Discuss the following passage from Act 3 Scene 3, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and dramatic effects.
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.
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 caus’d to belch up you; and on this island
Where man doth not inhabit—you ’mongst men
Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
Their proper selves.
[ ALONSO, SEBASTIAN etc., draw their swords ]
You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of Fate: the elements
Of whom your swords are temper’d may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock’d-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;
Expos’d unto the sea, which hath requit it,
Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed
The pow’rs, delaying, not forgetting, have
Incens’d 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.
PROSPERO
Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
Perform’d, 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 pow’r;
And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown’d,
And his and mine lov’d darling.
[ Exit above ]
GONZALO
I’ th’ 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, pronounc’d
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.
[ Exit ]
SEBASTIAN
But one fiend at a time,
I’ll fight their legions o’er.
ANTONIO
I’ll be thy second.
[ Exeunt SEBASTIAN, and ANTONIO ]
[15 marks]
Was this exam question helpful?