The Tempest

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.	5
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	10
	Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
	Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
ANTONIO	Aside to SEBASTIAN
	out of hope.
	Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
	That you resolved to effect.	15
SEBASTIAN	Aside to ANTONIO
	Will we take throughly.
ANTONIO	Aside to SEBASTIAN
	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
	Solemn and strange music
ALONSO	What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!	20
GONZALO	Marvellous sweet music!
	Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter severalstrange Shapes, bringing in a banquet;they dance about it with gentle actions ofsalutation; and, inviting the King, &c. toeat, 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	25
	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,	30
	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--	35
	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
	Thou hast said well; for some of you there present	40
	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.	45
PROSPERO	Aside
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.	50
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	55
	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,	60
	Stand to and do as we.
	Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like aharpy; 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	65
	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	70
	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	75
	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;	80
	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,	85
	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	90
	Upon your heads--is nothing but heart-sorrow
	And a clear life ensuing.
	He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft musicenter the Shapes again, and dance, withmocks 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	95
	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;	100
	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?	105
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.	110
	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.	115
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	120
	And hinder them from what this ecstasy
	May now provoke them to.
ADRIAN	Follow, I pray you.
	Exeunt