The Tempest

“I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.”

Gonzalo is dressed down by the harried boatswain for interrupting him during a crisis. He humorously takes the sailor’s insolence as a sign that the man will be hanged one day and therefore won’t drown, a good omen during this storm.

“I have done nothing but in care of thee,

Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who

Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing

Of whence I am, nor that I am more better

Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,

And thy no greater father.” 

Prospero tells his daughter that they are more than she knows, and that their lowly life on an island hides their true destiny. From a character perspective, Prospero remains driven by a need to reclaim what he lost. This is less rooted in his concern for material comforts and more rooted in his need to validate his high opinion of himself, in his own eyes and in the eyes of his daughter.

“I find my zenith doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose influence

If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes

Will ever after droop.” 

By chance, Prospero’s enemies sail nearby, and he uses the good fortune and his magic to force them ashore. Having faced great treachery and misfortune in the past, Prospero is keenly aware of the opportunity this poses. He carries out the play’s central gambit like an individual who knows this is his last chance to return to wealth and glory.

“Might I but through my prison once a day

Behold this maid: all corners else o’ th’ earth

Let liberty make use of; space enough

Have I in such a prison.” 

Ferdinand, apprehended by Prospero as a spy, wishes only in his confinement to glimpse Miranda, with whom he has fallen in love. Prospero wants the two to marry, but he also wants them to struggle for their new love, and he imprisons Ferdinand so that they will value each other all the more. So far, both young people have passed all of Prospero’s tests.

“The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,

And time to speak it in: you rub the sore,

When you should bring the plaster.” 

Gonzalo tells Sebastian to go easy on King Alonso, but Sebastian blames his brother for their castaway status. Sebastian believes also that Gonzalo is too sweetly optimistic in his counsel to the king and should be more direct about their situation. The “plaster” he refers to is a term for a wound dressing used during Shakespeare’s time.

“We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again,

And by that destiny, to perform an act

Whereof what’s past is prologue […]” 

One of Shakespeare’s most famous lines, “what’s past is prologue,” refers to the shipwreck that sets up Sebastian’s chance to kill his brother and become king. Since then, in literature and commentary, the line has been quoted to point out how unhappy events often serve as preludes to more ambitious outcomes, and how bad luck often leads to good fortune. This can also be said to be true for Prospero, who despite years of bad fortune can now secure a bright future for himself.

“Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man! and his fins like arms!”

Trinculo the jester discovers Caliban playing dead—Caliban is trying to hide, believing Trinculo is a tormentor sent by Prospero—but Trinculo thinks Caliban might be some sort of sea monster that, back home, would generate ticket sales as a public exhibit. His reaction betrays the general European opinion that the residents of faraway lands are exotically primitive, fit mostly for entertainment or servitude. Shakespeare also puts cynical wisdom into Trinculo’s mouth when the jester remarks that people won’t contribute to one of their own in need but will spend many times that amount to gawk at a foreign native.

“The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,

The gunner, and his mate,

Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,

But none of us cared for Kate;

For she had a tongue with a tang,

Would cry to a sailor, Go hang!

She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch;

Yet a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch.

Then, to sea, boys, and let her go hang!” 

This risqué tune, meant to sound like a shanty sung by men at sea, is now famous as “None of Us Cared for Kate” and has been used elsewhere as a song and book title. It represents the type of music common to England during the early 1600s, a time and place with a bawdy sense of humor that Shakespeare often used in his comedies.

“There be some sports are painful, and their labour

Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness

Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task

Would be as heavy to me as odious, but

The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead,

And makes my labours pleasures […]” 

Ferdinand, in love with Miranda but imprisoned by her father, realizes that sometimes the worst experiences can be pleasures if they lead to wonderful ends. In his case, Ferdinand’s servitude permits him to be near his beloved. The rhyme scheme elegantly sets apart Ferdinand’s painful examples from their good outcomes: “Labor” ends one line and “Delight” starts the next; “baseness” finishes that same line and “Are nobly undergone” begins the succeeding line; “poor matters” are followed by “Point to rich ends.” Thus, a “bad / Good” contrast gets repeated three times, in part to make clear to the audience Shakespeare’s interesting point, and in part to emphasize the intensity of Ferdinand’s feelings for Miranda.

“[…] for several virtues

Have I liked several women; never any

With so full soul, but some defect in her

Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,

And put it to the foil: but you, O you,

So perfect and so peerless, are created

Of every creature’s best!”

Ferdinand, as the son of an important king, has met many eligible women, and a few appealed greatly to him, but each had some trait that put him off. Miranda’s excellent character contains no such sharp edge, and Ferdinand’s heart opens up to her completely. That quality of character may also be the result of her growing up far away from the treacheries found in European courts and nobility circles.

“They say there’s but five upon this isle: we are three of them; if th’ other two be brained like us, the state totters.” 

Trinculo, drunk alongside Stephano and Caliban, worries that if they are the best minds available on the island, they’re in deep trouble. This is another example of how Shakespeare uses the trio as comic relief. Their haphazard schemes contrast with Prospero’s carefully concocted plots.

“[…] in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open, and show riches

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,

I cried to dream again.” 

Caliban describes the soothing, magical sounds that surround him on the island. They lull him to sleep and give rise in him to the wish, common to those who suffer, that he might live in the dream world instead of harsh reality. Although Caliban is often framed as a comic character, his suffering as an Indigenous person at the hands of a European interloper reflects the real-life suffering of the survivors of European imperialism.

“[…] travellers ne’er did lie,

Though fools at home condemn ’em.” 

Antonio witnesses the strange, magical creatures who set out a banquet to feed the marooned nobles. He agrees with Sebastian that explorers must have been right all along, and that there really are unicorns, phoenixes, and other fantastic beasts in the world.

“Look though be true. Do not give dalliance

Too much the rein. The strongest oaths are straw

To th'fire i'th'blood. Be more abstemious

Or else good night your vow!” 

Prospero warns Ferdinand that, though he rightly loves Miranda, he and she must remain chaste, or their wedding will be ruined. What’s more, the peace between Naples and Milan will suffer. Ferdinand assures Prospero that he’ll be careful.

“Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,

Long continuance, and increasing,

Hourly joys be still upon you!

Juno sings her blessings on you.” 

At the opening of Prospero’s lavish masque entertainment, three sprites—including Ariel—appear in the form of goddesses who bless Ferdinand and Miranda’s marriage. “Juno” takes her turn and, as the queen of the gods, offers general good wishes.

“We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.” 

Perhaps the most famous passage from The Tempest, this metaphysical musing by Prospero suggests that our life is a kind of magic trick—a dream that, like all dreams, finally vanishes into nothing. The “sleep” is the soul’s existence beyond the dream of life. In a few lyrical words, Shakespeare evokes a sense of mystery and wonder about life that has taken other writers entire books to express. Like Prospero, Shakespeare is a magician, and his words have cast a spell over the English language.

“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature

Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,

Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;

And as with age his body uglier grows,

So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,

Even to roaring.”

Prospero bemoans his failure to “civilize” Caliban, who instead remains an unrepentant enemy who now plots to kill the magician. In his anger, Prospero means to punish Caliban with magical torments. The “nature / Nurture” phrase has come to represent the eternal mystery of child rearing and the open question as to how much of human development depends on nature versus nurture.

“Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,

Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel.” 

His enemies repent their crimes against him, and Prospero feels no further desire to avenge himself on them. Instead, he’ll arrange things so that all may continue their lives unpunished and forgiven. Prospero’s capacity for forgiveness is one of many qualities that set him apart as one of the complex Shakespearean characters.

“[…] I have bedimm’d

The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds.

And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck’d up

The pine and cedar: graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure; and, when I have required

Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—

To work mine end upon their senses, that

This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I’ll drown my book.” 

Prospero conjured a storm that shipwrecked his enemies, then tormented them with magical punishments; his work complete, Prospero throws away his staff and spells. The phrase “this rough magic” continues to echo in film and literature: Mary Stewart’s 1964 suspense novel “This Rough Magic” takes place on the island of Corfu, a possible setting for Shakespeare’s play, where the heroine meets an elderly Shakespearean actor and, while solving a crime, falls in love with the actor’s son; one of the other characters is named Miranda. “Rough Magic” is the title of a 1995 film that involves a romance and a shaman who dispenses magic.

“O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in’t!” 

Miranda, gazing at King Alonso and his entourage, sees more people in one place than during her entire life on the island. A world of humanity opens up to her. Miranda’s “brave new world” has become a term of art to describe changes in culture brought about by advancing technology; it also serves as the title for a famous science fiction novel by Aldous Huxley and as the title of multiple films, TV shows, and pieces of music.

“In one voyage

Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,

And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife

Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom

In a poor isle, and all of us ourselves

When no man was his own.” 

Gonzalo praises the good fortune that miraculously has met the shipwrecked assembly. He doesn’t know that everything was meticulously planned by Prospero, who has managed through magic to arrange everything so that it comes out harmoniously. Rulers are restored, lovers are married, and malefactors are reprieved.

“I’ll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,

Where I have hope to see the nuptial

Of these our dear-beloved solemnized;

And thence retire me to my Milan, where

Every third thought shall be my grave.” 

All has been set right, and the only things left are for Prospero to give away his daughter in marriage and return to his rightful office as Duke of Milan. After that, his work is done, and death will bring down the curtain on a life that turned out well.

“Now my charms are all o’erthrown,

And what strength I have’s mine own.”

Prospero has rid himself of the magic powers he used to sustain his and his daughter’s life on the island and to engineer their safe return to Milan. These gifts he leaves behind, their usefulness ended. It suggests that Prospero believes magic should be used only to restore what is lost.