Complete Plays, The (51 page)

Alonso

No, no, he’s gone.

Sebastian

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

Alonso

Prithee, peace.

Sebastian

You were kneel’d to and importuned otherwise
By all of us, and the fair soul herself
Weigh’d between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o’ the beam should bow. We have lost your son,
I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business’ making
Than we bring men to comfort them:
The fault’s your own.

Alonso

So is the dear’st o’ the loss.

Gonzalo

My lord Sebastian,
The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness
And time to speak it in: you rub the sore,
When you should bring the plaster.

Sebastian

Very well.

Antonio

And most chirurgeonly.

Gonzalo

It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
When you are cloudy.

Sebastian

Foul weather?

Antonio

Very foul.

Gonzalo

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—

Antonio

He’ld sow’t with nettle-seed.

Sebastian

Or docks, or mallows.

Gonzalo

And were the king on’t, what would I do?

Sebastian

’Scape being drunk for want of wine.

Gonzalo

I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
No sovereignty;—

Sebastian

 
Yet he would be king on’t.

Antonio

The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

Gonzalo

All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.

Sebastian

No marrying ’mong his subjects?

Antonio

None, man; all idle: whores and knaves.

Gonzalo

I would with such perfection govern, sir,
To excel the golden age.

Sebastian

God save his majesty!

Antonio

Long live Gonzalo!

Gonzalo

 
And,— do you mark me, sir?

Alonso

Prithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.

Gonzalo

I do well believe your highness; and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.

Antonio

’Twas you we laughed at.

Gonzalo

Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you: so you may continue and laugh at nothing still.

Antonio

What a blow was there given!

Sebastian

An it had not fallen flat-long.

Gonzalo

You are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing.

Enter Ariel, invisible, playing solemn music

Sebastian

We would so, and then go a bat-fowling.

Antonio

Nay, good my lord, be not angry.

Gonzalo

No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy?

Antonio

Go sleep, and hear us.

All sleep except Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio

Alonso

What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find
They are inclined to do so.

Sebastian

Please you, sir,
Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
It is a comforter.

Antonio

 
We two, my lord,
Will guard your person while you take your rest,
And watch your safety.

Alonso

Thank you. Wondrous heavy.

Alonso sleeps. Exit Ariel

Sebastian

What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

Antonio

It is the quality o’ the climate.

Sebastian

Why
Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
Myself disposed to sleep.

Antonio

Nor I; my spirits are nimble.
They fell together all, as by consent;
They dropp’d, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
Worthy Sebastian? O, what might?— No more:—
And yet me thinks I see it in thy face,
What thou shouldst be: the occasion speaks thee, and
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head.

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?

Sebastian

Methinks I do.

Antonio

 
And how does your content
Tender your own good fortune?

Sebastian

I remember
You did supplant your brother Prospero.

Antonio

True:
And look how well my garments sit upon me;
Much feater than before: my brother’s servants
Were then my fellows; now they are my men.

Sebastian

But, for your conscience?

Antonio

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

Sebastian

Thy case, dear friend,
Shall be my precedent; as thou got’st Milan,
I’ll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke
Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;
And I the king shall love thee.

Antonio

Draw together;
And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
To fall it on Gonzalo.

Sebastian

O, but one word.

They talk apart

Re-enter Ariel, invisible

Ariel

My master through his art foresees the danger
That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth —
For else his project dies — to keep them living.

Sings in Gonzalo’s ear

While you here do snoring lie,
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take.
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber, and beware:
Awake, awake!

Antonio

Then let us both be sudden.

Gonzalo

Now, good angels
Preserve the king.

They wake

Alonso

Why, how now? ho, awake! Why are you drawn?
Wherefore this ghastly looking?

Gonzalo

What’s the matter?

Sebastian

Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
Like bulls, or rather lions: did’t not wake you?
It struck mine ear most terribly.

Alonso

I heard nothing.

Antonio

O, ’twas a din to fright a monster’s ear,
To make an earthquake! sure, it was the roar
Of a whole herd of lions.

Alonso

Heard you this, Gonzalo?

Gonzalo

Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,
And that a strange one too, which did awake me:
I shaked you, sir, and cried: as mine eyes open’d,
I saw their weapons drawn: there was a noise,
That’s verily. ’Tis best we stand upon our guard,
Or that we quit this place; let’s draw our weapons.

Alonso

Lead off this ground; and let’s make further search
For my poor son.

Gonzalo

Heavens keep him from these beasts!
For he is, sure, i’ the island.

Alonso

Lead away.

Ariel

Prospero my lord shall know what I have done:
So, king, go safely on to seek thy son.

Exeunt

S
CENE
II. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
ISLAND
.

Enter Caliban with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard

Caliban

All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin — shows, pitch me i’ the mire,
Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid ’em; but
For every trifle are they set upon me;
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me
And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness.

Enter Trinculo

Lo, now, lo!
Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly. I’ll fall flat;
Perchance he will not mind me.

Trinculo

Here’s neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i’ the wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish- like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor- John. A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lazy out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man and his fins like arms! Warm o’ my troth! I do now let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt.