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   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 


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