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The Tempest: Act III, Scene 3

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The Tempest
Act III, Scene 3

Another part of the island.

Alonso and his courtiers continue to search for Ferdinand. They are almost overcome by exhaustion, but Sebastian and Antonio are glad that another opportunity will soon be afforded them of carrying out their plot upon Alonso. Invisible to all, Prospero and Ariel enter. A sumptuous banquet is provided before the eyes of the starving courtiers, who are invited to eat, and as they are about to partake, the feast is snatched away by an unseen hand. Ariel now upbraids them for their former crimes, especially the ‘three men of sin,’ Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio. Believing Ariel’s voice to be their own evil conscience, they rush off in frantic despair. Gonzalo urges the other members of the company to follow in haste to prevent, if possible, any disaster.
Several strange shapes

Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet

Several strange shapes

Arthur Rackham, circa early 20th cent.

  1. Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian,
  2. Francisco, etc.

Gonzalo

1 - 4
  1. By’r lakin, I can go no further, sir,
  2. My old bones aches. Here’s a maze trod indeed
  3. Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,
  4. I needs must rest me.

Alonso

5 - 11
  1.                       Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
  2. Who am myself attach’d with weariness
  3. To th’ dulling of my spirits. Sit down, and rest.
  4. Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
  5. No longer for my flatterer. He is drown’d
  6. Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
  7. Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.

Antonio

12 - 14
  1. Aside to Sebastian
  2. I am right glad that he’s so out of hope.
  3. Do not for one repulse forgo the purpose
  4. That you resolv’d t’ effect.

Sebastian

15 - 16
  1. Aside to Antonio
  2.                              The next advantage
  3. Will we take throughly.

Antonio

17 - 20
  1. Aside to Sebastian
  2.                         Let it be tonight,
  3. For now they are oppress’d with travail, they
  4. Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
  5. As when they are fresh.

Sebastian

21
  1. Aside to Antonio
  2.                         I say tonight. No more.
  1. Solemn and strange music.
  1. Prospero on the top, invisible.

Alonso

22
  1. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!

Gonzalo

23
  1. Marvelous sweet music!
  1. Enter several strange Shapes, bringing in a banquet; and
  2. dance about it with gentle actions of salutations; and
  3. inviting the King, etc., to eat, they depart.

Alonso

24
  1. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?

Sebastian

25 - 28
  1. A living drollery. Now I will believe
  2. That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
  3. There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix
  4. At this hour reigning there.

Antonio

29 - 32
  1.                              I’ll believe both;
  2. And what does else want credit, come to me,
  3. And I’ll be sworn ’tis true. Travelers ne’er did lie,
  4. Though fools at home condemn ’em.

Gonzalo

33 - 40
  1.                                   If in Naples
  2. I should report this now, would they believe me?
  3. If I should say I saw such islanders
  4. (For, certes, these are people of the island),
  5. Who though they are of monstrous shape, yet note
  6. Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of
  7. Our human generation you shall find
  8. Many, nay, almost any.

Prospero

41 - 43
  1. Aside.
  2.                        Honest lord,
  3. Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
  4. Are worse than devils.

Alonso

44 - 47
  1.                        I cannot too much muse
  2. Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound expressing
  3. (Although they want the use of tongue) a kind
  4. Of excellent dumb discourse.

Prospero

48
  1. Aside.
  2.                              Praise in departing.

Francisco

49
  1. They vanish’d strangely.
Sheet of sketches for costumes for the "Strange Shapes"

and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations

Sheet of sketches for costumes for the "Strange Shapes"

C. Walter Hodges

Sebastian

50 - 52
  1.                          No matter, since
  2. They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.
  3. Will’t please you taste of what is here?

Alonso

53
  1.                                          Not I.

Gonzalo

54 - 60
  1. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
  2. Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
  3. Dew-lapp’d, like bulls, whose throats had hanging at ’em
  4. Wallets of flesh? Or that there were such men
  5. Whose heads stood in their breasts? Which now we find
  6. Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
  7. Good warrant of.

Alonso

61 - 64
  1.                  I will stand to, and feed,
  2. Although my last, no matter, since I feel
  3. The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,
  4. Stand to, and do as we.
  1. Thunder and lightning.
  1. Enter Ariel, like a harpy, claps his wings upon the table,
  2. and with a quaint device the banquet vanishes.

Ariel

65 - 95
  1. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
  2. That hath to instrument this lower world
  3. And what is in’t, the never-surfeited sea
  4. Hath caus’d to belch up you; and on this island
  5. Where man doth not inhabit—you ’mongst men
  6. Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
  7. And even with such-like valor men hang and drown
  8. Their proper selves.
  9. Alonso, Sebastian, etc. draw their swords.
  10.                      You fools! I and my fellows
  11. Are ministers of Fate. The elements,
  12. Of whom your swords are temper’d, may as well
  13. Wound the loud winds, or with bemock’d-at stabs
  14. Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
  15. One dowle that’s in my plume. My fellow ministers
  16. Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
  17. Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
  18. And will not be uplifted. But remember
  19. (For that’s my business to you) that you three
  20. From Milan did supplant good Prospero,
  21. Expos’d unto the sea (which hath requit it)
  22. Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed
  23. The pow’rs, delaying (not forgetting), have
  24. Incens’d the seas and shores—yea, all the creatures,
  25. Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
  26. They have bereft; and do pronounce by me
  27. Ling’ring perdition (worse than any death
  28. Can be at once) shall step by step attend
  29. You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you from—
  30. Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
  31. Upon your heads—is nothing but heart’s sorrow,
  32. And a clear life ensuing.
  1. He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter the
  2. Shapes again, and dance, with mocks and mows, and carrying
  3. out the table.

Prospero

96 - 106
  1. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
  2. Perform’d, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.
  3. Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
  4. In what thou hadst to say; so with good life,
  5. And observation strange, my meaner ministers
  6. Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
  7. And these, mine enemies, are all knit up
  8. In their distractions. They now are in my pow’r;
  9. And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
  10. Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown’d,
  11. And his and mine lov’d darling.
  1. Exit above.
Masks for the "Strange Shapes"

and inviting the King, etc., to eat, they depart

Masks for the "Strange Shapes"

C. Walter Hodges

Gonzalo

107 - 108
  1. I’ th’ name of something holy, sir, why stand you
  2. In this strange stare?

Alonso

109 - 116
  1.                        O, it is monstrous! Monstrous!
  2. Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
  3. The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder,
  4. That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc’d
  5. The name of Prosper; it did base my trespass.
  6. Therefore my son i’ th’ ooze is bedded; and
  7. I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet sounded,
  8. And with him there lie mudded.
  1. Exit.

Sebastian

117 - 118
  1.                                But one fiend at a time,
  2. I’ll fight their legions o’er.

Antonio

119
  1.                                I’ll be thy second.
  1. Exeunt Sebastian and Antonio.

Gonzalo

120 - 125
  1. All three of them are desperate: their great guilt
  2. (Like poison given to work a great time after)
  3. Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you
  4. (That are of suppler joints) follow them swiftly,
  5. And hinder them from what this ecstasy
  6. May now provoke them to.

Adrian

126
  1.                          Follow, I pray you.
  1. Exeunt omnes.
Priscilla Horton as Ariel

Priscilla Horton as Ariel

Richard James Lane, printmaker; J. Mitchell; 1838

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