168: The Tempest

Hi, welcome to Classical Stuff You Should Know, a podcast about the classical world and the things you should know about it. My name is Graham Donaldson and I'm joined, as always, by, with, I don't know, where I'm going to use, with Thomas and AJ. Are you okay? Well, you guys got distracted, you guys were pointing at me.

Well, yeah, AJ pointed at me because he thought I was doing the intro and then it just kicked off a pointing fest, sorry. Anyway, um, which you can see on YouTube, if you watch it on YouTube, you can see why I couldn't figure words. So, today's episode is coming to you live in a giant teapot, and I've wondered, why am I sitting in this giant teapot? And then I realized, we're doing The Tempest.

Tempest in a teapot? What about a teapot? Tempest in a teapot, that's an idiom. Where?

It's an American-English idiom. Storm in a teacup is a British-English one. What is it, in what context would I use? A small event that has been exaggerated out of proportion.

Hmm, I don't know, is that what you want to call this, Graham? I don't know if I like that. That is definitely what we are. I don't know if there's a better description here on our podcast.

It's something small that has been over- I don't think we've even been blown out of proportion. We just haven't even been, like, exploded at all. Anyway, it's an over-proportion. Where's the teapot?

Correct. Where's the empty teapot? Nothing going on. No, Hennberg, you have often talked about how you want to read the complete works of Shakespeare, and I assume that the fact that we're talking about The Tempest today is because you've set sail on this voyage.

Or finish them. Have you finished all of them? No, I have not. No, you would start with A, right?

As you like it. This book is divided into tragedies, comedies, histories, like, in different sections. So are you just reading them in, like, yeah, how are you going through them? Tempest is the first one.

I'll be honest, I needed an episode, and I just, I wanted to pick something, and reading the Shakespeare plays has always been a thing, so I flipped open the table of contents and look at the available plays, and The Tempest was one that I have always, I think I read it back in high school or watched a movie, I was very confused by it, it seemed like a total flipping mystery to me, and so I decided, hey, maybe I should bring my 36-year-old eyes back to this one and see if I can see more than I saw when I was, I don't know, a sophomore in high school or whatever it was. Fun fact, I've never read it. Really? I know I was a grouchy wizard, and that's about it.

Oh, man. This is going to make things more fun. How much do you know about this? I don't remember very much at all.

Oh, you guys. This might be way more exciting than I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be telling you stuff you guys already knew. Never not.

Okay, then this will promise to you. You hit the very edge of my knowledge. All right, great. And my knowledge is only partial.

I mean, I just read it and did some research, so if you've been a long-time Tempest acolyte and you've read it 37 times, you absolutely know more than I do. This is great. This is not the podcast for you. So, maybe.

I mean, you can listen if you want. So, listen. I might have some interesting things to tell you that I've gathered from some notes and some things. Classical stuff, cracking eggs and knowledge.

Here we go. The Tempest. It was obviously a play by William Shakespeare, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about old Bill. I'm thinking about doing a podcast on him specifically as a person and as a man sometime in the future.

Oh, he was married to Hane Hathaway. Yes, he was married to Hane Hathaway. And it's someone who's in Hamnet. Didn't Hamnet die?

Hamnet did die. It was so sad. But he ended up wealthy. He had a good start in school, and there are a lot of legends about him as a person that aren't necessarily true.

Eventually, his troop of actors became patronized by the king, and he made some really good investments and retired a wealthy man with a lot of land. And he is not buried in the Westminster Abbey, even though there is a small floor tile devoted to him. He's buried in Stratford-upon-Avon, I think, where he was born. So that's Shakespeare.

He did a lot of writing. And it turns out I'm going to try to read a lot of it. And this is The Tempest. It is from the folio of 1623.

We know that's probably around about when this came out. So what do you guys know about The Tempest? Like, basic knowledge. It sounds late.

1623. Yeah, it's later in his life. Grumpy winter. It's all now.

It's like a boat. It's like a boat crash. It's like a boat crash. But they...

No, I'm not. All right. We'll get to that. I'm wondering, do you know where the story came from?

Nope. I always believe that this is one of the very few that Shakespeare came up with himself. Right? He plagiarized a lot of his stuff.

He stole... In reading Plutarch's Lives, he heisted most of Julius Caesar almost directly from that and just sort of recolored it and made it his own. And obviously, he did a lot of wonderful things with it. But the story wasn't his.

Same with Romeo and Juliet. It was Pyramus and Fisbee. And Othello is also stolen from a text. He just kind of zoinked a lot of ideas.

And I thought this one was an original. And that's what made it so strange. Turns out, I don't think it's an original. So I will give you the basic plot and the characters and stuff.

And then we'll have a little chat about where they think this may have come from. And then we'll have a little chat about basic meanings and deeper meanings of the play. Okay. First, do you know what genre this is?

Tragedy or comedy? It starts crappy and it's happy. So, comedy. Okay, so you do know what it's happy.

I think you said that. Did I really? I think you said it before the episode started. I was hoping to...

I mean, I remember this being a comedy. I was hoping to keep you guys in suspense during it because that's one of the things is if you... I think if you're seeing it for the first time, it's unclear exactly where it's going to go, which is something I liked about this. Most comedies are really obvious.

I didn't know what this would end up being. Maybe it's just because I'm bad at detecting drama and comedy and, you know, can only shake your... Wait, did you say that in your book that you're going to come to split into drama and comedy? Into tragedy, comedy, and history.

Oh, got it. Okay, cool. Yeah. Okay, so the Tempest opens up with a storm and there's a boatswain who's basically trying to run his ship and keep it from being run aground on this island that they're near and the king...

Hold on, let me pull up my names here. The king Alonso, who's the king of Naples, his brother... Sorry, his son Ferdinand, his brother Sebastian, Antonio, who is the current Duke of Milan, and Gonzalo, an old counselor, and some other lords are all kind of hanging out in this boat and so they all come up on deck to find out what's going on because of this crazy storm. And the boatswain starts laying some sass on him.

Well, I'll be dead. It doesn't matter what his state is. If he can keep me from drowning, he can stay. If he's not going to keep me from drowning, he goes below decks.

You are in the way. And they're like, what you are saying is treasonous. He's like, treason or not, pull a rope or go away. Which is fantastic fun as a way to start this thing.

And they're like, man, this guy's going to get himself hanged, which means he probably won't be drowned, which is a good indicator for how this is going to go. He'll probably survive since this guy's so fit to be hanged. And that's the first scene. It's just, we know that there's this horrible storm coming.

And it sort of sets up their plight. Scene two, we come to know this guy named Prospero. And Prospero is a magician. He's the grumpy magician you described previously.

And he's talking with his daughter, Miranda. And Miranda sees this ship. And she's like, oh my gosh, this is horrible. I see this ship going down.

People are in desperate trouble. I've cried my eyes out. And if this is your doing, this thing, I don't see how this is just. He's like, it's okay.

Everything is working to my plan. No one is going to be hurt. Not a single person drowned. It's okay.

Do you know who we are? Like, what do you remember about your birth, Miranda, my daughter? And she's like, uh, not a lot. I guess I remember about your birth is probably the wrong way to phrase that.

Remember about your early life. And she says, I remember I have, I don't know, four or five women who tended me. But that's about all I remember. And I don't remember anything beyond that.

And he's like, that's amazing you remember that. You were three years old when we came here. Is there anything else down in the deep recesses of your memory that you have? And she says, no, not a thing.

And he reveals, and this sort of sets up the action of the whole play, that he used to be the Duke of Milan. And he began to study magic. And he got so into his books and his studies of nature and magic and wizardry and basically let his brother, uh, Antonio. Antonio?

Sebastian. Yeah, Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan. He kind of let him run things. And so Antonio got to make all the decisions.

And he got to know all of the other lords. And he became the one that everyone went to for counseling. He wasn't the Duke. He was essentially acting Duke.

Because Prospero was book learning. Prospero was busy diving into his books. And he didn't really catch it. And then eventually Antonio thought, well, you know what?

I can just sort of, like, why am I paying homage to this guy in his library? He's not doing anything. I might as well just be the acting Duke. Like, take over.

This seems like straight out of your print episodes, right? You can't have someone who's smarter than you who's... Who's running everything? Yeah, exactly.

Or else they'll eventually just take over. So he hooks up with Alonzo, the king of Naples. And at night, Alonzo shows up with his army. By themselves, in the middle of nowhere, right?

That's where the ladies who attended him. How did her come from? She remembered being the Duchess. Oh, back in Milan.

There wasn't, like, ladies attending her on the island. No, she's just an island person. But they do have lots of sundry bits that would accompany him. Like, he's got his clothes, and they've been able to furnish themselves okay.

Like, that stuff was put on the boat. He's a wizard. And he's a wizard. I mean, there's that benefit, sure.

And in talking, somehow, he puts her to sleep. It's kind of unclear. He and Chancellor, she passes out. He's like, all right, daughter.

And a couple of times, he keeps on having to ask her, like, are you paying attention? It's kind of unclear whether he intentionally puts her to sleep or whether she just can afford the story and falls asleep. She's awful, awful innocent, this Miranda person. And then after she goes to sleep, the spirit named Ariel comes up.

And Ariel, it's unclear exactly what kind of spirit he is. He might be an air spirit, might be a water spirit, could be a fire spirit. But apparently, he went out to the boat, pretended to be St. Elmo's Fire.

You guys know what St. Elmo's Fire is? Most of our listeners might. It is an astronomical phenomenon, I believe.

No, is it? I don't know what it is. It's like a little flame that shows up on the top of your mast. Yes.

And sometimes in three places, sometimes in one, sometimes it grows. And he's like, I was doing that. I was getting fired. Your brother and all those attendants have been slid off from the group.

And I've made sure they're totally okay. In fact, their clothes look fresh-died. They're looking better than they left the port. And then there's Ferdinand, the king's son, is off on his own.

And he's heading here. And so he's kind of split them up into each little group so they are more easily dealt with rather than being all in one group. And Prospero wanted all this to happen. Prospero wanted all of this to happen.

And more than that, everyone else thinks that each other have died. So the king thinks he's lost his son. Ferdinand thinks he's lost the king. And all of these sailors are passed out below decks on their boat.

Ariel has enchanted them. They're all toast. And so that is kind of exactly what Prospero wanted. Everything is going exactly according to plan.

And we find out that Ariel was a spirit that used to be here long ago when there was a witch who came to the island. Now, this is also where we're introduced to Caliban. Caliban is like a, oh man, half-formed monster creature. And he's the son of the evil witch Sycorax, which is the coolest witch name I've ever heard.

And I want to name the cat Sycorax because it only seems fitting. But apparently Sycorax was a witch in Algiers and was pregnant when they banished her to this island because they were sort of done with her witching. And they said, you're out of here, witch. And she got here, gave birth to Caliban, her son.

And then because Ariel would not do her bidding, her evil bidding, right? She couldn't command him to do horrible things. She decided to imprison him in a split tree and then leave him there. And then she died.

So Caliban's the second tree? No, Ariel's the second tree. Caliban's fine. He's evil and his mom was evil and they were having a great time.

And so mom kicked it. And Ariel got imprisoned in the tree. So when Prospero came on the scene, he freed Ariel. And so now Ariel serves him under condition that he will eventually be freed.

He reminds Prospero of this earlier in the play. He says, you remember you told me, a year or two of service. And he's like, listen man, after today, about six hours more, you serve me well for the next couple of days and I promise I will free you. And he reminds him of where he came from.

It's a nice little way to give us a backstory. And Caliban is a twerp. He's horrible. He lives under a rock.

And Prospero has to kind of get him going with threats. You know, like you're going to have cramps and you'll be pinched and little urchins will plague you and you'll have all these problems. And he's like, you're the worst master ever. He's like, I'm actually pretty good.

He's like, no, you live in that really nice place. And I live here in this nasty rock. And he's like, no, you lived with me until you threatened to rape my daughter. And he's like, ah, I wish I would have too.

I wouldn't tie a little Caliban all over the place. And he's like, so he doesn't react well. And he says, I also taught you human language. And he's like, yeah, now I used to curse you.

And so clearly, Prospero made efforts with Caliban to turn him into a kind of civilized being. But Caliban still has the witchy in him and cannot get out of his evil nature. So he's a pretty bad dude. So Prospero kind of has to move along with threats.

But it becomes clear that Prospero is ruling this whole place. This whole island is under Prospero's control. He is the wizard atop the mountain. Right?

He runs it all. Did Prospero intend to go to this island? Or he just kicked out of the city in the first place? They were lucky to land on him because it afforded them some refuge.

All right. So that's the setup is we have all these people. And then Ferdinand kind of wanders up. And he's like, oh, dang.

This Miranda girl. She cute. She cute. And then Prospero's like, ah, it's good that they like each other.

We don't, it's not quite revealed why yet. But it's good that they like each other. But I can't make it too easy. So he says, you're a usurper.

He starts accusing Ferdinand of just some random nonsense. And Miranda, oh, wait by this time. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then Ferdinand, dude, has to defend himself.

So he draws his sword and Prospero bewitches him and says, you'll put that sword down. And Ferdinand's like, well, my muscles aren't working. So clearly there's that. So he basically gives Ferdinand this task of moving a giant pile of logs.

That's what he has to do, is move logs. And then maybe he'll hook him and Miranda up later. We, the audience, know that he likes that Miranda and Ferdinand are falling for each other. But it's unclear why.

But he's not going to make it too easy, right? Love too easily won is, you know, not regarded with high eyes. Does Ferdinand start moving the logs? Oh, yeah.

He's happy to just be around Miranda. He's hanging out, doing his thing. Okay. That was scene two of act one.

It's a huge scene. It makes up a big chunk and it lays kind of the groundwork for the whole play. All right. Scene two, we flip back to, I'm going to call them the boys.

But this is the king of Naples, his brother Sebastian, Antonio, the usurping duke of Milan, and Gonzalo, who I've affectionately named Gonzo, this wonderful old counselor who's kind of doddering and honest, but nobody really takes him seriously. So Antonio's a brother of Prospero. Yes. Antonio is the evil duke of Milan.

He's kind of a turd. Hmm. All right. With me so far?

Yes. Okay. Great. So we zoom in on these guys and it becomes clear that Gonzalo is an old counselor, but nobody really takes him seriously.

Sebastian and Antonio are always joking about him, making fun of him, and they're like, ah, well, his wit is growing eventually. He'll use it on us. And they just mock him. Okay.

And he has this interesting passage. I'll go find it here. Let's take her ass. Okay.

So as they're sort of walking up on the island, and by the way, this play takes place over the course of about three hours. The timing of the play is about the timing in the play, right? It's different from most of Shakespeare's plays where it covers a huge area and there are a lot of different locations and the time period is several weeks or days. This is about three hours.

There's even a few references to it in the play that it's a really short affair. And weirdly, not a lot happens. And is it all in the same location also? Yeah.

It's all on the island. And so there are different chunks of the island, but yeah. So let's see. Gonzalo starts talking about...

Is that how you read... Listen, you can't see this. It's the collective work of Shakespeare. It's a giant book.

Is this the book you read from? Yeah. This is hilarious. It's a silly big book.

Imagine you going to a coffee shop and just plopping that thing down. I feel so important to read it. I could have read it on my Kindle. Nope.

Nah, it's better. So Gonzalo starts talking about, hey, if I owned this island, I, the commonwealth, I would by contraries execute all things. For no kind of traffic would I admit. No name of magistrate.

Letters should not be known. Riches, poverty, and use of service, none. Contract, succession, born, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none. No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil.

No occupation. All men idle, all, and women too, but innocent and pure. No sovereignty, to which Sebastian, brother of the king, says, yet he would be king on it. And then Antonio, the latter.

of his commonwealth forgets the beginning Gonzalo continues on all things in common nature should produce without sweat or endeavor treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun or need of any engine would I not have but nature should bring forth of its own kind all poison, all abundance to feed my innocent people so Gonzalo says I would with such perfection govern sir to excel the golden age so he has this idea that he would run this island as almost a new Eden a new paradise a new golden age of man which I think is going to come into our conversation later they disregard him and they correctly point out you are governing an island where there is no government he says I will have none of these things and yet I will rule and there seems to be that self-contradiction anyway they walk and they joke a little bit and talk about their plight and the loss of the prince and then the king and Gonzalo fall asleep the witch for some reason there is some sort of spell that causes them to fall asleep while they are sleeping Antonio, the usurping Duke of Milan encourages Sebastian brother of the king to kill his brother and take the crown he's just doing his nature he's like look man the king is asleep everyone thinks we've died in this ship if you've ever had an opportunity to take the crown it's now your sister or sorry the next in line for the crown would be the daughter and she's been married to somebody in Africa is she going to retread all that land back? no it's easy to take the crown now and so they pull out their swords and they're going to do it and this is when Ariel it's you know his doing obviously kind of wakes the king up and the king's like what's going on? hey boys why got your swords out there? and they're like oh we heard a noise there's like a lion or something around here I don't know you guys didn't hear it?

and the king's like oh I got to hear something and they're like yeah well I gotta watch out for lions I guess keep these swords handy and he's like alright checks out that's kind of a silly excuse but hey Alonzo believes them? yeah Alonzo does believe them okay any questions or comments so far? is Gonzalo awake at this point also? yep Gonzalo also awoke and then we have another group we meet so Caliban meets Trinculo a jester and Stefano who is a drunk butler and in any comedy I guess there's always like the silly comic relief these boys are the silly comic relief and so Trinculo's walking along and he finds Caliban sees him coming he's like maybe if I just play dead he won't notice me so Caliban kind of passes out and the storm's all around so Trinculo's like well I gotta find some shelter somewhere so he kind of climbs under the cloak with Caliban and then the drunk butler walks up and he's like oh man what kind of weird monster is this?

it's got four legs and four arms and two heads and man I should take this back and make a sideshow out of it so he gets really excited he's like I gotta wake it up what if I pour some booze in his mouth so he pours booze in one mouth and he's like oh I can't do it how about the other mouth so he starts pouring some in that one and everybody wakes up Trinculo and Stefano recognize each other and Caliban swears to serve them if he can only get more booze oh okay so that's kind of set up the relationship so we have our few groups we got Prospero Ferdinand and Miranda Ariel who is a servant fleeing around and we've got Caliban and these two doofuses who are lucky enough to find some of the stranded booze and are drinking themselves silly with it they've got bottles all over the place and then you've got the king his brother some lords in the attendants and Gonzalo you guys dragon with other groups? Dragon great I might speed through these next little bits because weirdly there's just there's not like any great movements of political anything that's act two act three Ferdinand and Miranda declare their love for each other as he stacks logs she declares she will be his servant like I will serve you even if you don't love me and he's like well lucky I love you then and they're like we should get married it's like that indeed we should perfect I just gotta move these logs first she's like I'd help you move them he's like I'd rather die it's proper there does he see them declaring their love I think he's actually hiding in the bushes this way if I remember correctly he's like nice it's coming along just as I want perfect so they are falling for each other I mean she's never seen another man and I think this is even pointed out to her and she's like well he's pretty nice though and I think Prosper even at one time says like yeah but if you go back to Italy guys that look like Ferdinand are like Caliban to the other guys there's some beautiful dudes out there I think he's just lying because I think Ferdinand is a good looking prince anyway I think it's funny that Miranda the first boy she sees other than her father she's like yeah it's love I'm into it and he is quickly convinced that she is the absolute pinnacle of virtue kind of like at the same moment he learns her name it's a really good relationship happening here it's love it's love we flash back to Caliban and his two doofuses and he becomes convinced that these guys are his ticket out of Prospero's rule and he's like look I know when Prospero falls asleep we can walk up to him when he's sleeping you can knock a nail into his head and then you guys will be in charge and I will be your bootlicker like I will serve you forever I'll show you where all the crafts are I'll show you where all the good food is like I know this island back in front I'll get you all the good stuff and they're like that is a plan I love it I'm super into it let's drink some and then we'll go and we'll kill this kill this Prospero fellow and so they're into it and obviously Ariel hears it and he starts causing confusion even as they come up with a plan like he just goes liar and they're like you call me liar and they kind of yell each other and then Ariel determines to guide them through brambles and thickets and swamps as they try to affect their cause of treason so we have a few treason plots happening here we got Sebastian trying to kill the king we got Caliban and his buddies trying to kill Prospero and we also have the way back when when Prospero was usurped by his brother so it seems to be a theme it keeps on popping up okay so while Sebastian and Antonio continue to plot their things their idea like they're kind of all walking together and Sebastian and Antonio are like look we made this decision we just gotta wait for the next right moment we'll make this thing happen and then all of a sudden there's this big magical feast that appears and then it's all set and all the guys are like what is happening and then Ariel comes down goes like a harpy and says you guys are treasonous you guys are all devils and we hate you and then the food vanishes and so does Ariel and they're just like this is a weird island people would not believe what things are happening I don't know what's real anymore everyone's generally confused and Prospero says yes I have them in my power I don't know what the whole purpose of that was maybe just to set them set them off their feet a little bit unclear about the progress and that's act three act four Prospero gives Ferdinand and Miranda who are now pretty much with growth to be married he says there will be no sexy times like you have got to keep it to yourself until you are married is that cool and Ferdinand is like I am ever virtuous and he's like yeah well promises are the fuel to a fire if you know what I mean so you guys keep off each other and he's like okay sounds good apparently virginity was really important in the marriages of dignitaries back then in fact Virginia is named after the virginity of one of the queens back then so there is a small celebration like a mass celebration to celebrate their marriage and some gods show up Iris, Ceres, and Juno they show up apparently at the behest of Prospero so either these are spirits who are pretending to be the gods or they are the gods themselves and Prospero is able to command them which I have comments about later so that's kind of important to remember is that they are there at the behest of Prospero then in the middle of it Prospero remembers that Caliban is trying to murder him he's like I'm going to deal with that so alright no more no more of this celebration I'll have to deal with this stuff and then those guys Trinculo Stephano and Caliban they enter from the briars and swamps and they are soaked head to toe they have lost their booze which they call an infinite loss just a crushing a crushing blow and they're like okay we gotta go get this guy show us where he is and Caliban's like alright let's go so they kind of head into the house but there's all of these fine clothes hung on a line and I think if you were viewing the play they would just sort of be across the stage and Trinculo and Stephano are like ooh oh this is a nice jacket and he's like oh here you can have this and they start stealing the clothes and Caliban's like guys pay attention he's a wizard we have to kill the wizard first you'll get all the clothes you want after we do it and he's like shut up help us steal these and so they start handing him clothes to run off with and of course Prospero knows all of this is happening and has Ariel show up with a whole bunch of spirits as a fake hunting party to chase them out of his rooms in their stolen clothes like they're in his stolen finery they run howling off into the woods and they're like ah what a bunch of idiots and then that's the end of Act 4 it's one scene with Prospero and this weird mask we're up to Act 5 Prospero begins Act 5 and this is where all of the action kind of comes to a close he says once this is all done I'm going to swear off magic I'll be done with him I will crack my staff I will take my book and sink it to the bottom of the ocean I will be done no more wizarding for me this is my last hurrah the boys show up the king, his brother, everybody and he freezes them with a spell and basically says here you are you are in my power and I am the Duke of Milan and they're like nah I don't even know if you're real there's a lot of weird stuff on this island he's like I'm flesh and blood he goes and he hugs Gonzalo so Gonzalo can know and then he changes his clothes because he's been in his wizard robe he changes his clothes to look like the Duke of Milan and they're like oh man that's the real deal and he says okay aside he goes up and walks to Antonio and Sebastian says I know about your plot on the king and I will tell him so you shut your mouth and you're like I have you and he kind of rules them by blackmail which is strange and then he has a moment of commiseration with the king and he says I've lost my daughter too in this storm and the king's like oh that sucks both of them are dead and he's like well lost in a different way and then reveals Miranda and we're playing at chess and it's awfully sweet and then they're like ah they're alive and all of the boatmen roll up all the sailors and they're like hey king our boat's ready to go I don't know how it happened but the whole thing is tip top ship shape all the holes are plugged and it's ready to sail Caliban and his buddies show up again and Caliban realizes his error and he's like I'm just going to be pinched to death and all of them have been hounded with cramps and all of these things that Ariel has been giving on them and they are sort of ushered off and Prospero forgives the king he says I forgive you and we are not going to mar today's occasion the occasion of a wedding with remembrances of horrible things past I am real you are here our kids are getting married which basically seals his re-entrance into power his daughter will be eventually the queen and he basically requires his dukedom back from good old Antonio who's under his power now for having conspired against the king and says let's go in I will tell you all the stories of how I came to be here and how I've lived these last 12 years on the island and man we're going to spend a good night doing stories and then we'll head out of here and then I will send my daughter off to be betrothed and then every third thought of mine will be towards the grave I will basically head into doddering adulthood and then he ends the play with this fairly famous epilogue and he addresses the audience now my charms are all o'erthrone and what strength I have is mine own which is most faint now it is true I must be here confined by you or sent to Naples let me not since I have my dukedom got and pardoned the deceiver dwell in this bare island by your spell but release me from my bands with the help of your good hands gentle breath of yours my sails must fill or else my project fails which was the please now I want spirits to enforce art to enchant and my ending is despair unless I be relieved by prayer which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself and frees all faults as you from crimes would pardon me let your indulgence set me free and he says that to the audience he says that to the audience okay and that's the end of the play so take a second let it percolate but then your thoughts what do you think so far I mean that last little thing is interesting because all of a sudden it's the magic and enchantments of Prospero has something to do with being a storyteller or being a weaver of the action I don't know it's something similar that happens at the end of Midsummer Night's Dream with Pock saying if we should always have offended think about this and I was mended that you were just sleeping here while this happened and so there's something about I think this is common in Shakespeare that the act of going to a play and watching the play happen is magic magical okay so you sort of bracket that idea the other idea that I've sort of heard was that Prospero doing magic on the island was somehow a not a dereliction of duty but it was definitely like he's left the real world to go into a world of basically his own creation and it's great but at some point he realizes that the good ending is to actually be in the real world and do your responsibilities there's that part of it as well and so so how do you tie that to the idea so is Shakespeare saying don't be a playwright no don't live in worlds of your own creation like actually go do real stuff I don't know as far as the meaning I think I've been thinking a lot about it like what is exactly the theme of this play and there are obvious themes right there's also there's obviously the theme of forgiveness and mercy Prospero had them all in his power not only on the island but magically as well at any moment he could have sunk their boat he could have killed Ferdinand he could have killed the king he could have done all of those things and taken all the power for himself but what did he want to do instead he wanted them to know he wanted them to know and he brought union yeah yeah but the thing is the evil people are not fully pardoned like the people who are in their nature evil his brother Antonio the king's brother Sebastian and Caliban remain evil but he still retains control of them somehow like good wins out even though they remain what they are and when he addresses his brother he says to call you my brother would foul even my mouth like just the name of brother is not even good for me to speak to you but I know about the whole king plot so shut your hole so there's those little bits so precluding as a prelude to our conversation about the meaning of this I want to give a couple more bits of information one where they think this might have come from they think its genesis was probably a German tale called Dishon Sadea which means the beauty of Sadea and let me read you the plot and you can decide if he heisted it from here so Ludolf having been vanquished by his rival and with his daughter Sadea driven into a forest rebukes her for complaining of their change of fortune and then summons his spirit Runesval to learn from him his future destiny and prospects of revenge Runesval who is like Ariel somewhat moody announces to Ludolf that the son of his enemy will shortly become his prisoner after a comic episode most probably introduced by the German we see Prince Ludigast with his son Engelbrecht and the counselors hunting in the same forest when Engelbrecht and his companion Famulus having separated from the associates are suddenly encountered by Ludolf and his daughter on his commanding them to yield themselves prisoners they refuse but on attempting to draw their swords Ludolf renders them powerless by the touch of his magical wand and gives the prince over to Sadea to carry logs of wood for her and to obey her commands in all respects the resemblance between the German and English plays is continued in the later part of the former production in Sadea moved by pity for the labors of Engelbrecht in carrying logs exclaims she would feel great joy if you would prove faithful to me and take me in wedlock which comes about so it's pretty similar right down to the prince drawing a sword and the moving of the logs and all that stuff okay so that's where I may have come from there are a lot of different takes you could take on this play I told you about that little speech of Gonzalo's about how he would run this commonwealth if he had it is that something also that Prospero thought when he came to the island and at the end realizes because he's been working to either to make this happen it sounds like he created the storm to get the boat there to sort of put this plan into action I guess the question is why not just stay on the island why go back to Milan why give up magic at the end of the play because Gonzalo I mean kind of gets charmed by the idea of the utopia he gets charmed by the idea of hey we can give up because he says we can do this and we don't need to have legal documents and we don't need to have any sort of names all these bureaucratic things yeah and he's going to do all that boring stuff we can just get this island and I can rule this place myself sort of that like you know the dream of retirement right and what does it mean that it really requires magic for them to live there yeah and what does it also mean that Prospero realizes at the end he should leave it he must be freed and then also ask the audience to do it for him he needs to go back to the real world so I don't know there's like I was going to say that maybe it's like a story of the midlife crisis where you sort of leave all your responsibilities behind but it's not because Prospero was ousted from power but he was ousted from power because he never really took it seriously he was up in the tower reading magic books all day and that's the thing I wondered if it was a good ousted he wasn't taking care of his people yeah I understand why his brother did what he did by antonio to power maybe this is why then he's not completely you know beheaded at the end of the story or whatever um he was a little derelict of duty so is this like a is this a growing up story where prosper kind of realizes what it means to be a man you can't just be a magician in a tower um i don't know all right so another extra bit of information to kind of color your thought process colorway he one of the greatest prize possessions in the british museum is one of shakespeare's own books it's got his little name in it and it was a folio it was a folio of florio montaigne's essays and one of them is on the cannibals and i think it was that the they've been exploring i think this has recently discovered new world territory and so he at one point he's talking about how the cannibals live and he says it is a nation what i answer play so that have no kind of traffic no knowledge of letters no intelligence of numbers no name of magistrate nor of politics superiority no use of service or riches or poverty no contracts no successions no dividences no occupation but idle no respect of kindred but common no apparel but natural no manuring of lands no use of wine corn or metal the every the very words that import lying falsehood treason dissimulation covetousness envy detraction and pardon were never heard of amongst them that is montaigne's description of the cannibal yeah but this is this is that um sort of renaissance that moves into eventually the romantic idea that of the noble savage and that they don't have problems and the only reason we have problems is because we've got like complicated laws and if we just went back i don't know if shakespeare has sympathy with that view it's almost word for word but gonzalo's also a fool and they leave the island in the end yeah and that's yeah that's the other thing is that he's he it's quickly pointed out to gonzalo that he is still trying to rule this thing as magistrate even though there's supposedly no government and i got thinking like that's exactly what prospero is doing prospero has this island that gonzalo is talking about right none of those things are known right there's no corn there's no everything is natural it's all there most it's gotten by caliban and yet prospero still rules and i think it's partially his magic that allows him to do that right if you try to rule with no government like that you are a tyrant and you have to affect all laws by yourself and it's the magic that allows prospero to do this and even the two creatures that serve him he keeps one captive by threats and the other captive by a one good act that he did back in the day yeah but it's still kind of by threats he says if you don't keep on serving me ariel i'll put you right back in an oak tree and you'll stay there for another 12 years how about that and ariel's like whoa whoa all right i'll do what you want just you know remember you said to free me because he'll free at the end ariel does yeah he's true to his word and says be free ariel and i think he even adds like come and see me every now and again that's good which is so sweet what happens to caliban at the end he he says he'll serve dutifully sort of realizes the error of his ways basically he's just trying to avoid punishment he actually i think one of the lines is i shall be pinched to death because he knows that he's just that's always the threat of him that he'll have little pinches and cramps and yeah the first thing that kind of jumped out to me as a possibility here was a analogy of eden right there's gonzalo talks about his perfect society and this is the perfect society here and it's basically run by somebody at the top i.e a god prospero who affects everything via magic and seems to have absolute incontrovertible power can summon the gods right can literally summon the gods and that's why that played in is i thought who has the ability to summon juno herself except from someone who's ranked buffer right and so prospero must in this play be the gods eventually he leaves he does go back to society and this is why a lot of people think that this book especially with caliban there is a commentary on colonialism that that the real original inhabitants of the island ariel and caliban are the two different ways that people react to colonialism either you react as caliban and you hate the people who have come and colonized or you react as an ariel and you think the best the best hack is to negotiate and accept and kind of figure out a way around the colonizers i have a little bit of a hard time accepting that as i mean that's apparently a lot of criticism leans in that direction especially because some of those descriptions come from books about travels in the west indies they think that caliban was taken from a book about traveling in the west indies and then they think that you know there's that stuff from montaigne about cannibals they think caliban right cannibal kind of kind of close and that they're the different reactions to to being colonized except that they weren't original inhabitants either because there were no original inhabitants right caliban came as the spawn of a witch only a few years prior right and and ariel i think may it's kind of unclear where they came from but i think it might have come to which as well yeah that seems a little more of a stretch um to paint it as that kind of that it's like a yeah that shakespeare's making some sort of comment on the colonizing of other lands mainly just because like the payday of colonization and from europe outwards hasn't even hit at you know the 1620s right and you'd think that like caliban is a little bit noble they point out that caliban is at least a little bit more focused and and worthy than the two doofuses who drink it on yeah they can't seem to get a thought to stay in their heads but caliban's also not great he promises to lick the boots of the drunkards like he's not a noble savage by any stretch and ariel is seen i don't know it's kind of a happy airy spirit that is just working for his freedom i find it hard to stomach the this is a commentary on colonialism so what do you think is happening is it more about this kind of like in garden is that the better analogy for what's happening here like what yeah what's what's happening in this play i don't know that's why i was trying to suss out i think it might eventually be a one of those one of those things that we have a hard time accepting here in the modern era and that's that there is a correct place for people right prospero isn't supposed to be here magic is not what he's supposed to be doing he's supposed to be duke milan and when he was i'm coming up with some of this on the spot here i've done some thinking but i'm not sure if you have it nailed down he was derelict in his duties and then when he got to the island like he had all the magic he wanted but not what he really wanted which was his dukedom and to take care of his daughter and be back in society and so i don't know the king is where he should be the brother is taken out of the usurped dukedom there's all of that those themes of like people trying to take positions that aren't theirs including caliban and those those two drunkards who are trying to do things and so like there's a nature for everyone caliban cannot controvert his nature uh medea or miranda is sweet and innocent and wonderful and full of virtue and stays there ferdinand it turns out as a virtuous prince and totally deserves to be where he is the king quickly asks for forgiveness for the things that he's done and is forgiven right and so i think there's something to be said for the doctrine of unity over vengeance prospero could have done some very different things to these boys could have hurt them he could have turned them to cats he could have he could have honestly murdered all of them in the storm would have been totally fine and then gone back and taken his kingdom that way but he didn't his way to fix things was with marriage and so if this is a garden of eating kind of thing it's a commentary on how god goes about things he could have taken vengeance he didn't take vengeance the people that were evil were in their place and the people that were good were preserved and he sort of lifted everybody up rather than putting them down even though he had absolute power well uh why does prospero want to be a wizard in the first place does he talk about it i don't think so he just loves his books when he was ousted from his dukedom he took some books that he quote value higher than his dukedom yeah there is something interesting there about um prospero creating an environment wherein like people can be revealed for what they are right like that antonio can know um who's the treacherous who's the treacherous king the duke so sebastian is the king's brother and antonio is the usurping duke who encourages sebastian to commit treason against alonzo so like alonzo can know can sort of be revealed what the nature of his brother and so there's yeah and then so prospero sort of creating an environment where redemption can happen and then yeah and it all is also comes together in a marriage um they're playing chess that's kind of cute it's really cute um and yeah i just i just find the the the rejection of magic at the end to kind of like a reestablishment of order right yeah in society even the playing of chess they could be doing anything how to feast but it was it's the giving up of a power that maybe you shouldn't have had in the first place right so magic is unnatural right and he puts himself back into the human order if he's throwing away the books breaking the staff he's no longer has power over the gods he's now anything again like he was originally and he hands that to the audience at the very end and says you you can follow my plans here i've given you the power to either keep me here or let me go obviously they you know the audience has lunch to get to or whatever so they're gonna let him go but i feel like almost with with a tragedy there's a catharsis that comes from watching someone have a bad time back to your life it's good in this there's also the feeling of re-entering reality after you leave the playhouse and and he almost seems to make it a good thing i want to leave here i want to go back to legal contracts and uh you know boring yeah and i'm leading my magic and if this to putting on a play is magic like you have a world to get back to too i want i want to go there and so it almost makes it seem like your audience might too right a place on reality is hard to stay in and i think that's what everybody is feeling is that they never know really what's real or why they're falling asleep or where sounds are coming from and man that's a scary place to live so i should log off put your screens away i was wondering if there's anything also too it was just i understand the two caliban and ariel were there too but prosper living with miranda on that island isn't a life for miranda right she must be bored out of her mind especially she's falling asleep when her dad talks yeah so there's something there too of wanting to maybe i don't know if they reference that as a reason uh because prosper wants to get miranda married right that's one of his goals so he wants to be trying to take care of his daughter i mean this is the one thing he can't affect my magic is their feelings and everything goes on a pitch yeah it works out for me yes nice is there any tension in this play because you have your main character prosper your main character has like is all powerful kind of everything happens the way he wants it to like just reading it is it interesting to read he i think he at times doesn't know if it's all he's like i have to do this i have to do it it's clear that things could not may not go off totally as he wants okay right those boys didn't have to inspire against the king he didn't make them do that he just gave them an opportunity right everything kind of had to go right for it all to come down to that last moment where everyone kind of meets on the hilltop but it's a very simple plot right wreck the ship everybody kind of splits up have my little spirit go and mess with them as they walk towards me and then at the very end i'll reveal myself i'm the duke right not a lot happened there was no assassinations there was no moving armies there's no you know dangerous moments no real sword fights like nothing nothing happens i know that's a great blowing review of this i'm also always a little afraid of making more of something than it is as a comedy right the point is to please the audience even prosper says my goal was to please right to have you enjoy yourself and caliban and his buddies are there partially for comic relief i'm always i'm always afraid of trying to pull too much out of something that wasn't meant for that right the the garden of eden thing and gonzalo bringing up the the life that is idyllic seems too obvious to let go but i don't know i mean gonzalo he's he's like voicing a desire that a lot of people a lot of us have at some point why can't i just you know peace out and go live yeah yeah yeah and i also still want to be in charge of things right yeah so there's something there with yeah with that sort of voicing of that desire and then a rejection of that but prosper has it and rejection of that at the end saying we gotta leave the theater at some point yeah and and caliban does live the life of the savage right he's the one who knows where all the good stuff is and he's the one who moves the logs and gets the food for prospero and randa but he clearly doesn't seem to be enjoying himself right yeah so there is a the real world is the good world kind of feel to this but but not because there's no place like home maybe but even him leaving he's leaving with the usurper and the guy who almost killed his dad to become the king of i'm getting all my places so like they're still it's not neither world is perfect but for some reason the real world is better than the um the remote outdoors or the world that you have kind of complete control over yeah it's like yeah um no it's don't live in the holiday that kind of thing no i mean that's that kind of analogy it's like um reject the brain of the bat right the brain of the matrix yeah even if it'll be worse yeah does prospero yeah does prosper ever say that it'll be worse that it'll be harder no he seems all the joy to be back to his regular life and to let his daughter grow up and to be thinking of his own death and his own grave and he even says like my power is going to be less sure i'm i'm giving up all the power i have here but there is something it is notable like they're interesting that for a comedy something that has such a happy ending right one of the aspects of the happy ending is like facing reality and no longer getting no longer playing living on fantasy island but actually like seeing the world like going back and engaging the world for what it actually is yeah not living in a spell of your own creation even one that you can perfectly control all the outcomes but even because even when you're controlling all the outcomes you still have people that you are like enslaving right he still has like no one's enslaved to the duke in naples but they are when he's on the island so yeah he has to affect his rule by wizardry and threat not by just natural position which is what he wants to get back to i just really like the idea of affecting your revenge by marriage right they're done in so many other ways but his his whole plan was get my kid married and forgive the people who did this to me with a little bit of blackmail marriage is the best revenge there's a t-shirt that's the t-shirt idea for this episode great all right how are we doing on time did i did i speed us up too fast five minutes if you want let's let's go we'll let our listeners go early today sure it's summer well you have been listening to classical stuff you should know with graham aj and thomas um if you are worried at home we have we actually have not been in a teapot um just in case there was some confusion we have non-listeners with fertile imaginations um but uh we have been in teapot but now it's under your power let us go and return to regular life yeah you by by hitting double speed or hang pot or whatever you can get have us go back to the real world um you can find us at classical stuff.net you can tweet us at classical stuff on twitter you can find us on patreon and you can patronize us and listen to the in between episodes as 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