PROSPERO     Then as my gift and thine own acquisition Worthily purchased, take my daughter. But If thou dost break her virgin-knot before All sanctimonious ceremonies may With full and holy rite be ministered, No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall To make this contract grow; but barren hate, Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew […]

Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND and MIRANDA PROSPERO     [to Ferdinand] If I have too austerely punished you, Your compensation makes amends, for I Have given you here a third of mine own life, Or that for which I live, who once again I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations Were but my trials of thy love, and […]

GONZALO       I’th’ name of something holy, sir, why stand you In this strange stare? ALONSO                                             O, it is monstrous, monstrous! Methought the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder— That deep and dreadful organpipe—pronounced The name of Prosper. It did bass my trespass. Therefore my […]

PROSPERO     Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou Performed, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring. Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated In what thou hadst to say. So, with good life And observation strange, my meaner ministers Their several kinds have done. My high charms work, And these, mine enemies, are all […]

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 […]

ARIEL                                     You fools! I and my fellows Are ministers of fate. The elements Of whom your swords are tempered may as well Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at stabs Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish One dowl that’s in my plume. My fellow ministers Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt, Your swords are […]

ARIEL             You are three men of sin, whom destiny, That hath to instrument this lower world And what is in’t, the never-surfeited sea Hath caused to belch up you, and on this island Where man doth not inhabit—you ’mongst men Being most unfit to live—I have made you mad; And even with such-like valour, men […]

Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL like a harpy, clapping his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device the banquet vanishes.(3.3.52SD) And now the problem-solving gets ramped up for stage-management.Thunder and lightning, easy peasy: cue up the thunder sheet or the thunder run and let rip with some fireworks. (The sparks and bangs and flashes […]

FRANCISCO    They vanished strangely! SEBASTIAN                                        No matter, since They have left their viands behind, for we have stomachs. Will’t please you taste of what is here? ALONSO                                                         Not I. GONZALO       Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys, Who would believe that there were mountaineers Dewlapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at […]

GONZALO                                           If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me? If I should say I saw such islanders (For certes, these are people of the island), Who, though they are of monstrous shape, yet note Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of Our human generation you shall find Many—nay, almost any. […]