THIRD INTERLUDE[19]
Now through the Interlude gates, and from all sides, a jocund festival pours into the illumined space of the ground-circle: the folk festival of Elizabethan England.
Simultaneously, in different parts, as in a merry rural fair, various popular arts and pastimes begin, and continue together: Morris dancers and pipers, balladists and play-actors, folk dancers, fiddlers, clowns, and Punch-and-Judy performers romp, rant, parade, and jingle amongst flower-girls and gay-garbed jesters spangling by the bright venders’ booths.
Central, at a point of vantage, above a gaping crowd of lumpkins and children, Noah’s wife harangues the heavens from the old play.
So they pursue their merriment, till the low rumble and lowering of a thunder-cloud disperses them with its passing shadow.
ACT III
[At the conclusion now of the English Interlude, out of the shadow a roseate glow suffuses the cell of Caliban, from which the green-clad Spirits of Ariel come running forth, bringing in their midst Miranda. Leading her in daisy chains, they mount with her the steps toward Prospero, singing in glad chorus:]
THE SPIRITS OF ARIEL “Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!