THE TEMPEST GONZALO

Boatswain: Do you not hear him? You mar our labor; keep your cabins; you do assist the storm. Nay, good, be patient.
Boatswain: When the sea is. Hence! What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble us not. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
Boatswain: None that I more love than myself… Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say. 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 hang’d, our case is miserable.
Antonia: Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker; we are less afraid to be drown’d than thou art. I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched wench!
Boatswain: What, must our mouths be cold? The king and prince at prayers! Let us assist them, for our case is as theirs.
Antonia: We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards [a confused noise within] Farewell, my wife and children! Farewell, sister!
Sebastian: Let us take leave of him. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground-long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done, but I would fain die a dry death.
BEGINNING OF SCENE 6 Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause, so have we all, of joy; for our escape is much beyond our loss. It is a miracle! I mean our preservation, few in millions can speak like us.
Antonia: Look, he’s winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike. Then wisely, good sir, weigh our sorrow with our comfort. Therefore, my lord-
Alonso: I prithee, spare. Well, I have done; but yet-
Antonia: Or, as ’twere perfum’d by a fen. Ay, here is everything advantageous to life.
Sebastian: Of that there’s none, or little. How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!
Sebastian: No; he doth but mistake the truth totally. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit-
Sebastian: As many vouch’d rarities are. That our garments, being, as they were, drench’d in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and glosses, being rather new-dy’d, than stain’d with salt water. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the King’s fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
Adrian: Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the day I wore it? When I wore it at your daughter’s marriage?
Alonso: So is the dearest o’ th’ loss. My lord Sebastian, the truth you speak doth lack some gentleness, and time to speak it in; you rub the sore, when you should bring the plaster.
Sebastian: Very well. It is foul weather in us all, good sir, when you are cloudy. (all pause) Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-
Sebastian: or docks, or mallows. And were the king on’t, what would I do?
Sebastian: Scape being drunk for warrant of wine. I’ th’ commonwealth I would by contraries execute all things; for no kind of traffic would I admit; no name of magistrate; letters should not be known; riches, poverty, and use of service, none; contract, succession, bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; no use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil; no occupation; all men idle, all; and women too, but innocent and pure; no sovereignty-
Antonia: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. All things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, would I not have; but nature should bring forth, of it own kind, all foison, all abundance, to feed my innocent people.
Antonia: None, man; all idle; whores and knaves. I would with such perfection govern, sir, t’ excel the golden age.
Antonia: long live Gonzalo! And do you mark me sir?
Alonso: Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me. I do well believe your highness; I did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.
Antonia: ’twas you we laugh’d at. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.
Antonia: nay, good my lord, be not angry. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy?
Ariel: While you here do snoring lie… Shake off slumber, and beware. Awake, awake! Now, good angels preserve the king!
Alonso: Why, how no?-Ho, awake!-Why are you drawn? Wherefore this ghastly looking? What’s the matter?
Alonso: Heard you this, Gonzalo? Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming, and that a strange one too, which did awake me; tis best we stand upon our guard, or that we quit this place. Let’s draw our weapons.
Alonso: Lead off this ground; and let’s make further search for my poor son. Heav’ns keep him from these beasts! For he is, sure, on the island.
BEGINNING OF SCENE 11 By’r lakin, I can go no further, sir; My old bones ache.
Francisco: Here’s a maze trod, indeed, through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience, I needs must rest me.
Alonso: What harmony is this? My good friends, hark! Marvelous sweet music!
Antonia: I’ll believe both; And what does else want credit, come to me, and I’ll be sworn ’tis true; travelers ne’er did lie, though fools at home condemn ’em. If in Naples I should report this now, would they believe me?
Francisco: If we should say, we 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.
Alonso: Not I. Faith, sir, you need not fear.
Antonia: I’ll be thy second. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, like poison given to work a great time after, now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you, that are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly, and hinder them from what this ecstasy may now provoke them to.
Ariel: I drink the air before me, and return or ere your pulse twice beat. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement, inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us out of this fearful country!
Prospero: First, noble friend, let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot be measur’d or confin’d. Whether this be or be not, I’ll not swear.
Prospero: There, sir, stop; let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that’s gone. I have inly wept, or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods, and on this couple drop a blessed crown; for it is you that have chalk’d forth the way which brought us hither.
Alonso: I say, amen, Gonzalo! O, rejoice beyond a common joy, and set it down with gold on lasting pillars: in one wreck did Ferdinand, the king’s son, find a wife where he himself was lost; and prospero his dukedom in a poor isle; and all of us found ourselves when no man was his own.
Alonso: give me your hands. Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart that doth not wish you joy. Be it so. Amen!
Sebastian: Or stole it, rather. [Ariel, Master, Boatswain enter.] O look, sir; look, sir! Here is more of us! I prophesied, if a gallows were on land, this fellow could not drown. What is the news? Hast thou no mouth by land?
July 2, 2019