English - The Tempest

Alonso, the king of Naples, is returning from his daughter’s wedding in Tunis. He is with his son, Ferdinand, his brother, Sebastian, and Antonio, the Duke of Milan. An old Milanese courtier, Gonzalo is also on board. The ship is wrecked in a storm and all the passengers and crew are thrown into the furious sea.

Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Miranda, are watching the shipwreck from an island. He tells her, for the first time, how they came to be on the island. Twelve years before, when he had been Duke of Milan, his brother Antonio, had usurped him, but with Gonzalo’s help, he had escaped in a small boat with his baby daughter, Miranda, and his library of books about magic. They had ended up on the island and Prospero had turned the only inhabitant, Caliban, a deformed and savage creature, into his slave. There are also spirits on the island. One of them, Ariel, had been imprisoned in a tree trunk by Caliban’s mother, the witch, Sycorax, who had then died. Prospero used his magic abilities to rescue him and he made the spirit swear to serve him.

The ship’s passengers are cast up…