Act 2, Scene 1

--Another part of the island

[Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and OTHERS]
Gonzalo
662 Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
663 So have we all, of joy; for our escape
664 Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
665 Is common: every day, some sailor's wife,
666 The masters of some merchant and the merchant,
667 Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,
668 I mean our preservation, few in millions
669 Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh
670 Our sorrow with our comfort.
Alonso
671 Prithee, peace.
Sebastian
672 He receives comfort like cold porridge.
Antonio
673 The visitor will not give him o'er so.
Sebastian
674 Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by
675 and by it will strike.
Gonzalo
676 Sir,—
Sebastian
677 One: tell.
Gonzalo
678 When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,
679 Comes to the entertainer—
Sebastian
680 A dollar.
Gonzalo
681 Dolour comes to him, indeed: you have spoken
682 truer than you purposed.
Sebastian
683 You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.
Gonzalo
684 Therefore, my lord,—
Antonio
685 Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
Alonso
686 I prithee, spare.
Gonzalo
687 Well, I have done: but yet—
Sebastian
688 He will be talking.
Antonio
689 Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first
690 begins to crow?
Sebastian
691 The old cock.
Antonio
692 The cockerel.
Sebastian
693 Done. The wager?
Antonio
694 A laughter.
Sebastian
695 A match!
Adrian
696 Though this island seem to be desert,—
Sebastian
697 Ha, ha, ha! So, you're paid.
Adrian
698 Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible,—
Sebastian
699 Yet—
Adrian
700 Yet—
Antonio
701 He could not miss it.
Adrian
702 It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate
703 temperance.
Antonio
704 Temperance was a delicate wench.
Sebastian
705 Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly delivered.
Adrian
706 The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
Sebastian
707 As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
Antonio
708 Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.
Gonzalo
709 Here is everything advantageous to life.
Antonio
710 True; save means to live.
Sebastian
711 Of that there's none, or little.
Gonzalo
712 How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!
Antonio
713 The ground indeed is tawny.
Sebastian
714 With an eye of green in't.
Antonio
715 He misses not much.
Sebastian
716 No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
Gonzalo
717 But the rarity of it is,—which is indeed almost
718 beyond credit,—
Sebastian
719 As many vouch'd rarities are.
Gonzalo
720 That our garments, being, as they were, drenched
721 in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and
722 glosses, being rather new-dyed than stain'd with salt
723 water.
Antonio
724 If but one of his pockets could speak, would it
725 not say he lies?
Sebastian
726 Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
Gonzalo
727 Methinks, our garments are now as fresh as when
728 we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the
729 king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
Sebastian
730 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.
Adrian
731 Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon
732 to their queen.
Gonzalo
733 Not since widow Dido's time.
Antonio
734 Widow! a pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!
Sebastian
735 What if he had said, widower Aeneas too?
736 Good Lord, how you take it!
Adrian
737 Widow Dido said you? You make me study of that; she was of
738 Carthage, not of Tunis.
Gonzalo
739 This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
Adrian
740 Carthage?
Gonzalo
741 I assure you, Carthage.
Antonio
742 His word is more than the miraculous harp.
Sebastian
743 He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too.
Antonio
744 What impossible matter will he make easy next?
Sebastian
745 I think he will carry this island home in his
746 pocket, and give it his son for an apple.
Antonio
747 And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring
748 forth more islands.
Alonso
749 Ay.
Antonio
750 Why, in good time.
[To ALONSO.]
Gonzalo
751 Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now
752 as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of
753 your daughter, who is now Queen.
Antonio
754 And the rarest that e'er came there.
Sebastian
755 Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.
Antonio
756 O! widow Dido; ay, widow Dido.
Gonzalo
757 Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I
758 wore it? I mean, in a sort.
Antonio
759 That sort was well fish'd for.
Gonzalo
760 When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?
Alonso
761 You cram these words into mine ears against
762 The stomach of my sense. Would I had never
763 Married my daughter there! for, coming thence,
764 My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,
765 Who is so far from Italy remov'd,
766 I ne'er again shall see her. O thou, mine heir
767 Of Naples and of Milan! what strange fish
768 Hath made his meal on thee?
Francisco
769 Sir, he may live:
770 I saw him beat the surges under him,
771 And ride upon their backs: he trod the water,
772 Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
773 The surge most swoln that met him: his bold head
774 'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
775 Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
776 To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,
777 As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt
778 He came alive to land.
Alonso
779 No, no; he's gone.
Sebastian
780 Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
781 That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
782 But rather lose her to an African;
783 Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,
784 Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.
Alonso
785 Prithee, peace.
Sebastian
786 You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise
787 By all of us; and the fair soul herself
788 Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at
789 Which end o' th' beam should bow. We have lost your son,
790 I fear, for ever: Milan and Naples have
791 More widows in them of this business' making,
792 Than we bring men to comfort them; the fault's your own.
Alonso
793 So is the dearest of the loss.
Gonzalo
794 My lord Sebastian,
795 The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness
796 And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,
797 When you should bring the plaster.
Sebastian
798 Very well.
Antonio
799 And most chirurgeonly.
Gonzalo
800 It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
801 When you are cloudy.
Sebastian
802 Foul weather?
Antonio
803 Very foul.
Gonzalo
804 Had I plantation of this isle, my lord,—
Antonio
805 He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.
Sebastian
806 Or docks, or mallows.
Gonzalo
807 And were the king on't, what would I do?
Sebastian
808 'Scape being drunk for want of wine.
Gonzalo
809 I' the commonwealth I would by contraries
810 Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
811 Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
812 Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
813 And use of service, none; contract, succession,
814 Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
815 No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
816 No occupation; all men idle, all:
817 And women too, but innocent and pure;
818 No sovereignty,—
Sebastian
819 Yet he would be king on't.
Antonio
820 The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.
Gonzalo
821 All things in common nature should produce
822 Without sweat or endeavour; treason, felony,
823 Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
824 Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
825 Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
826 To feed my innocent people.
Sebastian
827 No marrying 'mong his subjects?
Antonio
828 None, man: all idle; whores and knaves.
Gonzalo
829 I would with such perfection govern, sir,
830 To excel the golden age.
Sebastian
831 Save his Majesty!
Antonio
832 Long live Gonzalo!
Gonzalo
833 And,—do you mark me, sir?
Alonso
834 Prithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.
Gonzalo
835 I do well believe your highness; and did it to
836 minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such
837 sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh
838 at nothing.
Antonio
839 'Twas you we laugh'd at.
Gonzalo
840 Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to
841 you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.
Antonio
842 What a blow was there given!
Sebastian
843 An it had not fallen flat-long.
Gonzalo
844 You are gentlemen of brave mettle: you would
845 lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
846 in it five weeks without changing.
[Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music]
Sebastian
847 We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.
Antonio
848 Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
Gonzalo
849 No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my
850 discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am
851 very heavy?
Antonio
852 Go sleep, and hear us.
[All sleep but ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, and ANTONIO]
Alonso
853 What! all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
854 Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find
855 They are inclin'd to do so.
Sebastian
856 Please you, sir,
857 Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
858 It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
859 It is a comforter.
Antonio
860 We two, my lord,
861 Will guard your person while you take your rest,
862 And watch your safety.
Alonso
863 Thank you. Wondrous heavy!
[ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL.]
Sebastian
864 What a strange drowsiness possesses them!
Antonio
865 It is the quality o' th' climate.
Sebastian
866 Why
867 Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
868 Myself dispos'd to sleep.
Antonio
869 Nor I: my spirits are nimble.
870 They fell together all, as by consent;
871 They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
872 Worthy Sebastian? O! what might?—No more:—
873 And yet methinks I see it in thy face,
874 What thou should'st be: The occasion speaks thee; and
875 My strong imagination sees a crown
876 Dropping upon thy head.
Sebastian
877 What! art thou waking?
Antonio
878 Do you not hear me speak?
Sebastian
879 I do: and surely
880 It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st
881 Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
882 This is a strange repose, to be asleep
883 With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
884 And yet so fast asleep.
Antonio
885 Noble Sebastian,
886 Thou let'st thy fortune sleep—die rather: wink'st
887 Whiles thou art waking.
Sebastian
888 Thou dost snore distinctly:
889 There's meaning in thy snores.
Antonio
890 I am more serious than my custom; you
891 Must be so too, if heed me: which to do
892 Trebles thee o'er.
Sebastian
893 Well, I am standing water.
Antonio
894 I'll teach you how to flow.
Sebastian
895 Do so: to ebb,
896 Hereditary sloth instructs me.
Antonio
897 O!
898 If you but knew how you the purpose cherish
899 Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,
900 You more invest it! Ebbing men indeed,
901 Most often, do so near the bottom run
902 By their own fear or sloth.
Sebastian
903 Prithee, say on:
904 The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
905 A matter from thee, and a birth, indeed
906 Which throes thee much to yield.
Antonio
907 Thus, sir:
908 Although this lord of weak remembrance, this
909 Who shall be of as little memory
910 When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded,—
911 For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
912 Professes to persuade,—the King his son's alive,
913 'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd
914 As he that sleeps here swims.
Sebastian
915 I have no hope
916 That he's undrown'd.
Antonio
917 O! out of that 'no hope'
918 What great hope have you! No hope that way is
919 Another way so high a hope, that even
920 Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
921 But doubts discovery there. Will you grant with me
922 That Ferdinand is drown'd?
Sebastian
923 He's gone.
Antonio
924 Then tell me,
925 Who's the next heir of Naples?
Sebastian
926 Claribel.
Antonio
927 She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
928 Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples
929 Can have no note, unless the sun were post—
930 The Man i' th' Moon's too slow—till newborn chins
931 Be rough and razorable: she that from whom
932 We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
933 And by that destiny, to perform an act
934 Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
935 In yours and my discharge.
Sebastian
936 What stuff is this!—How say you?
937 'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;
938 So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions
939 There is some space.
Antonio
940 A space whose every cubit
941 Seems to cry out 'How shall that Claribel
942 Measure us back to Naples?—Keep in Tunis,
943 And let Sebastian wake.'—Say this were death
944 That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse
945 Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
946 As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
947 As amply and unnecessarily
948 As this Gonzalo: I myself could make
949 A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
950 The mind that I do! What a sleep were this
951 For your advancement! Do you understand me?
Sebastian
952 Methinks I do.
Antonio
953 And how does your content
954 Tender your own good fortune?
Sebastian
955 I remember
956 You did supplant your brother Prospero.
Antonio
957 True.
958 And look how well my garments sit upon me;
959 Much feater than before; my brother's servants
960 Were then my fellows; now they are my men.
Sebastian
961 But, for your conscience,—
Antonio
962 Ay, sir; where lies that? If 'twere a kibe,
963 'Twould put me to my slipper: but I feel not
964 This deity in my bosom: twenty consciences
965 That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they
966 And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
967 No better than the earth he lies upon,
968 If he were that which now he's like, that's dead:
969 Whom I, with this obedient steel,—three inches of it,—
970 Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
971 To the perpetual wink for aye might put
972 This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
973 Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
974 They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk:
975 They'll tell the clock to any business that
976 We say befits the hour.
Sebastian
977 Thy case, dear friend,
978 Shall be my precedent: as thou got'st Milan,
979 I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke
980 Shall free thee from the tribute which thou pay'st,
981 And I the king shall love thee.
Sebastian
982 ANTONIO. Draw together:
983 And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
984 To fall it on Gonzalo.
Sebastian
985 O! but one word.
[They converse apart.]
[Music. Re-enter ARIEL, invisible.]
Ariel
986 My master through his art foresees the danger
987 That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth—
988 For else his project dies—to keep thee living.
[Sings in GONZALO'S ear]
Ariel
989 While you here do snoring lie,
990 Open-ey'd Conspiracy
991 His time doth take.
992 If of life you keep a care,
993 Shake off slumber, and beware.
994 Awake! awake!
Antonio
995 Then let us both be sudden.
Gonzalo
996 Now, good angels
997 Preserve the King!
[They wake]
Alonso
998 Why, how now! Ho, awake! Why are you drawn?
999 Wherefore this ghastly looking?
Gonzalo
1000 What's the matter?
Sebastian
1001 Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
1002 Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
1003 Like bulls, or rather lions; did't not wake you?
1004 It struck mine ear most terribly.
Alonso
1005 I heard nothing.
Antonio
1006 O! 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
1007 To make an earthquake: sure it was the roar
1008 Of a whole herd of lions.
Alonso
1009 Heard you this, Gonzalo?
Gonzalo
1010 Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,
1011 And that a strange one too, which did awake me.
1012 I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd,
1013 I saw their weapons drawn:—there was a noise,
1014 That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard,
1015 Or that we quit this place: let's draw our weapons.
Alonso
1016 Lead off this ground: and let's make further search
1017 For my poor son.
Gonzalo
1018 Heavens keep him from these beasts!
1019 For he is, sure, i' th' island.
Alonso
1020 Lead away.
[Exit with the others.]
Ariel
1021 Prospero my lord shall know what I have done:
1022 So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.
[Exit]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 664archaic vocab
“Our hint of woe”
'Hint' here means occasion or cause, not a subtle suggestion. Gonzalo says their reason for grief is the same as any sailor's wife or merchant's -- a common lot shared by many. The word comes from Old English for a grasp or grip on something.
TLN 672wordplay
“He receives comfort like cold porridge”
Sebastian mocks Alonso's sullen silence with a proverbial comparison: cold porridge is unappetizing, and Alonso takes in Gonzalo's comfort the same unwilling way. There may be a secondary pun, since 'pease' (peas, used in porridge) sounds like 'peace' -- the word Alonso has just spoken ('Prithee, peace').
TLN 673archaic vocab
“The visitor will not give him o'er so”
A 'visitor' was a person appointed to visit the sick and dying to offer spiritual comfort -- what we might call a chaplain or pastoral visitor. Antonio's joke is that Gonzalo, playing the comforter to a grief-stricken Alonso, will not give up ('give him o'er') so easily.
TLN 674rhetorical device
“winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike”
Sebastian compares Gonzalo's slow build-up before speaking to a clock being wound: once wound, it will 'strike' -- both ring the hour and make a cutting remark. Sebastian then counts that strike aloud ('One: tell') when Gonzalo finally begins, as if tallying the clock.
TLN 680wordplay
“A dollar. Dolour comes to him, indeed”
Sebastian mishears -- or deliberately misreads -- Gonzalo's 'entertainer' as implying money ('a dollar'), while Gonzalo turns the pun around: 'dolour' (pain, grief) is pronounced like 'dollar' in Elizabethan English, so Gonzalo recovers the pun to mean 'grief comes to the grief-receiver.' The exchange shows two competing wits scoring points off each other.
TLN 689wordplay
“Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow”
Antonio proposes a bet on which man will speak first: Gonzalo ('the old cock') or Adrian ('the cockerel'). 'Crow' means both to make a rooster's cry and to boast or talk self-importantly. When Adrian speaks first (TLN 696), Sebastian wins and Antonio owes him 'a laughter' -- the prize is a laugh, not money.
TLN 702wordplay
“subtle, tender, and delicate temperance”
Adrian means the island has a mild, gentle ('tender and delicate') climate ('temperance' = moderate temperature). Antonio immediately hijacks the word as if it were a woman's name -- 'Temperance was a delicate wench' -- since Temperance was a Puritan given name common in Elizabethan England. The pun mocks both Adrian's diction and Puritan naming fashions.
TLN 712archaic vocab
“How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green”
'Lusty' in Elizabethan English means vigorous, full of vitality, thriving -- not the modern sexual sense. 'Lush' means rich, abundant, growing freely. Gonzalo sees the island as fertile and life-giving; Antonio immediately contradicts him ('The ground indeed is tawny' -- brownish, parched), which sets up the ongoing argument about whether the island is fair or foul.
TLN 728historical topical
“we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the king's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis”
'Afric' is the Elizabethan form of 'Africa.' Gonzalo's detail anchors the backstory: the whole court party was on a return voyage from Tunis (on the north African coast, roughly present-day Tunisia) where Alonso had given his daughter Claribel in marriage to the local king. The journey home is what the tempest interrupted.
TLN 733classical allusion
“Not since widow Dido's time”
Gonzalo compares Claribel's arrival as queen in Tunis to the greatest queen Tunis (Carthage) ever had: Dido. Dido was the widowed founder of Carthage in north Africa, the tragic lover of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Gonzalo calls her 'widow Dido' because she was indeed a widow -- her first husband, Sychaeus, had been murdered -- and this sets Antonio and Sebastian off on a mocking quibble about the word.
classical Dido, queen of Carthage ('widow Dido')
TLN 761rhetorical device
“You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense”
Alonso uses the metaphor of a stomach to describe his emotional state: his senses have no appetite for Gonzalo's words and cannot 'digest' them. 'Against the stomach of my sense' means against the desire or appetite of his feelings -- to be force-fed comfort when you are too deep in grief is a kind of violence. The metaphor captures how grief shuts down even well-meant consolation.
TLN 780historical topical
“you may thank yourself for this great loss, That would not bless our Europe with your daughter”
Sebastian blames Alonso for Ferdinand's (presumed) death: by marrying Claribel off to an African king rather than a European nobleman, Alonso sent the whole court on the sea voyage that caused the wreck. Sebastian's language -- 'bless our Europe' with your daughter -- implies that Claribel's marriage to an African was a dishonour to European dignity, voicing the period's prejudice against cross-cultural marriage.
TLN 787rhetorical device
“the fair soul herself Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at Which end o' th' beam should bow”
Sebastian describes Claribel as a set of weighing scales, balanced between 'loathness' (reluctance, unwillingness) on one side and 'obedience' (duty to her father) on the other, uncertain which end of the 'beam' (the crossbar of the scales) should dip. She was torn between her own wishes and filial duty -- and obedience won. The scales image makes her a passive victim of the political marriage.
TLN 799archaic vocab
“And most chirurgeonly”
Antonio's single-word sarcasm: Gonzalo has told Sebastian that he is 'rubbing the sore' rather than 'bringing the plaster,' and Antonio agrees -- 'yes, very chirurgeonly.' 'Chirurgeon' (pronounced something like 'sir-JEE-on') was the Elizabethan word for a surgeon. Antonio is mocking Gonzalo's own medical metaphor by applying it with exaggerated formality: 'how very surgical of you, Gonzalo.'
TLN 804archaic vocab
“Had I plantation of this isle”
'Plantation' in this context means colonization -- the act of settling and governing a territory. Gonzalo means: if I were given this island to colonize and rule. Antonio and Sebastian deliberately mishear it as the horticultural sense -- planting seeds -- so they propose planting it with weeds ('nettle-seed,' 'docks,' 'mallows'). Their mockery turns Gonzalo's serious political thought into nonsense.
historical The Bermuda wreck of the Sea Venture (1609)
TLN 809historical topical
“I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things”
Gonzalo's utopian speech -- abolishing trade, magistrates, literacy, property, labour, weapons, and sovereignty -- is lifted almost word for word from Montaigne's essay 'Of the Cannibals' (1580) as John Florio translated it into English (1603). 'By contraries' means by reversing all normal civilized arrangements. Gonzalo imagines a state of pure natural innocence -- which Antonio and Sebastian mock, pointing out that it still requires a king (Gonzalo himself).
historical Montaigne, 'Of the Cannibals'
TLN 814archaic vocab
“Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none”
'Bourn' means a boundary line between fields or properties -- the idea of private land ownership marked out. 'Bound of land' reinforces this: the fences and legal divisions of real estate. 'Tilth' means tilled or ploughed land, the act of cultivation. Gonzalo is abolishing the whole apparatus of property: no boundaries, no ownership, no farming for profit.
TLN 825archaic vocab
“all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people”
'Foison' (pronounced 'FOY-zon') means a rich harvest or abundant supply, especially of crops. It comes from Old French foison (from Latin fusio, a pouring out). The word appears again in The Tempest at 4.1 when Ceres blesses the lovers with 'foison plenty.' Here Gonzalo imagines nature spontaneously providing abundant food in his ideal commonwealth, without any human labor.
TLN 830classical allusion
“To excel the golden age”
The 'golden age' was the first and best era of the world in classical mythology: a time before property, war, law, or labor, when the earth gave its fruits freely and people lived in innocent happiness. Gonzalo says his ideal commonwealth would surpass even that paradise. The allusion confirms that his vision is consciously classical utopian thinking, not just political daydreaming.
TLN 843archaic vocab
“An it had not fallen flat-long”
Sebastian says Gonzalo's retort fell 'flat-long' -- meaning it struck with the flat of the blade rather than the edge, doing no real damage. It is a fencing term: a blow delivered flat-side-on has no cutting power. Sebastian means Gonzalo's supposed comeback was harmless. The metaphor continues Antonio's 'What a blow was there given!' at TLN 842.
TLN 845cultural context
“lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue in it five weeks without changing”
Gonzalo sarcastically praises Sebastian and Antonio as bold enough to drag the moon from its orbit ('sphere') -- if only it would stay full for five weeks instead of changing phase. In Elizabethan cosmology, the moon, like all celestial bodies, moved within its own crystalline sphere. Gonzalo is not really complimenting them: he is saying they would wreck the natural order out of restlessness, and are frustrated only that the moon does not cooperate.
TLN 847archaic vocab
“then go a-bat-fowling”
Bat-fowling was a method of hunting birds at night: you carried a torch or lantern to dazzle roosting birds, then beat them down with a bat or club. Sebastian says they would pull down the moon to use as a torch for this nocturnal bird-hunt. The joke is absurdist slapstick, but it also glances at the courtiers themselves: Gonzalo, Adrian, and others are 'birds' being dazzled and beaten -- as Antonio is about to demonstrate by talking Sebastian into murder.
TLN 850archaic vocab
“Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy”
'Heavy' means drowsy, sleepy. Gonzalo is saying he is so tired he could fall asleep even to the sound of their mocking laughter. In context, the sudden general drowsiness is supernatural: Ariel has been playing solemn music (stage direction at TLN 847) to prepare the assassination attempt. The heavy sleep is Prospero's magic working through his spirit.
TLN 875rhetorical device
“My strong imagination sees a crown Dropping upon thy head”
Antonio plants the idea of regicide by describing it as if it were a vision, not a plan: he 'sees' a crown falling onto Sebastian's head like an inevitable gift. By making the crown 'drop' passively, Antonio detaches agency from the act -- the crown falls, it is not seized -- and makes Sebastian's inheritance of Naples seem like destiny rather than murder. This is how Antonio seduces Sebastian: framing usurpation as something that simply happens.
TLN 891archaic vocab
“if heed me: which to do Trebles thee o'er”
'Trebles thee o'er' means multiplies you three times over -- makes you three times what you currently are. Antonio says that listening carefully to his proposal will triple Sebastian's worth and standing. The phrase compresses the whole seduction argument: you are only a third of what you could be; pay attention and I will make you whole.
TLN 893rhetorical device
“I am standing water”
Sebastian uses a tidal metaphor for his own indecision: 'standing water' is water at the turning point between ebb and flood, motionless, uncommitted. Antonio replies he will teach Sebastian to 'flow' (rise with the tide, seize the opportunity); Sebastian takes up 'ebb' as his natural state ('hereditary sloth'). The exchange turns the entire assassination plot into an argument about tidal inevitability.
TLN 904rhetorical device
“The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim A matter from thee, and a birth, indeed Which throes thee much to yield”
Sebastian reads Antonio's tense face as a sign that something important is struggling to be born. 'Throes thee much to yield' means it causes you labour-pains ('throes') to deliver ('yield'). Antonio's idea is like a child in hard labour. The imagery of difficult birth -- an idea forcing itself out of a person against their hesitation -- captures how Antonio is performing his own reluctance to make the proposal explicit.
TLN 908archaic vocab
“this lord of weak remembrance, this Who shall be of as little memory When he is earth'd”
Antonio dismisses Gonzalo with brutal contempt: a man of 'weak remembrance' means someone with a poor memory, but Antonio extends this to mean someone who will be little remembered after death -- 'of as little memory when he is earth'd' (buried). 'Earth'd' is a rare past participle from 'to earth,' to put in the earth, to bury. The double insult is that Gonzalo is forgettable now and will be forgotten when dead.
TLN 917rhetorical device
“O! out of that 'no hope' What great hope have you! No hope that way is Another way so high a hope”
Antonio performs a rhetorical reversal: Sebastian's admission that he has 'no hope' Ferdinand is alive is turned around as a declaration of enormous hope for the throne of Naples. 'No hope that way' (Ferdinand's survival) is recast as 'high hope' another way (Sebastian as king). The argument is sophistic -- Antonio is logically correct but morally inverted, treating a dead nephew as a political advantage.
TLN 927syntax grammar
“she that dwells Ten leagues beyond man's life”
'Ten leagues beyond man's life' is a hyperbolic way of saying Claribel is impossibly far away -- so remote in Tunis that the distance exceeds a human lifetime of travel. A 'league' was roughly three miles, so 'ten leagues' is not a literal number; it means beyond reach. The phrase 'beyond man's life' means farther than a person can travel in a lifetime or even reach in human time.
TLN 934rhetorical device
“what's past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge”
Antonio's famous phrase: everything that has happened -- the voyage, the wreck, Alonso falling asleep -- is merely the prologue to the main action, which is for Sebastian and Antonio to perform ('discharge'). A 'prologue' in the Elizabethan theatre is the introductory speech before the play proper begins; Antonio casts the whole backstory as setup. 'Discharge' means to carry out or execute. The line has become proverbial, though in context it is the rhetoric of a would-be murderer.
TLN 948archaic vocab
“I myself could make A chough of as deep chat”
A 'chough' (pronounced 'chuff') is a jackdaw or similar corvid bird -- specifically a bird that could be taught to repeat words. Antonio says he could train a jackdaw to speak as learnedly and uselessly as Gonzalo. The insult reduces the counsellor's wise old-man speeches to mere mindless imitation, the chattering of a captive bird.
TLN 959archaic vocab
“Much feater than before”
'Feater' is the comparative of 'feat,' meaning neatly, trimly, elegantly. Antonio says his stolen dukedom of Milan sits on him more elegantly than his rightful station ever did. The word is also cognate with 'feat' meaning skillful or dexterous. The line is Antonio at his most chillingly self-satisfied: usurpation, to him, is a perfect fit.
TLN 962archaic vocab
“If 'twere a kibe, 'Twould put me to my slipper”
A 'kibe' is a chapped, inflamed sore or chilblain on the heel caused by cold or damp. Antonio says his conscience, if it existed, would at most be a minor irritation like a sore heel that forces you into a looser slipper -- a trivial inconvenience, not a moral force. The reduction of conscience to a chilblain is the most precise measure of Antonio's moral emptiness.
TLN 964rhetorical device
“twenty consciences That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they And melt ere they molest”
Antonio wishes his consciences (if he had twenty) were made of sugar -- 'candied' -- and would melt away before they could bother him. The image turns moral restraint into confectionery: sweet, delicate, and easily dissolved by the slightest warmth of ambition. The metaphor is grotesquely witty: conscience as candy. It echoes and deepens Gonzalo's earlier 'plaster' image for comfort -- the play uses bodily and culinary metaphors throughout for moral life.
TLN 969archaic vocab
“this obedient steel,—three inches of it,—Can lay to bed for ever”
Antonio gestures at his dagger and describes the blade ('obedient steel') with grotesque understatement -- 'three inches of it' -- as the tool that can kill Alonso ('lay to bed for ever' = put to permanent sleep). 'Obedient' steel is steel that obeys his hand. The euphemism 'lay to bed for ever' makes murder sound like a kindness. Antonio is describing regicide with a casualness that is meant to make it sound easy and rational.
TLN 972archaic vocab
“this ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who Should not upbraid our course”
'Ancient morsel' is a contemptuous phrase for an old man -- 'ancient' (old) and 'morsel' (a bite of food, a small, insignificant scrap). Antonio assigns Sebastian the job of killing Gonzalo, dismissing him as 'Sir Prudence' -- a mock-honorific treating his caution and good counsel as a ridiculous virtue, a stuffy old title rather than a real quality. The scene thus allocates roles: Antonio will kill Alonso, Sebastian will kill Gonzalo.
TLN 975archaic vocab
“They'll tell the clock to any business that We say befits the hour”
'Tell the clock' means to agree with or confirm whatever you are told -- the way a clock confirms the hour when asked. Antonio says the remaining lords will go along with any story Sebastian and he invent to explain the murders, because they will simply confirm whatever version of events the new king tells them. It is a bleak, accurate assessment of how courts work: the powerful tell the time, and others tell it back.
TLN 990rhetorical device
“Open-ey'd Conspiracy His time doth take”
Ariel's warning song personifies conspiracy as a wide-awake, watchful creature seizing its moment. 'Open-eyed' makes conspiracy alert and purposeful, not a half-awake impulse. 'His time doth take' means it is taking its opportunity while the others sleep. Ariel sings this directly into Gonzalo's ear to rouse him, so the song is both a dramatic warning and a characterization of Antonio and Sebastian: they are the 'open-eyed conspiracy' still standing while the rest sleep.