Ariel The Tempest Quotes

Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. When you look up the stage directions, it says, ‘Exit Ariel.

At the happy ending of the Tempest, Prospero brings the kind back togeter with his son, and finds Miranda's true love and punishes the bad duke and frees Ariel and becomes a duke himself again. Everyone - except Caliban - is happy, and everyone is forgiven, and everyone is fine, and they all sail away on calm seas. Happy endings. That's how it is in Shakespeare. But Shakespeare was wrong. Sometimes there isn't a Prospero to make everything fine again. And sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here - Ariel (I:ii)

¡El infierno está vacío y todos los demonios se hallan aquí!".

Prospero : My brave spirit! Who was so firm, so constant that this coil could not infect his reason? Ariel : Not a soul, but felt a fever of the mad, and play'd some tricks of desperation. THE TEMPEST

All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride On the curl'd clouds, to thy strong bidding task Ariel and all his quality

ARIEL sings Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell Burthen Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them,--Ding-dong, bell.

A main thing it says to our age ought to be plain. Its great opposed symbols are the tempest of Prospero, which Ariel made as Prospero’s slave, and Ariel’s music, which Ariel made of his own free will. The former is the result of necromantic science or theurgy. The latter is a spontaneous overflow of joy in life. The one creates an opportunity for revenge. The other resolves the situation thus created. What that says to a generation that has used its own science to make an atomic bomb is as illuminating as a flash of lightning by night.

In The Tempest the spirit Ariel is enslaved by the sorcerer Prospero.  He has many very typical fairy traits: he can become invisible; he can fly at incredible speed ("with a twink"), riding on the clouds and conjuring storms; he can walk on the waves and ride the sharp north wind; finally, and most importantly, he can change his shape.

If we are encouraged to read high fantasies like The Tempest and urged to “enjoy a magic island and ‘believe’ in an Ariel and a Caliban,” then why should we not also “suspend our disbelief” and enjoy the invented world of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? Why not enter in and believe also in the magic of barrow-wights and orc-blades, Hobbiton, Tom Bombadil, and the tree-top city of Lothlórien?