FERDINAND   The ditty does remember my drowned father;

This is no mortal business nor no sound

That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.

PROSPERO     [to Miranda]   The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,

And say what thou seest yond.

MIRANDA                                                      What is’t, a spirit?

Lord, how it looks about. Believe me, sir,

It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit. (1.2.406-412)

Ferdinand, wondering and wondering, amazed that the music not only speaks to his emotional state, but seems to speak to his own plight, my drowned father (father, not king, now). The song remembers, commemorates, memorialises, but also re-members, gives a body to, reanimates, however strangely. But it’s unearthly, not of this world, uncanny, and it moves around (there is probably still being music played from the gallery over the stage as Ferdinand speaks, even if Ariel is no longer playing and singing). And now, open your eyes, Miranda, and look over here, says Prospero. (Has he, or has Shakespeare, forgotten that he woke her some hundred lines previously? Has she nodded off again? Or is she daydreaming, like Ferdinand, lost in wonder at the music? Can she even hear the music?) Prospero might just be telling her to take a good look, open her eyes wide, of course. And he’s not requesting information; he’s interested in her reaction, this young woman, his daughter, entirely his creature (no matter how beloved). Other than her father, this is the first fully human person (and man, specifically) that Miranda has ever seen. (See the discussion of Caliban in earlier posts; both he and Ariel are, of course, played by human actors.) But she has no human frame of reference: it’s a spirit, definitely a spirit. Nice to look at, mind, fine, handsome, comely – it carries a brave form – but a spirit all the same. And Ferdinand goggles back: Lord, how it looks about, Miranda says.