FRANCISCO They vanished strangely!
SEBASTIAN No matter, since
They have left their viands behind, for we have stomachs.
Will’t please you taste of what is here?
ALONSO Not I.
GONZALO Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
Who would believe that there were mountaineers
Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at ’em
Wallets of flesh? Or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts, which now we find
Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
Good warrant of?
ALONSO I will stand to and feed,
Although my last; no matter, since I feel
The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,
Stand to and do as we. (3.3.40-52)
Francisco’s one and only line in this scene could easily be reallocated – to Alonso, Gonzalo, or even Antonio. Sorry, Francisco. Whoever speaks the line, it continues the wondering response more characteristic of Alonso and Gonzalo, while Sebastian is more pragmatic. Who cares about the spirits and the way in which they’ve disappeared, because they’ve left the food, their viands, behind – and we have stomachs, we’re hungry. And he presumably gestures to the others, and specifically to the king: will you eat? No, says Alonso. Gonzalo thinks he’s afraid to, given the strangeness of the spirits and the mysterious appearance of the banquet, which has remained even as its attendants have vanished. He offers reassurance: we used not to know about lots of strange things in the world, like people living in the mountains (mountaineers means this, perhaps with an implication of wildness; it’s used in Cymbeline to describe the lost princes, too, in the wilds of Wales) who have dewlaps like bulls, folds of loose flesh or wallets, wattles (like turkeys) hanging from their necks. And also, we didn’t use to know about those other people whose heads grow out of their chests! OK, Gonzalo. (Also, OK, Othello; he too has told Desdemona tales of ‘the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads grew beneath their shoulders’, 1.3; it’s a classic traveller’s tale.) Then – brace – a reference to – even a joke about – early modern travel insurance, or a version of it. No, me neither. The putter-out of five for one is either the traveller or his broker: the traveller deposited a sum with the broker, on the understanding that if, on his return, he was able to prove that he had reached his intended destination (which was unlikely), he would be paid out five times his original deposit. The point of the joke is that now such marvels are so well known that pretty much any traveller, or broker, would be able to attest to them, bring good warrant. Alonso relents: yes, he’ll stand to and feed, have something to eat – even though it may well be his last meal. (He is still suspicious that this could be a trick – but no matter, since I feel the best is past – what difference does it make, given the state, and the situation, he’s in.) And so he goes to the banquet, inviting Antonio (whom he addresses as my lord the Duke, a timely reminder of the relationship between Antonio and Prospero, and of the former’s usurpation) to join him…
