A noise of hunters heard. Enter diverse Spirits in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on.
PROSPERO Hey, Mountain, hey!
ARIEL Silver! There it goes, Silver!
PROSPERO Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!
[The Spirits chase Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo off stage.]
Go, charge my goblins that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
Than pard or cat o’mountain.
ARIEL Hark, they roar!
PROSPERO Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour
Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.
Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
Shalt have the air at freedom. For a little,
Follow and do me service. Exeunt. (4.1.255-266)
The point of the previous comic interlude—and its capacity to be extended through improvisation and physical comedy, if necessary—is now clear: the Spirits from the masque now have to reappear in shape of dogs and hounds. They’ve had about 100 lines in which to change, which is (by some estimates) around five minutes of stage time – not long, although not impossible. It’s difficult to imagine what they might be wearing (alas no Inigo Jones designs survive for hounds) but they will almost certainly have removed some aspects of their costumes (the hats, certainly; if it’s just the Reapers being hounds here then they would be able to have a more hound-like effect concealed under a smock) and perhaps added something else – a mask? The hounds are mostly going to be made, like the storm, though sound effects, and one can imagine that all the players currently off-stage would be involved in this, yapping and howling away. There will almost certainly be a horn as well, perhaps being played by one of the Spirits. How many Spirits? At least three, one for each of Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban; the names suggest four, which might make sense if it’s the Reapers and there were indeed four of them… More would be nice, but not essential.
Ariel and Prospero also contribute to the creation of the hounds, through their calling and shouting, and presumably there’s space for improvisation and repetition here too, as they interact with the hounds that they call. There are various sources for the names, although nothing specific or certain for all of them; a classically-minded audience member might think of the various names given to Actaeon’s hounds. Their Englishness here (Mountain, Fury, Silver, and Tyrant) is a nice touch; these are not hounds straight out of Ovid—although in Golding’s translation of 1567, one of the hounds is named as Tempest… (And there could be a comic touch if these were in fact being played by children, with these bathetically fierce and large names.) Worth remembering that hunting with hounds was an elite preserve in this period, an activity in which those hunting could quite literally ride rough-shod over the rural poor and their property: although it was courtly and aristocratic, highly codified, it was also extremely bloody and violent. This scene can be genuinely frightening, although it doesn’t have to be.
So Ariel is sent off, again, to make sure that the spirits (here named as goblins) continue to torment the men, with Prospero’s accustomed repertoire of cramps, joint pain, and pinches, so many of the latter that they will be more pinch-spotted (with bruises) than pard or cat o’mountain, more spotted than a leopard. Lovely. And a cue for the clowns: they roar too, adding to the general noise and confusion. A flash of cruelty from Prospero, and satisfaction: At this hour lies at my mercy all mine enemies. I’m back in control. Everything is now ready, and at the right time. It’s almost the end of his labours (but what does that mean? the labours of this plot? or more generally?) – and of Ariel’s, too. Thou shalt have the air at freedom: Ariel will be able to fly in their native element at will, fly free. Soon, but not quite yet: for a little, follow and do me service.
And that’s the end of act 4.
