GONZALO (to Alonso) Sir—

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) One: tell.

GONZALO (to Alonso)

When every grief is entertained that’s offered,

Comes to th’entertainer—

SEBASTIAN A dollar.

GONZALO Dolour comes to him indeed. You have spoken truer than you purposed.

SEABASTIAN You have taken it wiselier than I meant you should.

GONZALO (to Alonso) Therefore my lord—

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

ALONSO (to Gonzalo) I prithee, spare.

GONZALO Well, I have done. But yet—

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) He will be talking.

ANTONIO Which of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow?

SEBASTIAN The old cock.

ANTONIO The cockerel.

SEBASTIAN Done. The wager?

ANTONIO A laughter. 35

SEBASTIAN A match!

ADRIAN (to Gonzalo) Though this island seem to be desert—

⌈ANTONIO⌉ (to Sebastian) Ha, ha, ha!

⌈SEBASTIAN⌉So, you’re paid.

ADRIAN Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible—

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) Yet—

ADRIAN Yet—

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) He could not miss’t.

ADRIAN It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance. 45

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) Temperance was a delicate wench.

SEBASTIAN Ay, and a subtle, as he most learnedly delivered.

ADRIAN (to Gonzalo) The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

ANTONIO Or as ’twere perfumed by a fen.

GONZALO (to Adrian) Here is everything advantageous to life.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) True, save means to live.

SEBASTIAN Of that there’s none, or little.

GONZALO (to Adrian) How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green!

ANTONIO The ground indeed is tawny.

SEABASTIAN With an eye of green in’t.

ANTONIO He misses not much.

SEBASTIAN No, he doth but mistake the truth totally.

GONZALO (to Adrian) But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost beyond credit—

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) As many vouched rarities are.

GONZALO (to Adrian) That our garments being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and glosses, being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) If but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies?

SEBASTIAN Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.

GONZALO (to Adrian) Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the King’s fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.

SEBASTIAN ’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.

ADRIAN Tunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen.

GONZALO Not since widow Dido’s time.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) Widow? A pox o‘that! How came that ‘widow’ in? Widow Dido!

SEBASTIAN What if he had said ‘widower Aeneas’ too? Good Lord, how you take it!

ADRIAN (to Gonzalo) ‘Widow Dido’ said you? You make me study of that: she was of Carthage, not of Tunis.

GONZALO This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

ADRIAN Carthage?

GONZALO I assure you, Carthage.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) 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 I think he will carry this island home in his pocket, and give it his son for an apple.

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

GONZALO (to Adrian) Ay.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) Why, in good time.

GONZALO (to Alonso) Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now as fresh as when we were at Tunis, at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen.

ANTONIO And the rarest that e’er came there.

SEBASTIAN Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.

ANTONIO O, widow Dido? Ay, widow Dido.

GONZALO (to Alonso) Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean in a sort.

ANTONIO (to Sebastian) That ‘sort’ was well fished for.

GONZALO (to Alonso) When I wore it at your daughter’s marriage.

ALONSO

You cram these words into mine ears against

The stomach of my sense. Would I had never

Married my daughter there! For, coming thence,

My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,

Who is so far from Italy removed

I ne’er again shall see her. O thou mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish

Hath made his meal on thee?

FRANCISCO

Sir, he may live.

I saw him beat the surges under him

And ride upon their backs. He trod the water,

Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge, most swoll‘n, that met him. His bold head

’Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared

Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke

To th’ shore, that o’er his wave-worn basis bowed,

As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt

He came alive to land.

ALONSO

No, no; he’s gone.

SEBASTIAN (to Alonso)

Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,

That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,

But rather loose her to an African,

Where she, at least, is banished from your eye,

Who hath cause to wet the grief on’t.

ALONSO

Prithee, peace.

SEBASTIAN

You were kneeled to and importuned otherwise

By all of us, and the fair soul herself

Weighed between loathness and obedience at

Which end o’th’ beam should bow. We have lost your

son,

I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have

More widows in them of this business’ making

Than we bring men to comfort them. The fault’s your

own.

ALONSO

So is the dear‘st o’th’ loss.

GONZALO My lord Sebastian,

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness

And time to speak it in. You rub the sore

When you should bring the plaster.

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) Very well.

ANTONIO And most chirurgeonly.

GONZALO (to Alonso)

It is foul weather in us all, good sir,

When you are cloudy.

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio) Fowl weather?

ANTONIO

Very foul.

GONZALO (to Alonso)

Had I plantation of this isle, my lord—

ANTONIO (to Seabastian)

He’d sow’t with nettle-seed.

SEBASTIAN

Or docks, or mallows.

GONZALO

And were the king on’t, what would I do?

SEBASTIAN (to Antonio)

Scape being drunk, for want of wine.

GONZALO

I’th’ 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,