SCENE III. Another part of the island. The Tempest  Shakespeare homepage  |  The Tempest  | Act 3, Scene 3 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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  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 

 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 

 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 

 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  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  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  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, 

 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 

 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  [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  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 

 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 

 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 

 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  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 

 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 

 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, 

 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-- 

 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: 

 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 

 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 

 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 

 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, 

 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 

 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. 



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