CALIBAN Do not torment me, prithee. I’ll bring my wood home faster.
STEPHANO He’s in his fit now and does not talk after the wisest. He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If I can recover him and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him! He shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly.
CALIBAN Thou dost me yet but little hurt. Thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling. Now Prosper works upon thee.
STEPHANO Come on your ways; open your mouth. Here is that will give language to you, cat. Open your mouth! This will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly. [Pours into Caliban’s mouth.] You cannot tell who’s your friend. Open your chaps again. (2.2.70-85)
More insights into Prospero as master, apparently accustomed to tormenting Caliban if he doesn’t work hard enough, and specifically, if he doesn’t bring his wood home fast enough. (Do we imagine that Prospero and Miranda have only regular domestic fire needs, or that Prospero needs an additional supply of firewood for his magic, alchemy? Maybe?) This does not compute with Stephano, despite his being impressed that the monster speaks our language; he thinks that the monster is unwell, delirious, in his fit – hence his raving; he cannot talk after the wisest, talk sense, make sense. (Stephano can’t talk.) Wine, however, is the answer to everything, and an unfailing source of eloquence and good sense and therefore with great generosity Stephano is going to share his bottle with the monster; it will help him to recover, remove his fit, and enable Stephano to put in motion his plan of taming the monster, taking him back to Naples, and selling him for a good price. Caliban, however, is entirely preoccupied with his immediate problem, under the gaberdine: Trinculo, still imagined as one of Prospero’s spirits. So far you me yet but little hurt, but I can tell that you’re going to start tormenting me properly, because of your trembling. Prospero will make you do it (Prospero being imagined, with some justification, as operating his spirits by remote control, sometimes at least in the form of Ariel.) Caliban isn’t listening to Stephano, and Stephano isn’t listening to Caliban; his focus is entirely on facilitating his generous, salvific offer, of giving the monster some of his drink. (Another proverb: ale makes a cat speak.) Wine will solve everything, and turn nonsense to sense, raving to eloquence, if the monster will but open his mouth. And here the stage direction is editorial, and the action, perhaps, unclear. Has Caliban’s mouth – and head – actually appeared? Is there a mouth into which the wine can be poured? Open your chaps again, that is your jaws, suggests that a mouth at least is visible – but it would be possible to play this for a few lines more with just the four legs and the two voices, with considerable scope for physical comedy, in Stephano looking for a mouth into which to pour his liquor – the mouth from which the language is issuing – but not seeing it, looking in puzzlement and perhaps settling for pouring a more general libation on the monster at large.
