Tempest Quotes

The characters in the scene are never named outright; they are only referred to in terms that indicate their social stations: “Boatswain,” “Master,” “King,” and “Prince.” As the scene progresses, the characters speak less about the storm than about the class conflict underlying their attempts to survive it—a conflict between masters and servants- MOTIF related to The Divine Chain of Being. 

Prospero’s retellings of past events to Miranda and Ariel do more than simply fill the audience in on the story so far. They also illustrate how Prospero maintains his power, exploring the old man’s meticulous methods of controlling those around him through magic, charisma, and rhetoric.

Prospero’s rhetoric is particularly important to observe in this section, especially in his confrontation with Ariel. Of all the characters in the play, Prospero alone seems to understand that controlling history enables one to control the present—that is, that one can control others by controlling how they understand the past.

Prospero calls his brother “perfidious,” then immediately says that he loved his brother better than anyone in the world except Miranda (I.ii.68). He repeatedly asks Miranda, “Dost thou attend me?” Through his questioning, he commands her attention almost hypnotically as he tells her his one-sided version of the story.

'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!' (I.ii.366–368)

"peopled . . . / This isle with Calibans” (I.ii.353–354). He insists that the island is his but that Prospero took it from him by flattering Caliban into teaching him about the island and then betraying and enslaving him.

Ariel was too delicate a spirit to perform Sycorax's horrible commands, so she imprisoned him in a “cloven pine” (I.ii.279).

Where Caliban is coarse, resentful, and brutish, described as a “[h]ag-seed” (I.ii.368), a “poisonous” (I.ii.322) and “most lying slave” (I.ii.347) and as “earth” (I.ii.317), Ariel is delicate, refined, and gracious, described in the Dramatis personae as an “airy spirit.” Ariel is spirit of air and fire, while Caliban is a creature of earth. Though the two are both Prospero’s servants, Ariel serves the magician somewhat willingly, in return for his freeing him from the pine, while Caliban resists serving him at all costs.

Antonio and Sebastian, cynical to the last, refuse to let positive descriptions rest in the audience’s mind. They say that the air smells “as ’twere perfumed by a fen” (II.i.49), meaning a swamp, and that the ground “indeed is tawny” (II.i.55), or brown. The remarks of Antonio and Sebastian could be easily discounted as mere grumpiness.

Stephano and Trinculo give Caliban wine, which Caliban finds to be a “celestial liquor”.

But alcohol convinces him that Stephano is a “brave god” and decides unconditionally to “kneel to him” (II.ii.109–110).

She tells him, and he is pleased: “Miranda” comes from the same Latin word that gives English the word “admiration.” Ferdinand’s speech plays on the etymology: “Admired Miranda! / Indeed the top of admiration, worth / What’s dearest to the world!” (III.i.37–39).

'The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead
And makes my labours pleasures.' (III.i.1-7)

'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' (III.i.77–86)

At this point “solemn and strange music” fills the stage (III.iii.17, stage direction), and a procession of spirits in “several strange shapes” enters, bringing a banquet of food (III.iii.19, stage direction).

Prospero sternly reminds Ferdinand, however, that Miranda’s “virgin-knot” (IV.i.15) is not to be broken until the wedding has been officially solemnized. Ferdinand promises to comply.

'The solemn temples, the great globe itself,'  (IV.i.153) His mention of the “great globe,” which to an audience in 1611 would certainly suggest the Globe Theatre, calls attention to Prospero’s theatricality—to the way in which he controls events like a director or a playwright.

The last charge Prospero gives to Ariel before setting him free is to make sure the trip home is made on “calm seas” with “auspicious gales” (V.i.318).

Similarly, Prospero’s final request for applause in the monologue functions as a request for forgiveness, not merely for the wrongs he has committed in this play. It also requests forgiveness for the beneficent tyranny of creativity itself, in which an author, like a Prospero, moves people at his will, controls the minds of others, creates situations to suit his aims, and arranges outcomes entirely in the service of his own idea of goodness or justice or beauty. In this way, the ambiguity surrounding Prospero’s power in The Tempest may be inherent to art itself. Like Prospero, authors work according to their own conceptions of a desirable or justifiable outcome. But as in The Tempest, a happy ending can restore harmony, and a well-developed play can create an authentic justice, even if it originates entirely in the mind of the author.