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The Tempest: Act 2, Scene 1

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The Tempest
Act 2, Scene 1

Scene 1

Another part of the island.

  1. Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian,
  2. Francisco, and others.

Gonzalo

3 - 11
  1. Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause
  2. (So have we all) of joy; for our escape
  3. Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
  4. Is common: every day some sailor’s wife,
  5. The masters of some merchant, and the merchant
  6. Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle
  7. (I mean our preservation), few in millions
  8. Can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh
  9. Our sorrow with our comfort.

Alonso

12
  1.                              Prithee peace.

Sebastian

13
  1. He receives comfort like cold porridge.

Antonio

14
  1. The visitor will not give him o’er so.

Sebastian

15 - 16
  1. Look, he’s winding up the watch of his wit, by and by it
  2. will strike.

Gonzalo

17
  1. Sir—

Sebastian

18
  1. One. Tell.

Gonzalo

19 - 20
  1. When every grief is entertain’d that’s offer’d,
  2. Comes to th’ entertainer—

Sebastian

21
  1. A dollar.

Gonzalo

22 - 23
  1. Dolor comes to him indeed, you have spoken truer than you
  2. purpos’d.

Sebastian

24
  1. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

Gonzalo

25
  1. Therefore, my lord—

Antonio

26
  1. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

Alonso

27
  1. I prithee spare.

Gonzalo

28
  1. Well, I have done. But yet—

Sebastian

29
  1. He will be talking.

Antonio

30 - 31
  1. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to
  2. crow?

Sebastian

32
  1. The old cock.

Antonio

33
  1. The cock’rel.

Sebastian

34
  1. Done. The wager?

Antonio

35
  1. A laughter.

Sebastian

36
  1. A match!

Adrian

37
  1. Though this island seem to be desert—

Sebastian

38
  1. Ha, ha, ha!

Antonio

39
  1. So: you’re paid!

Adrian

40
  1. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible—

Sebastian

41
  1. Yet—

Adrian

42
  1. Yet—

Antonio

43
  1. He could not miss’t.

Adrian

44
  1. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.

Antonio

45
  1. Temperance was a delicate wench.

Sebastian

46
  1. Ay, and a subtle, as he most learnedly deliver’d.

Adrian

47
  1. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.

Sebastian

48
  1. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

Antonio

49
  1. Or, as ’twere perfum’d by a fen.

Gonzalo

50
  1. Here is every thing advantageous to life.

Antonio

51
  1. True, save means to live.

Sebastian

52
  1. Of that there’s none, or little.

Gonzalo

53
  1. How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!

Antonio

54
  1. The ground indeed is tawny.

Sebastian

55
  1. With an eye of green in’t.

Antonio

56
  1. He misses not much.

Sebastian

57
  1. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.

Gonzalo

58 - 59
  1. But the rarity of it is—which is indeed almost beyond
  2. credit—

Sebastian

60
  1. As many vouch’d rarieties are.

Gonzalo

61 - 63
  1. That our garments, being (as they were) drench’d in the sea,
  2. hold notwithstanding their freshness and glosses, being
  3. rather new dy’d than stain’d with salt water.

Antonio

64 - 65
  1. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he
  2. lies?

Sebastian

66
  1. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.

Gonzalo

67 - 69
  1. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them
  2. on first in Afric, at the marriage of the King’s fair
  3. daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.

Sebastian

70
  1. ’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.

Adrian

71 - 72
  1. Tunis was never grac’d before with such a paragon to their
  2. queen.

Gonzalo

73
  1. Not since widow Dido’s time.

Antonio

74
  1. Widow? A pox o’ that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!
Sketches at the production of the Tempest at His Majesty's Theatre

Sketches at the production of the Tempest at His Majesty's Theatre

Ralph Cleaver, circa 1904

Sebastian

75 - 76
  1. What if he had said “widower Aeneas” too? Good Lord, how you
  2. take it!

Adrian

77 - 78
  1. “Widow Dido,” said you? You make me study of that. She was
  2. of Carthage, not of Tunis.

Gonzalo

79
  1. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

Adrian

80
  1. Carthage?

Gonzalo

81
  1. I assure you, Carthage.

Antonio

82
  1. His word is more than the miraculous harp.

Sebastian

83
  1. He hath rais’d the wall, and houses too.

Antonio

84
  1. What impossible matter will he make easy next?

Sebastian

85 - 86
  1. I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, and
  2. give it his son for an apple.

Antonio

87 - 88
  1. And sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more
  2. islands.

Gonzalo

89
  1. Ay.

Antonio

90
  1. Why, in good time.

Gonzalo

91 - 93
  1. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now as fresh as
  2. when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who
  3. is now queen.

Antonio

94
  1. And the rarest that e’er came there.

Sebastian

95
  1. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.

Antonio

96
  1. O, widow Dido? Ay, widow Dido.

Gonzalo

97 - 98
  1. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it?
  2. I mean, in a sort.

Antonio

99
  1. That ‘sort’ was well fish’d for.

Gonzalo

100
  1. When I wore it at your daughter’s marriage?

Alonso

101 - 108
  1. You cram these words into mine ears against
  2. The stomach of my sense. Would I had never
  3. Married my daughter there! For coming thence,
  4. My son is lost and (in my rate) she too,
  5. Who is so far from Italy removed
  6. I ne’er again shall see her. O thou mine heir
  7. Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
  8. Hath made his meal on thee?

Francisco

109 - 118
  1.                             Sir, he may live.
  2. I saw him beat the surges under him,
  3. And ride upon their backs. He trod the water,
  4. Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
  5. The surge most swoll’n that met him. His bold head
  6. ’Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
  7. Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
  8. To th’ shore, that o’er his wave-worn basis bowed,
  9. As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt
  10. He came alive to land.

Alonso

119
  1.                        No, no, he’s gone.

Sebastian

120 - 124
  1. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
  2. That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
  3. But rather loose her to an African,
  4. Where she, at least, is banish’d from your eye,
  5. Who hath cause to wet the grief on’t.

Alonso

125
  1.                                       Prithee peace.

Sebastian

126 - 133
  1. You were kneel’d to, and importun’d otherwise
  2. By all of us, and the fair soul herself
  3. Weigh’d between loathness and obedience, at
  4. Which end o’ th’ beam should bow. We have lost your son,
  5. I fear forever. Milan and Naples have
  6. More widows in them of this business’ making
  7. Than we bring men to comfort them.
  8. The fault’s your own.

Alonso

134
  1.                       So is the dear’st o’ th’ loss.

Gonzalo

135 - 138
  1. My Lord Sebastian,
  2. The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
  3. And time to speak it in. You rub the sore,
  4. When you should bring the plaster.

Sebastian

139
  1.                                    Very well.

Antonio

140
  1. And most chirurgeonly.

Gonzalo

141 - 142
  1. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
  2. When you are cloudy.

Sebastian

143
  1.                      Fowl weather?

Antonio

144
  1.               Very foul.

Gonzalo

145
  1. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord—

Antonio

146
  1. He’d sow’t with nettle-seed.

Sebastian

147
  1.                              Or docks, or mallows.

Gonzalo

148
  1. And were the king on’t, what would I do?
Miss Viola Tree as Ariel

Miss Viola Tree as Ariel

From The Tempest as arranged for the stage by Herbert Beerbohm Tree

circa 1904

Sebastian

149
  1. Scape being drunk, for want of wine.

Gonzalo

150 - 159
  1. I’ th’ commonwealth I would, by contraries,
  2. Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
  3. Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
  4. Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
  5. And use of service, none; contract, succession,
  6. Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
  7. No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
  8. No occupation, all men idle, all;
  9. And women too, but innocent and pure;
  10. No sovereignty—

Sebastian

160
  1.                 Yet he would be king on’t.

Antonio

161
  1. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

Gonzalo

162 - 167
  1. All things in common nature should produce
  2. Without sweat or endeavor: treason, felony,
  3. Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
  4. Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
  5. Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
  6. To feed my innocent people.

Sebastian

168
  1. No marrying ’mong his subjects?

Antonio

169
  1. None, man, all idle—whores and knaves.

Gonzalo

170 - 171
  1. I would with such perfection govern, sir,
  2. T’ excel the golden age.

Sebastian

172
  1.                          ’save his Majesty!

Antonio

173
  1. Long live Gonzalo!

Gonzalo

174
  1.                    And—do you mark me, sir?

Alonso

175
  1. Prithee no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.

Gonzalo

176 - 178
  1. I do well believe your Highness, and did it to minister
  2. occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and
  3. nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.

Antonio

179
  1. ’Twas you we laugh’d at.

Gonzalo

180 - 181
  1. Who, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you; so
  2. you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.

Antonio

182
  1. What a blow was there given!

Sebastian

183
  1. And it had not fall’n flat-long.

Gonzalo

184 - 186
  1. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would lift the moon
  2. out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks
  3. without changing.
  1. Enter Ariel invisible, playing solemn music.

Sebastian

188
  1. We would so, and then go a-batfowling.

Antonio

189
  1. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.

Gonzalo

190 - 191
  1. No, I warrant you, I will not adventure my discretion so
  2. weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy?

Antonio

192
  1. Go sleep, and hear us.
  1. All sleep except Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio.

Alonso

194 - 196
  1. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
  2. Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts. I find
  3. They are inclin’d to do so.

Sebastian

197 - 200
  1.                             Please you, sir,
  2. Do not omit the heavy offer of it.
  3. It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
  4. It is a comforter.

Antonio

201 - 203
  1.                    We two, my lord,
  2. Will guard your person while you take your rest,
  3. And watch your safety.

Alonso

204
  1.                        Thank you. Wondrous heavy.
  1. Alonso sleeps.
  1. Exit Ariel.

Sebastian

207
  1. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

Antonio

208
  1. It is the quality o’ th’ climate.

Sebastian

209 - 211
  1.                                   Why
  2. Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
  3. Myself dispos’d to sleep.

Antonio

212 - 219
  1.                           Nor I, my spirits are nimble.
  2. They fell together all, as by consent;
  3. They dropp’d, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
  4. Worthy Sebastian, O, what might—? No more—
  5. And yet methinks I see it in thy face,
  6. What thou shouldst be. Th’ occasion speaks thee, and
  7. My strong imagination sees a crown
  8. Dropping upon thy head.

Sebastian

220
  1.                         What? Art thou waking?

Antonio

221
  1. Do you not hear me speak?

Sebastian

222 - 227
  1.                           I do, and surely
  2. It is a sleepy language, and thou speak’st
  3. Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
  4. This is a strange repose, to be asleep
  5. With eyes wide open—standing, speaking, moving—
  6. And yet so fast asleep.
Freemantle & Co. Edition of The Tempest

the King’s fair daughter Claribel

From: Freemantle & Co. Edition of The Tempest

Robert Anning Bell, 1901

Antonio

228 - 230
  1.                         Noble Sebastian,
  2. Thou let’st thy fortune sleep—die, rather; wink’st
  3. Whiles thou art waking.

Sebastian

231 - 232
  1.                         Thou dost snore distinctly,
  2. There’s meaning in thy snores.

Antonio

233 - 235
  1. I am more serious than my custom; you
  2. Must be so too, if heed me; which to do,
  3. Trebles thee o’er.

Sebastian

236
  1.                    Well; I am standing water.

Antonio

237
  1. I’ll teach you how to flow.

Sebastian

238 - 239
  1.                             Do so. To ebb
  2. Hereditary sloth instructs me.

Antonio

240 - 245
  1.                                O!
  2. If you but knew how you the purpose cherish
  3. Whiles thus you mock it! How, in stripping it,
  4. You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed,
  5. Most often, do so near the bottom run
  6. By their own fear or sloth.

Sebastian

246 - 249
  1.                             Prithee say on.
  2. The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
  3. A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,
  4. Which throes thee much to yield.

Antonio

250 - 257
  1.                                  Thus, sir:
  2. Although this lord of weak remembrance, this
  3. Who shall be of as little memory
  4. When he is earth’d, hath here almost persuaded
  5. (For he’s a spirit of persuasion, only
  6. Professes to persuade) the King his son’s alive,
  7. ’Tis as impossible that he’s undrown’d,
  8. As he that sleeps here swims.

Sebastian

258 - 259
  1.                               I have no hope
  2. That he’s undrown’d.

Antonio

260 - 265
  1.                      O, out of that no hope
  2. What great hope have you! No hope, that way, is
  3. Another way so high a hope that even
  4. Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
  5. But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me
  6. That Ferdinand is drown’d?

Sebastian

266
  1.                            He’s gone.

Antonio

267 - 268
  1.            Then tell me,
  2. Who’s the next heir of Naples?

Sebastian

269
  1.                                Claribel.

Antonio

270 - 278
  1. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
  2. Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples
  3. Can have no note, unless the sun were post—
  4. The Man i’ th’ Moon’s too slow—till new-born chins
  5. Be rough and razorable; she that from whom
  6. We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again
  7. (And by that destiny) to perform an act
  8. Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
  9. In yours and my discharge.

Sebastian

279 - 282
  1.                            What stuff is this? How say you?
  2. ’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis,
  3. So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions
  4. There is some space.

Antonio

283 - 294
  1.                      A space whose ev’ry cubit
  2. Seems to cry out, “How shall that Claribel
  3. Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,
  4. And let Sebastian wake.” Say this were death
  5. That now hath seiz’d them, why, they were no worse
  6. Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
  7. As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
  8. As amply and unnecessarily
  9. As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
  10. A chough of as deep chat. O that you bore
  11. The mind that I do! What a sleep were this
  12. For your advancement! Do you understand me?

Sebastian

295
  1. Methinks I do.

Antonio

296 - 297
  1.                And how does your content
  2. Tender your own good fortune?
Edinburgh Folio

From: Edinburgh Folio

Unknown artist, circa 1903

Sebastian

298 - 299
  1.                               I remember
  2. You did supplant your brother Prospero.

Antonio

300 - 303
  1.                                         True.
  2. And look how well my garments sit upon me,
  3. Much feater than before. My brother’s servants
  4. Were then my fellows, now they are my men.

Sebastian

304
  1. But, for your conscience?

Antonio

305 - 319
  1. Ay, sir; where lies that? If ’twere a kibe,
  2. ’Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not
  3. This deity in my bosom. Twenty consciences,
  4. That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied be they,
  5. And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
  6. No better than the earth he lies upon,
  7. If he were that which now he’s like—that’s dead,
  8. Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
  9. Can lay to bed forever; whiles you, doing thus,
  10. To the perpetual wink for aye might put
  11. This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
  12. Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
  13. They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
  14. They’ll tell the clock to any business that
  15. We say befits the hour.

Sebastian

320 - 324
  1.                         Thy case, dear friend,
  2. Shall be my president: as thou got’st Milan,
  3. I’ll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke
  4. Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest,
  5. And I the King shall love thee.

Antonio

325 - 327
  1.                                 Draw together;
  2. And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
  3. To fall it on Gonzalo.

Sebastian

328
  1.                        O, but one word.
  1. They talk apart.
  1. Enter Ariel, invisible, with music and song.

Ariel

331 - 340
  1. My master through his art foresees the danger
  2. That you, his friend, are in, and sends me forth
  3. (For else his project dies) to keep them living.
  4. Sings in Gonzalo’s ear.
  5. While you here do snoring lie,
  6. Open-ey’d conspiracy
  7. His time doth take.
  8. If of life you keep a care,
  9. Shake off slumber, and beware.
  10. Awake, awake!

Antonio

341
  1. Then let us both be sudden.

Gonzalo

342 - 344
  1. Waking.
  2.                             Now, good angels
  3. Preserve the King!
  1. Wakes Alonso.

Alonso

346 - 347
  1. Why, how now, ho! Awake? Why are you drawn?
  2. Wherefore this ghastly looking?

Gonzalo

348
  1.                                 What’s the matter?

Sebastian

349 - 352
  1. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
  2. Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
  3. Like bulls, or rather lions. Did’t not wake you?
  4. It struck mine ear most terribly.

Alonso

353
  1.                                   I heard nothing.

Antonio

354 - 356
  1. O, ’twas a din to fright a monster’s ear,
  2. To make an earthquake; sure it was the roar
  3. Of a whole herd of lions.

Alonso

357
  1.                           Heard you this, Gonzalo?

Gonzalo

358 - 363
  1. Upon mine honor, sir, I heard a humming
  2. (And that a strange one too) which did awake me.
  3. I shak’d you, sir, and cried. As mine eyes open’d,
  4. I saw their weapons drawn. There was a noise,
  5. That’s verily. ’Tis best we stand upon our guard,
  6. Or that we quit this place. Let’s draw our weapons.

Alonso

364 - 365
  1. Lead off this ground, and let’s make further search
  2. For my poor son.

Gonzalo

366 - 367
  1.                  Heavens keep him from these beasts!
  2. For he is sure i’ th’ island.

Alonso

368
  1.                               Lead away.

Ariel

369 - 370
  1. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done.
  2. So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.
  1. Exeunt.
The Tempest, arranged for representation at the Princess's Theatre

From: The Tempest, arranged for representation at the Princess's Theatre

First performed on Wednesday, July 1, 1857

John K. Chapman and Co., 1857

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