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OLLI Sea-Change: Shakespeare, John Smith, and the New World Republic
Spring 2021 Richard Welsh
Shakespeare’s The Tempest: What Happens
March 8, 2021
On Reading Shakespeare (for the uninitiated, and for the rest of as well):
Reading a play by Shakespeare is admittedly harder than reading a Wikipedia entry, even for
many who have devoted much time and passion to the effort. But it is worth the effort. And
even for professionals – actors, directors, scholars who toil in the Shakespeare Industry – the
road has plenty of bumps, potholes, and occasional washed-out bridges. Not to mention traffic
jams, spinouts, and episodes of road rage! – because Shakespeare has something for everyone,
and those somethings don’t always seem to agree.
The following plot summaries of The Tempest are provided to assist those who are new to this
challenging pleasure, and also those who aren’t. If you are not familiar with the play, it may
prove useful to read one or both of these before embarking. Spoiler alert: they will not spoil
the fun! In fact, a bit of advance knowledge puts you in the company of the original
Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, many of whose attendees already knew the pre-existing
histories or fictional stories that Shakespeare raided for the scaffolding of his plays. What they
did not know was how he would modify them, often drastically, to serve his own, new,
purposes. And, probably, only the most dedicated devotees would get all the in-jokes, and
carefully veiled topical allusions.
A minor aside: It’s actually quite misleading to call Shakespeare an “Elizabethan”
artist. His active career covered something over fifteen years in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and ten under King James, that latter mature stretch including about a third
of his plays and the larger share of his major tragedies (Othello, King Lear, Antony
and Cleopatra, Coriolanus), as well as all of the so-called “romances” or “romantic
tragi-comedies.” He lived, in fact, in a time of great historical and cultural flux – a
crucial context for his plays, and for this course.
The difficulties most people encounter with Shakespeare are essentially of two types:
language and culture. Language difficulties include unfamiliar vocabulary, occasional small
grammatical differences, and the poetry itself, which is often condensed and allusive,
especially in the later plays. A subset of vocabulary difficulties is that there are a number of
words that a modern reader might think he or she knows, but which had different meanings in
Shakespeare’s time, sometimes matters of subtle connotation, sometimes outright contrast. A
glossary of some of these is provided in a separate document.
1The cultural difficulty includes both the fact of our societies being so different, and also the
different role that theater itself had in Shakespeare’s London than in today’s English-speaking
world. For the scale of social differences, a few images can suffice: modern punishments no
longer include disemboweling of the living prisoner on a public stage; state-enforced standard
religions are no longer universal, nor religion used as an arm of the state in much of the world;
and some of us, at least, no longer give much of a hoot for royalty, still less care to defer to
those 5% who are “gentlemen born”; nor, if we are women of any social class, must we regard
our husbands as lords, and rarely have title to property in our own names. Life expectancies
(including vast infant, child, and maternal mortality, frequent surges of bubonic plague, and
occasional famines), general health standards otherwise, rates of literacy, distribution of
education, and rural vs. urban population ratios were all radically different. Some of these
differences, in fact, form the marrow of our course.
As for the role of theater, it had become one of England’s most powerful mass-media, just
within Shakespeare’s own lifetime, second only to the pulpit, and often seen as a threat to it.
For the illiterate majority of the population, it was an educational eye-opener, as well as an
often bawdy and crass entertainment. The thrill it gave to its audiences, and the fear and
anxiety it stoked in its enemies – often precisely because of its influence (real or imagined) on
mass audiences – in some ways mirrors our relationship to the internet today, or any sudden
appearance of a new medium of mass communication. Indeed, the internet is now, in 2021, at
about the same point in terms of decades and generations, that the London theater had reached
in the mid-1590s, when Shakespeare was cresting to the wide appeal he was to command until
he retired some twenty years later.
So, for all of these reasons, the following summaries of our subject play.
There is a short version and a long one. The difference between the two, aside from length, is
that the short one attempts to represent “just the facts” (though even that depends on
subjective judgment); whereas the longer includes discussion of major and minor thematic
elements, likely or possible theatrical effects, and issues that pertain to this course in
particular. Any attempt to summarize a Shakespeare – or any other – play in a short text will
inevitably be colored by how its writer views the subject, and these are no exception. I
believe, however, that they do no serious injustice to either the play or its author.
2What Happens in The Tempest: Summary
Buffeted by a terrifying hurricane, a ship’s passengers and crew are wrecked on a mysterious
island. The island is inhabited by Prospero (the deposed Duke of Milan and a powerful
magician); Miranda, his 14-year-old daughter; Caliban, a not-quite-human slave; and Ariel
and other magical spirits who are also compelled to do his bidding. It was Prospero who
conjured the storm, knowing that the ship contained two enemies: Antonio, the brother who
twelve years before had usurped his title when he abandoned state responsibilities to bury
himself in his books, setting him and infant Miranda adrift to perish at sea; and Alonso, King
of Naples, who had backed the coup in exchange for Antonio’s making Milan subject to
Naples. Along with them are King Alonso’s own brother Sebastian; son Ferdinand; old
counselor Gonzalo; and two servants, butler Stephano and jester Trinculo. Prospero’s spirit
Ariel has brought all of them unharmed to shore and scattered them around the island in three
groups: the nobility; the two comedic-character servants; and Ferdinand by himself.
We learn the backstory of Prospero’s encounter with Ariel and Caliban when the exiled
scholar-magus first arrived on the island. Ariel had been pinned in a tree by Caliban’s mother,
a witch exiled to the island, who then died, leaving the spirit trapped. Prospero freed him, and
Ariel became his indentured servant, now nearing the end of his service term. Caliban had
been taken into Prospero’s abode, where Prospero, and later Miranda, gave him language and
other knowledge. After he attempted to rape Miranda, Prospero reduced him to slavery,
enforced by punishments exacted by spirits of the island.
Ariel prods Prospero to grant him his promised freedom. Prospero is roused to frequent angers
by this, by Caliban’s cursing reluctance to obey, and by undiminished bitterness over of the
wrongs done him and his daughter.
The shipwrecked characters:
Ariel lures Ferdinand to Prospero’s dwelling place, where the prince and Miranda fall in love.
Prospero feigns anger, overpowering Ferdinand with his magic, and sets him the task of
hauling thousands of logs, ostensibly as punishment but really to test his love for Miranda.
In a scene of slapstick comedy, the jester Trinculo encounters the monstrous Caliban, the
confused two of them encountered in turn by the drunken Stephano. Caliban mistakes them
for gods, and vows to serve them in exchange for Stephano’s killing Prospero and taking over
the island, with the additional enticement that Stephano can then marry the beautiful Miranda.
The noble party searches for Ferdinand, as the king grieves his loss, Gonzalo attempts to
console him with learned but foolish stories, and is in turn mocked by the cynical Antonio and
Sebastian. Paralleling the plot by the comic lowlifes, the two nobles move to assassinate both
king and counselor, to make Sebastian king of Naples, but are thwarted by Ariel. Later, spirits
3set a sumptuous table before the exhausted and famished wanderers. They reach out to eat,
only to be confronted by Ariel in the form of a terrifying harpy which pronounces a curse on
them for their attempt on Prospero’s life, driving the king and the two murderous nobles into
madness, and Gonazlo into grief for them.
Back at his cell, Prospero is satisfied that Ferdinand has passed his test, and puts on a
magnificent show for the young ones with spirits portraying goddesses and others dancing and
blessing the forthcoming marriage. But then, in a sudden rage, he abruptly calls off the
masque, to deal with the still-operational plot by Caliban and the Neapolitan lowlifes, setting
spirit dogs to hunt them.
The nobles, followed by the lowlifes, are all brought to Prospero, who with beautiful music
releases them from their madness, reveals himself to them, forgiving his brother (while
warning both him and Sebastian that he still has his eye on them), reconciling with the king
who has sought forgiveness, embracing Gonzalo, and producing the happy young couple.
Having renounced his “rough magic” and accepted his mortality, he prepares to return to his
dukedom in Milan after accompanying all to Naples for the forthcoming marriage ceremony.
Caliban, ruing his mistaking the drunken louts for gods, vows to seek for grace hereafter, and
Ariel is given his freedom “to the elements.”
4What Happens in The Tempest: Detail
1.1
Scene: Shipboard. Thunder & lightning; much shouting.
A royal entourage including Alonso the King of Naples; his brother Sebastian and son
Ferdinand; his chief counselor Gonzalo; and Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan, are caught
in a frightful storm at sea, where survival appears impossible. Some of these (chiefly the
enraged and abusive Antonio and Sebastian) accost the mariners, demanding deference to
their rank, while the seamen in turn demand that the nobles either help with the desperate
labor of staying afloat, or get below, to cease hindering the strenuous work. The scene is
short, loud, and chaotic, ending with a chorus of mingled regrets and prayers, as crew and
passengers alike resign themselves to the ship’s splitting and sinking.
1.2
Scene: There is a sudden transition to calm. We are on the island in front of Prospero’s cell,
where he and his 14-year old daughter Miranda converse.
We see Prospero to possess a powerful art, by which he conjured up the storm; and
Miranda as possessed of a meltingly kind charity. He assures her that all on shipboard have
survived without harm; and reveals that the time has come to tell her their true history. He is
not merely her father, but they the rightful Duke of Milan and his noble daughter, alone on
this island because his brother Antonio had usurped the title and set them out to sea to die
(facilitated by Prospero’s having abandoned himself to his studies, while leaving affairs of
state to the more worldly Antonio).
Prospero hails the operation of divine providence, in explaining their remaining afloat
and landing on this island, assisted also by the kind charity of Naples’ old counselor Gonzalo,
who furnished them with clothing, food, water, and other necessaries, as well as Prospero’s
powerful books.
Throughout this long discussion, Prospero is roused to dark angers in his
preoccupation with the wrongs done him, thrice thinking Miranda’s attention has wandered
though she has been listening intently. The dramatic tale concluded, he notes that fortune has
now turned in his favor, in delivering his enemies to him, and he must move now to seize the
opportunity. He induces Miranda to sleep, and beckons in his servant Ariel, a spirit of the air.
5Shift: No change of scene, but with Miranda asleep, attention shifts to Prospero and Ariel.
Prospero seeks and obtains Ariel’s confirmation of “mission accomplished”: the
raising of the storm; scaring the voyagers out of their wits; and then landing them unharmed,
to where they are scattered into several groups, each thinking the others drowned. This report
is shared with glee and rousing detail, Ariel’s presentation recreating some of the adrenaline
of the opening storm scene.
Prospero is about to deploy the spirit on a follow-up mission, when Ariel reminds him
that it is time to be granted his freedom. Roused again to anger, Prospero reminds him the
time is not quite yet, and that were it not for him, the spirit would still be painfully imprisoned
in a cleft tree where the long-deceased witch Sycorax had pinned him for refusing her horrible
commands. Sycorax and her island-born, monstrous, son Caliban (like Ariel, now a servant in
bondage to Prospero) were not themselves native islanders, having been exiled here from
Algiers for unspecified crimes.
Chastised, Ariel begs pardon and agrees to work with a good will, while Prospero
promises him freedom in two days more, and sends him off to assume the form of a sea-
nymph, making himself invisible to all but Prospero (and us, the theater audience), which he
remains for the duration of the play; and to return for further instruction.
Prospero awakens Miranda, calls in Caliban to receive orders, and whispers a
command to Ariel, briefly returned, who hastens away to fulfill it.
Shift: Again no change of scene, but now the dialogue shifts to Prospero and Caliban, with
Miranda joining in.
Caliban, a deformed, not altogether human-looking creature, has entered cursing
Prospero, who threatens him with punishment for it. The servant laments his fate, cursing
Prospero again while pining for the days when he, sole inhabitant, was therefore king of the
island, which Prospero stole from him; and pining also for Prospero’s early days on the island,
when Prospero was kind, and Caliban showed him the island’s resources. An angered
Prospero, joined by Miranda, reminds him that he was treated as one of the family, and not
bound to slavery until he tried to rape Miranda, and that they had given him – a mere brute
before – knowledge of language and much besides. Caliban gloats in recollection of the
wished-for rape, continues cursing, and sullenly accedes to the orders to fetch fuel, since he
has no power to resist Prospero’s threatened punishments, and “I must eat my dinner,” exiting.
Entering right after Ariel’s departure, Caliban’s similarities with the spirit – both servant to
Prospero, both inhabitants of the island before Prospero, both desiring freedom, and neither
one a normal human being – serves to highlight their opposite natures otherwise: willing
labor, to be rewarded with freedom vs. anger and violence; air vs. earth (thought of then as
primary elements); spiritual & creative vs. concrete, “earthbound,” body- and object-focused.
6Shift: No change of scene, but the tone shifts yet again.
Ariel returns, playing music and singing (“Come unto these yellow sands”), drawing
with him the entranced youth Ferdinand, son to the King of Naples. The song breaks up into
dog barks and cock crows. Ferdinand has been comforted by the sweet music, from grieving
over the death of his father just witnessed, and seeks to follow it. Ariel sings again (“Full
fathom five”), and again the music dissolves into into death-knelling bells for the seeming-
drowned king.
Miranda expresses amazement to her father – Ferdinand does not see them yet – over
the beauty of this new creature, the first man she has ever seen besides Prospero and Caliban.
Ferdinand seeing her, the two young people fall immediately in love. Prospero intervenes,
calling Ferdinand a spy and attempted usurper, while letting the audience know that he
actually desires the match, but must put them to the test, “lest too light winning make the prize
light.” Tempers rising, Ferdinand denies the charges, and drawing his sword, is paralyzed by
Prospero’s magic. Miranda, upset by her father’s rage, hangs upon him, pleading for
Ferdinand, but Prospero furiously rebuffs her, making Ferdinand his prisoner. While Miranda
tries to cheer her new love with assurances that this is not her father’s true character, Prospero
commends Ariel for a job well done, tells him of further tasks to be accomplished, and again
promises him imminent freedom.
2.1
Scene: Another part of the island; the royal party
After the previous very long scene, consisting primarily of Prospero interacting with a
sequential series of characters (Miranda, Ariel, Caliban, Ferdinand), we shift to this entirely
different set of characters, seen only briefly in the opening tempest scene. This is the second
party of shipwrecked passengers, victims, like Ferdinand, of the contrived illusion of having
seen all but themselves drowned.
The larger tonal shift is from the heightened strangeness of the previous scene –
spirits, mysterious and enchanting music, invisible forces, monstrous creatures, and long
years’ subsistence on a desert island by the artificial society of a man who can control nature
and his daughter – replaced now, by normal, familiar types of people, dealing with normal
human concerns, albeit of exalted rank. These concerns are foremost, the king’s unbreachable
grief over his son’s death, his counselor Gonzalo’s good hearted but clumsy and pedantic
attempts to console him, and the cynical wisecracking at Gonzalo’s expense by the very
worldly Sebastian and Antonio. In his attempt to divert the king, Gonzalo indulges a fantasy
of what he would do with this island were it his to govern, equating his commonwealth with
the classical Golden Age, in which no work need be done, but nature provides all necessaries
7unaided; there would be none of the frivolities, complications and corruptions of modern
society (wine, oil, metal; courtiers, lawyers, suits, arguments, private property and so forth),
no weapons or war, no sovereignty (“yet,” remarks cynical Sebastian, “he would be king
on’t”). Well-read members of the audience would recognize Gonzalo’s speech as lifted from
French writer Michel de Montaigne’s satiric “On Cannibals,” which sharply challenged
Europeans’ complacent belief in their moral superiority over “primitive” peoples, recently
translated with his other essays into English.
Ariel arrives and induces sleep in all but Sebastian and Antonio. At Antonio’s urging,
these two conspire to murder the sleeping king and Gonzalo, and for Sebastian to seize his
brother’s crown as Antonio had Prospero’s. As they are about to strike, Ariel returns to
awaken the sleepers, who, alarmed at the sight of the drawn weapons, are assured by the
plotters that the swords were out for defense against a roaring of lions, a quickly-concocted
cover story. All draw, and move on, for fear of the local dangers, and to continue the search
for Ferdinand. Though the lions were a fiction, we are reminded of the mysteriousness of the
island.
2.2
Scene: Another part of the island
After the tension of the preceding scene, and much of what went before that, this one
is an exceedingly funny “lowlife” scene, including sight-gags and elements of social satire.
Although different in tone from the previous scene with the nobles, an important continuity is
the violent breakdown of social order in the face of ego- and rage-driven ambitions.
Caliban enters with a load of wood, cursing his fate, while thunder rumbles. Seeing a
man approach, he takes this to be a spirit conjured by Prospero to torment him for tarrying in
his chores, and hides under his cloak. The man is the jester Trinculo, who, fearful of the
coming storm, seeks shelter, and comes upon Caliban. At firsts he takes the deformed creature
for a fish, dead perhaps; then some monster (which would make his fortune in England were
he there to display the curiosity); finally an islander; and crawls under the cloak to keep off
the rain.
Stephano, the king’s butler appears with bottle in hand, singing drunkenly. A hilarious
slapstick routine ensues as he mistakes the two cloaked figures for a four-legged, two-headed
monster, while Caliban fears torment by Prospero’s spirits. Stephano plies Caliban with
alcohol, and delights with Trinculo in their re-connection and survival, while Caliban (primed
by drink and awed by these apparent celestial gods) swears worshipful fealty to the
opportunistic butler.
The scene ends with Caliban’s crude and triumphant song in celebration of his
newfound supposed “freedom” (which is in fact just the substitution of one master – a
8drunken lout – for another). He is often portrayed as dancing about the stage, and throwing
down the wood he carried on at the beginning of the scene, since he need no longer “fetch in
firing / At requiring.”
3.1
Scene: In front of Prospero’s cell.
There is a radical shift in tone, from cacophony to quiet, but an important part of the
action mimics the previous scene, and in doing so, vividly contrasts with it, emphasized by the
change in tone. Ferdinand enters, himself carrying wood as Caliban had, but pointedly
observing that it is a willing labor he does, as “some kinds of baseness are nobly undergone”
because the prize is so rich – Miranda, for the mere sight of whom “this wooden slavery” is
worth it. The contemporary audience would also be keenly aware that the labor is not only
physically taxing, but even more important, socially degrading beyond comparison – a prince
and now probable king forced to manual labor when even the lowest of ordinary gentlemen
would consider it an insult and disgrace. An even more knowing audience would see in this
scene a re-enactment of the real-world events that followed the wreck of the Virginia
Company ship “Sea Venture” on Bermuda (thought previously to be an “isle of devils,” and
big news but months before), where the high-ranking leaders volunteered, to the wonderment
of observers, to carry timbers so their carpenter could build a new vessel for their deliverance.
Even without this reference point, the audience would see a vivid contrast with the nobility’s
behavior and ideology in the play’s opening scene, when they refused to assist in saving the
ship, even to save their own lives.
Miranda enters, and pitying Ferdinand for both the challenges – the physical and the
social/moral - attempts to take the burden on herself, while he rebuffs her efforts. They swear
their love for each other and intention to marry, a rather hubristic commitment since neither –
Miranda in particular – has official permission; though Prospero, watching the encounter, is
delighted, as this is part of his larger plan, to which he must now return.
3.2
Scene: Elsewhere on the island.
We are again in the lowlife company, Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban, more drunk
than ever. The previous scene of Ferdinand and Miranda has been rather short – less than half
the length of the lowlife scene preceding it – so we are being increasingly whip-sawed
between emotional tones and modes of being, between contrasts and parallels. Snarling,
murderous nobles – snarling, drunken lowlife – loving, selfless young lovers – back to the
lowlife, now degenerating even further.
Ariel (unseen as always) enters, and mischievously provokes strife between Trinculo
and Stephano, the latter now Caliban’s lord and protector. Caliban organizes Stephano to a
9conspiracy to murder Prospero in his sleep, making Stephano king of the island and taking the
beautiful Miranda for his wife, mirroring the Antonio-Sebastian plot to murder King Alonso
and usurp his title. Ariel determines to inform Prospero of the conspiracy.
Drunk and happy with his prospects, Caliban asks Stephano to sing again a song he
had done before. The lyrics are ironic and anarchic (“Scout ’em and flout ’em! / Thought is
free”), but Caliban notes the tune is wrong. Ariel plays music – the proper tune - which by
contrast is beautiful, though terrorizing Stephano that devils are afoot; but Caliban, roles
reversed, reassures him, revealing in the process his own capacity to appreciate beauty. We
begin to see the creature’s greater rationality, or at least reality-orientation, than that of his
Neapolitan masters, when he reminds Stephano – exulting in the prospect of free music when
he is king – that he won’t get there until he’s taken care of Prospero’s murder.
3.3
Scene: Elsewhere on the island
Back to the King and his companions, the juxtaposition perhaps reminding us of the
parallel murder and usurpation plots, and suggesting that there’s really no difference between
the high-born and the low since both succumb so easily to evil temptations. Gonzalo and the
king are exhausted, and the king agrees they should rest as he has also now given up hope of
finding his son alive. The two conspirators renew their agreement and pledge to do the murder
that night.
Accompanied by “solemn and strange music,” strangely shaped figures gracefully
dance in, and lay out a sumptuous banquet to the relief and amazement of the tired, hungry
wanderers – but just as they are about to eat, Ariel appears in the form of a terrifying harpy
and the feast disappears. He accuses the three of their crimes, and drives them into madness.
The king is overcome with terror and guilt at Ariel’s invocation of Prospero, concluding that
his own complicity in the duke’s overthrow and murder is the reason for his son’s death.
Gonzalo urges the attendant lords to follow the three madmen to protect them from
themselves.
Prospero praises Ariel for his work, notes that his magic powers are holding up well,
and leaves his enemies bound up in their madness to attend solicitously to Ferdinand and
Miranda.
4.1
Scene: In front of Prospero’s cell.
Another radical tone shift, from the loud and terrifying drama of the harpy and
madmen sword-fighting with the air, to a calm and loving encounter between Prospero and the
two young lovers. Prospero tells Ferdinand the harsh punishments were but a test, and that he
10now gives Miranda to him, though with stern – indeed curse-threatening – warnings not to
violate her virginity before proper marriage ceremony. He tasks Ariel to bring in a cast of
other spirits, who put on a musical pageant for the couple in which three goddesses descend to
earth to bless their union, followed by a graceful dance of water nymphs and peasant
harvestmen.
Shift: Same scene, but sudden change of tone
Prospero realizes he had forgotten the Caliban-Stephano conspiracy, and barks out
commands that abort the show. In great agitation, he delivers a speech on the transiency of
everything, from the spirits that have just vanished into air, on to “the great globe itself” (quite
a double-entendre in the Globe Theater!) and everything on it, including our very mortal lives.
Our life itself may be an illusion, he suggests – “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”
Ferdinand and Miranda wish him well and depart, while Prospero consults with Ariel
on dealing with the conspirators. Ariel confesses that he thought of telling Prospero about
them, but held back in fear “lest I might anger thee” – Prospero almost, therefore, his own
worst enemy. Ariel continues that he has stalled and tormented the three, leading them
through piercing thorns and putrid swamps; Prospero rails at what a waste it was for him to try
to civilize Caliban.
Ariel hangs out rich, glistening apparel, which has the intended effect of captivating
Stephano and Trinculo. These two, moaning over their recent misfortune, fantasize and caper
about in the royal-appearing clothes, while the increasingly frantic Caliban begs them to
ignore such trash lest their noise and delay sabotage the murder mission. Prospero and Ariel,
observing the while, are joined by spirits in the form of hunting dogs, which, with great
shouting, they loose onto the miscreants, driving them off the stage.
Prospero pauses to assess the progress of his plan: “at this hour / Lies at my mercy all
mine enemies. / Shortly shall all my labors end, and thou / Shalt have the air at freedom,” and
exits with Ariel.
5.1
Scene: Unchanged, still by the cell.
Quiet again: Prospero, now robed in his magic garment, returns with Ariel, and they
confer on the fate of the noble party. Ariel reports on the guilty ones’ madness, and Gonzalo’s
mourning for them – “that if you now beheld them, your affections / Would become tender.”
“Dost thou think so, spirit?” asks Prospero. The startling reply, “Mine would, sir, were I
human,” takes Prospero much aback, that Ariel, “which are but air” should have more feeling
for suffering humans than he, one of their own kind. He resolves now to lift their torment,
“the rarer action” being “in virtue than in vengeance,” seeking only their repentance. A few
11within the audience might recognize this as another borrowing from Montaigne, from the
Frenchman’s essay “On Cruelty.”
Ariel departs to bring them in, while Prospero invokes all the elves and spirits over
which he has had terrifyingly powerful command, bidding them to bring some heavenly music
that will break the charm over his victims, whereupon he will abandon his “rough” magical
powers forever. The learned audience would recognize this speech as lifted from the mythical
Greek witch Medea, in Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a well-known work and frequent
source for Shakespeare.
The nobles arrive and slowly emerge from their trances. Prospero reveals himself to
them, forgives his brother (though not without condemnation for his deeds), and embraces the
king and Gonzalo. He opens a curtain on his cell, showing Ferdinand and Miranda playing
chess. The king and Ferdinand are overjoyed to find each other living; Miranda is awestruck
at the mass of humanity before her: “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That
has such people in’t!” (“brave” means handsome, not courageous).
Gonzalo thanks the gods and marvels at the wonderful redemption of all, though not
noticing that not quite everybody is reconciled and honest (Prospero had warned Antonio and
Sebastian that, if he wanted, he could have them condemned for traitors to the king, but
keeping them under threat, would forebear “at this time.”)
Ariel comes in with the dumbfounded mariners, just awakened from the long sleep in
which he had left them, who report that their ship is in perfect condition; and then brings in
the three lowlife characters, still drunk and wearing the pilfered apparel. Caliban determines
to “be wise hereafter, / And seek for grace,” ruing his having mistaken a drunkard for a god.
Prospero treats him commandingly but without the anger he has vented heretofore, offering to
pardon Caliban’s murder conspiracy if he does his next task well.
With the king, he looks forward to the young people’s marriage in Naples and his own
return to Milan and the life of a mortal man, promising calm seas and good winds for the
return. With that the final command, he frees Ariel. All exit.
Epilogue
Scene: Prospero alone on the stage
Prospero delivers a powerful epilogue, speaking simultaneously as actor and character,
which is common enough in epilogues. However, while the speech includes the customary
solicitation of applause – and, in this case, unusually, prayer – it eschews the equally standard
apology for any offense given, concluding with a rare stern charge to the audience that “As
you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgence set me free.”
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