CALIBAN        These be fine things, an if they be not sprites;

That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor.

I will kneel to him.

STEPHANO    How didst thou scape? How cam’st thou hither? Swear by this bottle how thou cam’st hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o’erboard—by this bottle, which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands since I was cast ashore.

CALIBAN        I’ll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject, for the liquor is not earthly.

STEPHANO    Here, swear then how thou escap’st.

TRINCULO      Swum ashore, man, like a duck. I can swim like a duck, I’ll be sworn.

STEPHANO    Here, kiss the book.               [Trinculo drinks.] (2.2.114-127)

We might not notice that Caliban speaks at least a couple of lines of blank verse here, in contrast to Trinculo and Stephano’s extremely low prose. Alas he is dazzled by them and, it seems, the liquor he’s had a taste of has already had some effect: these be fine things – assuming they’re not sprites, spirits, devils (but he now seems to think not). That’s a brave god, he says of the drunken, foul-mouthed Stephano, and bears celestial liquor, an observation which has a horrible resonance with many records of first encounters between indigenous people and the agents of empire. There’s an insight, too, into the relationship that Caliban has with Prospero: he cannot, it seems, conceive of an equal relationship with another, but rather one of service or subservience, abasement or worship. While he curses and cowers to Prospero, here he is hopeful of better, but still not equal, treatment. For all their obsession with the monster, however, Stephano and Trinculo seem oddly oblivious to Caliban, perhaps an additional sly insight into the play’s hierarchies: he doesn’t count, he can be ignored until they’re ready to take further notice of him. More optimistically, the Neapolitans are entirely preoccupied with their survival: how didst thou scape? Tell me, truthfully, swear by this bottle. Stephano clung to a barrel, appropriately a butt of sack, sweet sherry or wine, heaved o’erboard by the sailors, presumably in a vain attempt to steady the ship. (A mental image of him astride the barrel, rodeo-style, and a contrast with the much more noble description of Ferdinand’s possible landfall: the prince beat the surges under him and ride upon their backs.) The bottle is a curious detail, an odd moment of verisimilitude: Stephano had a barrel of wine but no bottle, so he made a bottle out of the bark of a tree, in order to be able to sample—and consume in some quantity—the barrel’s contents. He presents his handiness with tree-bark as a source of great satisfaction and pride; in performance it’s an easy cut, and he can simply produce a flask. Caliban—still being ignored—says that he’ll swear on the bottle that Stephano is his god, his king, his leader; he is entirely enthralled by the drink. Trinculo explains how he escaped and came to shore: entirely logically, he swam, with a bit of comedy in the like a duck, I can swim like a duck, I’ll swear to it—a duck is quite not the first natural swimmer which might come to mind (that would be the fish, to which Trinculo first compared Caliban, although ducks can be found proverbially at home in water too). It’s enough for Stephano: here, kiss the book, you have sworn that’s what happened, now seal your oath with a drink. Any excuse, really.