The Tempest

Comes to th' entertainer-
SEBASTIAN. A dollar.
GONZALO. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken
truer than you purpos'd.
SEBASTIAN. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you
should.
GONZALO. Therefore, my lord-
ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
ALONSO. I prithee, spare.
GONZALO. Well, I have done; but yet-
SEBASTIAN. He will be talking.
ANTONIO. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first
begins to crow?
SEBASTIAN. The old cock.
ANTONIO. The cock'rel.
SEBASTIAN. Done. The wager?
ANTONIO. A laughter.
SEBASTIAN. A match!
ADRIAN. Though this island seem to be desert-
ANTONIO. Ha, ha, ha!
SEBASTIAN. So, you're paid.
ADRIAN. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible-
SEBASTIAN. Yet-
ADRIAN. Yet-
ANTONIO. He could not miss't.
ADRIAN. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate
temperance.
ANTONIO. Temperance was a delicate wench.
SEBASTIAN. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly
deliver'd.
ADRIAN. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
SEBASTIAN. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
ANTONIO. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.
GONZALO. Here is everything advantageous to life.
ANTONIO. True; save means to live.
SEBASTIAN. Of that there's none, or little.
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.
SEBASTIAN. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
GONZALO. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost
beyond credit-
SEBASTIAN. As many vouch'd rarities are.
GONZALO. That our garments, being, as they were, drench'd
in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and
glosses, being rather new-dy'd, than stain'd with salt
water.
ANTONIO. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it
not say he lies?
SEBASTIAN. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
GONZALO. 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 grac'd before with such a paragon
to their queen.
GONZALO. Not since widow Dido's time.
ANTONIO. 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. '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. His word is more than the miraculous harp.
SEBASTIAN. He hath rais'd 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. Ay.
ANTONIO. Why, in good time.
GONZALO. 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. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I
wore it? I mean, in a sort.
ANTONIO. That 'sort' was well fish'd for.
GONZALO. 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 swoln that met him; his bold head