TRINCULO Stephano? If thou be’st Stephano, touch me and speak to me, for I am Trinculo! Be not afeard – thy good friend Trinculo.
STEPHANO If thou be’st Trinculo, come forth. I’ll pull thee by the lesser legs. If any be Trinculo’s legs, these are they. [Pulls him from under the cloak.] Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam’st thou to be the siege of this mooncalf? Can he vent Trinculos?
TRINCULO I took him to be killed with a thunderstroke. But art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope now thou art not drowned. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead mooncalf’s gaberdine, for fear of the storm. And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans ’scaped?
STEPHANO Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. (2.2.98-113)
Finally! Trinculo! Stephano! A touching recognition scene (although it’s not exactly Winter’s Tale or Lear…) and Trinculo’s plea – don’t be frightened, don’t leave me, touch me and speak to me– can be played with genuine desperation. (Be not afeard is a line which recurs in this play, in interesting ways. A lot of the characters in this play are very frightened a lot of the time.) I’ll pull thee by the lesser legs, says Stephano, a costume and perhaps even a casting note: Caliban is imagined as having hefty legs, while Trinculo’s are apparently skinny, something easily accentuated with coloured stockings, which could be gaudy if Trinculo is being played as a fool or jester, as in the dramatis personae, and Stephano apparently recognises his legs: if any be Trinculo’s legs, these are they. Shapely legs were one of the most desirable features for the elegant man throughout this period, essential given the fashion for short hose or breeches. Calf padding was, apparently, a thing for men worried about their deficiencies in this respect. And so Trinculo finally emerges from under the gaberdine, to Stephano’s continuing mystification and scatological speculation. How did you come to be – no polite way of putting this – the siege, the excrement, the shit – of this mooncalf, this misshapen monster? (He has pulled Trinculo out from between Caliban’s legs, it seems, from his backward mouth as it were, and he stinks.) Does the monster excrete – but also, perhaps, give birth to – Trinculos? (Vent as a verb can refer to the digestive tract and its orifice; it can also refer to the genitals, although the sense here is probably the excretory one…) (Stephano is very drunk.) And a reminder of why Trinculo was under the gaberdine in the first place: I took him, this monster, this mooncalf, to be killed with a thunderstroke; I hid me, took shelter, for fear of the storm. Trinculo is incoherent with relief, with fear of the storm, and with the stress of his encounter with the monster (still not fully revealed); he can’t believe that it’s his friend Stephano. And, two Neapolitans ’scaped? could mean, are we the only two that haven’t been drowned? Or else, hooray, there are at least two of us. Whatever, he is embracing Stephano with some enthusiasm, and perhaps even whirling him around in joy – which is a very bad idea, given how much Stephano has drunk. It’s not at all surprising that his stomach is not constant; he’s feeling very queasy indeed.
