they believe me? 35
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 40
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 45
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 Inviting the King, etc., to eat, the shapes depart. FRANCISCO They vanished strangely. | Strange music then begins to play, and Prospero enters, invisible. Before the eyes of the King and shipwrecked lords, a magical banquet is laid by welcoming spirits who invite the King and company to eat. All wonder at the strange sight for a while, thinking they could now believe anything. |
SEBASTIAN No matter, since
They have left their viands behind, for we have
stomachs.
Will ’t please you taste of what is here? 55 | Sebastian is done with oohing and ahhing for a while, and suggests that since they are hungry, they should eat what the spirits have given them. |
ALONSO Not I. GONZALO
Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
Who would believe that there were mountaineers
Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at
’em 60
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. 65 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. Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio
move toward the table. | Alonso refuses the food at first, but Gonzalo comforts him by saying there's no need to be afraid. There are plenty of things in the worlds they wouldn't have believed when they were young, but now they have travelers coming back and reporting strange realities to them all the time. |
Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a Harpy, claps
his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device the
banquet vanishes. ARIEL as Harpy
You are three men of sin, whom Destiny, 70
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; 75
And even with such-like valor, men hang and drown
Their proper selves. Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio draw their swords. You fools, I and my fellows
Are ministers of Fate. The elements
Of whom your swords are tempered may as well 80
Wound the loud winds or with bemocked-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters as diminish
One dowl that’s in my plume. My fellow ministers
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
Your swords are now too massy for your strengths 85
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, 90
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
Ling’ring perdition, worse than any death 95
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’s sorrow 100
And a clear life ensuing. He vanishes in thunder. | Turns out King Alonso was right to be wary. Before the castaways can dig in to their meal, Ariel appears in the shape of a harpy (a horrible monster with a woman's face and the body and claws of a vulture-like bird) and the food disappears. Ariel, as the Harpy, declares that three men of sin are at the table and that Destiny has caused the sea to put them on this uninhabited land because they are unfit to live. The men draw their swords, and the Harpy laughs at their foolishness, as their swords are no good against the natural elements she wields. The Ariel-Harpy then reminds them of the evil they did Prospero and the baby Miranda, and claims the sea paid them back for their crimes, taking Ferdinand and dooming the rest of them. If they repent their evil deeds, a better life might follow. Ariel then vanishes. |
Then, to soft music, enter the shapes again, and dance,
with mocks and mows, and carrying out the table. PROSPERO, aside
Bravely the figure of this Harpy hast thou
Performed, my Ariel. A grace it had, devouring.
Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
In what thou hadst to say. So, with good life 105
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; 110
And in these fits I leave them while I visit
Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drowned,
And his and mine loved darling. He exits, above. | The spirits return with their music, but only to carry away the banquet table. Psych! Meanwhile, Prospero praises Ariel for his good work, which he has watched while invisible. Having punked his betrayers, Prospero is now off to see how the young lovers, Ferdinand and Miranda, are doing. |
GONZALO, to Alonso
I’ th’ name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare? 115 | Gonzalo breaks the stunned silence when he asks what Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian are looking so shocked about. It seems Gonzalo didn't see the harpy. |
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. 120
Therefor my son i’ th’ ooze is bedded, and
I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded,
And with him there lie mudded. He exits. | King Alonso admits that the wind and thunder spoke to him of his ill deeds against Prospero, and says the sea has claimed his son as punishment. Alonso says he's going to join his son on the ocean floor. |
SEBASTIAN But one fiend at a time,
I’ll fight their legions o’er. 125 ANTONIO I’ll be thy second. They exit. | Sebastian and Antonio are unmoved. Instead of repenting, they agree to fight whatever demons come their way, one at a time. |
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 130
And hinder them from what this ecstasy
May now provoke them to. ADRIAN Follow, I pray you. They all exit. | As the three exit, Gonzalo notes that Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian's treachery against Prospero is catching up to them. The kind councilor asks the rest of the group to follow the three traitors and stop them from whatever craziness they might attempt in their stunned, post-harpy encounter state. |