TPTT The Tempest: ACT III
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
ACT III
SCENE I. Before PROSPERO'S Cell.
SCENE II. Another part of the island.
SCENE III. Another part of the island.
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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.
ALONSO
5     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) I am right glad that he's so
      out of hope.
      Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
15    That you resolved to effect.
SEBASTIAN
      (Aside to ANTONIO) The next advantage
      Will we take throughly.
ANTONIO
      (Aside to SEBASTIAN) 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.
SEBASTIAN
      (Aside to ANTONIO) I say, to-night: no more.
Solemn and strange music
ALONSO
      What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
GONZALO
      Marvellous sweet music!
Enter PROSPERO above, invisible. Enter 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
ALONSO
25    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
      At this hour reigning there.
ANTONIO
30    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,
      Though fools at home condemn 'em.
GONZALO
35    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--
      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.
PROSPERO
      (Aside) Honest lord,
      Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
45    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.
PROSPERO
50    (Aside) Praise in departing.
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
55    Not I.
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
60    Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
      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
65    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
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
70    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;
      And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
      Their proper selves.

ALONSO, SEBASTIAN &c. draw their swords

75    You fools! I and my fellows
      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--
      For that's my business to you--that you three
85    From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
      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,
90    Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
      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--
95    Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
      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 carrying out the table
PROSPERO
      Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
      Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring:
100   Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
      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
105   In their distractions; they now are in my power;
      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
110   In this strange stare?
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
115   The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
      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,
120   I'll fight their legions o'er.
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
125   That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly
      And hinder them from what this ecstasy
      May now provoke them to.
ADRIAN
      Follow, I pray you.
Exeunt
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