Enter ARIEL.
ARIEL What would my potent master? Here I am.
PROSPERO Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
Did worthily perform, and I must use you
In such another trick. Go bring the rabble
(O’er whom I give thee power) here to this place.
Incite them to quick motion, for I must
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
Some vanity of mine art. It is my promise,
And they expect it from me.
ARIEL Presently?
PROSPERO Ay, with a twink.
ARIEL Before you can say ‘come’ and ‘go’,
And breathe twice and cry ‘so, so’,
Each one tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.
Do you love me, master? No?
PROSPERO Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach
Till thou dost here me call.
ARIEL Well, I conceive. Exit. (4.1.34-50)
Ariel is efficient, speedy, perhaps slightly arch; like Puck, they emphasise their more than human speed and ability. Here to serve, they say; what do you want? Prospero is delighted with how his last scheme (the terrifying harpy, the mysterious dancers, the disappearing food) worked out, and praises both Ariel and their meaner fellows, the other, supernumerary spirits. Well done everybody! And now there’s something else I’d like you to do. Trick here doesn’t have to mean deception, I think; something like device or scheme? Whatever, Ariel’s in charge, and has power over the other spirits: go bring the rabble. Rabble is pejorative, suggesting that the other spirits are a bit uncouth. It could anticipate the way in which some of them will shortly appear as reapers, agricultural labourers, perhaps. But it also makes Ariel sound like the manager of an unruly, unpredictable company of actors and dancers – which, perhaps, they are… Prospero is certainly imagining that the rabble might be a bit difficult to organise, a bit slow on the uptake: incite them to quick motion, make them jump to it, get them ready in short order. Because I’ve promised this young couple a show, a treat, a gift – some vanity of my art. A trifle, a nothing, an illusion; a three-ring circus, an all-singing, all-dancing masque, presented – it has to be said – on pretty tenuous grounds. No matter, says Prospero, it is my promise; they’re expecting it. Presently, as in, right here, right now? asks Ariel. Yes, this very instant, with a twink – in a blink, a wink, the twinkling of an eye. Ariel has a little teasing rhyme – or song – in response; is this even a charm, perhaps, to summon the other spirits? And it’s an ironic way of showing off, too, delaying by saying how quickly they’ll be here, before you can say ‘come’ and ‘go’, or breathe twice, and cry ‘so, so’ – yes, just like that – they’ll be here. Each one tripping on his toe: fairies trip, always, it’s their characteristic gait, lightly, speedily, on tip-toes. ‘Trip away, make no stay’, Oberon tells the fairies at the end of Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the (pretend) fairies ‘trip’ around Falstaff at the end of Merry Wives, instructed by Evans, the Welsh school master: ‘Trib, trib, fairies! …Come, come; trib, trib!’ Ariel’s spirit companions will also, as they did in the previous scene, mop and mow, pull faces. And then a killer line, incorporated, teasingly, heartbreakingly, into that casual, charming rhyme: Do you love me, master? No? How serious a question is this? What does Ariel even mean, by love? In some ways, what Ariel could be saying is, you don’t love me at all, do you? You just need me to do stuff. It’s all in the performance… Prospero is adamant, if too swift, in his reply: dearly, my delicate Ariel. Of course I do. Delicate could simply be a compliment, a term of affection; it could mean something like, over-sensitive. But on to the next order: Do not approach till thou dost hear me call. And Ariel knows what’s required. I conceive, they affirm; got it. I understand everything.
