SEBASTIAN    Prithee, say on;

The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim

A matter from thee, and a birth, indeed,

Which throes thee much to yield.

ANTONIO                                                       Thus, sir:

Although this lord of weak remembrance—this

Who shall be of as little memory

When he is earthed—hath here almost persuaded

(For he’s a spirit of persuasion, only

Professes to persuade) the King his son’s alive,

’Tis as impossible that he’s undrowned

As he that sleeps here swims.

SEBASTIAN                                        I have no hope

That he’s undrowned.

ANTONIO                                           O, out of that ‘no hope’,

What great hope have you! No hope that way is

Another way so high a hope that even

Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,

But doubt discovery there. (2.1.228-243)

 

Do go on, says Sebastian; not only are they now both in verse (with a lot of shared lines) but they are being carefully polite to each other. A formal dance in which they both know what’s at stake (treason, possibly murder) but they still have to go through the first careful steps. I can tell from your expression that you’ve got a matter, something serious to say; the metaphor here – which throes thee much to yield – is of childbirth, throes as labour, and here a birth that’s being difficult, taking time. (Iago, beginning his plotting in Othello: ‘It is engendered. Hell and night | Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light’, 1.3.) This lord of weak remembrance is Gonzalo (and here Antonio gets in a cruel comment: he’s not only got a bad memory, no one’s going to remember him when he’s earthed, when he’s dead and buried). And Gonzalo has almost persuaded the king (persuasion’s the only thing he’s good at; the suggestion is perhaps that Gonzalo’s physically weak, not a man of action) that Ferdinand his son is still alive. But surely that’s impossible, that Ferdinand is undrowned, as impossible as this man here sleeping, swimming(Gonzalo again? The king?) Sebastian, cautious: I have no hope that he’s undrowned; the double negative is careful, sly: it’s hopeless, I have no hope, but also, grammatically, I hope that he’s drowned. But not saying that, not directly. That’s enough encouragement for Antonio to speak slightly more plainly: there may be no hope for Ferdinand, but that no hope gives you cause to hope, gives you great hope, great expectations, the very real possibility of advantage and gain. The syntax is contorted – they’re still not being entirely straight with each other, entirely obvious and explicit, but Antonio is summing it up: no hope of Ferdinand having lived elevates and advances another hope, so high – because it is the desire for the crown – that ambition cannot conceive anything higher, pierce a wink beyond, without fear of discovery. (Macbeth, contemplating the murder of Duncan: ‘I have no spur | To prick the sides of my intent, but only | Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself’, 1.7.) It’s fraught, taut business, the imagining of regicide, of fratricide; even Antonio didn’t go quite so far, in his dealings with Prospero…