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The Tempest: Act V, Scene 1

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The Tempest
Act V, Scene 1

Scene 1

Before Prospero’s cell.

Ariel brings Alonso and his followers to Prospero to hear the sentence which Prospero is about to pronounce. Prospero reveals himself to his brother and to Alonso. Alonso, smitten with remorse, offers to resign the dukedom of Milan and bewails the loss of his son. Prospero remarks that he, too, has lost a daughter, and then, withdrawing a curtain, Ferdinand and Miranda are disclosed, playing at chess. Ariel brings in the master and the boatswain, from whom we learn that the ship has been refitted, that the crew are all safe, and that nobody has died. The wandering plotters, Sebastian and Trinculo, are also brought before Prospero to receive sentence. It is a light one, merely to trim and arrange Prospero's cell for the company’s reception. Caliban is and Ariel are discharged from servitude.
  1. Enter Prospero in his magic robes, and Ariel.

Prospero

1 - 3
  1. Now does my project gather to a head:
  2. My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and Time
  3. Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day?

Ariel

4 - 5
  1. On the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,
  2. You said our work should cease.

Prospero

6 - 8
  1.                                 I did say so,
  2. When first I rais’d the tempest. Say, my spirit,
  3. How fares the King and ’s followers?

Ariel

9 - 21
  1.                                      Confin’d together
  2. In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
  3. Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
  4. In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;
  5. They cannot budge till your release. The King,
  6. His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,
  7. And the remainder mourning over them,
  8. Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
  9. Him that you term’d, sir, “the good old Lord Gonzalo,”
  10. His tears runs down his beard like winter’s drops
  11. From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em
  12. That if you now beheld them, your affections
  13. Would become tender.

Prospero

22
  1.                      Dost thou think so, spirit?

Ariel

23
  1. Mine would, sir, were I human.

Prospero

24 - 36
  1.                                And mine shall.
  2. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
  3. Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
  4. One of their kind, that relish all as sharply
  5. Passion as they, be kindlier mov’d than thou art?
  6. Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick,
  7. Yet, with my nobler reason, ’gainst my fury
  8. Do I take part. The rarer action is
  9. In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,
  10. The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
  11. Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel.
  12. My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,
  13. And they shall be themselves.

Ariel

37
  1.                               I’ll fetch them, sir.
  1. Exit.
  1. Prospero traces a magic circle with his staff.

Prospero

38 - 92
  1. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
  2. And ye that on the sands with printless foot
  3. Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
  4. When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
  5. By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
  6. Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
  7. Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice
  8. To hear the solemn curfew: by whose aid
  9. (Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimm’d
  10. The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
  11. And ’twixt the green sea and the azur’d vault
  12. Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
  13. Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak
  14. With his own bolt; the strong-bas’d promontory
  15. Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d up
  16. The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
  17. Have wak’d their sleepers, op’d, and let ’em forth
  18. By my so potent art. But this rough magic
  19. I here abjure; and when I have requir’d
  20. Some heavenly music (which even now I do)
  21. To work mine end upon their senses that
  22. This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
  23. Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
  24. And deeper than did ever plummet sound
  25. I’ll drown my book.
  26. Solemn music.
  27. Here enters Ariel before; then Alonso, with a frantic
  28. gesture, attended by Gonzalo; Sebastian and Antonio in like
  29. manner, attended by Adrian and Francisco.
  30. They all enter the circle which Prospero had made, and there
  31. stand charm’d; which Prospero observing, speaks.
  32. A solemn air, and the best comforter
  33. To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
  34. Now useless, boil’d within thy skull! There stand,
  35. For you are spell-stopp’d.
  36. Holy Gonzalo, honorable man,
  37. Mine eyes, ev’n sociable to the show of thine,
  38. Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,
  39. And as the morning steals upon the night,
  40. Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
  41. Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
  42. Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,
  43. My true preserver, and a loyal sir
  44. To him thou follow’st! I will pay thy graces
  45. Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly
  46. Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter;
  47. Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.
  48. Thou art pinch’d for’t now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,
  49. You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition,
  50. Expell’d remorse and nature, whom, with Sebastian
  51. (Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong),
  52. Would here have kill’d your king, I do forgive thee,
  53. Unnatural though thou art.—Their understanding
  54. Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
  55. Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
  56. That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them
  57. That yet looks on me, or would know me! Ariel,
  58. Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell.
  59. Exit Ariel, and returns immediately.
  60. I will discase me, and myself present
  61. As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit,
  62. Thou shalt ere long be free.
  1. Ariel sings and helps to attire him.

On the bat’s back I do fly

Louis Rhead, circa 1918

Ariel

93 - 99
  1. Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
  2. In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
  3. There I couch when owls do cry.
  4. On the bat’s back I do fly
  5. After summer merrily.
  6. Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
  7. Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Prospero

100 - 106
  1. Why, that’s my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee,
  2. But yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so.
  3. To the King’s ship, invisible as thou art;
  4. There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
  5. Under the hatches. The master and the boatswain
  6. Being awake, enforce them to this place;
  7. And presently, I prithee.

Ariel

107 - 108
  1. I drink the air before me, and return
  2. Or ere your pulse twice beat.
  1. Exit.

Gonzalo

109 - 111
  1. All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement
  2. Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
  3. Out of this fearful country!

Prospero

112 - 117
  1.                              Behold, sir King,
  2. The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.
  3. For more assurance that a living prince
  4. Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body,
  5. And to thee and thy company I bid
  6. A hearty welcome.

Alonso

118 - 127
  1.                   Whe’er thou beest he or no,
  2. Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me
  3. (As late I have been), I not know. Thy pulse
  4. Beats as of flesh and blood; and since I saw thee,
  5. Th’ affliction of my mind amends, with which
  6. I fear a madness held me. This must crave
  7. (And if this be at all) a most strange story.
  8. Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat
  9. Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero
  10. Be living, and be here?

Prospero

128 - 130
  1. To Gonzalo.
  2.                         First, noble friend,
  3. Let me embrace thine age, whose honor cannot
  4. Be measur’d or confin’d.

Gonzalo

131 - 132
  1.                          Whether this be,
  2. Or be not, I’ll not swear.
A scene from The Tempest

From: A scene from The Tempest

Prospero

133 - 139
  1.                            You do yet taste
  2. Some subtleties o’ th’ isle, that will not let you
  3. Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!
  4. Aside to Sebastian and Antonio.
  5. But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,
  6. I here could pluck his Highness’ frown upon you
  7. And justify you traitors. At this time
  8. I will tell no tales.

Sebastian

140
  1. Aside.
  2.                       The devil speaks in him.

Prospero

141 - 146
  1.                          No.
  2. For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
  3. Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
  4. Thy rankest fault—all of them; and require
  5. My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know
  6. Thou must restore.

Alonso

147 - 152
  1.                    If thou beest Prospero,
  2. Give us particulars of thy preservation,
  3. How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since
  4. Were wrack’d upon this shore; where I have lost
  5. (How sharp the point of this remembrance is!)
  6. My dear son Ferdinand.

Prospero

153
  1.                        I am woe for’t, sir.

Alonso

154 - 155
  1. Irreparable is the loss, and patience
  2. Says, it is past her cure.

Prospero

156 - 159
  1.                            I rather think
  2. You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace
  3. For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,
  4. And rest myself content.

Alonso

160
  1.                          You the like loss?

Prospero

161 - 164
  1. As great to me as late, and supportable
  2. To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker
  3. Than you may call to comfort you; for I
  4. Have lost my daughter.

Alonso

165 - 169
  1.                        A daughter?
  2. O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,
  3. The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish
  4. Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
  5. Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

Prospero

170 - 188
  1. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords
  2. At this encounter do so much admire
  3. That they devour their reason, and scarce think
  4. Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
  5. Are natural breath; but howsoev’r you have
  6. Been justled from your senses, know for certain
  7. That I am Prospero, and that very duke
  8. Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely
  9. Upon this shore (where you were wrack’d) was landed,
  10. To be the lord on’t. No more yet of this,
  11. For ’tis a chronicle of day by day,
  12. Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
  13. Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
  14. This cell’s my court. Here have I few attendants,
  15. And subjects none abroad. Pray you look in.
  16. My dukedom since you have given me again,
  17. I will requite you with as good a thing,
  18. At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye
  19. As much as me my dukedom.
  1. Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at
  2. chess.

Miranda

189
  1. Sweet lord, you play me false.

Ferdinand

190 - 191
  1.                                No, my dearest love,
  2. I would not for the world.

Miranda

192 - 193
  1. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
  2. And I would call it fair play.

Alonso

194 - 196
  1.                                If this prove
  2. A vision of the island, one dear son
  3. Shall I twice lose.
Tilia cordata - a species of linden tree

The line-grove which weather-fends your cell

Tilia cordata - a species of linden tree

Johann Georg Sturm, Jacob Sturm, 1796

Sebastian

197
  1.                     A most high miracle!

Ferdinand

198 - 199
  1. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;
  2. I have curs’d them without cause.
  1. Kneels.

Alonso

200 - 202
  1.                                   Now all the blessings
  2. Of a glad father compass thee about!
  3. Arise, and say how thou cam’st here.

Miranda

203 - 206
  1.                                      O wonder!
  2. How many goodly creatures are there here!
  3. How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
  4. That has such people in’t!

Prospero

207
  1.                            ’Tis new to thee.

Alonso

208 - 211
  1. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?
  2. Your eld’st acquaintance cannot be three hours.
  3. Is she the goddess that hath sever’d us,
  4. And brought us thus together?

Ferdinand

212 - 220
  1.                               Sir, she is mortal;
  2. But by immortal Providence she’s mine.
  3. I chose her when I could not ask my father
  4. For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
  5. Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
  6. Of whom so often I have heard renown,
  7. But never saw before; of whom I have
  8. Receiv’d a second life; and second father
  9. This lady makes him to me.

Alonso

221 - 223
  1.                            I am hers.
  2. But O, how oddly will it sound that I
  3. Must ask my child forgiveness!

Prospero

224 - 226
  1.                                There, sir, stop.
  2. Let us not burden our remembrances with
  3. A heaviness that’s gone.

Gonzalo

227 - 231
  1.                          I have inly wept,
  2. Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
  3. And on this couple drop a blessed crown!
  4. For it is you that have chalk’d forth the way
  5. Which brought us hither.

Alonso

232
  1.                          I say amen, Gonzalo!

Gonzalo

233 - 241
  1. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
  2. Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
  3. Beyond a common joy, and set it down
  4. With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
  5. Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
  6. And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
  7. Where he himself was lost; Prospero, his dukedom
  8. In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
  9. When no man was his own.

Alonso

242 - 244
  1. To Ferdinand and Miranda.
  2.                          Give me your hands.
  3. Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
  4. That doth not wish you joy!

Gonzalo

245 - 250
  1.                             Be it so, amen!
  2. Enter Ariel, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly
  3. following.
  4. O, look, sir, look, sir, here is more of us.
  5. I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
  6. This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,
  7. That swear’st grace o’erboard, not an oath on shore?
  8. Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?

Boatswain

251 - 255
  1. The best news is, that we have safely found
  2. Our king and company; the next, our ship—
  3. Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split—
  4. Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg’d as when
  5. We first put out to sea.

Ariel

256 - 257
  1. Aside to Prospero
  2.                          Sir, all this service
  3. Have I done since I went.

Prospero

258
  1. Aside to Ariel
  2.                           My tricksy spirit!

Alonso

259 - 260
  1. These are not natural events, they strengthen
  2. From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?

Boatswain

261 - 272
  1. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
  2. I’ld strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,
  3. And (how we know not) all clapp’d under hatches,
  4. Where, but even now, with strange and several noises
  5. Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
  6. And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,
  7. We were awak’d; straightway, at liberty;
  8. Where we, in all our trim, freshly beheld
  9. Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
  10. Cap’ring to eye her. On a trice, so please you,
  11. Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
  12. And were brought moping hither.

Ariel

273
  1. Aside to Prospero
  2.                                 Was’t well done?

Prospero

274
  1. Aside to Ariel
  2. Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free.
Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

Where the bee sucks, there suck I

From: Songs from the Plays of Shakespeare

Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.; Paul Woodroffe; P. A. Sanderson; Gloria Cardew; 1899

Alonso

275 - 278
  1. This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod,
  2. And there is in this business more than nature
  3. Was ever conduct of. Some oracle
  4. Must rectify our knowledge.

Prospero

279 - 291
  1.                             Sir, my liege,
  2. Do not infest your mind with beating on
  3. The strangeness of this business. At pick’d leisure,
  4. Which shall be shortly, single I’ll resolve you
  5. (Which to you shall seem probable) of every
  6. These happen’d accidents; till when, be cheerful
  7. And think of each thing well.
  8. Aside to Ariel.
  9.                               Come hither, spirit.
  10. Set Caliban and his companions free;
  11. Untie the spell.
  12. Exit Ariel.
  13.                  How fares my gracious sir?
  14. There are yet missing of your company
  15. Some few odd lads that you remember not.
  1. Enter Ariel, driving in Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo in
  2. their stol’n apparel.

Stephano

292 - 294
  1. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care
  2. for himself; for all is but fortune. Coraggio,
  3. bully-monster, coraggio!

Trinculo

295 - 296
  1. If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here’s a
  2. goodly sight.

Caliban

297 - 299
  1. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!
  2. How fine my master is! I am afraid
  3. He will chastise me.

Sebastian

300 - 302
  1.                      Ha, ha!
  2. What things are these, my Lord Antonio?
  3. Will money buy ’em?

Antonio

303 - 304
  1.                     Very like; one of them
  2. Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.

Prospero

305 - 314
  1. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
  2. Then say if they be true. This misshapen knave—
  3. His mother was a witch, and one so strong
  4. That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
  5. And deal in her command without her power.
  6. These three have robb’d me, and this demi-devil
  7. (For he’s a bastard one) had plotted with them
  8. To take my life. Two of these fellows you
  9. Must know and own, this thing of darkness I
  10. Acknowledge mine.

Caliban

315
  1.                   I shall be pinch’d to death.

Alonso

316
  1. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?

Sebastian

317
  1. He is drunk now. Where had he wine?

Alonso

318 - 320
  1. And Trinculo is reeling ripe. Where should they
  2. Find this grand liquor that hath gilded ’em?
  3. How cam’st thou in this pickle?

Trinculo

321 - 323
  1. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that I
  2. fear me will never out of my bones. I shall not fear
  3. fly-blowing.

Sebastian

324
  1. Why, how now, Stephano?

Stephano

325
  1. O, touch me not, I am not Stephano, but a cramp.

Prospero

326
  1. You’ld be king o’ the isle, sirrah?

Stephano

327
  1. I should have been a sore one then.

Alonso

328
  1. This is a strange thing as e’er I look’d on.
  1. Pointing to Caliban.

These three have robb’d me

John Masey Wright, 1800

Prospero

329 - 332
  1. He is as disproportion’d in his manners
  2. As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;
  3. Take with you your companions. As you look
  4. To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.

Caliban

333 - 336
  1. Ay, that I will; and I’ll be wise hereafter,
  2. And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
  3. Was I to take this drunkard for a god,
  4. And worship this dull fool!

Prospero

337
  1.                             Go to, away!

Alonso

338
  1. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.

Sebastian

339
  1. Or stole it, rather.
  1. Exeunt Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo.

Prospero

340 - 351
  1. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train
  2. To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest
  3. For this one night; which, part of it, I’ll waste
  4. With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it
  5. Go quick away—the story of my life,
  6. And the particular accidents gone by
  7. Since I came to this isle. And in the morn
  8. I’ll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,
  9. Where I have hope to see the nuptial
  10. Of these our dear-belov’d solemnized,
  11. And thence retire me to my Milan, where
  12. Every third thought shall be my grave.

Alonso

352 - 354
  1.                                        I long
  2. To hear the story of your life, which must
  3. Take the ear strangely.

Prospero

355 - 361
  1.                         I’ll deliver all,
  2. And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,
  3. And sail so expeditious, that shall catch
  4. Your royal fleet far off.
  5. Aside to Ariel.
  6.                           My Ariel, chick,
  7. That is thy charge. Then to the elements
  8. Be free, and fare thou well!—Please you draw near.
  1. Exeunt omnes.
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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