Re-enter Ariel: after him, Alonso with a frantic gesture, attended by Gonzalo, Sebastian and Antonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francisco: they all enter the circle which Prospero had made, and there stand charmed; which Prospero observing, speaks.
A solemn air, and the best comforter
To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
Now useless, boil’d within thy skull! There stand,
For you are spell-stopp’d.
Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
Mine eyes, e’en sociable to the show of thine,
Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace;
And as the morning steals upon the night,
Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo!
My true preserver, and a loyal sir
To him thou follow’st, I will pay thy graces
Home, both in word and deed. Most cruelly
Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:
Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.
Thou art pinch’d for ’t now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,
You, brother mine, that entertain’d ambition,
Expell’d remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian,—
Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,
Would here have kill’d your King; I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding
Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
That now lie foul and muddy. Not one of them
That yet looks on me, or would know me. Ariel,
Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell.
[Exit Ariel.]
I will discase me, and myself present
As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit;
Thou shalt ere long be free.
Ariel re-enters, singing, and helps to attire Prospero.
ARIEL
Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
PROSPERO.
Why, that’s my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
But yet thou shalt have freedom; so, so, so.
To the King’s ship, invisible as thou art:
There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain
Being awake, enforce them to this place,
And presently, I prithee.
ARIEL.
I drink the air before me, and return
Or ere your pulse twice beat.
[Exit.]
GONZALO.
All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement
Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
Out of this fearful country!