The Tempest Act 2 Scene 1 Antonio’s Lines

Sebastian: He receives comfort like cold

porridge.

Antonio: The visitor will not give him o’er so.

Gonzalo: Therefor, my lord-

Antonio: Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

Sebastian: He will be talking.

Antonio: Which, of he or Adrian, for good wager, first begins to crow?

Sebastian: The old cock.

Antonio: The cock’rel.

Sebastian: Done! The wager!

Antonio: A laughter.

Adrian: Though this island seem to be desert-

Antonio: Ha, ha, ha!

Adrian: Yet-

Antonio: He could not miss’t.

Sebastian: As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

Antonio: Or as ‘twere perfumed by a fen.

Gonzalo: Here is everything advantageous to life.

Antonio: True; save means to live.

Gonzalo: How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!

Antonio: The ground indeed is tawny.

Sebastian: With an eye of green in’t.

Antonio: He misses not much.

Gonzalo: being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water.

Antonio: If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies?

Gonzalo: Not since widow Dido’s time.

Antonio: Widow! A pox o’ that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!

Gonzalo: I assure you carthage.

Antonio: His word is more than the miraculous harp.

Sebastian: He hath raised the wall and houses too.

Antonio: What impossible matter will he make easy next?

Sebastian: and give it his son for an apple.

Antonio: And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring forth more islands.

Gonzalo: Ay!

Antonio: Why, in good time.

Gonzalo: your daughter, who is now Queen.

Antonio: And rarest that e’er came there.

Gonzalo: it? I mean, in a sort.

Antonio: That “sort” was well fished for.

Sebastian: Very well.

Antonio: And most chirurgeonly.

Sebastian: Foul weather?

Antonio: Very foul.

Gonzalo: Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-

Antonio: He’d sow’t with nettle seed.

Sebastian: Yet he would be king on’t.

Antonio: The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

Sebastian: No marrying ‘mong his subjects?

Antonio: None, man; all idle-knaves.

Sebastian: Save his majesty!

Antonio: Long live Gonzalo!

Gonzalo: nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.

Antonio: ‘Twas you we laughed at.

Gonzalo: so you may continue and laugh at nothing still.

Antonio: What a blow was there given!

Sebastian: We would so, and then go a-batfowling.

Antonio: Nay, good my lord, be not angry.

Gonzalo: Will you laugh me asleep? For I am very heavy.

Antonio: Go sleep, and hear us.

Sebastian: It is a comforter.

Antonio: We too, my lord, Will guard your person while you take your rest, And watch your safety.

Sebastian: What a strange drowsiness possesses them!

Antonio: It is the quality o’ the’ climate.

Sebastian: Myself disposed to sleep.

Antonio: Nor I: my spirits are nimble. They fell together all, as by consent. They dropped as by a thunder-stroke. What might! Worthy Sebastian- O, what might?- No more! And yet me thinks I see it in thy face, What thou shouldst be. Th’ occasion speaks thee, and my strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head.

Sebastian: What? Art thou waking?

Antonio: Do you not hear me speak?

Sebastian: And yet so fast asleep.

Antonio: Noble Sebastian, Thou let’st they fortune sleep- die, rather; wink’st Whiles thou art waking.

Sebastian: There’s meaning in thy snores.

Antonio: I am more serious than my custom. You Must be so too, if heed me; which to do Trebles the o’er.

Sebastian: We’ll, I am standing water.

Antonio: I’ll teach you how to swim.

Sebastian: Hereditary sloth instructs me.

Antonio: O, If you but knew how you the purpose cherish Whiles those you mock it; how, in stripping it, You more invest it! Ebbing men, indeed, Most often do so near the bottom run By their own fear or sloth.

Sebastian: Which throes thee much to yield.

Antonio: Thus, sir: Although this lord of weak remember axe, this Who shall be of as little memory When he is earthed, hath here almost persuaded (For he’s a spirit of persuasion, only Professes to persuade) the King his son’s alive, ‘Tis impossible that he’s undrowned And he that sleeps here swims.

Sebastian: That he’s undrowned.

Antonio: O, out of that no hope What great hope have you! No hope that way is Another way so high a hope that even Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond, But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me That Ferdinand is drowned?

Sebastian: He’s gone.

Antonio: Then, tell me, who’s the next heir of Naples?

Sebastian: Claribel.

Antonio: She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells Ten leagues beyond man’s life, she that from Naples Can have no note- unless the sun were post; The man i’ th’ moon’s too slow- till newborn chins be rough and adorable; she that from whom We all were sea swallowed, though some cast again, And by that destiny