Brick Shakespeare: The Comedies—A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew (38 page)

SEBASTIAN

What, art thou waking?

ANTONIO

Do you not hear me speak?

SEBASTIAN

I do; and surely

It is a sleepy language and thou speak’st

Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?

This is a strange repose, to be asleep

With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,

And yet so fast asleep.

ANTONIO

Noble Sebastian,

Thou let’st thy fortune sleep—die, rather; wink’st

Whiles thou art waking.

SEBASTIAN

Thou dost snore distinctly;

There’s meaning in thy snores.

ANTONIO

I am more serious than my custom: you

Must be so too, if heed me; which to do

Trebles thee o’er.

SEBASTIAN

Well, I am standing water.

ANTONIO

I’ll teach you how to flow.

SEBASTIAN

Do so: to ebb

Hereditary sloth instructs me.

ANTONIO

O,

If you but knew how you the purpose cherish

Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,

You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed,

Most often do so near the bottom run

By their own fear or sloth.

SEBASTIAN

Prithee, say on:

The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim

A matter from thee, and a birth indeed

Which throes thee much to yield.

ANTONIO

Thus, sir:

Although this lord of weak remembrance, this,

Who shall be of as little memory

When he is earth’d, hath here almost persuade,—

For he’s a spirit of persuasion, only

Professes to persuade,—the king his son’s alive,

’Tis as impossible that he’s undrown’d

And he that sleeps here swims.

SEBASTIAN

I have no hope

That he’s undrown’d.

ANTONIO

O, out of that “no hope”

What great hope have you! no hope that way is

Another way so high a hope that even

Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,

But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me

That Ferdinand is drown’d?

SEBASTIAN

He’s gone.

ANTONIO

Then, tell me,

Who’s the next heir of Naples?

SEBASTIAN

Claribel.

ANTONIO

She that is queen of Tunis; she that dwells

Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples

Can have no note, unless the sun were post—

The man i’ the moon’s too slow—till new-born chins

Be rough and razorable; she that—from whom?

We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again,

And by that destiny to perform an act

Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge.

SEBASTIAN

What stuff is this! how say you?

’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s queen of Tunis;

So is she heir of Naples; ’twixt which regions

There is some space.

ANTONIO

A space whose every cubit

Seems to cry out, “How shall that Claribel

Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,

And let Sebastian wake.” Say, this were death

That now hath seized them; why, they were no worse

Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples

As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate

As amply and unnecessarily

As this Gonzalo; I myself could make

A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore

The mind that I do! what a sleep were this

For your advancement! Do you understand me?