ANTONIO       Will you grant with me

That Ferdinand is drowned?

SEBASTIAN                                        He’s gone.

ANTONIO                                                       Then tell me,

Who’s the next heir of Naples?

SEBASTIAN                                                    Claribel.

ANTONIO       She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells

Ten leagues beyond man’s life; she that from Naples

Can have no note unless the sun were post—

The man i’th’ moon’s too slow—till newborn chins

Be rough and razorable; she that from whom

We were all sea-swallowed, though some cast again,

And by that destiny to perform an act

Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge! (2.1.243-254)

Antonio now treads very carefully, rehearsing all the circumstances over again. We are agreed, aren’t we, that surely Ferdinand is drowned. He’s gone, says Sebastian, somewhat brutally. If he’s gone, then who’s the next heir to the throne of Naples, to succeed Alonso, here asleep, grief-stricken, lost? Claribel, Alonso’s daughter, Ferdinand’s sister. (An eye-roll from Sebastian here, perhaps, at having to state the bleeding obvious?) And now, perhaps, all that business about widow Dido, and about the foreignness, the far-awayness of Tunis, where Claribel is now Queen, has some point. (The interminable Dido stuff made Tunis, or Carthage, seem historically distant too, as if Claribel has gone back in time.) Antonio’s point, vividly made, hugely exaggerated, is that Tunis is too far from Naples for Claribel to be able to be Queen in both. It wouldn’t be possible for any communication, any note to get from Naples to Tunis unless the sun were to be its courier (the moon, its orbit being a month, would be too slow); in the time it would take for any news to travel, smooth newborn chins would need shaving, babies would grow to maturity. It is a long way, a distance impracticable for functional government. (It is around 300 miles from Tunis to Naples; Antonio is exaggerating massively.) And, furthermore, Claribel? It was her fault, pretty much, that we were wrecked, coming back from her wedding, all sea-swallowed, a dangerous voyage, not to be repeated. Some of us were cast again, came ashore, however – and that has destined us to do something, to perform an act, almost as if it were meant to be by our escape, our good fortune in not drowning. What’s past is prologue– both what has happened already, and Sebastian’s whole life up until this point – it’s just the introduction. What’s coming now is the main feature, the proper show. And how that plays out is up to you and me, in yours and my discharge. It’s in our hands. (Macbeth again, after meeting the witches, hearing their prophecy, and then hearing that he is now Thane of Cawdor: ‘Two truths are told, | As happy prologues to the swelling act | Of the imperial theme’, 1.3.) Antonio’s theme is imperial, too…