FERDINAND As I hope
For quiet days, fair issue and long life,
With such love as ’tis now, the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong’st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust to take away
The edge of that day’s celebration,
When I shall think or Phoebus’ steeds are foundered
Or night kept chained below.
PROSPERO Fairly spoke.
Sit then and talk with her; she is thine own.
What, Ariel! My industrious servant Ariel! (4.1.23-33)
Ferdinand protests, and promises, that he (they, if Miranda gives vigorous, yet silent agreement; it wouldn’t be impossible to assign her some of the lines here) will indeed wait until they’re properly married. (I don’t think that Miranda has to be a passive blushing innocent here. It’s more interesting if she’s not.) The terms in which he replies are specific, and vivid, and very much answer Prospero’s speech; he has been listening. Ferdinand imagines, hopes for, dreams of, quiet days, tranquillity, fair issue, children, healthy and beautiful, and a long and happy life—and for the love that they feel at the moment to last forever. He is swearing an oath, swearing that with the same intensity and truth as he hopes for those things, nothing will ever tempt him (them) into consummating their relationship before that time. Not the murkiest den, a secret, secluded, private place to which they could steal away unseen, the most opportune, convenient, place. Or the strongest suggestion, temptation that his worser genius, the worse part of human nature, an evil spirit could make. No, nothing could melt his honour into lust (and he is a prince, and a gentleman; his honour is everything)—and to do so would be to taint the happiness of the wedding day, take away its edge. (The obliquely phallic conceits here both eroticise Ferdinand’s oath and strengthen it: honour is stronger and more solid than lust, into which it is imagined as detumescently melting; the celebration of the wedding day, and the final consummation of their marriage, has an edge, keen, like a sword. Ferdinand is, he promises, in full control of himself.) But he still admits his (their) desire and longing for the wedding, and the wedding night; he knows that on that day, he (they) will be impatient for nightfall, imagining that Phoebus’ steeds, the horses of the chariot of the sun, are foundered, lamed, they’re running so slowly, or else that night (also sometimes imagined as a horse-drawn chariot) has been chained below, taken prisoner in the antipodes, on the other side of the globe. Will the day never end? (The imagery is conventional; the echo of Juliet’s gallop apace is unmissable.) I can’t fault your answer, says Prospero; fairly spoke (my son). Sit then and talk with her (trusting them to be more or less alone together); she is thine own. And Ariel! My industrious servant Ariel! What has Ariel been busy doing? And what is going to happen next?
