Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

25. The Tempest

  Although The Tempest is usually found first in editions presenting the collected works of Shakespeare, it is actually the last play to be written entirely by Shakespeare, its date being 1611. His only work afterward consisted of his contributions to Fletcher's plays Henry VIII (see page II-743) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (see page I-53).

  In a way, it is pleasing that Shakespeare ended with The Tempest, for this marks a return to his sunny comedies written over a decade earlier. We may be glad that the great man ended his career on an upbeat.

  What's more, The Tempest is Shakespeare's complete creation too, for it is one play in which he apparently made up his own plot.

  Good boatswain…

  The play opens with a ship struggling against a tempest. On board are a group of Italian noblemen, for here, as in so many of his other romances, Shakespeare uses Italy as the home of romance.

  The crew is desperately trying to save the ship when the Italian aristocrats emerge from below. One speaks, saying:

  Good boatswain, have care.

  Where's the master? Play the men.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 9-10

  The speaker is Alonso, King of Naples, and with him on the ship is his brother, Sebastian, and his son, Ferdinand. The kingdom of Naples was from about 1100 down to 1860 the political unit making up the southern half of the Italian peninsula, with Sicily usually (but not always) included. Its capital was the city of Naples.

  Alonso is not a typically Italian name. It is a Spanish one, a variant of Alfonso. Both Sebastian and Ferdinand are names best known in history as belonging to Spanish and Portuguese monarchs, rather than to Italians. This is not surprising, for Naples in Shakespeare's time was closely connected with Spain.

  In 1420 Naples was under the rule of the aging Queen Joanna II, who had no heirs and who feared that the French would seize her kingdom. Nearby Sicily was under the rule of Alfonso V of Aragon (see page I-545) and she made him heir to her rule. She changed her mind afterward, but Alfonso V had no mind to retire. After she died in 1435, he began a long struggle to fix himself on the Neapolitan throne. By 1443 he had succeeded and made Naples the capital of his entire dominion, including Aragon itself. He reigned as Alfonso I of Naples.

  Aragon continued to rule Naples until 1479, when Aragon and Castile formed a dynastic union that gave rise to modern Spain. The united Spanish kingdom continued to rule Naples through Shakespeare's time and beyond. At the time The Tempest was written, Naples was ruled by a viceroy serving the Spanish King, Philip III…

  In thinking of Naples, then, Shakespeare automatically thinks Spanish even when he treats it as an independent kingdom. (In Othello, such characters as Roderigo and Iago have Spanish names even though they are supposedly Venetians.)

  … the Duke of Milan…

  Despite the royalty on board, the ship is apparently sinking and must be abandoned.

  The events do not go unobserved, however. There is an island nearby -not one that can be pinned down on a map-but one that exists only in this tale. All we can say is that it ought to be located somewhere between Italy and the African shore.

  Two individuals are all the truly human inhabitants the island of the play has: a man, Prospero, and his daughter, Miranda.

  The daughter is terribly perturbed over the ship, which is being destroyed in the tempest, but Prospero calms her and assures her that no harm will be done. He says it is now time, at last, to tell her of their past and how they came to be on the island.

  Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,

  Thy father was the Duke of Milan and

  A prince of power.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 53-55

  Milan is a duchy in northern Italy (see page I-447).

  … rapt in secret studies

  Prospero, as Duke, had little interest in governing and left the actual conduct of affairs to his brother, Antonio, while he himself was concerned with scholarship:

  The government I cast upon my brother

  And to my state grew stranger, being transported

  And rapt in secret studies.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 75-77

  In the Middle Ages there were two kinds of studies: that of theology and related philosophy, which was considered the highest goal of reason; and that of the secular knowledge of the world.

  The latter was suspect for a number of reasons. It had its roots in the pagan learning of the Greeks, for one thing. For another, the secular scholars (notably the alchemists) actually cultivated an air of mysticism that reinforced vague beliefs that they consorted with spirits and practiced magic. Naturally, the general public would fear such scholars and suspect that there was much more to their work than they could possibly admit.

  And indeed, it becomes clear that Prospero's "secret studies" did indeed involve magic, that he could command spirits and control portions of the universe.

  This King of Naples. ..

  Prospero's preoccupation with his books and studies allowed his brother, Antonio, to intrigue for the throne. Antonio came to an understanding with Alonso of Naples (the same who was on the ship caught in the tempest).

  Prospero says:

  This King of Naples, being an enemy

  To me inveterate, hearkens to my brother's suit;

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 121-22

  The King of Naples therefore sent an army to Milan. Antonio treacherously opened the city gates so that Milan was taken and then ruled as new Duke, but tributary to Naples.

  Though The Tempest is fictional throughout, there is an echo of history here. In 1535 the last native Duke of Milan, Francesco Maria Sforza, died without heirs. The duchy was taken over by Emperor Charles V (see page II-747), who in 1540 gave it to his son, who was later to be Philip II of Spain. Milan remained Spanish throughout Shakespeare's life and for nearly a century beyond. And since Naples had been Spanish before that, it is almost as though Naples had taken Milan.

  As it happens, Antonio, the usurper, is also on the sinking ship, along with the King of Naples.

  … a cherubin

  Once the coup d'etat had been effected, Prospero and Miranda were taken away, placed on a small ship, and set afloat on the Mediterranean. Fortunately, a sympathetic Neapolitan lord, Gonzalo, made it possible for them to survive the ordeal by secretly giving them clothing and other necessaries and, most of all, a number of the most valuable books from Prospero's library. And, as it happens, Gonzalo is also on the ship.

  Miranda is affected by the tale but, in her gentle sympathy, does not think of her own danger then but only of the added trouble she must have been to her father. He denies that she was any trouble. Rather the reverse, for she was

  O, a cherubin

  Thou wast that did preserve me!

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 152-53

  A cherub is a creature mentioned in the Bible. From the wording in some places, it would seem to represent the storm blast. Thus, in Psalms 18:10 it is written: "And he [the Lord] rode upon a cherub and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind."

  The cherub is nowhere described in the Bible except for the indication that it had wings. It may have been represented as a fearsome creature along the lines of the eagle-winged, man-headed bulls that were so characteristic a feature of Assyrian sculpture.

  Whatever its origins, however, the cherub came to be considered as an infant angel and took the place in Christian art of the cupids of pagan art. It is in the sense of infant angel that Shakespeare uses the word here.

  Incidentally, the Hebrew plural is, characteristically, indicated by an "-im" suffix, so that one can speak of one cherub, but two cherubim. Such a plural is utterly foreign to English, of course, and the tendency is to consider cherubim (or cherubin) as a singular and then speak of cheru-bims or cherubins if the plural is needed. Shakespeare uses such a false singular here.

  … my Ariel.. .

  Having completed his tale, Prospero makes Miranda sleep by his magical art and proceeds abou
t the more serious business of the day. He calls to him the chief spirit at his command:

  Come away [here], servant, come! I am ready now.

  Approach, my Ariel! Come!

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 187-88

  Ariel is a spirit of the air, wild and free, and untainted by any form of earthiness or earth-bound humanity.

  The name has a biblical sound. In Isaiah 29:1 the prophet says: "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt!" The word means "lion of God" or possibly "hearth of God" and is meant as a poetic synonym for Jerusalem.

  Yet it sounds like the name of a spirit or angel, since all the angelic names in the Bible and the Apocrypha end in the suffix "-el" (God), as Gabriel, Rafael, Azrael, and Uriel. The first part of the name, "Ari-" sounds like "airy," which makes it fitting for an airy spirit.

  The name Ariel is also to be found in the heavens through a queer concatenation of events.

  In 1787 the German-English astronomer William Herschel discovered two satellites of the planet Uranus (which he had discovered a few years earlier) and broke with the long-established custom of naming bodies of the solar system after Greek and Roman deities. Instead, he called them Titania and Oberon (see page I-28).

  In 1851 the English astronomer William Lassell discovered two more satellites, closer to the planet, and went along with the spirit names. He called the new satellites Ariel and Umbriel.

  These two spirits are from the poem The Rape of the Lock by the English poet Alexander Pope, published in 1712. In the poem, Ariel is the name given to a sylph who guards Belinda, the heroine. (It seems quite reasonable to suppose that Pope borrowed the name from Shakespeare.) Umbriel, on the other hand, is a melancholy spirit, always sighing and weeping, with a name suggested by the fact that umbra is Latin for "shadow." Umbriel is always in the shadows and the name occurs nowhere else in literature.

  Nevertheless, so much better known is The Tempest than The Rape of the Lock that the satellite Ariel is much more likely to be associated with the former than with the latter.

  Thus, in 1948, when the Dutch-American astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper discovered a fifth satellite of Uranus, closer (and smaller) than any of the others, he automatically allowed Ariel to suggest another name from The Tempest and the new satellite he named "Miranda."

  I flamed amazement…

  When Ariel arrives, it appears that the tempest is no true tempest but an appearance raised by magical arts, designed to frighten the men on the ship and set the stage for Prospero's plan to set all things to rights. Ariel explains how he carried out his task of creating panic:

  Now on the beak,

  Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,

  I flamed amazement.

  Sometime I'd divide

  And burn in many places;

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 196-99

  Ariel was, in other words, converting himself into "St. Elmo's fire." This is the glow produced on dark, stormy nights by gathering static electricity, which is discharged from pointed objects. Such a discharge, if vigorous enough, will produce a glow.

  It will appear on the points of masts or spars, for instance. If one glow is seen it is called "Helena" (in reference to Helen of Troy) and if it divides in two it is "Castor and Pollux" (the twin brothers of Helen).

  There is no St. Elmo. The name is thought to be a corruption of "St. Erasmus," the patron saint of Mediterranean sailors. The glow was thought to be the visible sign of the saint guarding them during the storm.

  … the still-vexed Bermoothes …

  Ariel carefully explains that no one has been hurt, although they have been separated: the King's son brought to shore alone; the other royalty brought to another place; the ship itself taken safe to harbor; and the rest of the fleet sent sadly on its way thinking they had seen the flagship, with the King on board, wrecked.

  Ariel describes the place where he has bestowed the ship, saying:

  Safely in harbor

  Is the King's ship; in the deep nook where once

  Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew

  From the still-vexed [always stormy] Bermoothes …

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 226-29

  The Bermoothes are the Bermudas, a group of small islands which, all together, are no larger than Manhattan. They had come dramatically into the news shortly before The Tempest was written.

  In 1607 the English had made their first permanent settlement in what is now the United States, at Jamestown in Virginia. The settlement barely managed to survive its first few years and it required periodic infusions of new colonists and supplies from England to keep going. In 1609 a fleet of nine ships sailed westward to supply Jamestown.

  A storm hit them off the Bermudas and the flagship, carrying the admiral and the new governor of Virginia, was separated from the rest. The remaining eight ships made it to Jamestown; the flagship did not and was given up for lost.

  Apparently, though, it had managed to come ashore in the Bermudas and there its passengers and crew managed to eke a living until they could build two small boats that carried them west across the six hundred miles that separated them from the mainland. They showed up in Jamestown nearly a year after the storm and it was as though they had come back from the dead.

  It was a sensation and the tale of the adventure filled England to the point where Shakespeare calls the islands "still-vexed" because of the association with the storm that wrecked the flagship, though the.Bermudas are not more stormy than other places. The description of the Bermudas by those who were stranded there so long was most favorable and Prospero's magic island seems modeled on the reports of Bermuda (which has remained British territory ever since).

  In fact, there seems no question but that the tale of this shipwreck inspired Shakespeare to write The Tempest. There is a storm that separates the flagship from the fleet. Men are lost and yet not lost but are saved in almost miraculous fashion after spending time on an almost magical island. All Shakespeare had to do was add an Italian-style romance.

  The foul witch Sycorax.. .

  Pleased with himself, Ariel reminds Prospero that the long term of service he has rendered draws to a close and that he has been promised his freedom. Prospero, who is working out his climactic scheme, and needs only another day, is irritated, and reminds Ariel from what misery he had been rescued.

  Prospero says:

  Hast thou forgot

  The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy

  Was grown into a hoop?

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 257-59

  The name is an invention of Shakespeare's, though it may have arisen out of the combination of Greek words for "pig" and "crow." Prospero asks Ariel where Sycorax was born and the spirit answers:

  Sir, in Argier.

  —Act I, scene ii, line 260

  Argier is a distorted version of Algiers, a city on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, 650 miles southwest of Naples. It had been founded in 950 as a Moslem town and has remained Moslem ever since. To the Christians of Europe, a Moslem town would seem like a natural birthplace for a witch.

  Algiers had, besides, made the news in the sixteenth century. In 1545 Emperor Charles V had sent a fleet to Algiers, hoping to capture it. That fleet had been dispersed by a storm and the attempt ended in disaster. It was easy for good Christians to suppose that the diabolical Moslems had raised the storm by means of witchcraft and so it would seem natural to associate Sycorax with that city.

  Sycorax was so evil a witch, however, as to have been banished even from Algiers. She was taken to the island that later became Prospero's and was left there.

  She was a powerful witch and when Ariel would not obey her wicked commands, she imprisoned the spirit in a pine tree for twelve years. She died in that interval and Ariel might have remained imprisoned forever, had not Prospero arrived and freed him. It was in gratitude for this that Ariel was serving Prospero.

  … Caliban her son

  When Sycorax died, however, she left
something behind. She had been pregnant when brought to the island and had borne a child upon it whom Prospero describes as

  A freckled whelp, hagborn, not honored with

  A human shape.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 283-84

  Ariel answers:

  Yes, Caliban her son.

  —Act I, scene ii, line 284

  This Caliban, the offspring of a witch and, presumably, one of the devils that served her, is a semihuman monster, earthy, dull, and savage. The name has entered the language to mean any brutal and debased person. The name is Shakespeare's invention but it may be guessed that it was suggested by "cannibal," a word which had been made prominent by explorations of the New World (see page I-617).

  … my dam's god, Setebos

  Caliban is called forth to do some labor and appears, railing and cursing, misshapen and monstrous. He complains that it was his island before Prospero came and that now he has been enslaved, but Prospero insists that they had tried to treat him with humanity and kindness and that in response he had tried to rape Miranda.

  Caliban, however he may wish to rebel, must do as he is told. He says:

  / must obey. His art is of such pow'r

  It would control my dam's god, Setebos,

  And make a vassal of him.