ARIEL But remember
(For that’s my business to you) that you three
From Milan did supplant good Prospero,
Exposed unto the sea, which hath requit it,
Him and his innocent child; for which foul deed,
The powers delaying, not forgetting, have
Incensed the seas and shores—yea, all the creatures—
Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
They have bereft, and do pronounce by me
Ling’ring perdition, worse than any death
Can be at once, shall step by step attend
You and your ways, whose wraths to guard you from—
Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
Upon your heads—is nothing but heart’s sorrow
And a clear life ensuing.
He vanishes in thunder. Then, to soft music, enter the shapes again and dance with mocks and mows, and carry out the table.(3.3.68-82SD.)
But remember, says Ariel, it’s my job to make you remember, as they swiftly recapitulate the story which we first heard when Prospero narrated it, for the first time, to Miranda. Then, in the second scene of the play, it was framed in terms of, what can you remember? But it was almost all new to Miranda; her memories of her life before the island were fleeting and indistinct. Now, at one of the play’s turning points, these three characters are being reminded of something that they thought was safely in the past, something that they presumably try not to think about, that they regard as forgotten, ancient history. But remember. And the audience remembers too, the much longer and more detailed version, fraught with Prospero’s anger and pain, and Miranda’s intense, anguished empathy, which we heard earlier. We fill in the gaps in Ariel’s bare narration of the back story. Perhaps we resupply the emotional colour. It’s just as well that we know the background, actually, because the syntax here is tortuous, Cymbeline-esque in its compressions and inversions. (Harpies are terse and twisty, clearly, as well as Very Cross.) So, to unpack. You three—Alonso and Sebastian as guilty as Antonio—did depose, supplant good Prospero. You exposed him and his innocent child unto the sea. And the sea has requit, requited, revenged that act (the attempt to drown them, in their tiny, leaky boat) by nearly drowning you. For that foul deed, the usurpation and attempted murder, and in order to revenge it, the powers, the gods (or God, or fate, or destiny; all have been invoked, implicitly or explicitly, in this scene) have been biding their time, delaying, not forgetting. They have incensed, stirred up the seas and shores (and all the creatures! Spirits! Harpies! Whales and giant squid!) against your peace. They—the powers, the seas, the creatures—they have bereft you of your son, Alonso. (This is personal.) And they do pronounce by me, the minister, the instrument, the messenger, ling’ring perdition. This is one of the densest bits of the speech, because ling’ring perdition, protracted and eternal damnation and suffering, worse than any death, is both what is being pronounced, as if they are being sentenced to it, and that which shall attend, accompany, follow you step by step, wherever you go, as long as you live. (Perdition is one of Shakespeare’s big words, a state of utter and agonising lostness, although here it seems to mean something a bit more like hell-pains. ‘Perdition catch my soul’, says Othello, as he fatally imagines what it would be like to fall out of love with Desdemona, 3.3.). But—assuming that the Neapolitans can follow the syntax—there’s a way out. Whose wraths to guard you from, that is the anger of the powers, the forces of divine retribution, which otherwise will fall upon your heads, here in this most desolate isle… basically the only way out now is to repent and reform. Nothing but heart’s sorrow and a clear life ensuing. Now is the time. It’s time. Your time is up. Repent! REPENT!
More thunder, and Ariel vanishes. (If there’s a trap open behind the table, into which the banquet disappeared, perhaps, then they could jump into that. Or fly up. Or just walk off.) And then, just to make it even weirder, the (strange) shapes reappear, with more soft (and solemn) music, and dance – not with gentle actions of salutations, this time – with mocks and mows, pulling faces, making mocking gestures – perhaps parodying their earlier courtesies. And, very practically, they carry out the table.
