STEPHANO Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose.
TRINCULO O Stephano, hast any more of this?
STEPHANO The whole butt, man. My cellar is in a rock by th’ seaside, where my wine is hid. How now, mooncalf, how does thine ague?
CALIBAN Hast thou not dropped from heaven?
STEPHANO Out o’th’ moon, I do assure thee. I was the man i’th’ moon when time was.
CALIBAN I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee!
My mistress showed me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.
STEPHANO Come, swear to that. Kiss the book. I will furnish it anon with new contents. Swear! [Caliban drinks.]
TRINCULO By this good light, this is a very shallow monster. I afeard of him? A very weak monster. The man i’th’ moon? A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn, monster, in good sooth. (2.2.128-144)
Trinculo might look like a goose, or waddle like a goose. He might be as proverbially stupid as a goose, or as greedy as a goose. He might, just, be likened to the alchemical vessel sometimes known as the goose, a variant on the pelican, a retort or flask with a long neck, which would sit well with his thirst and his apparent capacity for liquid. Whatever the mild insult or tease, Trinculo’s only concern is whether there is any more wine. Yes, the whole butt (which, the OED helpfully supplies, could mean 108-140 gallons or 491-637 litres, ‘though often much smaller in early use’. At the upper end of the range, imagine a paddling pool, around 5 feet in diameter…). Stephano plays it cool, but it’s very much now my cellar, and my wine; finders keepers, or theft as a servant? Whatever, the wine is safely stowed in a cave, and there’s a lot of it. And finally, they address Caliban, initially in quite a friendly, or at least neutral, way. How are you doing, mooncalf? How’s that chill that was making you shake? Caliban remains transfixed, however: have you fallen from heaven? are you a god? is implicit. So Stephano plays along, although implicitly ridiculing Caliban’s trust and wide-eyed admiration: I was the man in the moon once upon a time. And this is just what Caliban needs to hear: I’ve seen you, up there in the sky, with your dog and your bush! I worship you! My mistress showed me thee – a startling flashback to the previous state of the relationship between Caliban and Miranda when she, at least as much as her father, tried to educate Caliban (although it was Prospero who apparently taught him how to name the bigger light and how the less that burn by day and night, 1.2). (And the dog and the bush might take an audience back even further, to Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Starveling’s disconsolate turn as Moonshine.) Have another drink, is Stephano’s response to this overture: swear to that! Kiss the book. I’ll refill it shortly. And as Caliban drinks (deeply, one assumes), Trinculo reframes their earlier encounter: this is a very shallow monster, stupid, foolish. Why would I be afraid of him? He’s weak. He’s credulous (indeed, tragically so). Who would be so stupid as to imagine that Stephano is the man in the moon? But he can drink deep, even if he’s shallow: well drawn, monster.
