Bloom’s Shakespeare Through the Ages

T H E T EM P ES T

Edited and with an introduction by

Harold Bloom
Sterling Professor of the Humanities
Yale University

Volume Editor
Neil Heims
 INTRODUCTION BY
HAROLD BLOOM
q

The Tempest is Prospero’s play, and not Ariel’s (as the Romantics believed) nor
Caliban’s (the Postcolonialists), and Prospero is not Shakespeare the dramatic
poet, though he may be Shakespeare the man of the theater. More important is
his meaning for poets, brilliantly summarized in a late sonnet by Hart Crane:

Through torrid entrances, past icy poles

A hand moves on the page! Who shall again
Engrave such hazards as thy might controls—
Conflicting, purposeful yet outcry vain
Of all our days, being pilot,—tempest, too!
Sheets that mock lust and thorns that scribble hate
Are lifted from torn flesh with human rue,
And laughter, burnished brighter than our fate
Thou wieldest with such tears that every faction
Swears high in Hamlet’s throat, and devils throng
Where angels beg for doom in ghast distraction
—And fail, both! Yet thine Ariel holds his song:
And that serenity that Prospero gains
Is justice that has cancelled earthly chains.
— “To Shakespeare”

Th is is not Hart Crane upon his Emersonian-Whitmanian heights of

the American Sublime, as in the visionary epic, The Bridge. Yet it shows his
characteristic critical acuity in probing The Tempest for the hidden sources of
Prospero’s uncanny serenity. Shakespeare’s Magus, as severe but just father of
Miranda (and failed adoptive father of Caliban) is subtly taken as a replacement
for Crane’s actual father, Clarence Crane, the unyielding Cleveland candy
manufacturer and inventor of the Life Saver. Movingly, Crane is wistful that
“Ariel holds his song,” as the alcoholic bard of The Bridge could not.
Identification with Ariel’s mastery of song has been attempted by many
poets, most fervently by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Wallace Stevens, both of

xi
xii The Tempest

whom Hart Crane admired and emulated. Add in Robert Browning’s powerful
dramatic monologue, “Caliban upon Setebos,” and you can begin to believe
that The Tempest has inspired more superb poetry than any other Shakespearean
drama, with the probable exception of Hamlet. Since The Tempest was the
final play that Shakespeare composed by himself, it is difficult not to identify
Prospero with his author.
Despite some Christian overtones, The Tempest is anything but a Christian
drama. Nor is it a Post-Christian “text,” which a fashionable but fast-fading
academic set proclaims. The Tempest is far more baffl ing a work than the critical
tradition has confronted.
In teaching this strongest of all Shakespearean comedies (it is not a
Romance) I tend to begin with Prospero’s name, which only a few scholars
comment upon. It is the Italian word for “the favored one,” and so a translation
of “Faustus,” the Latin cognomen that the Gnostic charlatan Simon Magus
took when he arrived in Rome as a miracle-worker. Christianity from the New
Testament on, has handled Simon roughly, and has insisted that this Samarian
magician was the founder of the Gnostic “heresy,” a rather unlikely contention
concerning a vision always endemic in world religious history, from at least
ancient Alexandra through the writings of Kafka and Borges.
I surmise that Prospero is the anti-Faustus, Shakespeare’s farewell to
Marlowe and to Marlowe’s own Dr. Faustus, even as Hamlet is the anti-
Machiavel, in regard to Marlow’s Machiavel, Barabas, The Jew of Malta.
Mephistopholes is replaced by Ariel, a sprite or minor angel, and there is no
Lucifer in The Tempest.
If The Tempest is a visionary comedy, one wonders why its overtly happy
resolution is so haunted by Prospero’s melancholy. Why will he go back to
Milan anyway, taking with him for further education his re-adopted “thing of
darkness,” Caliban? Caliban-in-Milan is sublimely wrong, but so is Prospero-
in-Milan. The return may represent Prospero’s failure as an educator and his
repudiation of more than magic. To accept old age is difficult for all of us, since
the shipwreck of aging enhances our sense of guilt, our inability to give or
accept love.
The greatness of The Tempest is inseparable from its final self-presentation of
an inward waning, the audience’s as well as Prospero’s. We do not know why
Ben Jonson chose to lead off the First Folio of Shakespeare’s works (1616) with
this final comedy. Evidently Jonson highly valued the play, which probably he
had just read for the fi rst time. Shakespeare and Jonson had a much larger
sense of comedy than is now available to us. Few of my students are willing
to see the play as comic, as much of it palpably is. Caliban’s cowardice is very
funny, but political correctness pompously demands that we see him as a heroic
West Indian freedom-fighter! And poor Prospero, badgered stage-manager (as
 Introduction xiii

Northrop Frye saw), is now a rapacious colonialist. So badly do we read that

few apprehend the rich ironies of Prospero, as time-haunted a Shakespearean
protagonist as Prince Hal/Henry V or Macbeth.
None of us can triumph over time. As mere humans, we lose every time. In
the winter of the body, one recognizes that daily. Each time I reread The Tempest,
it seems more beautiful. A nineteenth-century Romantic by temperament,
increasingly I find in The Tempest one of the forms of farewell.
 SUMMARY OF
THE TEMPEST
q

Act I
In scene 1 of The Tempest, mariners battle a sea storm, and the passengers ham-
per them in their work, demanding that they work harder. No matter; all is lost.
The ship cracks in the storm and goes down. The audience sees the action from
the same perspective as the characters on stage. Thus, the audience assumes
that a real sea storm is being represented. In fact, what is being shown is only
the illusion of a sea storm.
Scene 2 shifts the perspective of the audience and of the play itself. Miranda
and Prospero have been watching the same scene as the audience, and the
audience now sees the shipwreck through Miranda’s description of it. With her
first words (“If by your art, my dearest father . . .”), she suggests the possibility
that viewers have been watching not a real shipwreck but a spectacular example
of Prospero’s power.
Prospero’s response confirms his daughter’s suspicion: He assures Miranda
that no harm has been done, and everything has been done for her good.
The conversation between Miranda and Prospero informs the audience how
to understand what they have just seen. As Prospero takes over the task of
explanation, the audience must listen to him in the same way Miranda does; her
enlightenment is the viewer’s enlightenment. The rest of the play will help the
audience judge the reliability of Prospero’s narrative. Certainly, Miranda’s ease
in speaking to him and trying to influence him to pity shows her confidence in
his goodness.
Rather than explain how everything has been done for her good, Prospero asks
Miranda if she remembers anything of her infancy. Miranda says she remembers
that several serving women cared for her. Prospero confirms the accuracy of her
memory and tells her that he had been the duke of Milan until 12 years earlier.
He confesses that he had been more devoted to study than to governing his
realm; he had given over that responsibility to his brother, Antonio. Rather than
serving as an honorable deputy, however, Antonio had desired power for himself
and conspired with Alonso, the king of Naples. Antonio promised Alonso tribute
where none had been paid before and with his help banished Prospero and took

5
6 The Tempest

his place. Prospero and Miranda were cast off in a poor boat and left to drift, and
perhaps perish, on the open sea. His honest minister Gonzalo, although powerless
to stop Antonio, supplied them with clothing, food, and—significantly—some
of Prospero’s books. They did not perish, but were carried by the currents to
an uninhabited island. Prospero tells Miranda that now fortune has sent all his
enemies to him on the ship she saw wrecked; if he acts carefully, Prospero says,
he can bring them both good fortune. Then, like a hypnotist, he tells her she is
feeling sleepy, and she sleeps.
As Miranda sleeps, Prospero summons Ariel, an air spirit he commands.
Prospero asks Ariel if he has staged the illusion of the shipwreck exactly as
he has been instructed and if everyone is safe. Ariel reports that all has gone
well: Everyone is safe upon the island, although separated into several groups.
Consequently, the king of Naples thinks his son, Ferdinand, is drowned, while
Ferdinand believes his father has perished.
When Prospero says that there is more work to be done, Ariel reminds
him of his promise to free Ariel. Prospero retorts that he will, but not “before
the time be out.” Angrily and at length, he reminds Ariel of the punishments
the spirit had suffered before Prospero’s arrival. An evil witch named Sycorax
had confined Ariel in the hollow of a tree after Ariel, then her servant, had
righteously refused to obey her evil commands. Then she had died, and Ariel
remained imprisoned for 12 years until Prospero arrived and freed him. By this
act Prospero reveals his own goodness: He harnesses benevolent spiritual forces
and also releases from bondage to evil. If Ariel complains, Prospero threatens,
he will “rend an oak and peg” him in it for another 12 years. This threat is
not a sign of any malignity on Prospero’s part, but an indication of the care
he takes to subdue the passion of self-centered desire. Ariel begs Prospero’s
pardon and promises obedience. Prospero again promises Ariel that he will
have his freedom once this last work is finished. He commands Ariel to go and
transform himself into a sea nymph and return in that shape. Ariel leaves, and
Prospero wakes Miranda. Then he summons the ugly and deformed Caliban,
son of the witch Sycorax.
Caliban is not an airy spirit but a brute creature of the earth, part human,
part beast. Prospero employs Caliban for such tasks as carrying firewood. When
Prospero and Miranda first arrived upon the island, they treated Caliban well and
taught him to speak. He, in turn, showed them secret places on the island where
they could get food. But Caliban’s nature is brutish. He tried to rape Miranda
and populate the island with his offspring. Prospero prevented him; he then
made Caliban his slave rather than his pupil. From then on, Prospero exercised
his control over Caliban by using his magic power to cause Caliban intense pain.
The enslavement of Caliban is not an indication of Prospero’s malevolence,
however. Again, it is an indication of his firm commitment to the suppression of
passionate appetites that place self-interest above social concern. Brutish as he is,
 Summary of The Tempest 7

Caliban delivers much of the loveliest and most evocative poetry in The Tempest.
This situation implies that sensory appreciation is not a sufficient guide for the
exercise of humanity. (Caliban’s later drunkenness, an extreme form of sensual
pleasure, similarly subverts rather than brings out any humanity he might have
[Act II, scene 2].)
After Prospero dismisses Caliban, Ariel returns, magically leading Ferdinand,
the shipwrecked son of Alonso, king of Naples, to Prospero and Miranda. Ariel is
invisible to Ferdinand, but he hears the songs Ariel sings and follows the music.
One song, “Full fathom five thy father lies,” reminds Ferdinand of his father,
whom he believes is drowned.
When Ferdinand and Miranda see each other, they fall in love immediately.
This is what Prospero has planned. But he immediately assumes a forbidding
attitude, seems to oppose their love, and accuses Ferdinand of sneaking onto
the island in order to steal his daughter and take his place. Prospero does
this intentionally, in order to test the strength and virtue of the lovers and
to strengthen their love by making its course difficult—thereby making sure
that love is not only a matter of individual, sensory desire but a deliberate,
intellectual choice.
Miranda is distressed and surprised to see her father thus enraged and so
unlike himself. She tells him that she loves Ferdinand, but Prospero rebuffs
her. When Ferdinand attempts to resist him, Prospero casts a spell that makes
Ferdinand’s muscles powerless. Ferdinand confesses that he is not pained to be
a prisoner as long as he can see Miranda once a day from his prison window.
Miranda tells him not to worry, that her father is of a better nature than what he
seems to be. In an aside to Ariel, Prospero rejoices at their love and promises him
freedom after his work is completed. The young lovers’ attraction to each other
is an assurance that his plans are in harmonious accord with their natures rather
than coercive.

Act II
Scene 1 opens on another part of the island, where several survivors of the
wreck wander about surveying the strange island: Alonso, the shipwrecked
king of Naples; his brother Sebastian; Prospero’s brother, Antonio, the usurping
Duke of Milan; Gonzalo, the counselor who had been kind to Prospero when
he was cast off to sea; and several other courtiers. Gonzalo counsels Alonso not
to give way to despair and to be grateful that they have survived the shipwreck.
Alonso is overcome with fear that his son, Ferdinand, is drowned, but Francisco,
another survivor of the wreck, tells him he saw Ferdinand swimming strongly,
and therefore to have hope. Antonio and Sebastian mock Gonzalo as he offers
Alonso comfort. The conversation reveals that the castaways were returning
from Tunisia, where Alonso has given his daughter, Claribel, in marriage to the
king. Claribel had resisted the marriage but finally obeyed her father, betraying
8 The Tempest

herself. Unlike Prospero, Alonso’s treatment of his daughter has been coercive
rather than in accord with her nature.
As they speak, invisible Ariel enters and casts a sleep spell on everyone except
for Antonio and Sebastian. While the others slumber, Antonio goads Sebastian
to murder Alonso and take his place as king of Naples, just as Antonio had
supplanted Prospero. They draw their swords and are about to murder the king
when Ariel sets up a buzzing in Gonzalo’s ears. He wakes, sees them with swords
drawn, and rouses the king. Sebastian and Antonio say they armed themselves
because they heard a noise like a herd of cattle and were ready to defend the king.
The others accept their explanation and the party, weapons drawn, move to find
a safer spot on the island. Ariel closes the scene, saying he will report to Prospero
what has happened so far.
In scene 2 Caliban is alone, carrying wood for Prospero. He curses Prospero
and describes how the magician’s spirits torment him with cramps and aches for
every small act of defiance. When he sees Trinculo, one of the servants of the
shipwrecked royal party, approaching, Caliban assumes it is one of Prospero’s
agents come to punish him. He lies down, hoping to escape notice. Trinculo,
seeing a storm approaching, looks for a place to take shelter. He sees Caliban’s
form, mostly hidden under the garment he is wearing, and pokes about. Trinculo
believes he has discovered a “monster,” and he reflects that such a creature put
on display in England might make his fortune. Then he hears thunder in the
distance and slips under Caliban’s garment for protection.
Stephano, Alonso’s butler, enters carrying a bottle of wine. He is drunk and
singing a bawdy song. Caliban fears that he too is one Prospero’s spirits about to
hurt him, and he cries out for mercy. This startles Stephano, who wonders what
it is he has come upon. Investigating, Stephano finds Trinculo and Caliban lying
together under Caliban’s garment. But he thinks he has found a four-legged
monster partly in the shape of a man, partly in a more brutish, perhaps fishlike
form. Caliban continues to cry out in fear and Stephano, to calm the strange
monster, pours some of his liquor into his mouth. Trinculo recognizes Stephano’s
voice and calls out his name, to the amazement of the drunken butler. Stephano
drags Trinculo out from under Caliban’s garment.
Caliban, now drunk, studies the two men. He judges them “fine things” and
concludes that Stephano, bearing the bottle, must be a god. Caliban immediately
swears he will serve this “god.” They all drink more, and the two shipwreck
survivors tease Caliban: Stephano says he is the man in the moon. When Caliban
believes him, they are delighted by his gullibility. Caliban promises to show them
all the glories of the island and proclaims his freedom from Prospero.

Act III
In front of Prospero’s cell, in scene 1, Ferdinand is doing Caliban’s work
carrying logs. Miranda enters. Prospero follows her unseen and, like the audience,
 Summary of The Tempest 9

watches the lovers. Miranda pities Ferdinand’s labor and offers to carry the logs.
He asks her name. She tells him and realizes she has violated one of her father’s
commands. They proclaim love for each other. Ferdinand says she is finer than
any woman for whom he may ever have cared. Miranda says that although she
has not seen other men except her father and Caliban to compare him to, she
would want no other but him. She calls him “husband.” He calls her “dearest
mistress.” They take hands and bind their hearts together. They depart in different
directions leaving a delighted Prospero who declares that he cannot be so glad of
their love as they are, but that he could not have a greater gladness at anything
than he has at their union.
When Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo reappear in scene 2, they have
gotten even drunker. Caliban proclaims himself Stephano’s slave and
“footlicker.” They begin to quarrel, Caliban saying that Trinculo mocks
him. Ariel enters invisible and, by throwing his voice, makes it seem that
Trinculo is insulting Caliban, adding to their confusion and making them
more quarrelsome. Caliban explains to Stephano that the island is ruled by a
tyrant and sorcerer who has cheated him out of it. He urges Stephano to seize
Prospero’s magic books, burn them, and kill Prospero; then he could become
king of the island, marry Miranda, and propagate. Trinculo and Stephano
agree to the conspiracy, but Ariel, invisible, makes music sound around them,
amazing and frightening them. Caliban explains to them the enchantments
of the island; the beauty of his language in this speech seems to temper the
brutishness of his character. Unwittingly following Ariel and his attractive
music, they leave the stage.
Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, and their party are on another part of
the island in scene 3. They are also being led around blindly by invisible forces
until Gonzalo proclaims he is too weary to go any farther. Alonso agrees. He
adds that it does not matter to him what they do since he has no hope that his son
Ferdinand is alive. Encouraged by his despair, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to
make a second attempt on Alonso’s life that evening.
Prospero and Ariel enter unseen by the king’s party. As mysterious music
plays, Ariel directs a group of spirits to bring in a table with a banquet set
for the amazed travelers. Before they can begin to eat, however, the banquet
vanishes and Ariel appears in the form of a harpy. Calling Alonso, Sebastian,
and Antonio “three men of sin,” he tells them that they have been spat up on
the island for the wrong they did to Prospero. The men draw their swords, but
their weapons are useless against Ariel’s magic. They will suffer, Ariel warns
the men, unless they repent their evil from the depths of their hearts. Prospero
praises Ariel for his work and announces that he is going to visit Ferdinand
and Miranda. Coming out of his trance, Alonso tells Gonzalo that he heard all
natural phenomenon pronouncing Prospero’s name and his own guilt.
10 The Tempest

Act IV
In scene 1, in front of his cell with Ferdinand and Miranda, Prospero reveals
himself to them and blesses their union. He adds, however, that his blessing
is conditional. Ferdinand must refrain from “breaking Miranda’s virgin knot”
before their wedding. It seems to be less a moral injunction than instruction in
how to balance the forces of nature harmoniously:

If thou dost break her virgin-knot before

All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minister’d,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow: but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both. . . .

This is not a curse but an explanation of how things are and the grand
interconnectedness of everything in creation.
Ferdinand promises that he willingly obeys. Satisfied, Prospero summons
Ariel and commands him to present a masque, a wedding pageant for the lovers.
Then follows a little play within the play. Iris, the goddess of the rainbow; Ceres,
the goddess of agricultural plenty; Juno, the goddess of heaven; and several
nymphs sing, dance, and offer their best wishes of joy and plenty to the couple.
The goddesses pointedly note that Venus and Cupid, representatives of erotic
and self-referential desire, will be absent from the masque.
In the midst of the pageantry, Prospero remembers the plot against him by
Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo. In a sudden fit, he breaks off the masque.
Ferdinand is surprised by the change in Prospero, but Prospero tells him not to
be disturbed. In a famous speech, “Our revels now are ended,” Prospero explains:
What they saw were merely shadows, which have vanished as everything will
vanish, including themselves, for “we are such stuff / As dreams are made on, and
our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” Prospero says he will walk by himself a
bit to “still his beating mind.” Ferdinand and Miranda wish him peace and go
off by themselves.
Alone, Prospero summons Ariel to deal with Caliban and his cohorts.
He commands Ariel to hang fancy garments on a clothes line. The drunken
conspirators enter, soaking wet and contentious, having been led by Ariel’s music
through bogs. Stephano and Trinculo are diverted from their purpose by the
allure of the garments. Caliban warns them to ignore the clothes, saying they are
only a trap. The drunken shipmen are greedy for the glitter, however. When they
reach for the garments, Prospero and Ariel set a pack of fierce dogs upon them.
 Summary of The Tempest 11

Their self-centered desire is a violent passion which turns brutishly against them
in the form of vicious dogs.

Act V
As scene 1 of the play’s final act begins, Prospero appears wearing his magic
robes. He bears his book and magician’s staff, ready to conclude the work he
undertook when first he planned the tempest. Ariel reports that Alonso and his
party are all prisoners, confined to the lime grove in front of his cell. Alonso,
Sebastian, and Antonio are “distracted,” that is, apparently insane. The others
watch them in grief. Ariel observes that the spectacle would be enough to soften
his heart were he human. Prospero agrees with him and explains that he has
set reason above fury and not brought his enemies to him for vengeance but for
reconciliation. At his command, Ariel goes to bring the king’s party to him.
Now alone, Prospero calls upon the elves that haunt hills, brooks, and lakes
and whose powers he has commanded. He reviews the supernatural feats he has
accomplished, like “bedim[ming] the noontide sun,” causing tempests, and even
opening graves to let the sleepers out—perhaps metaphorically alluding to the
past, his own and that of his foes, that he has revived and reordered in The Tempest.
Saying “this rough magic I here abjure,” Prospero vows to surrender his powers,
break his staff, and “drown” his book when his final task is accomplished.
Ariel returns leading the king’s party. They stand, captive, within a charmed
circle. The king, Antonio, and Sebastian are twitching like madmen while the
others watch. Prospero orders “solemn” music. As their troubled spirits are
calmed, he addresses each captive, reintroducing himself. He calls Gonzalo
“honorable” and “good.” He rebukes Alonso for his role in his overthrow and
similarly reprimands Sebastian. Turning to his own brother, he condemns
Antonio’s unnatural ambition in usurping his place and denounces his plot to
murder Alonso. Then Prospero forgives him. As the king’s party wake from his
spell, Prospero changes from his magician’s robe back into court clothing and
sends Ariel to the cove where the ship lies safely anchored, instructing him to
bring the crew to him.
Gonzalo is the first to speak, not realizing what has happened. He offers a
prayer that “some heavenly power guide us out of this fearful country!” Prospero
interrupts him and introduces himself to the king as “the wronged Duke of
Milan.” He embraces Alonso and welcomes him to the island. Dazed, Alonso is
not sure if what is happening is illusion and the result of enchantment or if the
actual Prospero really stands before him. No matter which, Alonso says, since
he has seen Prospero, “Th’ affliction of my mind mends.” He imagines Prospero
has “a most strange story” to tell, and without even being asked returns the
dukedom of Milan to Prospero and begs his pardon for the wrongs he has done
him. Prospero embraces Gonzalo and secretly scolds Sebastian and Antonio for
their plot against Alonso, but he promises not to tell him of it, at least not now.
12 The Tempest

He reviles Antonio again, whom he cannot call his brother, but forgives him and
demands his dukedom back.
Throughout the scene Antonio says nothing. It is the job of the director and
actor (or the reader) to imagine his response, whether he is gracious and penitent;
or resentful, capitulating only because he has no other choice; or whether he
shows some complex amalgam of responses. However Antonio responds, the
focus is on the fact that Prospero is not beholden to that response but to his own
vision of the higher action.
Alonso laments that despite this good fortune, his grief is still great since he
has lost his son, Ferdinand, in the tempest. Prospero commiserates, saying that
he has suffered a similar loss: He has lost his daughter because of the storm.
Alonso speaks what must be Prospero’s very thoughts. “O heavens,” he says,
“that they were living both in Naples, / The King and Queen there!” After
Prospero reassures the company that he is Prospero and shows them the cell
in which he lives, he reveals Ferdinand and Miranda inside, playing a game of
chess. Ferdinand kneels to his astonished father. Miranda, dazzled by the sight
of humanity, cries out: “O, wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here!
/ How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in’t.”
Prospero checks her delicately, having had experience of mankind, and says, “’Tis
new to thee.”
The parents all agree upon the marriage. Gonzalo gives voice to the optimism
that governs the play and is the result of the triumph of reconciliation over revenge.
He tells everyone to “rejoice beyond a common joy,” and asks rhetorically, “Was
Milan thrust from Milan that his issue / Should become kings of Naples.” He
ends by celebrating how “all of us [found] ourselves / When no man was his
own.” Ariel enters with the amazed crew of the ship and leaves again to bring in
Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo. Prospero acknowledges his responsibility for
Caliban. Caliban vows that he was “a thrice-double ass” to take Stephano for a
god, and he promises to be “wise” and to “seek for grace.” Prospero invites the
court party into his small cell to rest. He says that in the morning they can all set
out for Naples, where the wedding of Ferdinand and Miranda will be celebrated.
Then he will go back to Milan, to govern, but “where / Every third thought will
be my grave.”

Epilogue
The stage is clear except for Prospero. He addresses the audience now as a man
like other men, with no magic powers. He is now simply the actor who played
Prospero. He has, he says, no strength but the strength of prayer and begs the
audience to be motivated by charity as was his character and to set him free
from the spell of the island with their applause.
 KEY PASSAGES IN
THE TEMPEST
q

Act I, ii, 1–13

Miranda: If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her,
Dash’d all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
It should the good ship so have swallow’d and
The fraughting souls within her.

Images crowd these lines, creating a verbal representation of the storm drama-
tized in scene 1. In Miranda’s speech Shakespeare reframes the previous scene
and reinterprets it. Miranda questions whether the storm the audience has just
beheld was “real” or one of Prospero’s feats of magical illusion.
Scene 1 seemed to be a representation of an actual shipwreck. But it actually
is the representation of a representation of a shipwreck. Here is a signal that it
is difficult to determine without context the difference between what seems to
be and what is—a theme that has dominated the thought of Shakespeare’s plays
from the days of his earliest comedies.
In these lines Shakespeare also presents an immediate characterization
of Miranda. She is capable of deep feeling; she is generous; and she feels
loving concern for creatures whom she does not know. Moreover, Miranda is
independent of her father in her thinking and aware of his character.
QQQ

13
14 The Tempest

Act I, ii, 13–21

Prospero: Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.
Miranda: O, woe the day!
Prospero: No harm.
I have done nothing but in care of thee,
Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who
Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.

Prospero calms Miranda’s anxiety about the tempest she has just witnessed
before explaining to her their history: He was the Duke of Milan, but his power
was usurped by his brother and they came to the island.
Prospero’s softness of tone in this speech establishes his underlying
tenderness—despite an abrasive manner that surfaces from time to time over the
course of the play. The warmth of the repeated vowel sound in the word “heart”
echoes throughout, even in the word “harm,” now negated by heartfulness,
and in the word “art,” used here as a form of the verb “to be” but recalling the
art of magic. Note how the placement of the word “heart” at the end of a line
emphasizes the heart’s role as a tender organ.
Although Prospero tells Miranda he has done nothing but in care of her and
goes on to describe their past (revealing part of the back story of The Tempest), he
does not tell her what he has done in care of her. It remains for the action of the
play to reveal that. His silence on this matter is important: It assures the freedom
of Miranda’s affections when she meets Ferdinand. Uninformed of her father’s
plan, she cannot be his puppet.
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Act I, ii, 294–296
Prospero: If thou murmur’st, I will rend an oak
And peg thee in his knotty entrails till
Thou has howled away twelve winters.

Prospero’s pique is directed at Ariel—who, having conjured the apparent storm,

has balked at the prospect of more work. Prospero fumes in a second long pas-
sage of exposition, in which he describes his life on the island as a magician.
Prospero’s display of irritability reveals the powerful duality of his personality:
His benign and forgiving intellect is a strong force that he exerts over an equally
 Key Passages in The Tempest 15

strong passionate nature, which he must struggle to subdue. Prospero’s intellect

guides his heart. This stands in contrast to the behavior of the villains of The
Tempest, who allow the lusts of their hearts to commandeer their intellects.
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Act I, ii, 345–364
Prospero: Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have used thee,
Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
Caliban: O ho, O ho! would’t had been done!
Thou didst prevent me; I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
Miranda: Abhorred slave,
Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,
Know thine own meaning, but would gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
With word that made them known. But thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures
Could not abide to be with.
Caliban: You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!

This speech to Caliban (“Abhorred slave . . .”) is Miranda’s in the First Folio
(1623). But in his version of the play in the late seventeenth century, John
Dryden gave it to Prospero, arguing that Prospero had been previously repri-
manding Caliban and that the language is too strong and too intellectual for
Miranda. Lewis Theobald followed suit in the eighteenth century. The two
editors thereby gave Miranda the frail passivity that later feminist critics would
accept and deplore.
The slight to Miranda is not from Shakespeare, however, and text elsewhere in
the play confirms that Miranda had a hand in Caliban’s education. In this scene,
the particular words Caliban uses to describe how he learned to speak indicate
her involvement in the process. When he addresses Prospero, Caliban uses the
singular “thou.” After Miranda’s speech, he uses the plural “you”: “You taught
me language.” Another instance is in Act II (scene 2, line 143). When Stephano
16 The Tempest

claims he is the man in the moon, Caliban replies, “My mistress showed me
thee.” He is referring to Miranda.
Miranda’s remark to Caliban about his ignorance, “thou didst not, savage,
/ Know thine own meaning,” is true at face value: When he had no language,
Caliban could not ask for the things he wanted. But her observation can be
understood in a deeper way as well. Miranda is also saying that, unlike a civilized
person, the savage Caliban did not know what his true meaning was as a human.
In The Tempest, being human is defined as being aware of the humanity of
everyone else. Once again the play’s theme of the clash of animal passion and
human reason—the elements that mix together to form humanity—is evident.
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Act I, ii, 439–441
Prospero: [Aside] At the first sight
They have changed eyes. Delicate Ariel,
I’ll set thee free for this.

Besides expressing his delight, Prospero’s exclamation serves to assure the audi-
ence that the lovers’ enchantment is a result of their effect on each other; it is not
the effect of any enchantment Prospero has wrought upon them. These circum-
stances define Miranda as autonomous, not a subject of her father’s will.
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Act I, ii, 451–463
Prospero: I charge thee
That thou attend me: thou dost here usurp
The name thou owest not; and hast put thyself
Upon this island as a spy, to win it
From me, the lord on’t.
Ferdinand: No, as I am a man.
Miranda: There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with’t.
Prospero: Follow me.
Speak not you for him; he’s a traitor. Come;
I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together:
Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
The fresh-brook muscles, wither’d roots and husks
Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.
 Key Passages in The Tempest 17

Prospero is threatening to turn Ferdinand into Caliban by treating him like

Caliban. Prospero’s stratagem is to allow Ferdinand to show that he is not
Caliban. Miranda will then see the difference between a man and a brute, a
distinction that is especially plain in adversity.
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Act II, i, 118–130
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.

Sebastian is reproaching Alonso, whom he blames for the shipwreck. The ship-
wreck took place on the trip back from Tunisia, and Sebastian attributes the
disastrous event to Alonso’s stubborn decision to marry his daughter, Claribel,
to the king of Tunisia. The salient point is that everyone but Alonso opposed
the marriage, especially Claribel, who implored her father against it but sur-
rendered her will to his.
The relationship between Alonso and Claribel regarding her choice in marriage
stands in contrast to that between Prospero and Miranda. Alonso imposed his
will upon his daughter and used her to serve his ends. Prospero, by contrast, is not
violating Miranda’s will in his efforts to encourage a marriage with Ferdinand.
Through his powers of penetration, Prospero foresaw what his daughter’s will
would be, and he provided for her in pursuit of their mutual interests.
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Act II, i, 144–161
Gonzalo: I’ th’ Commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things: For no kind of traffic
18 The Tempest

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Born, 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. . . .
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweat or endeavor. Treason, felony,
Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have; but nature should bring forth
Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
To feed my innocent people.

Looking at the island they have been cast upon, Gonzalo daydreams of utopia in
this speech. When Sebastian and Antonio mock his vision, he excuses himself
by saying he spoke merely to divert Alonso from the pain over his grief for his
lost son, Ferdinand.
Given the dispositions of men like Antonio and Sebastian, the multiplicity of
nature, and the mutability of fortune, Gonzalo’s speech is obviously wishful and
not realistic. Nevertheless, it suggests another way of wishing, one contrary to the
wishes that motivate Antonio and Sebastian’s attempts against Alonso.
Gonzalo’s last words are quite similar to Prospero’s wishes sung by Ceres
at the wedding masque in Act V, scene 1. Although wishes themselves are
insubstantial, the act of wishing for the good of others is not without value. The
expression of such wishes cultivates a generosity of mind and spirit that manifests
itself in generous actions—actions quite unlike those of the self-centered Antonio
and Sebastian.
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Act II, ii, 137–149
Caliban: I’ll show thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries;
I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. . . .
I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts;
Show thee a jay’s nest and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmoset; I’ll bring thee
To clustering filberts and sometimes I’ll get thee
Young scamels from the rock.
 Key Passages in The Tempest 19

Most of the actual description of the island, like this catalog of promises to
Stephano, comes from Caliban. The current speech entails a survey of the
island. So does Caliban’s speech in Act I, scene 2, when Caliban resentfully
reminds Prospero that he showed him “all the qualities of the isle, / The fresh
springs, brine pits, barren places and fertile” (lines 338–339). And again, in
Act III, scene 2, Caliban gives the audience a sense of the island in his speech
beginning “Be not afeared,” when he explains (lines 126–135) that

the isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not:
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I wak’d
I cried to dream again.

It is striking that Caliban, who is condemned for his brutish disposition—and

demonstrates it—also is given these gorgeous and introspective speeches. It
seems to indicate that even sensibility and introspection, without a governing
virtuous reason, are insufficient.
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Act III, i, 1–15
Ferdinand: There be some sports are painful, and their labour
Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead
And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed,
And he’s composed of harshness. I must remove
Some thousands of these logs and pile them up,
Upon a sore injunction: my sweet mistress
Weeps when she sees me work, and says, such baseness
Had never like executor. I forget:
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,
Most busy lest, when I do it.
20 The Tempest

Ferdinand is serving as Prospero’s drudge, in Caliban’s place. But through his

ability to see beyond immediate things, Ferdinand shows that he is, neverthe-
less, not Caliban. His body is engaged in a grueling and demeaning task, but
his mind is focused on a transcendental ideal.
A few lines later, when Miranda encourages him to rest, Ferdinand declines:
“The sun will set before I shall discharge / What I may strive to do” (lines 22–23).
This is not a complaint, but an acknowledgment and acceptance of his duty.
Ferdinand is a man who is committed to living up to his ideals.
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Act III, iii, 68–82
Ariel: 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.

The invisible Ariel is addressing Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian, who are para-
lyzed by Prospero’s magic. His eerie voice warns that only repentance stands
between them and the just punishment that is their due for having wronged
Prospero. Prospero’s magic eschews coercion; like a spiritual judo it turns his
foes’ own aggression against themselves.
The focus of The Tempest is on Prospero’s ability to command his passions.
He is able to overcome his fury at wrong done to him and to forgive those who
have wronged him, rather than to avenge his wrong and punish them. At the
conclusion of this speech, Ariel presents the problem from the point of view of
those who have wronged Prospero: As Prospero properly must forgive, so they
must repent. As his heart must let go of resentment and rage, so their hearts must
learn to feel sorrow so strongly that they are purged of the inclination toward
doing wrong: Their expiation depends on it.
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 Key Passages in The Tempest 21

Act IV, i, 15–22

Prospero: If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite, be minister’d,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow: but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain, and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed. . . .

Prospero issues this warning to Ferdinand regarding Miranda. The impact of

this speech on readers or audiences tends to be a function of their attitudes
about virginity before marriage. For believers in sexual abstinence until mar-
riage, Prospero’s words need no defense; they represent a common belief. For
those who find premarital chastity antithetical to their beliefs, Prospero’s state-
ment may be just another illustration of his tyrannical, cranky, and patriarchal
nature. Similarly, the words may be read as Prospero’s curse for disobedience.
But Prospero’s speech may also be understood as a timely statement of a fact
of life, independent of his will. As William Butler Yeats wrote in his poem “A
Prayer for My Daughter,” if custom and ceremony are not honored all endeavors
will come to grief. To avoid such sorrow, the lovers must abide by custom.
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Act IV, i, 146–158
Prospero: You do look, my son, in a movèd sort,
As if you were dismayed; be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Prospero addresses this thoughtful valediction for fleeting things to Ferdinand.

By saying “we are such stuff as dreams are made on,” Prospero defines humans
as vehicles for giving substance to the insubstantial. He characterizes humans
22 The Tempest

not as the playthings of superior forces (as Gloucester does, for example, in King
Lear) but as the creators of circumstances borne of human imagination—beings
who can transform ideas into actualities.
Since “our little life is rounded with a sleep,” the only way to preserve the
wonders that humans create is by assuring the continuation of the species.
Through the generation of progeny, what was impermanent gains substance
and becomes enduring. (Shakespeare repeats this idea in several of his first
sonnets.) It is significant, therefore, that as he begins this speech, Prospero calls
Ferdinand “my son.” By finding a husband for his daughter, he has found a son
for himself.
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Act V, i, 17–27
Ariel: Your charm so strongly works ’em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
Prospero: Dost thou think so, spirit?
Ariel: Mine would, sir, were I human.
Prospero: And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ’gaitist my fury
Do I take part.

Ariel remarks that Prospero’s charm works so strongly upon Alonso, Antonio,
and Sebastian that if Prospero saw their suffering, he would “become tender,” as
Ariel imagines he would if he were human. Prospero agrees: He will be moved
to compassion. Prospero’s words do not indicate a sudden softening in response
to Ariel’s remarks. Rather, his speech reveals that forgiveness was his intention
from the start.
Prospero sees himself and his foes as kindred, similar in appetite and passion.
That identification itself is reason enough for compassion, despite the fury that his
resemblance to them also provokes. To assure the workings of tender compassion,
Prospero explains, he serves “nobler reason” (which is what seems to govern Ariel’s
spirit), and not baser passion. Once again, in Prospero’s remarks here, Shakespeare
analyzes the interplay of passion and reason in the context of what is human.
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 Key Passages in The Tempest 23

Act V, i, 33–57
Prospero: Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.

This speech can be understood literally as a recapitulation of the events that

Prospero has accomplished in The Tempest. Metaphorically, for example, he has
opened the grave of an apparently dead past to bring back to life all those who
had, as Gonzalo later says (at line 212), lost themselves.
Alternatively, it can be read outside the context of The Tempest. Prospero’s
magic can thus be understood to represent Shakespeare’s art. The feats of
magic Prospero enumerates can be read symbolically as reviewing the things
Shakespeare did in his plays—dictated the actions of actors, caused storms,
and brought the dead to life (such as English kings and Roman generals).
Commentators have long, fancifully, identified Prospero with Shakespeare
because of these words.
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24 The Tempest

Act V, i, 172–175
Miranda: Sweet Lord, you play me false.
Ferdinand: No my dearest love,
I would not for the world.
Miranda: Yes, for a score of kingdoms, you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.

This exchange between Miranda and Ferdinand is odd. At this climactic

moment, when they and their love are being revealed for the first time to all the
Italian travelers, the lovers are engaged in an argument over a game of chess. It
is, no doubt, not what audiences and readers who have followed the course of
their love would expect to see.
Miranda’s accusation, however, could be taken as an allusion to the story of
Dido and Aeneas (which was referred to in Act II) because it resonates with it.
The story of Dido and Aeneas is essentially the tale of a conflict between love and
empire. Fleeing a Troy that has been conquered by the Greeks, Aeneas lands in
Carthage, where he and Dido, queen of Carthage, fall in love. But his destiny
is to travel on to Italy and become the founder of the Roman Empire. In this
context, Miranda could be indicating that she is aware of the nature of men and
that imperial desires for power are in conflict with the honesty and loyalty implicit
in loving. Unlike Dido, who killed herself out of grief after Aeneas abandoned
her, Miranda is not governed solely by passion. That Miranda would call his
“wrangling” over a “score of kingdoms” “fair play” indicates she understands and
accepts the nature of men. Though passionate in her love, she is not guided by
passion in her understanding or her behavior or theirs.
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Act V, i, 181–184
Miranda: O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!

There are at least two possible interpretations of Miranda’s well-known words.

The cynical or experienced reading is ironic. Her remarks are contrary to
what actually is. The men she sees are not all of them “goodly creatures”; the
would-be murderers Antonio and Sebastian are among them. This reading is
reinforced by Prospero’s retort, “’Tis new to thee.”
There is also a naïve, innocent reading: What Miranda says is true despite
everything. She sees beyond what they did to who they might be. The second
 Key Passages in The Tempest 25

is a less sophisticated, less experienced reading than the first. It has the same
visionary possibility, however, as Gonzalo’s utopian fantasy or her father’s
wedding blessing.
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Act V, i, 205–213
Gonzalo: Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become Kings of Naples? O rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars. In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand her brother, found a wife,
Where he himself was lost: Prospero, his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us, ourselves,
When no man was his own.

Gonzalo suggests that when people do evil, they lose themselves and do not
belong to themselves—that they are not their own. This implies a corollary:
that people are “their own,” that they belong to themselves or are truly only
themselves, when they have been reconciled with one another and live gener-
ously and harmoniously.
Gonzalo is not always entirely trustworthy in his observations. Despite what
he says in this passage, Claribel apparently did not wish to have the husband her
father chose for her, if Sebastian’s speech on the topic is to be believed. In Act
II, scene 1, Sebastian described how Claribel let her obedience to her father stifle
her loathing for her intended husband. Gonzalo’s admonition to Sebastian at the
time, “The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness / And time to speak it in,”
appears to confirm that Sebastian was speaking accurately.
Although Gonzalo clearly has a penchant for sweetening things, his
observation reinforces the approach that has governed Prospero: disavowal of
revenge and pursuit of reconciliation.
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Act V, Epilogue
Now my charms are all o’erthrown,
And what strength I have’s mine own,
Which is most faint: now, ’tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
26 The Tempest

And pardon’d the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon’d be,
Let your indulgence set me free.

As Ariel was confined in a hollow tree when Prospero first arrived on the
island, so at the end of The Tempest, Prospero sees himself confined, impris-
oned, on the island. Just as Ariel needed Prospero’s “charms” to release him
from his confinement, now Prospero needs the viewer’s “spell” to free him from
his confinement.
Thus, as the actor who has played Prospero performs the conventional
task of asking for the audience’s applause, Prospero transfers his power to the
audience. As he could release Ariel, the audience can release him. And in that
act of releasing others from the bonds of one’s imagination, he implies, the
viewers release themselves from a bondage to resentment. This is the feat he has
accomplished by generating the action of The Tempest.
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 LIST OF CHARACTERS IN
THE TEMPEST
q

Prospero had been the duke of Milan until 12 years before the opening of The
Tempest. More devoted to the study of the liberal arts and the practice of magic
than to governing, Prospero had delegated most of his authority to his brother,
Antonio. But Antonio overthrew Prospero and set him adrift at sea with his
infant daughter, Miranda. Their small boat landed on an island inhabited only
by spirits and the evil witch who ruled them, along with her son. Through the
power of his magic, Prospero overcame the power of the witch, Sycorax, and
assumed command of the spirits and of her son, Caliban.

Miranda is Prospero’s daughter. Until those who were shipwrecked appeared

on the island, she had never seen another human being but her father. When
she sees Ferdinand, she falls in love with him. She persists in loving him despite
her father’s first, apparent objections. She is sweet-natured, smart, and dutiful,
yet not submissive.

Ariel is a spirit who performs magic on Prospero’s behalf. When Prospero

arrived on the island, Ariel was confined in a tree because he had refused to
perform the wicked commands of the witch Sycorax. Prospero freed Ariel from
that prison but did not grant him liberty. Prospero promises to free Ariel after
his present enterprise is completed successfully. That Ariel agreed to this servi-
tude attests to the benevolence of Prospero’s magic.

Alonso is king of Naples. He is returning from Tunisia, where he has given his
daughter, Claribel, in marriage to the king of Tunisia, against her will. Twelve
years before the events of the play, he conspired with Prospero’s brother,
Antonio, to overthrow Prospero and make Antonio duke of Milan.

Sebastian is the brother of Alonso, the king of Naples. Antonio convinces

Sebastian to kill Alonso and become king.

Ferdinand is the son of Alonso, the king of Naples. He has been cast upon
Prospero’s island alone, cut off from his father’s party, and he thinks that his
27
28 The Tempest

father has been drowned. When Ferdinand sees Miranda, he falls in love with
her. He is virtuous and hardworking.

Adrian is a courtier stranded with Alonso’s group.

Antonio overthrew his brother, Prospero, and became duke of Milan 12 years
before the events of The Tempest. By his orders Prospero and Miranda were set
adrift at sea. Now Antonio is among those cast up on Prospero’s island.

Gonzalo is a wise and tired old counselor to Antonio. He had helped Prospero
at the time of his expulsion from Milan, supplying him with provisions and the
most important volumes from his library. On the island he works to keep up
Antonio’s cheer.

The boatswain is one of the crewmen who battles the storm and must contend
with the angry and panicked passengers in the first scene.

Caliban is a monster, partially human, partially beast. He is the son of the

witch Sycorax and is Prospero’s slave, employed to do his drudgery. Prospero
had once tried to tame and teach him, but Caliban remained a brute and
attempted to rape Miranda. Prospero controls and punishes Caliban, through
his magic, with physical pain. When the shipwrecked crew arrive on the island,
Caliban gets drunk with Alonso’s jester and butler, takes the butler for a god,
and makes him his new master. Caliban convinces them to murder Prospero
and take control of the island.

Stephano is Alonso’s butler. On the island, he finds a cask of wine from the
ship, and he is drunk throughout the play. When Caliban likewise gets drunk,
he thinks Stephano is a god and convinces him to overthrow Prospero, take
Miranda for his wife, and rule the island.

Trinculo is Alonso’s jester and Stephano’s friend. He participates in Caliban’s

drunken plot to kill Prospero.

Ceres is the goddess of grain. She appears in the wedding masque Prospero
presents to Ferdinand and Miranda to offer fecundity.

Iris is the goddess of the rainbow. She appears in Prospero’s wedding masque
for Ferdinand and Miranda, representing a bridge between heaven and earth.

The goddess Juno appears in Prospero’s wedding masque, bringing heaven’s

blessing to the lovers.