test 3

The Tempest
MUSIC CUE 1: OVERTURE
[1.1] A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning is heard.
Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain.
MASTER: [from the poop-deck] Bos’n!
BOATSWAIN: [in the waist] Here, master: what cheer?
MASTER: Good; speak to th’ mariners: fall to’t — barely — or we run ourselves
aground. Bestir, bestir.
Master’s whistle heard.
BOATSWAIN: Heigh my hearts! cheerly, cheerly my hearts … yare, are … take in the topsail
… tend to th’ master’s whistle… [to the gale] Blow till thou burst thy wind —
if room enough!
ALONSO: Good bos’n, have care, Where’s the master?
Play the men.
BOATSWAIN: I pray now, keep below.
ANTONIO: Where is the master, bos’n?
BOATSWAIN: Do you not hear him? You mar our labour. Keep your cabins! You do assist
the storm.
GONZALO: 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!
GONZALO: Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
BOATSWAIN: None that I more love than myself… You are a Councillor — if you command
these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not
hand a rope more. Use your authority… If you cannot, give thanks you have
lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the
hour, if it so hap…
Cheerly, good hearts… Out of our way, I say. [he runs forward]
GONZALO: [his speech interrupted as the ship pitches]. 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.
BOATSWAIN: Down with the topmast…yare, lower, lower! bring her to try with maincourse…
[‘A cry’ is heard below]. A plague upon this howling…they are
louder than the weather, or our office… Yet again? What do you here? Shall
we give o’er and drown? Have you a mind to sink?
SEBASTIAN: A pox o’ your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!
BOATSWAIN: Work you, then.
ANTONIO: Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noise-maker! we are less afraid to
be drowned than thou art.
GONZALO: I’ll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a
nutshell, and as leaky as an unstaunched wench.
BOATSWAIN: [shouting] Lay her a-hold, a-hold! Set her two courses. Off to sea again! lay
her off!
The Tempest
The Overture is some of the most extended music throughout the whole play, setting the scene for
what is to come. It’s fast-paced and energetic, and Woolfenden creates the idea of a storm with
quick falling scales that fall again and again like waves. The whole cue is structured around two
different ideas: the falling scales, and a march-like section, where Woolfenden uses rhythms and
cadences that allude to the Elizabethan music that Shakespeare might have been familiar with.
The Overture concludes on a dissonant trill, immediately throwing the audience into the chaos of
the opening storm scene. This scene was full of noise, with an extensive sound design. In his music
cue book, Woolfenden listed the sounds as:
‘Rain, thunder, lightning, creak, crack, flaps, rigging, whistle, bells, explosions, fireballs,
vocal noise work’.
On top of this there was the sound of wind playing throughout the opening scene, and whistles
being sounded to evoke the panic on board the sinking ship as dry ice swirled around the stage. It
must have made quite a racket — so much so that many reviewers complained that they couldn’t
hear what the actors were saying at all! The Leicester Graphic review said that ‘The Tempest raged
and roared … actors were shouting themselves hoarse whilst out front all we got was the sound and
fury of the storm. … After what appeared to be some hours, it quieted down a lot’. Norah Lewis
writing for the Birmingham Mail also complained that ‘it was impossible to hear what the stricken
voyagers were saying.’
It wasn’t just the sound levels that were the problem — the opening night in general was plagued
with misfortune. There was a technological problem which meant that the planned lighting
extravaganza never materialised. The backstage was thrown into complete darkness, causing
Sheridan Fitzgerald (Miranda) to run into some sharp object and cut her face. She had to perform
the first scene with Michael Hordern (Prospero) wiping blood off her face!
A particularly evocative review from The Times gives us some idea what the opening scene might
have looked like:
‘A glowing orange sun fades out and the curtain changes to a transparent silk, riven with
flashes of lightning, and the blanched faces of the ship’s company picked out in the
darkness.’
The ship strikes. Fireballs flame along the rigging and from beak to stern. ‘Enter
mariners wet.’
BOATSWAIN: All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
BOATSWAIN: [slowly pulling out a bottle] What, must our mouths be cold?
GONZALO: The king and prince at prayers. Let’s assist them,
For our case is as theirs.
SEBASTIAN: I am out of patience.
ANTONIO: We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards—
This wide-chopped rascal — would thou mightst lie drowning
The washing of ten tides!
GONZALO: He’ll be hanged yet,
Though every drop of water swear against it.
And gape at wid’st to glut him.
‘A confused noise’ Mercy on us!
We split, we split!
MASTER: Farewell, my wife and children!—
ALONSO: Farewell, brother!
GONZALO: Farewell life! Farewell living! We split, we split, we split!
ANTONIO: Let’s all sink wi’ th’ king.
SEBASTIAN: Let’s take leave of him. [they go below]
GONZALO: Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea — for an acre of barren
ground … long hearth, brown furze, any thing … The wills above be done, but
I would fain die a dry death!
A crowd bursts upon deck, making for the ship’s side, in the glare of fireballs. Of a
sudden these are quenched. A loud cry of many voices.
MUSIC CUE 2
[1.2] The Island. A green plat of undercliff, approached by a path descending through a grove of
lime-trees alongside the upper cliff, in the face of which is the entrance of a tall cave, curtained.
MIRANDA, gazing out to sea: PROSPERO, in wizard’s mantle and carrying a staff, comes from
the cave.
MIRANDA: [turning] If by your art — my dearest father — you have
Put the wild waters in this roar — allay them:
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin’s cheek,
Dashes the fire out … O! I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer: A brave vessel,
(Who had no doubt some noble creature in her!_
Dashed all to pieces. O the cry did knock
Against my very heart … poor souls, they perished. …
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth, or e’er
It should the good ship so have swallowed, and
The fraughting should within her.
PROSPERO: Be collected,
No more amazement: Tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.
MIRANDA: O woe the day!
PROSPERO: No harm:
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
The ship strikes. Fireballs flame along the rigging and from beak to stern. ‘Enter
The second music cue begins just after Gonzalo says ‘I would fain die a dry death!’ It’s a short,
dissonant cue that musically mirrors the onstage action; as the ship falls apart so does the music,
breaking down from the confident, clear music of the Overture. Throughout this there would also
have been the sound of voices, and the ship breaking on the rocks.
Prospero began this scene holding a staff and a book, sitting on a rock with Miranda at his feet. The
rock seat proved very unpopular with the reviewers. Apparently it had a bit of a squeak. Gordon
Parsons writing for the Morning Star complained that Michael Hordern (Prospero) had to compete
‘uncomfortably with persistent polystyrene creaks’ — an unintended addition to the sound of the
play! Unintended, accidental sounds like this crop up all over the place in the theatre, affecting how
the audience experiences the production. For this reviewer, the squeaky rock undermined
Prospero’s authority, and gave an unexpectedly comic tinge to the ‘isle of noises’.
Prospero and Miranda are depicted as being quite close in this first scene, at least as far as body
language is concerned. The prompt book notes that Prospero hugs Miranda when he says ‘I have
done nothing, but in care of thee’, and again when he instructs her to sit down so he can tell her his
story. She also removes his cloak where Shakespeare’s performance direction is that Prospero
remove his own cloak. When she sits to listen to him, she sits at his rock.
Although the reviews of this production were in general mixed, the one thing reviewers were almost
unanimous about was the quality of Michael Hordern’s performance as Prospero. They give an
impression of the way he interpreted the role. Irving Wardle for The Times called it ‘by far the
kindest performance of this role I have seen.’ Multiple critics attest to him having played the role as
a kindly, benevolent father, rather than as a wrathful, vengeful sorcerer. The Evening Standard
described him as ‘less remote and arrogant than most. … a world-weary but practical fellow who
takes for granted his supernatural powers.’
Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
And thy no greater father.
MIRANDA: [her eyes on the sea again] More to know
Did ever meddle with my thoughts.
PROSPERO: ’Tis time
I should inform thee farther: Lend thy hand
And pluck my magic garment from me… So,
[he lays aside his mantle + book]
Lie there my art: Wipe thou thine eyes, have comfort,
The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched
The very virtue of compassion in thee…
I have with such provision in mine art
So safely ordered, that there is no soil,
No, not so much perdition as an hair,
Betid to any creature in the vessel
Which thou heard’st cry, which thou saw’st sink:
Sit down,
For thou must now know farther.
MIRANDA: You have often
Begun to tell me what I am, but stopped,
And left me to a bootless inquisition,
Concluding, ‘Stay: not yet.’
PROSPERO: The hour’s now come,
The very minute bids thee ope thine ear,
Obey, and be attentive…
[he sits on a bench of rock, Miranda beside him]
Canst thou remember
A time before we came unto this cell?
I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not
Out three years old.
MIRANDA: Certainly sir, I can.
PROSPERO: By what? by any other house, or person?
Of any thing the image, tell me, that
Hath kept with thy remembrance.
MIRANDA: ’Tis far off…
And rather like a dream, than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants… Had I not
Four — or five — women once, that tended me?
PROSPERO: Thou hadst; and more, Miranda: But how is it,
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remembrest aught ere thou cam’s here,
How thou cam’st here thou mayst.
MIRANDA: But that I do not.
PROSPERO: Twelve years since — Miranda — twelve years since,
Thy father was the Duke of Milan and
A prince of power…
MIRANDA: Sir, are not you my father?
PROSPERO: Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir —
A princess; no worse issued.
MIRANDA: O the heavens,
What foul play had we, that we came from thence?
Or blesséd was’t we did?
Michael Horden as Prospero © Donald Cooper
PROSPERO: Both, both, my girl…
By foul play — as thou sayst — were we heaved thence,
But blessedly holp hither.
MIRANDA: O my heart bleeds
To think o' th' teen that I have turned you to,
Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther…
PROSPERO: My brother, and thy uncle, called Antonio…
I pray thee mark me, that a brother should
Be so perfidious … he, whom next myself
Of all the world I loved, and to him put
The manage of my state, as at that time
Through all the signories it was the first,
And Prospero, the prime duke, being so reputed
In dignity — and for the liberal arts,
Without a parallel; those being all my study,
The government I cast upon my brother,
And to my state grew stranger, being transported
And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle —
Dost thou attend me?
MIRANDA: [recalling her eyes from the sea] Sir, most heedfully.
PROSPERO: Being once perfected how to grant suits,
How to deny them: who t’advance, and who
To trash for over-topping; new created
The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed ‘em,
Or else new formed ‘em; having both the key
Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
To what tune pleased his ear, that now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And sucked my verdure out on’t: Thou attend’t not!
MIRANDA: [guiltily] O good sir, I do.
PROSPERO: I pray thee mark me…
I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness, and the bettering of my mind
With that which, but by being so retired,
O’er-prized all popular rate, in my false brother
Awaked an evil nature; and my trust,
Like a good parent, did beget of him
A falsehood in its contrary, as great
As my trust was, which had indeed no limit,
A confidence sans bound. … He, being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revénue yielded,
But what my power might else exact. … like one,
Who having minted truth by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie, he did believe
He was indeed the duke, out o' th' substitution
And executing th’ outward face of royalty
With all prerogative: Hence his ambition growing…
Dost thou hear?
MIRANDA: Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
PROSPERO: To have no screen between this part he played
And him he played it for, he needs will be
Absolute Milan — me (poor man) my library
Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties
He thinks me now incapable. … confederates
(So dry he was for sway) wi’ th’ King of Naples
To give him annual tribute, do him homage,

Subject his ‘coronet’ to his ‘crown,’ and bend
The dukedom yet unbowed (alas, poor Milan!)
To most ignoble stooping.
MIRANDA: O the heavens!
PROSPERO: Mark his condition, and th’ event, then tell me,
If this might be a brother.
MIRANDA: I should sin
To think but nobly of my grandmother,
Good wombs have borne bad sons.
PROSPERO: Now the condition…
This King of Naples, being an enemy
To me inveterate, hearkens my brother’s suit,
Which was, that he in lieu o' th' premises
Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
Should presently extirpate me and mine
Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,
With all the honours, on my brother: Whereon,
A treacherous army levied, one midnight,
Fated to th’ purpose, did Antonion open
The gates of Milan, and i' th' dead of darkness
The ministers for th’ purpose hurried thence
Me — and thy crying self.
MIRANDA: [her tears falling again] Alack, for pity:
I not remembring how I cried out then
Will cry it o’er again: it is a hint
That wrings mine eyes to’t.
PROSPERO: Hear a little further
And then I’ll bring thee to the present business
Which now’s upon’s: without the which, this story
Were most impertinent.
MIRANDA: Wherefore did they not
That hour destroy us?
PROSPERO: Well demanded, wench:
My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
So dear the love my people bore me: nor set
A mark so bloody on the business; but
With colours fairer painted their foul ends… [he falters and proceeds swiftly
In few, they hurried us aboard a bark,
Bore us some leagues to sea; where they prepared
A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast, the very rats
Instinctively have quit it: There they hoist us
To cry to th’ sea, that roared to us; to sigh
To th’ winds, whose pity sighing back again
Did us but loving wrong.
MIRANDA: Alack, what trouble
Was I then to you!
PROSPERO: O, a cherubin
Thou wast that did preserve me; thou didst smile,
Infuséd with a fortitude from heaven —
When I have decked the sea with drops full salt,
Under my burden groaned — which raised in me
An undergoing stomach, to bear up
Against what should ensue.
MIRANDA: How came we ashore?
Thunder would have been heard in the background as Prospero says ‘Thy false uncle’, creating
pathetic fallacy.
At this point Miranda moves closer to Prospero, and he holds her hand on his knee.
PROSPERO: By Providence divine….
Some food we had, and some fresh water, that
A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
Out of his charity, who being then appointed
Master of this design, did give us, with
Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
Which since have steamed much. So of his gentleness,
Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
MIRANDA: Would I might
But ever see that man.
PROSPERO: Now I arise,
Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow… [he resumes his mantle]
Here in this island we arrived, and here
Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
Than other princess’ can, that have more time
For vainer hours — and tutors not so carefully.
MIRANDA: Heaven thank you for’t…
And now I pray you sir —
For still ’tis beating in my mind — your reason
For raising this sea-storm?
PROSPERO: Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune
Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore: and by my prescience
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. Here cease more questions.
Thou art inclined to sleep… [at a pass of his hands, her eyes close and
presently she sleeps] ’tis a good dulness,
And give it way… I know thou canst not choose…
Come away, servant, come; I am ready now,
Approach my Ariel… [he lifts his staff] Come!
ARIEL: All hail, great master, grave sir, hail: I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire…to ride
On the curled clouds to strong bidding task
Ariel, and all his quality.
PROSPERO: Hast thou, spirit,
Performed to point the tempest that I bade thee?
ARIEL: To every article….
I boarded the king’s ship: now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flamed amazement. Sometime I’ld divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet, and join; Jove’s lightning, the precursors
O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
Yea, his dread trident shake.
PROSPERO: My brave spirit!
Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
Would not infect his reason?
Surprisingly, Woolfenden doesn’t provide any music for Ariel’s entrance. Ariel is very often
associated most strongly with music, and given a lot of music by theatre composers, but
Woolfenden chooses to stay mainly with Ariel’s songs.
Ariel’s opening lines were whispered, and spoken through a radio microphone. The prompt book
documents that Ariel delivered these lines inanimately, but Prospero’s facial reactions were much
more animated.
ARIEL: Not a soul
But felt a fever of the mad, and played
Some tricks of desperation; all but mariners
Plunged in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel;
Then all afire with me the king’s son Ferdinand,
With hair up-staring — then like reeds, not hair —
Was the first man that leaped; cried, ‘Hell is empty,
And all the devils are here.’
PROSPERO: Why, that’s my spirit:
But was not this nigh shore?
ARIEL: Close by, my master.
PROSPERO: But are they, Ariel, safe?
ARIEL: Not a hair perished:
On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
But fresher than before: and, as thou bed’s me,
In troops I have dispersed them ‘bout the isle:
The king’s son have I landed by himself,
Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs,
In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
His arms in this sad knot.
PROSPERO: Of the king’s ship,
The mariners, say, how thou hast disposed,
And all the rest o' th' fleet?
ARIEL: Safely in harbour
Is the king’s ship; in the deep nook, where once
Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
From the still-vexed Bermoothes, there she’s hid;
The mariners all under hatches stowed,
Who, with a charm joined to their suff’red labour,
I have left asleep: and for the rest o' th' fleet,
Which I dispersed, they all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean flote
Bound sadly home for Naples,
Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wrecked,
And his great person perish.
PROSPERO: Ariel, thy charge
Exactly is performed; but there’s more work:
What is the time o' th' day?
ARIEL: Past the mid season.
PROSPERO: [glancing at the sun] At least two glasses… The time ‘twixt six and now
Must by us both be spent most preciously.
ARIEL: [mutinously] Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
Let me remember thee what thou hast promised,
Which is not yet performed me.
PROSPERO: How now? Moody?
What is’t thou canst demand?
ARIEL: My liberty.
PROSPERO: Before the time be out? No more… [lifting his staff]
ARIEL: I prithee,
Remember I have done thee worthy service,
Told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served
Without grudge or grumblings; thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.
PROSPERO: Dost thou forget

From what a torment I did free thee?
ARIEL: No.
PROSPERO: Thou dost: and think’s it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
To do me business in the veins o' th' earth
When it is baked with frost.
ARIEL: I do not, sir.
PROSPERO: Thou liest, malignant thing: hast thou forgot
The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
Has grown into a hoop? hast thou forgot her?
ARIEL: No, sir.
PROSPERO: Thou hast. Where was she born? speak: tell me…
ARIEL: Sir, in Argier.
PROSPERO: O, was she so? I must
Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
Which thou forget’st… This damned witch, Sycorax,
For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
To enter human hearing, from Argier
Thou know’st was banished: for one thing she did
They would not take her life… Is not this true?
ARIEL: Ay, sir.
PROSPERO: This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child,
And here was left by th’ sailors; thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant,
And for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorred commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers,
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine — within which rift
Imprisoned, thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years: within which space she died,
And left thee there: where thou didst vent thy groans,
And fast as mill-wheels strike: Then was this island,
(Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp, hag-born) not honoured with
A human shape.
ARIEL: Yes: Caliban her son.
PROSPERO: Dull thing, I say so: he, that Caliban
Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know’st
What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax
Could not again undo: it was mine art,
When I arrived, and heard thee, that made gape
The pine, and let thee out.
ARIEL: I thank thee master.
PROSPERO: If thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak,
And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
Thou hast howled away twelve winters.
ARIEL: Pardon, master.
I will be correspondent to command,

And do my spiriting gently.
PROSPERO: Do so: and after two days
I will discharge thee.
ARIEL: That’s my noble master!
What shall I do? say what? what shall I do?
PROSPERO: Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea, be subject
To no sight but thine and mind; invisible
To every eye-ball else: go take this shape,
And hither come in’t…go…hence
With diligence.
Ariel vanishes. Prospero stoops over Miranda.
Awake, dear heart, awake, thou hast slept well,
Awake.
MIRANDA: The strangeness of your story put
Heaviness in me.
PROSPERO: Shake it off… Come on,
We’ll visit Caliban, my slave, who never
Yields us kind answer.
They approach a hole in the rock.
MIRANDA: ’Tis a villain, sir,
I do not love to look on.
PROSPERO: But, as ’tis,
We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us… [calling] What ho! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak.
CALIBAN: [from the hole] There’s wood enough within.
PROSPERO: Come forth, I say, there’s other business for thee:
Come, thou tortoise, when?
Ariel reappears, ‘like a water-nymph’. Kneels on wave.
Fine apparition: my quaint Ariel,
Hark in thine ear.
ARIEL: [whispers] My lord, it shall be done. [vanishes]
PROSPERO: [to Caliban] Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam; come forth.
Caliban comes from trap under the wave, munching.
CALIBAN: As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed
With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
From on you both: a south-west blow on ye,
And blister you all o’er!
PROSPERO: For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up — urchins
Shall, for that bast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee: thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees had made ‘em.
CALIBAN: [snarling] I must eat my dinner…
The island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me: when thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me, and made much of me…wouldst
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o' th' island.
As Caliban moves around the stage, Miranda moves in the opposite direction to avoid him. Her
avoidance of Caliban conveys how very uncomfortable she is around him, particularly when
contrasted with the very close physical relationship she has with Prospero, who is also onstage.
PROSPERO: Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness: I have used thee —
Filth as thou art! with human care, and lodged thee
In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
The honour of my child.
CALIBAN: Oh ho! would’t have been done!
Thou didst prevent me — I had peopled else
This isle with Calibans.
MIRANDA: Abhorréd slave,
Which any print of goodness will not take,
Being capable of all ill: I pitied thee,
Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
One thing or other: when thou didst not — savage! —
Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes
With words that made them known. But thy vile race,
Though thou didst learn, had that in’t which good natures
Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
Deservedly confined into this rock,
Who hadst deserved more than a prison.
CALIBAN: You taught me language, and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse: the red-plague rid you,
For learning me your language.
PROSPERO: Hag-seed, hence…
Fetch us in fuel, and be quick thou’rt best
To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st, or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
CALIBAN: [cowering] No, pray thee…
I must obey — his art is of such power, [growls to himself]
It would control my dam’s god Setebos,
And make a vassal of him.
PROSPERO: So, slave, hence.
[Caliban slinks away. Prospero and Miranda withdraw a little within the cave.
Music heard: Ariel invisible, playing and singing; Ferdinand following.]
ARIEL’S SONG
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kissed
The wild waves whist:
Foot it featly here and there,
And sweet sprites bear
The burthen… Hark!
Hark!
The watch-dogs bark:
Hark, hark, I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry—
Cockadiddle-dow!
FERDINAND: Where should this music be? i' th’ air, or th’ earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon
Some god o' th’ island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father’s wreck…
‘Come unto these yellow sands’ is a gentle, peaceful song. Woolfenden uses dotted rhythms to
create a lilting quality, and accompanies the singer with slow chords in the harp part. He has open
fifths in the bass of the harp which creates the impression of a drone, contributing to the pastoral
effect of the song. The most striking part of the song comes at the end, at the cry of ‘Cockadiddledow’.
This is set to a short musical motif shared between Ariel and the piccolo part which is
repeated over and over again, making it seem as though there are many different singers and
instruments suddenly joining in. The fullness of the musical setting is added to by trills in the
clarinet, bassoon, and horn parts, with the oboe mimicking part of Ariel’s melody. Woolfenden also
instructs the players to improvise a little at this point, allowing them to decide how to play the
material and ensuring that it sounds like a spontaneous chorus of sound rather than a strictly
planned piece of music. He’s trying to create a sense of the richness of the island, its inhabitants,
and its noises.
Ian Charleson as Ariel © Donald Cooper
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have followed it—
Or it hath drawn me rather. But ’tis gone…
No it begins again.
ARIEL’S SONG
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange…
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark! now I hear them —
Ding-dong bell.
FERDINAND: The ditty does remember my drowned father.
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes: I hear it now above me.
MUSIC CUE 6
PROSPERO: [leading Miranda from the cave] The fringéd curtains of thine eye advance,
And say what thou sets yond.
MIRANDA: What is’t? a spirit?
Lord, how it looks about… Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form… But ’tis a spirit.
PROSPERO: No wench, it eats and sleeps and hath such senses
As we have — such… This gallant which thou sets
Was in the wreck: and but he’s something strained
With grief — that’s beauty’s canker [touching her cheek]
— thou mightst call him
A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows,
And strays about to find ‘em.
MIRANDA: [moving forward, under the spell] I might call him
A thing divine for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble.
PROSPERO: [holding back] It goes on I see,
As my soul prompts it… Spirit, fine spirit, I’ll free thee
Within two days for this.
FERDINAND: [as Miranda confronts him] Most sure, the goddess
On whom these airs attend… Vouchsafe my prayer
May know if you remain upon this island,
And that you will some good instruction give
How I may bear me here… My prime request
Which I do last pronounce, is — O you wonder! —
If you be maid, or no?
MIRANDA: No wonder, sir,
But certainly a maid.
FERDINAND: My language? heavens…
I am the best of them that speak this speech,
Were I but where ’tis spoken.
PROSPERO: [advancing] How? the best?
What wert thou if the King of Naples heard thee?
‘Full fathom five’ is quite different to ‘Come unto these yellow sands’. This is a much more sinister
song. Instrumentation is central to how Woolfenden creates the creepy, ominous sound. The sound
quality of particular instruments is crucial for building atmosphere in the theatre. Here,
Woolfenden uses bells and a vibraphone, which so far haven’t been used in the score. The bells play
slow beats throughout the song, almost like a funeral bell. The vibraphone is a percussion
instrument with metal keys that are struck with soft mallets, so has a very gentle and resonant
sound, not dissimilar to a bell. The way that Woolfenden combines these instruments creates the
watery, mellow background to accompany the singer.
To this he adds the flute, which plays a countermelody against Ariel’s line (which is sometimes
doubled by the oboe, making the singer sound less human). The flute doesn’t have a melody, but
just plays the same alternating notes over and over, which adds a feeling of suspense.
Finally, the harmony is crucial for creating the foreboding atmosphere. The song is in F minor, a
key associated with melancholy, and on top of this Woolfenden moves between F minor and Eb
minor chords. Eb minor is outside the key of F minor, so this harmony adds dissonance,
contributing to the ‘otherworldly’ effect.
Cue 6 follows on immediately after Ariel’s song, and continues until Ferdinand’s line ‘How I may
bear me here’. Initially it repeats the main melody from ‘Full fathom five’ before reprising the tune
from ‘Come unto these yellow sands’. Even though Ariel has stopped singing his sounds linger on,
resonating around the island.
Ferdinand was Alan Rickman’s first role as a romantic lead. Although he is now most famous for
his voice, it was not greatly appreciated by the Tempest critics. Germaine Greer (The Spectator)
said that his ‘peculiar diction … often rendered Ferdinand quite incomprehensible’, while John
Barber (Daily Telegraph) called him ‘a gawky oddity’!
FERDINAND: A single thing, as I am now, that wonders
To hear thee speak of Naples… He does hear me,
And that he does, I weep: myself am Naples,
Who with mine eyes — never since at ebb — beheld
The king my father wrecked.
MIRANDA: Alack, for mercy!
FERDINAND: Yes, faith, and all his lords — the Duke of Milan
And his brave son being twain.
PROSPERO: [to himself] The Duke of Milan
And his more braver daughter could control thee,
If now ‘twere fit to do’t… At the first sight
They have changed eyes… Delicate Ariel,
I’ll set thee free for this… [sternly] A word, good sir.
I fear you have done yourself some wrong: a word
MIRANDA: Why speaks my father so ungently? This
Is the third man that e’er I saw…the first,
That e’er I sighed for: pity move my father
To be inclined my way.
FERDINAND: O, if a virgin,
And your affection not gone forth, I’ll make you
The queen of Naples.
PROSPERO: Soft, sir, one word more…
They are both in either’s powers: but this swift business
I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
Make the prize light… One word more: I charge thee
That thou attend me: thou dost here usurp
The name thou ow’st not — and hast put thyself
Upon this island, as a spy, to win it
From me, the lord on’t.
FERDINAND: No, as I am a man.
MIRANDA: There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with’t.
PROSPERO: [imperatively to Ferdinand] Follow me…
[to Miranda] Speak not you for him: he’s a traitor…
[to Ferdinand] Come,
I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together:
Sea-water shalt thou drink: thy food shall be
The fresh-brook mussels, withered roots, and husks
Wherein the acorn cradled… Follow.
FERDINAND: No,
I will resist such entertainment, till
Mine enemy has more power.
[he draws and is charmed from moving]
MIRANDA: O dear father,
Make not too rash a trial of him, for
He’s gentle and not fearful.
PROSPERO: What, I say,
My foot my tutor! Put thy sword up traitor,
Who make’s a show, but darts not strike, thy conscience
Is so possessed with guilt: come, from thy ward,
For I can here disarm thee with this stick,
And make thy weapon drop.
[Ferdinand’s sword falls from his hand]
Ferdinand and Miranda have been drawing closer throughout this scene, but at 'I charge thee’
Prospero bangs his staff on the stage and the two leap apart. Just a little while later Prospero moves
to place himself between them, shielding Miranda from Ferdinand.
MIRANDA: [plucking his mantle] Beseech you father.
PROSPERO: Hence: hang not on my garments.
MIRANDA: Sir have pity,
I’ll be his surety.
PROSPERO: Silence: one word more
Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee: what,
An advocate for an imposter! [He comforts Miranda as she weeps] Hush:
Thou think’st there is no more such shapes as he,
Having seen but him and Caliban… Foolish wench,
To th’ most of men, this is a Caliban,
And they to him are angels.
MIRANDA: My affections
Are then most humble: I have no ambition
To see a goodlier man.
PROSPERO: [to Ferdinand] Come on, obey:
Thy nerves are in their infancy again,
And have no vigour in them.
FERDINAND: So they are:
My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up…
My father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,
The wreck of all my friends, nor this man’s threats,
To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,
Might I but through my prison once a day
Behold this maid: all corners else o’h’earth
Let liberty make use of…space enough
Have I in such a prison.
PROSPERO: It works… [to Ferdinand] Come on…
[to Ariel] Thou hast done well, fine Ariel…
Hark what thou else shalt do me.
MIRANDA: Be of comfort,
My father’s of a better nature, sir,
Than he appears by speech: this is unwonted
Which now came from him.
PROSPERO: [to Ariel] Thou shalt be as free
As mountain winds; but then exactly do
All points of my command.
ARIEL: To th’ syllable.
PROSPERO: [turns again to Ferdinand] Come, follow:
[to Miranda] speak not for him.
MUSIC CUE 7
They enter the cave.
[2.1] A forest glade in another part of the Island. King Alonso lies upon the turf, his face buried in
the grass: Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco, and others stand about him: Sebastian and Antonio
converse apart in low mocking tones.
GONZALO: Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
So have we all, of joy; for our escape
Is much beyond our loss; our hint of woe
Is common — every day some sailor’s wife,
The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe: But for the miracle —
I mean our preservation — few in millions
Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.
To bring the first act to a close, Woolfenden returns to the music of the Overture. It’s only a short
reprise, bringing back the main theme, and as the scene changes to the forest glade the orchestra
segues into making bird sounds. The piccolo is instructed to play ‘weird bird song’, while the oboe
direction is to play ‘quasi ucello [birds] con a bit of luck’. These sorts of tongue-in-cheek directions
are all over Woolfenden’s scores, showing off his characteristic wit and good humour.
Woolfenden’s cue book describes the overall effect as being of the ‘Renaissance [turning] into
strange bewildered frightened fragmentary bird song’.
ALONSO: [without looking up] Prithee, peace.
SEBASTIAN: He receives comfort like cold porridge.
ANTONIO: The visitor will not give him o’er so.
SEBASTIAN: Look, he’s winding up the watch of his wit — by and by it will strike.
GONZALO: Sir —
SEBASTIAN: One… tell.
GONZALO: When every grief is entertained that’s offered,
Comes to the entertainer —
SEBASTIAN: [aloud] A dollar.
GONZALO: [turning] Dolour comes to him, indeed. You have spoken truer than you
purposed.
SEBASTIAN: You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.
GONZALO: [to the king again] Therefore, my lord, —
ANTONIO: Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue.
ALONSO: I prithee, spare.
GONZALO: Well, I have done: But yet —
SEBASTIAN: He will be talking.
ADRIAN: Shouts (calls)
ANTONIO: Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow?
SEBASTIAN: The old cock.
ANTONIO: The cockerel.
SEBASTIAN: Done: the wager?
ANTONIO: A laughter.
SEBASTIAN: A match!
ADRIAN: Though this island seem to be desert, —
ANTONIO: Ha, ha, ha!
SEBASTIAN: So! you’re paid.
ADRIAN: — uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible, —
SEBASTIAN: Yet —
ADRIAN: — yet —
ANTONIO: He could not miss’t.
ADRIAN: — it must needs be of subtle, tender and delicate temperance.
ANTONIO: ‘Temperance’ was a delicate wench.
SEBASTIAN: Ay, and a subtle, as he most learnedly delivered.
ADRIAN: The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
SEBASTIAN: As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
ANTONIO: Or, as ‘twere perfumed by a fen.
GONZALO: Here is every thing advantageous to life.
ANTONIO: True, save means to live.
SEBASTIAN: Of that there’s none, or little.
GONZALO: But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit, that our
garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding
their freshness and glosses, being rather new dyed than stained with salt
water.

ANTONIO: If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies?
SEBASTIAN: Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
GONZALO: 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.
SEBASTIAN: ’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.
ADRIAN: Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen.
GONZALO: Not since widow Dido’s time.
ANTONIO: Widow? a pox o’that: How came that widow in? Widow Dido!
ADRIAN: Widow Dido, said you? you made me study of that: She was of Carthage, not
of Tunis.
GONZALO: This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
ADRIAN: Carthage?
GONZALO: I assure you, Carthage. Sir, we were talking, that our garments seem now as
fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now
queen.
ANTONIO: And the rarest that e’er came there.
SEBASTIAN: Bate, I beseech you, ‘widow Dido’?
ANTONIO: O, ‘widow Dido’? ay, Widow Dido.
GONZALO: Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort.
ANTONIO: That sort was well fished for.
GONZALO: When I wore it at your daughter’s marriage?
ALONSO: You cram these words into mine ears, against
The stomach of my sense… Would I had never
Married my daughter there: for, coming thence,
My son is lost, and, in my rate, she too,
Who is so far from Italy removed,
I ne’er again shall see her… O thou mine heir
Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
Hath made his meal on thee?
FRANCISCO: Sir, he may live.
I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
‘Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To th’ shore, that o’er his wave-worn basis bowed,
As stooping to relieve him: I not doubt
He came alive to land.
ALONSO: No, no, he’s gone.
SEBASTIAN: [aloud] Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
But rather loose her to an African,
Where she, at least, is banished from your eye,
Who hath cause to wet the grief on’t.
ALONSO: Prithee, peace.
SEBASTIAN: You were kneeled to, and importuned otherwise
By all of us: and the fair soul herself
Weighed between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o' th' beam sh’ould bow… We have lost your son,
I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have

Moe widows in them of this business’ making,
Than we bring men to comfort them:
The fault’s your own.
ALONSO: So is the dear’st o' th' loss.
GONZALO: 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.
ANTONIO: And most chirurgeonly.
GONZALO: It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
When you are cloudy.
SEBASTIAN: Fowl weather? Cluck, cluck.
ANTONIO: Very foul.
GONZALO: Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, —
ANTONIO: He’d sow’t with nettle-seed.
SEBASTIAN: Or docks, or mallows.
GONZALO: And were the king on’t, what would I do?
SEBASTIAN: ‘Scape being drunk, for want of wine.
GONZALO: 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 —
SEBASTIAN: Yet he would be king on’t.
ANTONIO: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.
GONZALO: 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.
SEBASTIAN: No marrying ‘mong his subject?
ANTONIO: None, man, all idle; whores and knaves…
GONZALO: I would with such perfection govern, sir,
T’excel the golden age, and —
SEBASTIAN: [aloud] ‘Save his majesty!
ANTONIO: Long live Gonzalo!
GONZALO: Do you mark me, sir?
ALONSO: Prithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.
GONZALO: I do well believe your highness, and did it to minister occasion to these
gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs, that they always use
to laugh at nothing.
ANTONIO: ’Twas you we laughed at.

GONZALO: Who, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you: so you may continue,
and laugh at nothing still.
ANTONIO: What a blow was there given!
SEBASTIAN: An it had not fallen flat-long.
GONZALO: You are gentlemen of brave mettle: you would lift the moon out of her sphere
— if she would continue in its five weeks without changing!
MUSIC CUE 8
Ariel appears aloft.
SEBASTIAN: We would so, and then go a bat-flowing.
Gonzalo turns away.
ANTONIO: Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
GONZALO: No, I warrant you. I will not adventure my discretion so weakly… [he lies
down] Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy?
ANTONIO: Go sleep, and hear us.
All sleep but Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio.
ALONSO: What, all so soon asleep? I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts. I find
They are inclined to do so.
SEBASTIAN: Please you, sir,
Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
It is a comforter.
ANTONIO: We two, my lord,
Will guard your person, while you take your rest,
And watch your safety.
ALONSO: Thank you… wondrous heavy.
SEBASTIAN: What a strange drowsiness possess them!
ANTONIO: It is the quality o' th' climate.
SEBASTIAN: Why
Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
Myself disposed to sleep.
ANTONIO: Nor I. My spirits are nimble:
They fell together all, as by consent;
They dropped — as by a thunder-stroke… [in a whisper, pointing at the
sleepers] What might,
Worthy Sebastian? O, what might? No more…
And yet, methinks, I see it in thy face,
What thou shouldst be: th’occasion speaks thee, and
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head.
SEBASTIAN: What! art thou waking?
ANTONIO: Do you not hear me speak?
SEBASTIAN: I do, and surely
It is a sleepy language; and thou speak’st
Out of thy sleep: What is it thou didst say?
This is a strange repose, to be asleep
With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving…
And yet so fast asleep.
ANTONIO: Noble Sebastian,
Thou let’st thy fortune sleep…die rather…wink’st
Whiles thou art waking.
Cue 8 is very short, and accompanied Ariel’s appearance. Again, Woolfenden brings back the main
themes from both ‘Come unto these yellow sands’ and ‘Full Fathom Five’, this time slightly altered.
He also uses the vibraphone again to recall the sound of ‘Full fathom five’, and to this he adds a
marimba, a pitched percussion instrument with wooden bars instead of metal but also struck with
a padded mallet. It gives a more ‘earthy’ quality to the sound in this cue. In his cue book,
Woolfenden writes that the music should not be ‘too tinkling’, and should instead be ‘muted’ and
‘noble’.
SEBASTIAN: Thou dost snore distinctly,
There’s meaning in thy snores.
ANTONIO: I am more serious than my custom: you
Must be so too, if heed me: which to do
Trebles thee o’er.
SEBASTIAN: Well: I am standing water.
ANTONIO: I’ll teach you how to flow.
SEBASTIAN: Do so: to ebb
Hereditary sloth instructs me.
ANTONIO: O!
If you but knew how you the purpose cherish
Whiles thus you mock it: how, in stripping it,
You more invest it: ebbing men, indeed, —
Most often do so near the bottom run
By their own fear or sloth.
SEBASTIAN: Prithee, say on:
The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
A matter from thee, and a birth indeed
Which throes thee much to yield.
ANTONIO: [points to Francisco] Thus, sir:
Although this lord of weak remembrance, this,
Who shall be of as little memory
When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuade,—
For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
Professes to persuade, — the king his son's alive,
'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd
And he that sleeps here swims.
SEBASTIAN: I have no hope
That he's undrown’d.
ANTONIO: O, out of that 'no hope'
What great hope have you! no hope that way is
Another way so high a hope that even
Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me
That Ferdinand is drown’d?
SEBASTIAN: He’s gone.
ANTONIO: Then, tell me,
Who’s the next heir of Naples?
SEBASTIAN: Claribel.
ANTONIO: She that is queen of Tunis; she that dwells
Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples
Can have no note, unless the sun were post —
The man i' the moon's too slow — till new-born chins
Be rough and razorable; she that — from whom?
We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
SEBASTIAN: What stuff is this! how say you?
'Tis true, my brother's daughter's queen of Tunis;
So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions
There is some space.
ANTONIO: A space whose every cubit
Seems to cry out, 'How shall that Claribel
Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,

And let Sebastian wake.' Say, this were death
That now hath seized them; why, they were no worse
Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
As amply and unnecessarily
As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
The mind that I do! what a sleep were this
For your advancement! Do you understand me?
SEBASTIAN: Methinks I do.
ANTONIO: And how does your content
Tender your own good fortune?
SEBASTIAN: I remember
You did supplant your brother Prospero.
ANTONIO: True:
And look how well my garments sit upon me;
Much feater than before: my brother's servants
Were then my fellows; now they are my men.
SEBASTIAN: But, for your conscience?
ANTONIO: Ay, sir: where lies that? if 'twere a kibe,
'Twould put me to my slipper: but I feel not
This deity in my bosom: twenty consciences,
That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they
And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
No better than the earth he lies upon,
If he were that which now he's like, that's dead;
Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
To the perpetual wink for aye might put
This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
They'll tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour.
SEBASTIAN: Thy case, dear friend,
Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,
I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke
Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;
And I the king shall love thee.
ANTONIO: Draw together: [they unsheath swords]
And when I rear my hand, do you the like
To fall it on Gonzalo.
SEBASTIAN: O, but one word. [they talk apart]
MUSIC CUE 9
‘Music’. ARIEL appears again, unseen by them, and bends over Gonzalo.
ARIEL: My master through his art foresees the danger,
That you — his friend — are in, and sends me forth,
(For else his project dies) to keep them living.
Sings in Gonzalo’s ear.
Cue 9 is a strange humming noise. The humming alternates around 3 notes, creating a quiet
buzzing sound. This is the noise that Gonzalo later claims to have heard, that wakes him up from
his sleep.
ARIEL’S SONG
While you here do snoring lie,
Open-eyed conspiracy
His time doth take:
If of life you keep a care,
Shake off slumber, and beware…
Awake! Awake!
ANTONIO: Then let us both be sudden.
GONZALO: [waking] Now, good angels preserve the king!
Why, how now? Ho! awake! [shaking Alonso, who wakes]
ALONSO: [to Antonio and Sebastian] Why are you drawn?
Wherefore this ghastly looking? What’s the matter?
SEBASTIAN: Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
Like bulls, or rather lions: did't not wake you?
It struck mine ear most terribly.
ALONSO: I heard nothing.
ANTONIO: O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
To make an earthquake! sure, it was the roar
Of a whole herd of lions.
ALONSO: Heard you this, Gonzalo?
GONZALO: Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,
And that a strange one too, which did awake me:
I shaked you, sir, and cried: as mine eyes open'd,
I saw their weapons drawn: there was a noise,
That's verily. Best 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.
GONZALO: Heavens keep him from these beasts!
For he is, sure, i' the island.
ALONSO: Lead away.
ARIEL: Prospero my lord shall know what I have done:
So, king, go safely on to seek thy son.
Exeunt
[2.2] A barren upland: the weather lowering. Enter Caliban, with a burden of wood. A noise of
thunder heard.
CALIBAN: All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease: His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse… But they'll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' th' mire,
Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but
For every trifle are they set upon me —
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness…
TRINCULO: [offstage] Helloo!
This is a very short, fast song. It’s full of excitement — trills, a leaping, staccato melody line, and
maracas that punctuate the end of phrases. ‘Full fathom’ and ‘Come unto’ were at least partly for
scene setting, and to introduce Ferdinand to the island, but this song has a direct purpose; to wake
the sleeping group. So Woolfenden doesn’t linger on delicate phrases. The song rattles past, taking
just a few seconds to sing. The accompaniment was recorded, so only Ariel would have been
singing live.
Thunder is heard as they leave the stage, preparing the next scene.
There are a plethora of sound cues throughout this scene, creating the noises of a thunderstorm.
Howling wind, pouring rain, and rumbling thunder would have whipped round the stage as Caliban
collected his logs. When Caliban enters he is wearing his gaberdine round his waist, which he pulls
up over his shoulder to cover him more. He’s also holding an effigy.
CALIBAN: Lo, now, lo!
Here comes a spirit of his — and to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly: I'll fall flat —
Perchance he will not mind me.
He falls upon his face, so that his gaberdine hides him.
TRINCULO: [stumbling forward, looking at the sky] Here’s neither bush nor shrub, to
bear off any weather at all… and another storm brewing, I hear it sing i' th'
wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that
would shed his liquor: if it should thunder, as it did before, I know not where
to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls… What
have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? [sniffing] A fish, he smells like
a fish… a very ancient and fish-like smell… a kind of not-of-the-newest poorjohn:
a strange fish… 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 lazy out ten to see a
dead Indian. Legged like a man; and his fins like arms… [feels the body
warily] Warm, o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion; hold it no longer;
this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt.
More thunder.
Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine;
there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange
bed-fellows. [pulling the skirt round him] I will here shroud till the dregs of
the storm be past.
Enter Stephano, singing: a bottle in his hand.
STEPHANO: I shall no more to sea, to sea,
Here shall I die ashore —
This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's
funeral: well, here's my comfort. [drinks]
The master, the swabber, the bos’n, 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 is a scurvy tune too: but here’s my comfort. [drinks]
CALIBAN: Do not torment me… O!
STEPHANO: What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon's with
savages and men of Ind, ha? I have not ‘scaped drowning to be afeard now of
your four legs; for it hath been said; As proper a man as ever went on four
legs cannot make him give ground: and it shall be said so again while
Stephano breathes at's nostrils.
CALIBAN: The spirit torments me… O!
STEPHANO: This is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an
ague… Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some
relief, if it be but for that.. If I can recover him and keep him tame and get to
Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’sleather.
This song is written to sound like a traditional sea shanty. Woolfenden directs the actor to sing it
‘like a shanty’, and he uses dotted rhythms which are so associated with this kind of song.
This scene between Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban is full of physical theatre. The prompt books
are filled with directions like ‘Stephano pushes Caliban’s head down’, ‘Trinculo goes to grab bottle,
Stephano pushes him’, and ‘Stephano pulls Trinculo out from gaberdine’. Compared to the stately,
physically detached interactions between Prospero, Ariel, and Ferdinand, and the more loving
relationships between Miranda and both Prospero and Ferdinand, this immediately establishes
these characters as having a rougher, more slapstick relationship.
CALIBAN: [showing his face] Do not torment me, prithee: I’ll bring my wood home
faster.
STEPHANO: He's in his fit now and does not talk after the wisest.; he shall taste of my
bottle: if he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit: if I
can recover him and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him; he
shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly.
CALIBAN: Thou dost me yet but little hurt;
Thou wilt anon, I know it by thy trembling:
Now Prosper works upon thee.
STEPHANO: Come on your ways; open your mouth: here is that which will give language
to you, cat; open your mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and
that soundly… you cannot tell who's your friend; open your chaps again.
TRINCULO: I should know that voice: It should be — but he is drowned; and these are
devils; O, defend me! [yells]
STEPHANO: Four legs and two voices: a most delicate monster… His forward voice now is
to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to
detract: If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague:
Come… [Caliban drinks again] Amen, I will pour some in thy other mouth.
TRINCULO: Stephano, —
STEPHANO: [starting back] Huh? Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! This is a
devil, and no monster: I will leave him — I have no long spoon.
TRINCULO: Stephano … if thou beest Stephano, touch me, and speak to me: for I am
Trinculo; be not afeard — thy good friend Trinculo.
STEPHANO: If thou beest Trinculo… [returns] come forth: [grips his ankles] I’ll pull thee
by the lesser legs: [pulls and pauses] if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they.
[spies his face] Thou art very Trinculo indeed: How cam’st thou to be the
sewage of this moon-calf? Can he vent Trinculos?
TRINCULO: [staggering to his feet] I took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke… But
art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope now, thou art not drowned. Is the
storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of
the storm: [fondling him foolishly] And art thou living, Stephano? O
Stephano, two Neapolitans ‘scaped!
STEPHANO: Prithee do not turn me about [laughs] my stomach is not constant.
CALIBAN: These be fine things, an’ if they be not sprites:
That’s a brave god, and bears celestial liquor:
I will kneel to him.
STEPHANO: How didst thou 'scape? How cam’st thou hither? Swear by this bottle how
thou cam’st hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved
o’er-board, by this bottle! which I made of the bark of a tree, with
mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.
CALIBAN: [coming forward] I’ll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject, for the
liquor is not earthly.
STEPHANO: Here: [offering Trinculo the bottle] swear then how thou escapedst.
TRINCULO: Swam ashore, man, like a duck, I can swim like a duck, I’ll be sworn.
STEPHANO: Here, kiss the book… [Trinculo drinks] Though thou canst swim like a duck,
thou art made like a goose. [snatching the bottle from him]
TRINCULO: O Stephano, hast any more of this?
STEPHANO: The whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by th’ sea-side where my wine is
hid. How now, moon-calf! how does thine ague?
CALIBAN: Hast thou not dropped from heaven?
STEPHANO: Out o' the moon, I do assure thee… [draining the bottle] I was the man i’ the
moon when time was.
The prompt book diagram showing the on-stage position of
the characters at this point in the scene.
CALIBAN: [bowing low] I have seen thee in her: and I do adore thee:
My mistress showed me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush.
STEPHANO: Come, swear to that; kiss the book… I will furnish it anon with new
‘contents’. Swear.
TRINCULO: By this good light, this is a very shallow monster! I afeard of him? A very
weak monster… The man i’ the moon! A most poor credulous monster… [as
Caliban sucks at the empty bottle] Well drawn, monster, in good sooth.
CALIBAN: I’ll show thee every fertile inch of the island:
And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee be my god.
TRINCULO: By this light, a most perfidious and drunken monster. When's god's asleep,
he'll rob his bottle.
CALIBAN: I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy subject.
STEPHANO: Come on then; down, and swear.
Caliban kneels.
TRINCULO: I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy
monster! I could find in my heart to beat him —
STEPHANO: Come, kiss.
Caliban kisses his foot.
TRINCULO: — but that the poor monster’s in drink… An abominable monster!
CALIBAN: I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee and get thee wood enough.
A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
Thou wondrous man.
TRINCULO: A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard!
CALIBAN: I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts;
Show thee a jay's nest and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee
To clustering filberts and sometimes I'll get thee
Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?
STEPHANO: I prithee now, lead the way without any more talking.. Trinculo, the king and
all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here: [to Caliban] Here;
bear my bottle: Fellow Trinculo; we'll fill him by and by again.
CALIBAN: [sings drunkenly] Farewell master; farewell, farewell.
TRINCULO: A howling monster: a drunken monster.
CALIBAN: No more dams I’ll make for fish,
Nor fetch in firing
At requiring,
Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish
‘Ban ‘Ban, Ca-Caliban
Has a new master — get a new man.
Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-day, freedom!
STEPHANO: O brave monster; lead the way. [they reel off]
MUSIC CUE 12B
CALIBAN: Freedom!
[3.1] Before Prospero’s cell: Ferdinand, bearing a log.
FERDINAND: There be some sports are painful; and their labour
Caliban and Ariel are musical opposites. Ariel’s songs are quite complex and difficult to sing, but
Caliban’s music is extremely simple. His song is mainly variations on the same phrase, repeated
over and over again. Caliban uses only simple intervals, with none of the tricky dissonance that the
actor playing Ariel has to negotiate. (As can be heard on the recordings, Ian Charleson was an
extremely accomplished singer, which is a necessity for managing Woolfenden’s Ariel songs.)
Woolfenden doesn’t explicitly use music for characterisation, as some composers do. He doesn’t
give Prospero, Ferdinand or Miranda musical themes, for example. But his music does add to the
characterisation of Ariel and Caliban. When Ariel sings, he always has instrumental
accompaniment — he commands the island’s music. But Caliban has no such support. When he
sings, he sings alone. Even though he is the island’s sole inhabitant, Woolfenden’s setting supports
the idea that Caliban is an outcast, a stranger in his own home.
In this production, Caliban is also a figure of ridicule. When Stephano commands him to ‘lead the
way’, there’s a comic reprise of the tune from ‘Ban Ban Caliban’, starting with a glissando (slide) on
the trombone and now accompanied by Rototoms and timpani. The impression is that Caliban is
clumsy, loud, and more than a little bit tipsy. The trombone glissando is often used to accompany
comic characters in films and on stage, establishing the connection between this particular sound
and the comedy figure.
David Suchet as Caliban © Donald Cooper
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… O, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;
And he's composed of harshness… [he sits] I must remove
Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,
Upon a sore injunction; my sweet mistress
Weeps, when she sees me work, and says, such baseness
Had never like executor. I forget…
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours —
Most busiest, when idlest.
Miranda comes from the cave; Prospero, behind her, stands at the door, unseen.
MIRANDA: Alas, now pray you,
Work not so hard: I would the lightning had
Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile:
Pray, set it down, and rest you: when this burns,
'Twill weep for having wearied you… My father
Is hard at study; pray now, rest yourself —
He's safe for these three hours.
FERDINAND: O most dear mistress,
The sun will set before I shall discharge
What I must strive to do.
MIRANDA: If you'll sit down,
I'll bear your logs the while: pray give me that,
I'll carry it to the pile.
FERDINAND: No, precious creature,
I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,
Than you should such dishonour undergo,
While I sit lazy by.
MIRANDA: It would become me
As well as it does you: and I should do it
With much more ease: for my good will is to it,
And yours it is against.
PROSPERO: Poor worm thou art infected,
This visitation shows it.
MIRANDA: You look wearily.
FERDINAND: No, noble mistress, ’tis fresh morning with me
When you are by at night: I do beseech you —
Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers —
What is your name?
MIRANDA: Miranda, — O my father,
I have broke your hest to say so!
FERDINAND: Admired Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration, worth
What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
I have eyed with best regard, and many a time
Th’ harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
Brought my too diligent ear: 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
All through this scene Miranda and Ferdinand are very physically affectionate with each other, with
Miranda stopping to mop Ferdinand’s brow with her handkerchief.
Alan Rickman as Ferdinand & Sheridan Fitzgerald as Miranda © Joe Cocks
Of every creature's best.
MIRANDA: I do not know
One of my sex; no woman's face remember,
Save, from my glass, mine own: nor have I seen
More that I may call men than you, good friend,
And my dear father: how features are abroad,
I am skilless of; but, by my modesty —
The jewel in my dower — I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you,
Nor can imagination form a shape,
Besides yourself, to like of… But I prattle
Something too wildly, and my father's precepts
I therein do forget.
FERDINAND: I am in my condition
A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king;
(I would not so!) and would no more endure
This wooden slavery, than to suffer
The flesh-fly blow my mouth… Hear my soul speak…
The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service, there resides
To make me slave to it, and for your sake
Am I this patient log-man.
MIRANDA: Do you love me?
FERDINAND: O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
And crown what I profess with kind event
If I speak true… if hollowly, invert
What best is boded me to mischief… I,
Beyond all limit of what else i' th’ world,
Do love, prize, honour you.
MIRANDA: I am a fool
To weep at what I am glad of.
PROSPERO: Fair encounter
Of two most rare affections: heavens rain grace
On that which breeds between ‘em!
FERDINAND: Wherefore weep you?
MIRANDA: At mine unworthiness that dare not offer
What I desire to give; and much less take
What I shall die to want… But this is trifling —
And all the more it seeks to hide itself,
The bigger bulk it shows… Hence bashful cunning,
And prompt me plain and holy innocence…
I am your wife, if you will marry me;
If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow
You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
Whether you will or no.
FERDINAND: [kneeling] My mistress, — dearest!
And I thus humble ever.
MIRANDA: My husband then?
FERDINAND: Ay, with a heart as willing
As bondage e'er of freedom: here's my hand.
MIRANDA: And mine, with my heart in't; and now farewell
Till half an hour hence.
FERDINAND: A thousand! thousand!
[Miranda pursues her way: Ferdinand goes to fetch more logs]

PROSPERO: So glad of this as they I cannot be,
Who are surprised with all; but my rejoicing
At nothing can be more. I'll to my book,
For yet, ere supper time, must I perform
Much business appertaining. [he turns back into his cell]
MUSIC CUE 13
[3.2] A cove by the sea: on one side the land slopes gently down to the shore, on the other are cliffs
with a little cave. Stephano, Trinculo and Caliban sit by the entrance to the cave, drinking.
STEPHANO: Tell not me — when the butt is out we will drink water, not a drop before;
therefore bear up, and board 'em. Servant-monster, drink to me.
TRINCULO: Servant-monster! [pledges Stephano] The folly of this island! 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.
STEPHANO: Drink servant-monster when I bid thee. Thy eyes are almost set in thy head.
TRINCULO: Where should they be set else? he were a brave monster indeed, if they were
set in his tail.
STEPHANO: My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea
cannot drown me — I swam, ere I could recover the shore, five-and-thirty
leagues off and on. By this light thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my
standard.
TRINCULO: Your lieutenant if you list — he’s no standard.
STEPHANO: We’ll not run, Monsieur Monster.
TRINCULO: Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs and yet say nothing neither.
STEPHANO: Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest a good moon-calf.
CALIBAN: How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe: I'll not serve him, he is not
valiant.
Enter Ariel, invisible.
TRINCULO: Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case to justle a constable. Why,
thou debauched fish thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so
much sack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish
and half a monster?
CALIBAN: Lo, how he mocks me! wilt thou let him, my lord?
TRINCULO: ‘Lord', quoth he! that a monster should be such a natural!
CALIBAN: Lo, lo, again! bite him to death, I prithee.
STEPHANO: Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if you prove a mutineer, — the
next tree! The poor monster’s my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.
CALIBAN: I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased
To hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?
STEPHANO: Marry will I: kneel and repeat it. I will stand, and so shall Trinculo.
Caliban kneels, Stephano and Trinculo totter to their feet.
CALIBAN: As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant —
A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.
ARIEL: Thou liest.
CALIBAN: [turning on Trinculo] Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou:
I would my valiant master would destroy thee…
I do not lie.
STEPHANO: Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale, by this hand, I will supplant
some of your teeth.
The trombone glissando returns for cue 13. It’s only three bars long, but it signals the return to the
stage of Caliban’s drunken trio. Woolfenden really encourages the trombone player to ham up the
performance, writing ‘glis — pissed’ above the trombone line.
All of Ariel’s ‘Thou liest’ lines were pre-recorded in Trinculo’s voice.
Richard Griffiths as Trinculo, Paul Moriarty as Stephano, and David Suchet as Caliban © Joe Cocks. Ian Charleson as
Ariel can be seen on the far left, preparing to make mischief.
TRINCULO: Why, I said nothing.
STEPHANO: Mum, then, and no more: [to Caliban] Proceed.
CALIBAN: I say, by sorcery he got this isle —
From me he got it. if thy greatness will
Revenge it on him — for I know thou dar’st,
But this thing dare not —
STEPHANO: That’s most certain.
CALIBAN: Thou shalt be lord of it and I'll serve thee.
STEPHANO: How now shall this be compassed? Canst thou bring me to the party?
CALIBAN: Yea, yea, my lord: I'll yield him thee asleep,
Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.
ARIEL: Thou liest, thou canst not.
CALIBAN: What a pied ninny’s this! Thou scurvy patch!
I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows,
And take his bottle from him: when that's gone,
He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him
Where the quick freshes are.
STEPHANO: Trinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one word
further, and, by this hand, I'll turn my mercy out of doors and make a stockfish
of thee.
TRINCULO: Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther off.
STEPHANO: Didst thou not say he lied?
ARIEL: Thou liest.
STEPHANO: Do I so? take thou that. As you like this, give me the lie another time.
TRINCULO: I did not give the lie. Out of your wits, and bearing too?
A pox o' your bottle! this can sack, and drinking do:
a murrain on your monster, and the devil take your fingers!
CALIBAN: Ha, ha, ha!
STEPHANO: Now, forward with your tale. Prithee, stand farther off.
CALIBAN: Beat him enough: after a little time,
I'll beat him too.
STEPHANO: Stand further: Come, proceed.
CALIBAN: Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
I' th' afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain him,
Having first seized his books: or with a log
Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
Or cut his wezand with thy knife… Remember,
First to possess his books; for without them
He's but a sot, as I am; nor hath not
One spirit to command: they all do hate him,
As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.
He has brave utensils — for so he calls them —
Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal.
And that most deeply to consider, is
The beauty of his daughter… he himself
Calls her a nonpareil: I never saw a woman,
But only Sycorax my dam and she;
But she as far surpasseth Sycorax,
As great'st does least.
STEPHANO: Is it so brave a lass?
CALIBAN: Ay, lord, she will become thy bed, I warrant,
And bring thee forth brave brood.
This scene is one of the most violent between the three. Stephano stops Trinculo from hitting
Caliban; in retaliation Trinculo bends back Stephano’s fingers, they get into a fist fight — and when
they finally calm down Ariel steps in to pinch Trinculo’s bottom, starting the whole thing off again!
STEPHANO: Monster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen —
save our graces! — and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys… Dost thou like
the plot, Trinculo?
TRINCULO: Excellent.
STEPHANO: Give me thy hand — I am sorry I beat thee: but, while thou liv’st, keep a good
tongue in thy head.
CALIBAN: Within this half hour will he be asleep.
Wilt thou destroy him then?
STEPHANO: Ay, on mine honour.
ARIEL: This will I tell my master.
CALIBAN: Thou make’s me merry: I am full of pleasure.
Let us be jocund… Will you troll the catch
You taught me but while-ere?
STEPHANO: At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any reason. Come on, Trinculo, let
us sing.
Flout ‘em, and cout ‘em: and scout ‘em, and flout ‘em,
Thought is free.
CALIBAN: That’s not the tune.
MUSIC CUE 14A
Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe.
STEPHANO: What is this same?
TRINCULO: [staring about him] This is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of
Nobody.
STEPHANO: [shakes his fist] If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou
beest a devil, take't as thou list.
TRINCULO: [maudlin] O forgive me my sins!
STEPHANO: He that dies, pays all debts: I defy thee; [his courage suddenly ebbing]
Mercy upon us!
CALIBAN: Art thou afeard?
STEPHANO: No, monster, not I.
CALIBAN: Be not afeard — the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not:
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again — and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
MUSIC CUE 14B
STEPHANO: This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for
nothing.
CALIBAN: When Prospero is destroyed.
STEPHANO: That shall be by and by: I remember the story.
TRINCULO: The sound is going away. Let's follow it, and after do our work.
STEPHANO: Lead monster, we’ll follow: I would I could see this taborer — he lays it on.
TRINCULO: Wilt come? I’ll follow, Stephano.
They follow Ariel up the cove.
Cue 14A combines Caliban’s and Ariel’s instruments. The tune is played on the piccolo and clarinet,
standing in here for a tabor pipe, and is accompanied by the Rototoms. Woolfenden brings together
the ‘silly’ and ‘serious’ instruments for Ariel’s trick.
Cue 14B is a repeat of 14A, played much faster.
[3.3] The lime-grove above Prospero’s cave, close to the summit of the cliff. Alonso and his train,
tired and dejected, wend their way through the trees; Gonzalo lags behind.
GONZALO: By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir.
My old bones ache: here's a maze trod, indeed,
Through forth-rights and meanders: by your patience,
I needs must rest me.
ALONSO: Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
Who am myself attach'd with weariness,
To th’ dulling of my spirits: sit down, and rest…
Alonso, Gonzalo, Adrian and Francisco seat themselves.
Even here I will put off my hope and keep it
No longer for my flatterer: he is drowned
Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
Our frustrate search on land… well, let him go.
ANTONIO: [standing, with Sebastian, apart from the rest]
I am right glad that he’s so out of hope:
Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved t’effect.
SEBASTIAN: The next advantage
Will we take throughly.
ANTONIO: Let it be to-night,
For, now they are oppressed with travel, they
Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
As when they are fresh.
SEBASTIAN: I say, to-night: no more.
MUSIC CUE 15
Solemn and strange music: and Prospero invisible.
ALONSO: What harmony is this? my good friends, hark!
GONZALO: Marvellous sweet music!
Enter several strange shapes, and dance about it with gentle actions of salutation;
and, inviting the king, &c. to eat.
ALONSO: Give us kind keepers, heavens: what were these?
SEBASTIAN: A living drollery: now I will believe
That there are unicorns: that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
At this hour reigning there.
ANTONIO: I'll believe both:
And what does else want credit, come to me,
And I'll be sworn 'tis true: travellers ne'er did lie,
Though fools at home condemn ‘em.
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.
PROSPERO: Honest lord,
Thou hast said well: for some of you there present…
Are worse than devils.
ALONSO: I cannot too much muse
Few plays have as much foregrounded music as The Tempest, where the characters draw attention
to the music that is being heard. Very often, the on-stage characters don’t appear to be able to hear
the music that accompanies them. Like film scores, it provides an unseen, “unheard” soundtrack to
the drama unfolding on stage. But in Tempest, the music shapes the character’s actions and
thoughts. They interact with it, and it gives the island itself its own sonic character. This is the first
time we hear the ‘solemn and strange’ sounds of the island without Ariel as an intermediary. And
they aren’t particularly comforting or welcoming sounds. This is much more dissonant music than
Woolfenden has given us previously. It’s built around a single, falling semitone motif that moves
from B-flat to A, harmonised in various different ways, giving it a repetitive and slightly
uncomfortable feel. Woolfenden has underlined the word ‘strange’ in the score, indicating that this
was what he felt was most important to convey here.
The music continues right through this passage, underscoring the whole conversation. It stops only
when the thunder interrupts after Alonso says ‘Stand to and do as we.’ Woolfenden gives strict
instructions to stop when the thunder starts, no matter where the musicians are in the music.
Theatre composers always have to be flexible because of the variations between live performances.
Unlike film where everything can be cropped and edited to fit precisely, theatre performances
change slightly night on night. Sometimes actors might speak their lines slightly faster or slower
than usual, take an unexpected amount of time to cross the stage, or any number of technical issues
might mean that the crew have to make alterations to the usual set-up. So theatre composers have
to be prepared to write music that can either be continued indefinitely or cut short without
significant alteration, allowing the musicians flexibility to adapt to the changing circumstances on
the night. This is one of those instances. Woolfenden’s directions state that usually the thunder will
interrupt somewhere around rehearsal mark D in the music, but that more important than
finishing the musical phrase is stopping when the thunder begins.
The shapes were clad in black plastic robes with flared sleeves, the dogs in black and grey suede,
and the reapers wore green suede tops and trousers, with strips of yellow and green fabric sewn to
hang from the trousers.
Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing —
Although they want the use of tongue — a kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.
PROSPERO: [smiling grimly] Praise in departing.
FRANCISCO: They vanished strangely.
SEBASTIAN: No matter, since
They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs…
Sebastian surveys the banquet hungrily
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,
Dew-lapped like bulls, whose throats had hanging at ‘em
Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men
Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
Good warrant of.
ALONSO: I will stand to, and feed,
Although my last — no matter, since I feel
The best is past… Brother: my lord the duke,
Stand to and do as we.
Alonso, Sebastian and Antonio seat themselves.
Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel like a harpy; claps his wings upon the table,
and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes.
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. [the three draw their swords] I have made you
mad;
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves. [they make to attack, but are charmed from moving]
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 dowle that's in my plume: my fellow-ministers
Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
Your swords are now too massy for your strengths,
And will not be uplifted… 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 son, Alonso,
They have bereft; and do pronounce by me,
Ling’ring perdition (worse than any death
Can be at once!) shall step by step attend
You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from —
Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
Upon your heads — is nothing but heart’s sorrow,
And a clear life ensuing.

He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the shapes again, and dance,
with mocks and mows, and carrying out the table.
GONZALO: I' the 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 organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.
Therefore my son i' th’ ooze is bedded; and
I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded
And with him there lie mudded. [he rushes towards the sea]
SEBASTIAN: But on fiend at a time,
I’ll fight their legions o’er.
ANTONIO: I’ll be thy second.
They move away, distraught, sword in hand.
GONZALO: All three of them are desperate: their great guilt,
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirit: I do beseech you,
That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,
And hinder them from what this ecstasy
May now provoke them to.
ADRIAN: Follow, I pray you.
They pursue the madmen.
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 knit up
In their distractions: they now are in my power;
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
Young Ferdinand — whom they suppose is drowned —
And his and mine loved darling. [he departs]
MUSIC CUE 17
[4.1] Before Prospero’s cell. Prospero comes from the vibe with Ferdinand and Miranda.
MUSIC CUE 18
PROSPERO: 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 thou
Hast strangely stood the test: here, afore Heaven,
I ratify this my rich gift: O Ferdinand,
Do not smile at me that I boast hereof,
For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise
And make it halt behind her.
FERDINAND: I do believe it
Against an oracle.
PROSPERO: Then, as my gift and thine own acquisition
Cue 17 is very simple. It is only four bars long, and acts as a transition between Act 3 Scene 2, and
the beginning of Act 4. Like many of Woolfenden’s cues, it doesn't resolve. The music ends on a
note of expectation, leading the spectator into the next scene.
The interval was at the end of Act 3.
Cue 18 has a very similar purpose. It acts as an opening introduction to the scene. It is relatively
melodious, described by Woolfenden in his cue book as the sound of the ‘gentle island’.
Worthily purchased take my daughter: but
If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
All sanctimonious ceremonies may
With full and holy rite be minist’red,
No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew
The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
That you shall hate it both: therefore take heed,
As Hymen's lamps shall light you.
FERDINAND: As I hope
For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
Our worser genius can, shall never melt
Mine honour into lust, to take away
The edge of that day's celebration,
When I shall think, or Phoebus' steeds are foundered,
Or Night kept chained below.
PROSPERO: Fairly spoke;
Sit then, and talk with her, she is thine own…
The lovers draw apart and sit together on the bench of rock.
What, Ariel; my industrious servant Ariel!
ARIEL: What would my potent master? here I am.
PROSPERO: Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
Did worthily perform: and I must use you
In such another trick: go, bring the rabble,
(O’er whom I give thee power) here, to this place:
Incite them to quick motion; for I must
Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
Some vanity of mine art: it is my promise,
And they expect it from me.
ARIEL: Presently?
PROSPERO: Ay: with a twink.
ARIEL: Before you can say 'come' and ‘go,'
And breathe twice; and cry 'so, so,’
Each one, tripping on his toe,
Will be here with mop and mow.
Do you love me, master? no?
PROSPERO: Dearly, my delicate Ariel… Do not approach,
Till thou dost dear me call.
ARIEL: Well: I conceive.
PROSPERO: [turning to Ferdinand Look thou 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.
FERDINAND: I warrant you, sir,
The white cold virgin snow upon my heart
Abates the ardour of my liver.
PROSPERO: Well…
Now come my Ariel. bring a corollary,
Rather than want a spirit, appear, and pertly!
No tongue…all eyes…be silent.
Soft music.
Michael Hordern as Prospero & Ian Charleson as Ariel © Joe Cocks
THE MASQUE
Iris appears.
IRIS: Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and pease;
Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
And flat meads thatched with stover, them to keep:
Thy banks with pionéd and twilléd brims,
Which spongy April at thy hest betrims —
To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom-groves,
Whose shadow the dismisséd bachelor loves,
Being lass-lorn: thy pole-clipt vineyard;
And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky-hard,
Where thou thyself dost air — the queen o' th’ sky,
Whose watry arch and messenger am I,
Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign grace,
Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain:
Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.
Enter Ceres.
CERES: Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne’er
Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flowers
Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers,
And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
My bosky acres, and my unshrubbed down,
Rich scarf to my proud earth … why hath thy queen
Summoned me hither, to this short-grassed green?
IRIS: A contract of true love to celebrate,
And some donation freely to estate
On the blessed lovers.
CERES: Tell me, heavenly bow,
If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,
Do now attend the queen? Since they did plot
The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,
Her and her blind boy's scandalled company
I have forsworn.
IRIS: Of her society
Be not afraid: I met her deity
Cutting the clouds towards Paphos; and her son
Dove-drawn with her: here thought they to have done
Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
Whose vows are, that no bed-rite shall be paid
Till Hymen's torch be lighted: but in vain
Mars's hot minion is returned again
Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,
Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows
And be a boy right out.
Juno on wave.
CERES: Highest queen of state,
Great Juno comes; I know her by her gait.
JUNO: How does my bounteous sister? Go with me
To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be,
And honoured in their issue.
They sing.
JUNO: Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
The Masque is the most extensive music in the whole play. The music runs throughout the whole
scene, eventually breaking into the hymn ‘Honour, riches, marriage-blessing’. Woolfenden’s setting
is slow and stately, only using instruments that have already been associated with the island. The
masque received some positive attention from local critics — Don Chapman writing for the Oxford
Mail said that ‘for once the staging of the masque is pure magic and fully justifies the verbal magic
of the speech of Prospero which follows’, while Norah Jones for the Birmingham Evening Mail
called it ‘rather spectacular’. The national papers were less complimentary. John Barber’s verdict
for the Daily Telegraph was much more lacklustre, saying that ‘the masque did seem to be frugally
staged, and the magic generally looked parsimonious.’
All of the spirits were clothed in large swathes of fabric to give the impression of etherealness.
Ceres (Carmen du Sautoy, pictured above) wore a robe of yellow and brown fabric, Juno’s (Darlene
Johnson) was pale blue, and Iris’s (Catherine Riding) was pale green.
Carmen du Sautoy as Ceres © Joe Cocks
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
CERES: Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty,
Vines and clustering bunches growing,
Plants with goodly burthen bowing;
Spring come to you, at the farthest,
At the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.
FERDINAND: This is a most majestic vision, and
Harmonious charmingly: may I be bold
To think these spirits?
PROSPERO: Spirits, which by mine art
I have from their confines called to enact
My present fancies.
FERDINAND: Let me live here ever —
So rare a wondered father and a wise
Make this place Paradise.
Juno and Ceres whisper.
MIRANDA: Sweet, now silence:
Juno and Ceres whisper seriously.
PROSPERO: There's something else to do: hush, and be mute.
Or else our spell is marred.
IRIS: You nymphs, called Naiads, of the wand’ring brooks,
With your sedged crowns and ever harmless looks,
Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land
Answer your summons; Juno does command…
Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
A contract of true love: be not too late.
MUSIC CUE 19B: THE BLOODY DANCE
Enter certain nymphs.
You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary,
Come hither from the furrow, and be merry.
Make holiday: your rye-straw hats put on
And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
In country footing.
Enter certain Reapers, properly habited: they join with the Nymphs in a graceful
dance; towards the end whereof Prospero starts suddenly, and speaks; after
which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish.
PROSPERO: [to himself] I had forgot that foul conspiracy
Of the beast Caliban and his confederates
Against my life: the minute of their plot
Is almost come. [to the spirits] Well done! avoid: no more.
FERDINAND: This is strange: your father's in some passion,
That works him strongly.
MIRANDA: Never till this day
Saw I him touched with anger so distempered.
PROSPERO: You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended… These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air,
As Woolfenden’s music was playing, Iris (Catherine Riding), Ceres (Carmen du Sautoy), and Juno
(Darlene Johnson) were joined by other dancers as nymphs and reapers. They kept dancing until
Prospero says ‘Well done! avoid: no more.’ Throughout the whole of the masque Ferdinand and
Miranda are sat at the side of the stage, watching.
The Masque © Joe Cocks
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep… Sir, I am vexed.
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled:
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
If you be pleased, retire into my cell,
And there repose. A turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.
FERDINAND: [retiring] We wish you peace.
PROSPERO: Come with a thought; I think thee, Ariel: come.
Ariel appears.
ARIEL: Thy thoughts I cleave to. What’s thy pleasure?
PROSPERO: Spirit,
We must prepare to meet with Caliban.
ARIEL: Ay, my commander; when I presented Ceres,
I thought to have told thee of it, but I feared
Lest I might anger thee.
PROSPERO: Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?
ARIEL: I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking —
So fun of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces: beat the ground
For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
Towards their project: Then I beat my tabor,
At which like unbacked colts they pricked their ears,
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt music. So I charmed their ears
That calf-like they my lowing followed, through
Toothed briers, sharp furzes, pricking gorse, and thorns,
Which ent’red their frail shins: at last I left them
I' th’ filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to th’ chins, that the foul lake
O’er-stunk their feet.
PROSPERO: This was well done, my bird.
Thy shape invisible retain thou still:
The trumpery in my house, go, bring it hither,
For stale to catch these thieves.
ARIEL: I go, I go.
PROSPERO: 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.
MUSIC CUE 20
Ariel hangs the garments on a tree. Prospero and Ariel remain invisible. Enter
Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, all wet.
CALIBAN: Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may
Not hear a foot fall: we now are near his cell.
Woolfenden subtitles Cue 20 the ‘clothes tree shimmer’. It’s a short vibraphone cue, ending when
the clothes tree finishes moving.
STEPHANO: Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless fairy, has done little better
than played the Jack with us.
TRINCULO: Monster, I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.
STEPHANO: So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should take a displeasure against you:
look you. [drawing a knife]
TRINCULO: Thou wert but a lost monster.
CALIBAN: [grovelling] Good my lord, give me thy favour still.
Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to
Shall hoodwink this mischance: therefore, speak softly —
All's hushed as midnight yet.
TRINCULO: Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool, —
STEPHANO: There is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite
loss.
TRINCULO: That's more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster.
STEPHANO: I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er ears for my labour.
CALIBAN: Prithee, my king, be quiet… Seest thou there,
This is the mouth o' th’ cell … no noise, and enter…
Do that good mischief which may make this island
Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,
For aye thy foot-licker.
STEPHANO: Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody thoughts
TRINCULO: [spies the apparel on the lime-tree] O King Stephano! O peer! [seizes a
gown] O worthy Stephano! look what a wardrobe here is for thee!
CALIBAN: Let it alone, thou fool — it is but trash.
TRINCULO: O, ho, monster: [donning the gown] we know what belongs to a frippery. O
King Stephano! [capers]
STEPHANO: Put off that gown, Trinculo. By this hand, I'll have that gown.
TRINCULO: Thy grace shall have it. [he doffs it ruefully]
CALIBAN: The dropsy drown this fool! what do you mean,
To dote thus on such luggage? Let't alone!
And do the murder first: if he awake,
From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches —
Make us strange stuff.
STEPHANO: Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin
under the line: now jerkin you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald
jerkin.
TRINCULO: Do, do! We steal by line and level, an't like your grace.
STEPHANO: I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for’t: wit shall not go unrewarded
while I am king of this country: 'steal by line and level' is an excellent pass of
pate; there's another garment for’t.
TRINCULO: Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers, and away with the rest.
CALIBAN: I will have none on't: we shall lose our time,
And all be turned to barnacles, or to apes
With foreheads villanous low.
STEPHANO: Monster, lay-to your fingers: help to bear this away where my hogshead of
wine is, or I'll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this.
TRINCULO: And this.
STEPHANO: Ay, and this.
MUSIC CUE 21
Cues 21 and 21A are the same — short hunting calls.
They load him.
A noise of hunters heard. Enter divers 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!
Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, are driven out.
Go charge my goblins, that they grind their joints
With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
With agéd cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
Than pard or cat o' mountain.
MUSIC CUE 21A
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.
[5.1] Prospero in his magic robes.
PROSPERO: Now does my project gather to a head:
My charms crack not: my spirits obey, and Time
Goes upright with his carriage… How's the day?
ARIEL: On the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,
You said our work should cease.
PROSPERO: I did say so,
When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,
How fares the king and's followers?
ARIEL: Confined together
In the same fashion as you gave in charge,
Just as you left them — all prisoners, sir,
In the lime-grove which weather-fends your cell.
They cannot budge till your release: 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 term'd, 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…
Hast thou — which art but air — a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ 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.
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.
ARIEL: I’ll fetch them, sir. [vanishes]
PROSPERO: Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye, that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites: and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew, — by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed
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 — [lifting his staff]
Solemn music.
MUSIC CUE 22
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.
Here enters Ariel; Alonso, with a frantic gesture, attended by Gonzalo; Sebastian
and Antonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francisco: there stand
charmed; which Prospero observing, speaks.
PROSPERO: [to Alonso] A solemn air, and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
Now useless boil within thy skull. There stand,
For you are spell-stopped…
Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes, ev’n sociable to the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops… The charm dissolves apace,
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason… O good Gonzalo,
My true preserver, and a loyal sir
To him thou follow'st; I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed… Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act —
Thou art pinched for’t now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,
You, brother mine, that entertained ambition,
Expelled remorse and nature — who, with Sebastian,
(Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong)
Would here have killed your king — I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding
The music that Prospero summons here is very similar to the ‘solemn and strange’ music heard in
cue 15.
Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them
That yet looks on me, or would know me Ariel.
Ariel flits to the cave.
I will discase me, and myself present
As I was sometime Milan: quickly spirit,
Thou shalt ere long be free.
Returning Ariel sings, and helps to attire him.
ARIEL’S SONG
Where the bee sucks, there suck I.
In a cowslip’s bell I lie.
There I ouch, when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily…
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
PROSPERO: Why, that's my dainty Ariel: I shall miss thee,
But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so…
[as Ariel attires him] To the king's ship, invisible as thou art —
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches: the master and the boatswain
Being awake, enforce them to this place;
And presently, I prithee.
ARIEL: I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat. [vanishes]
GONZALO: All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement
Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country.
PROSPERO: Behold, sir king,
The wrongéd Duke of Milan, Prospero:
For more assurance that a living prince
Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body,
And to thee and thy company I bid
A hearty welcome.
ALONSO: Whe’er thou be’st he or no,
Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,
As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse
Beats, as of flesh and blood: and, since I saw thee,
Th’ affliction of my mind amends, with which
I fear, a madness held me: this must crave —
An if this be at all — a most strange story.
Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat
Thou pardon me my wrongs… But how should Prospero
Be living, and be here?
PROSPERO: [to Gonzalo] First, noble friend,
Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot
Be measured or confined.
GONZALO: Whether this be
Or be not, I’ll not swear.
PROSPERO: You do yet taste
Some subtilties o' th’ isle, that will not let you
Believe things certain: Welcome, my friends all!
This is the most joyful of all Ariel's songs, celebrating his new-found freedom. It has a jaunty tune,
punctuated by rings from the glockenspiel. It begins with a gentle murmur on the clarinet imitating
the sound of bees, and closes with a triumphant flourish as Ariel darts away.
[Aside to Sebastian and Antonio] But you, my brace of lords, were I so
minded,
I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you,
And justify you traitors: at this time
I will tell no tales.
SEBASTIAN: [aside to Antonio] The devil speaks in him.
PROSPERO: No…
For you — most wicked sir — whom to call brother
Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
Thy rankest fault — all of them; and require
My dukedom of thee, which, perforce, I know,
Thou must restore.
ALONSO: If thou beest Prospero,
Give us particulars of thy preservation,
How thou hast met us here, who three hours since
Were wrecked upon this shore; where I have lost —
How sharp the point of this remembrance is! —
My dear son Ferdinand.
PROSPERO: I am woe for’t, sir.
ALONSO: Irreparable is the loss, and patience
Says it is past her cure.
PROSPERO: I rather think
You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace
For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,
And rest myself content.
ALONSO: You the like loss?
PROSPERO: As great to me as late, for I
Have lost my daughter.
ALONSO: A daughter?
O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,
The king and queen there! that they were, I wish
Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
Where my son lies… When did you lose your daughter?
PROSPERO: In this last tempest… I perceive these lords
At this encounter do so much admire
That they devour their reason, and scarce think
Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have
Been justled from your senses, know for certain,
That I am Prospero, and that very duke
Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely
Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed,
To be the lord on’t: No more yet of this,
For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
Befitting this first meeting: [with his hand on the curtain of the cave]
Welcome, sir;
This cell's my court: here have I few attendants,
And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in:
My dukedom since you have given me again,
I will requite you with as good a thing —
At least, bring forth a wonder, to content ye
As much as me my dukedom.
Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda, squatting, playing at chess.
MIRANDA: Sweet lord, you play me false.
Woolfenden’s cue book gives an instruction here for musical cue 24, ‘relaxed social music’. This
does not exist in the final score used in performance, so presumably this was cut in rehearsal.
FERDINAND: My dearest love,
I would not for the world.
MIRANDA: Yet for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.
ALONSO: If this prove
A vision of the island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.
SEBASTIAN: A most high miracle!
FERDINAND: Though the seas threaten, they are merciful —
I have cursed them without cause. [he kneels]
ALONSO: [embracing him] O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!
PROSPERO: [smiling sadly] ’Tis new to thee.
ALONSO: What is this maid, with whom thou wast at play?
Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours:
Is she the goddess that hath severed us,
And brought us thus together?
FERDINAND: Sir, she is mortal;
But by immortal Providence, she's mine;
I chose her when I could not ask my father
For his advice, nor thought I had one: She
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before: of whom I have
Received a second life; and second father
This lady makes him to me.
ALONSO: I am hers;
But O, how oddly will it sound, that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!
PROSPERO: There, sir, stop.
Let us not burden our remembrance with
A heaviness that’s gone.
GONZALO: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this… Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blesséd crown;
For it is you that have chalked forth the way
Which brought us hither.
ALONSO: I say ‘Amen,’ Gonzalo.
GONZALO: Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: ‘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.’
ALONSO: [to Ferdinand and Miranda] Give me your hands:
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That both not wish you joy.
GONZALO: Be it so, Amen.
Enter Ariel with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following.

O look sir, look sir, here is more of us…
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,
That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?
Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?
BOATSWAIN: The best news is, that we have safely found
Our king and company: the next, our ship,
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split,
Is tight and yare and bravely rigged as when
We first put out to sea.
ARIEL: [at Prospero’s ear] Sir, all this service
Have I done since I went.
PROSPERO: My tricksy spirit!
ALONSO: These are not natural events — they strengthen
From strange to stranger: say, how came you hither?
BOATSWAIN: If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
I'ld strive to tell you… We were dead of sleep,
And — how we know not — all clapped under hatches,
Where, but even now, with strange and several noises
Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
And moe diversity of sounds, all horrible,
We were awaked… straightway, at liberty;
Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
Our royal, good, and gallant ship: our master
Cap’ring to eye her… On a trice, so please you,
Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
And were brought moping hither.
ARIEL: [at Prospero’s ear] Was’t well done?
PROSPERO: Bravely, my diligence, — thou shalt be free.
ALONSO: This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod
And there is in this business more than nature
Was ever conduct of: some oracle
Must rectify our knowledge.
PROSPERO: Sir, my liege,
Do not infest your mind with beating on
The strangeness of this business. At picked leisure,
Which shall be shortly single, I'll resolve you —
Which to you shall seem probable — of every
These happen'd accidents: till when, be cheerful
And think of each thing well… [to Ariel] Come hither, spirit.
Set Caliban and his companions free:
Untie the spell. [Ariel goes] How fares my gracious sir?
There are yet missing of your company
Some few odd lads, that you remember not.
Enter Ariel, driving in Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo, in their stolen apparel.
STEPHANO: Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is
but fortune: coragio, bully-monster, coragio!
TRINCULO: If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sight.
CALIBAN: O Setebos, these be brave spirits, indeed:
How fine my master is! I am afraid
He will chastise me.
SEBASTIAN: Ha, ha!
What things are these, my lord Antonio?
Will money buy ‘em?
Conrad Asquith as the Ship’s Master, James Griffin as Adrian, Ian Charleson as Ariel, Dennis Edwards as Alonso, Paul Webster as
Francisco, Michael Hordern as Prospero, Alan Rickman as Ferdinand, Sheridan Fitzgerald as Miranda, George Raistrick as the
Boatswain, and Raymond Westwell as Gonzalo © Donald Cooper
ANTONIO: Very like; one of them
Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.
PROSPERO: Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave —
His mother was a witch, and one so strong
That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
And deal in her command without her power.
These three have robbed me; and this demi-devil —
For he's a bastard one — had plotted with them
To take my life. Two of these fellows you
Must know and own, this thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.
CALIBAN: I shall be pinched to death.
ALONSO: Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?
SEBASTIAN: He is drunk now; where had he wine?
ALONSO: And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded ‘em?
How cam’st thou in this pickle?
TRINCULO: I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out
of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing. [Stephano groans]
SEBASTIAN: Why, how now, Stephano?
STEPHANO: O, touch me not — I am not Stephano, but a cramp.
PROSPERO: You’ld be king o’ th’ isle, sirrah?
STEPHANO: I should have been a sore one then.
ALONSO: This is as strange a thing as e’er I looked on. [pointing at Caliban]
PROSPERO: He is as disproportion'd in his manners
As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;
Take with you your companions; as you look
To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.
CALIBAN: Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter
And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
Was I, to take this drunkard for a god!
And worship this dull fool!
PROSPERO: Go to, away.
ALONSO: Hence — and bestow your luggage where you found it.
SEBASTIAN: Or stole it rather.
Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo slink off.
PROSPERO: Sir, I invite your highness and your train
To my poor cell: where you shall take your rest
For this one night, which — part of it — I'll waste
With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it
Go quick away … the story of my life,
And the particular accidents gone by
Since I came to this isle: and in the morn
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.
ALONSO: I long
To hear the story of your life, which must
Take the ear strangely.
Woolfenden’s cue book indicates that there was an intended cue 25 here, for solo flute. Like cue 24
it does not survive as part of the full performance score, so was likely cut in rehearsal.
PROSPERO: I’ll deliver all —
And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,
And sail so expeditious, that shall catch
Your royal fleet far off.
My Ariel, please you draw near, chick,
That is thy charge: then to the elements
Be free, and fare thou well…
EPILOGUE, SPOKEN BY PROSPERO
Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got
And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell;
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
MUSIC CUE 26: CURTAIN CALL
For the final curtain call, Woolfenden brings back the music from the overture. The only change
that he makes is to the end, so that the play finishes in a final blaze of G major. The strains of the
storm linger on, but are here transformed into something affirmative and triumphant.