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The Tempest - Act 3, scene 3
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The Tempest - Act 3, scene 3Act 3, scene 3
Scene 3
Synopsis:
King Alonso and his party, weary with searching, are visited by “strange shapes” bringing in a banquet, while Prospero, unseen, observes them. But when Alonso and his party take up the shapes’ invitation to eat and drink, Ariel appears as a Harpy and makes the food and drink vanish. The Harpy accuses Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio of usurping Prospero’s dukedom and threatens them with worse than death. The three “men of sin” leave in a desperate state.
Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian,Francisco, etc.
GONZALO
1537 By ’r lakin, I can go no further, sir.
1538 My old bones aches. Here’s a maze trod indeed
1539 Through forthrights and meanders. By your
1540 patience,
1541 5 I needs must rest me.
ALONSO 1542 Old lord, I cannot blame thee.
1543 Who am myself attached with weariness
1544 To th’ dulling of my spirits. Sit down and rest.
1545 Even here I will put off my hope and keep it
1546 10 No longer for my flatterer. He is drowned
1547 Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
1548 Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
ANTONIO, ⌜aside to Sebastian⌝
1549 I am right glad that he’s so out of hope.
1550 Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose
1551 15 That you resolved t’ effect.
SEBASTIAN, ⌜aside to Antonio⌝ 1552 The next advantage
1553 Will we take throughly.
ANTONIO, ⌜aside to Sebastian⌝ 1554 Let it be tonight;
1555 For now they are oppressed with travel, they
1556 20 Will not nor cannot use such vigilance
1557 As when they are fresh.
SEBASTIAN, ⌜aside to Antonio⌝ 1558 I say tonight. No more.
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Solemn and strange music, and ⌜enter⌝ Prospero on thetop invisible.
ALONSO
1559 What harmony is this? My good friends, hark.
GONZALO 1560 Marvelous sweet music!
Enter several strange shapes, bringing in a banquet, and
dance about it with gentle actions of salutations.
ALONSO
1561 25 Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
SEBASTIAN
1562 A living drollery! Now I will believe
1563 That there are unicorns, that in Arabia
1564 There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix
1565 At this hour reigning there.
ANTONIO 1566 30 I’ll believe both;
1567 And what does else want credit, come to me
1568 And I’ll be sworn ’tis true. Travelers ne’er did lie,
1569 Though fools at home condemn ’em.
GONZALO 1570 If in Naples
1571 35 I should report this now, would they believe me?
1572 If I should say I saw such ⌜islanders⌝—
1573 For, certes, these are people of the island—
1574 Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet note
1575 Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of
1576 40 Our human generation you shall find
1577 Many, nay, almost any.
PROSPERO, ⌜aside⌝ 1578 Honest lord,
1579 Thou hast said well, for some of you there present
1580 Are worse than devils.
ALONSO 1581 45 I cannot too much muse
1582 Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound,
1583 expressing—
1584 Although they want the use of tongue—a kind
1585 Of excellent dumb discourse.
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113
PROSPERO, ⌜aside⌝
1586
50 Praise in departing.Inviting the King, etc., to eat, ⌜the shapes⌝ depart.
FRANCISCO 1587 They vanished strangely.
SEBASTIAN 1588 No matter, since
1589 They have left their viands behind, for we have
1590 stomachs.
1591 55 Will ’t please you taste of what is here?
ALONSO 1592 Not I.
GONZALO
1593 Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
1594 Who would believe that there were mountaineers
1595 Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at
1596 60 ’em
1597 Wallets of flesh? Or that there were such men
1598 Whose heads stood in their breasts? Which now we
1599 find
1600 Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
1601 65 Good warrant of.
ALONSO 1602 I will stand to and feed.
1603 Although my last, no matter, since I feel
1604 The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,
1605 Stand to, and do as we.
⌜Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio
move toward the table.⌝
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⌝
1606 70 You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
1607 That hath to instrument this lower world
1608 And what is in ’t, the never-surfeited sea
1609 Hath caused to belch up you, and on this island,
1610 Where man doth not inhabit, you ’mongst men
1611 75 Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
1612 And even with such-like valor, men hang and drown
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1613
Their proper selves.⌜Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio draw their swords.⌝
1614 You fools, I and my fellows
1615 Are ministers of Fate. The elements
1616 80 Of whom your swords are tempered may as well
1617 Wound the loud winds or with bemocked-at stabs
1618 Kill the still-closing waters as diminish
1619 One dowl that’s in my plume. My fellow ministers
1620 Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
1621 85 Your swords are now too massy for your strengths
1622 And will not be uplifted. But remember—
1623 For that’s my business to you—that you three
1624 From Milan did supplant good Prospero,
1625 Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it,
1626 90 Him and his innocent child, for which foul deed,
1627 The powers—delaying, not forgetting—have
1628 Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures
1629 Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
1630 They have bereft; and do pronounce by me
1631 95 Ling’ring perdition, worse than any death
1632 Can be at once, shall step by step attend
1633 You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you
1634 from—
1635 Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
1636 100 Upon your heads—is nothing but heart’s sorrow
1637 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, ⌜aside⌝
1638 Bravely the figure of this Harpy hast thou
1639 Performed, my Ariel. A grace it had, devouring.
1640 Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
1641 105 In what thou hadst to say. So, with good life
1642 And observation strange, my meaner ministers
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1643
Their several kinds have done. My high charms1644 work,
1645 And these mine enemies are all knit up
1646 110 In their distractions. They now are in my power;
1647 And in these fits I leave them while I visit
1648 Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drowned,
1649 And his and mine loved darling.⌜He exits, above.⌝
GONZALO, ⌜to Alonso⌝
1650 I’ th’ name of something holy, sir, why stand you
1651 115 In this strange stare?
ALONSO 1652 O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
1653 Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;
1654 The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
1655 That deep and dreadful organ pipe, pronounced
1656 120 The name of Prosper. It did bass my trespass.
1657 Therefor my son i’ th’ ooze is bedded, and
1658 I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded,
1659 And with him there lie mudded.He exits.
SEBASTIAN 1660 But one fiend at a time,
1661 125 I’ll fight their legions o’er.
ANTONIO 1662 I’ll be thy second.
They exit.
GONZALO
1663 All three of them are desperate. Their great guilt,
1664 Like poison given to work a great time after,
1665 Now ’gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you
1666 130 That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly
1667 And hinder them from what this ecstasy
1668 May now provoke them to.
ADRIAN 1669 Follow, I pray you.
They all exit.