ARIEL Word and will, dear Master!
[At the mouth of Caliban’s cell are now visible Lust, Death, and War, who in pantomime indicate to Caliban their conspiracy against Prospero and Ariel.]
PROSPERO ’Tis well, for thou must prove my pupil. Look! Even now the priests of Setebos conspire With Caliban against us. They will compass My fall, Miranda’s ruin, and thy bondage Unless mine art can foil them. Therefore, now Thou shalt behold the pageant of mine art Pace from antiquity. First, while yon glass Lets flow its yellow sands, behold appear My rites of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, And, while they pass, I will instruct thee how To use them.—Pageant, appear!
[A deep gong sounds.] Lo, Egypt comes!
FIRST INTERLUDE[13]
Now in succession through the great gates of the ground-circle, in colorful incursions of costume and musky appear three main pageant groups, that perform—with distinctive artistry of dance, pantomime, mass movement, and choral song—three ritual episodes of the dramatic art of antiquity. The nature of each, by a few brief sentences, Prospero expounds to Ariel, and so to the audience. Concluding, each group of the first two departs from the circle.
The first Action—a symbolic ritual of Egypt—enters in seven separate processions, which converge at the centre in worship of the golden god Osiris.
The second group—expressing the noble zenith of Greek dramatic art—chants, with aspiring, athletic dance, the second chorus of the Antigone of Sophocles, celebrating the splendor of man. This Action is performed by the altar.
With the third enters a contrasted decadence of the theatre’s art with the Roman Mimes, who enact a farcical Comedy in Masks, in presence of the emperor Caligula and the Roman populace. Concluding, this Roman group does not depart, but retiring into partial shadow on the right, awaits there its later summons.