ANTONIO Here lies your brother,
No better than the earth he lies upon.
If he were that which now he’s like (that’s dead)
Whom I with this obedient steel—three inches of it—
Can lay to bed forever (whiles you, doing thus,
To the perpetual wink for aye might put
This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
Should not upbraid our course)—for all the rest
They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
They’ll tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour.
SEBASTIAN Thy case, dear friend,
Shall be my precedent. As thou got’st Milan,
I’ll come by Naples. Draw thy sword! One stroke
Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest,
And I the king shall love thee.
ANTONIO Draw together,
And when I rear my hand, do you the like
To fall it on Gonzalo.
SEBASTIAN O, but one word— (2.1.281-297)
When they finally get to the point, ending this careful, calculated dance around each other, it happens very quickly. Antonio recaps, almost parodically: your brother is as senseless, as dead to the world, as the earth he’s lying on (it’s a commonplace: Lear, of Cordelia, ‘She’s dead as earth’, 5.3). And if he were in fact dead – the state which he now resembles, sleep being a picture of death, or death a version of sleep (both are commonplaces) then everything would fall into place and be straightforward and sorted. I can kill him right now, with this obedient steel; it might be a sword, chillingly imagining the necessary depth of a single stab to the heart, three inches; it might be a dagger. But this suggests he’s drawn it, or at least indicated it; the situation has suddenly become real, deadly serious. And at the same time, you can do the same to this ancient morsel, this dried up scrap, Gonzalo, mocked as Sir Prudence for his compulsive desire to offer counsel; we don’t want him telling us off. Put him to the perpetual wink; make his nap last forever. Don’t worry about the others: they’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk, they’ll automatically, eagerly do what they’re told, swear that black’s white, white’s black, and that it’s whatever time we say it is. (A nod back at the clock jokes earlier in the scene.) They’re courtiers; they know what side their bread is buttered on. (This was, of course, what happened when Antonio deposed Prospero in Milan.) And a calculated, revealing response from Sebastian: thy case, dear friend, shall be my precedent; not just, I will follow your example but you’ve argued me into it, like a lawyer citing precedents and case law. To say that as thou got’st Milan, I’ll come by Naples is disingenuous, because Antonio did not kill Prospero (although he surely assumes that he’s dead) and in fact Antonio is going to kill Alonso, Sebastian’s brother, not Sebastian himself. To address him Antonio as friend is intimate, a statement of allegiance and of equality, and then the promise: if you do this for me, kill my brother, one stroke shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest. You won’t have to pay money to Naples any more; I’ll discharge your debt, let you off. And I the king – the king, he tries out the title for the first time – shall love thee. I’ll look after you. I’ll see you right, friend. They will be bound to each other. Has this been Antonio’s aim all along?
