Enter Alonzo, Antonio, and Gonzalo.
Gonz. 'Beseech your grace, be merry: You have cause, So have we all, of joy, for our strange escape; Then wisely, good sir, weigh our sorrow with Our comfort.
Alon. Pr'ythee peace; you cram these words Into my ears, against my stomach; how Can I rejoice, when my dear son, perhaps This very moment, is made a meal to some strange fish?
Anto. Sir, he may live; I saw him beat the billows under him, And ride upon their backs; I do not doubt He came alive to land.
Alon. No, no, he's gone; And you and I, Antonio, were those Who caused his death.
Anto. How could we help it?
Alon. Then, then we should have helped it, When thou betray'dst thy brother Prospero, And Mantua's infant sovereign, to my power: And when I, too ambitious, took by force Another's right: Then lost we Ferdinand; Then forfeited our navy to this tempest.
Anto. Indeed we first broke truce with heaven; You to the waves an infant prince exposed, And on the waves have lost an only son. I did usurp my brother's fertile lands, And now am cast upon this desert-isle.
Gonz. These, sirs, 'tis true, were crimes of a black dye; But both of you have made amends to heaven, By your late voyage into Portugal; Where, in defence of christianity, Your valour has repulsed the Moors of Spain.
Alon. O name it not, Gonzalo; No act but penitence can expiate guilt! Must we teach heaven what price to set on murder? What rate on lawless power and wild ambition? Or dare we traffic with the powers above, And sell by weight a good deed for a bad? [A flourish of music.