ARIEL The King,
His brother and yours abide all three distracted,
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay, but chiefly
Him that you termed, sir, the good old Lord Gonzalo.
His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
PROSPERO Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human.
PROSPERO And mine shall. (5.1.11-20)
Ariel’s description is vivid and disturbing. The King and the courtiers may well be confined in the line grove, but they are not motionless, frozen as statues in their imprisonment. Rather, Alonso, Antonio, and Sebastian are all three distracted, maddened, out of their wits, while their courtiers (the luckless, near-lineless Adrian and Francisco) can only watch, brimful of sorrow and dismay, perhaps even brought to tears (or almost; their eyes not quite running over yet?) by their distress, and their own wretchedness. Gonzalo certainly weeps: it’s a nice touch that he’s the only one named here, as if Ariel is aware how painful it is for Prospero to hear his brother named; here Antonio is only implicitly identified as Prospero’s brother, too, folded into the syntax (the King, his brother and yours). Gonzalo is the good old Lord, and he weeps so uncontrollably at witnessing this scene that his tears run off his beard as winter rain runs off a thatched roof. (A knowing glance up to the open roof of the Globe, perhaps, where the only place wetter than the middle of the yard in the rain is under the run-off from the roof once it’s really been soaked. This is the voice of bitter experience.) And even Ariel is moved – perhaps. They are so entirely under your spell, they say, that if you saw them, even you would be moved to pity. You think so, do you, spirit? And a wonderful, mysterious response: Yes, I would be moved, sir, were I human… Prospero cannot bear to be out-humaned by a non-human, to have his capacity for mercy, for magnanimity, for feeling called into question by one who cannot even feel (or so they say). I too shall be moved, he says.
