The Tempest Key Quotes Flashcards
Power and Control
“what cares these roarers for the name of king?” - Boatswain to
Alonso, the storm does no obey the
King
“you taught me language, and my profit on’t is I know how to curse”
“if thou more murmur’st, I will rend an oak and peg thee in his knotty entrails”
“this island’s mine by Sycorax my mother, which thou tak’st from me”
“has I plantation of this isle… no use of service, of riches or of povertie” - “nature should bring forth of its own kind”, “by contraries execute all things”
“here lies your brother, no better than the earth he lies upon… whom I with this obedient steel… can lay to bed for ever”
“come swear to that, kiss the book… I
will furnish it anon with new
contents. Swear!” - a parody of
kingship
“fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell I will discase me”
“dost break her virgin-knot before all
sanctimonious ceremonies”
Prospero believed he was saved and driven to the island “by providence divine” - alluding to God-like nature
“I must obey; his art is of such power, it would control my dam’s god Setebos”
Magic and Illusion
“Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast
slept well. Awake.”
“these our actors, as I foretold you, were spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air” - Masque
“I have ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault set roaring war”
“but this rough magic I here abjure”
“as they smelt music”
Loss and Betrayal
“my library was dukedom large
enough”
“O, I have suffered with those that I
saw suffer” - Miranda
“in my false brother awaked an evil nature”
“for I am all the subjects that you have, which first was mine own king”
“what’s past is prologue” - Antonio
“you are three men of sin”
“it is a sleepy language”
“there’s meaning in thy snores”
“if you now beheld them your affections
would become tender” (Ariel to
Prospero)
“my trust… did beget of him a falsehood, in its contrary as great as my trust was” - Prospero about Antonio
Love
“I am your wife, if you will marry me: if not, I’ll die your maid” - Miranda
“and then I loved thee, and showed thee all the qualitites o’th’isle”
“the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance”
“thou wast that did preserve me” - Miranda saved him following his deposition
“I have done nothing but in care of thee”
“there’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple”
Environment, Primitivity
“be not afeard, the isle is full of
noises, sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not”
“seek to violate the honour of my child” - “I had peopled else this isle with Calibans”
“a strange fish”
“most delicate monster”
“I have no long spoon”
“dead half-moon calf”
“puppy-headed monster” - what
Stephano and Trinculo call Caliban
“on whos nature nuture can never stick”
“on their sustaining garments not a blemish, but fresher than before” - Ariel, indicative a ‘sea change’
Prospero calls Caliban a “freckled whelp, hag-born, not honoured with a human shape”, but calls Ariel “my quaint Ariel”
Liberty
“how beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t”
“I prithee be my God” - Caliban to
Stephano
“have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit than other princes can, that have more time for vainer hours and tutors not so careful”
